INSTITUTE FOR THE FAR EAST OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE USSR

A collection of articles

edited by Professor M. I. Sladkovsky,

Dr. Sc. (Econ.), editor-in-chief,

Professor Y. F. Kovalyov,

Dr. Sc. (Hist.)

and V. Y. Sidikhmenov,

Cand. Sc. (Econ.)

PROGRESS PUBLISHERS • MOSCOW

Translated from the Russian by David Skvirsky

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CONTENTS

Page

FOREWORD....................... i

M. I. SLADKOVSKY

LENIN AND CHINA..................... 9

V. P. CHERTKOV

MAOIST DISTORTIONS OF LENIN'S THEORY OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION ......................32

V. Y. SIDIKHMENOV

AGAINST DISTORTIONS OF THE LENINIST PHILOSOPHICAL HERITAGE

: : :....................40

L. M. GUDOSHNIKOV, B. N. TOPORNIN

``LKFT"-OPPORTUNIST REVISION OF LENIN'S TEACHING ON THE STATE.......................C9

T. R. RAKHIMOV

GREAT-HANIST CHAUVINISM INSTEAD OF THE LENINIST TEACHING ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION..........97

G. D M I T R I E V

LENIN ON SOCIALIST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. THE PRACTICE

OF SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION IN CHINA...........116

V. KHLYNOV

DEVELOPMENT OF STATE CAPITALISM IN CHINA AND THE MAOIST ATTITUDE TO THE NATIONAL BOURGEOISIE.....139

V. VOLZHANIN

LENINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF CHINESE CULTURE .... IGli

A. M. DUBINSKY

THE MAOIST DISTORTIONS OF LENIN'S VIEWS ON WAR AND PEACE 193

G. V. A S T A F Y E V, M. V. F 0 M I C H O V A

THE MAOIST DISTORTION OF LENIN'S THEORY OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT.............206

A. KRUCHIN1N

PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM-THE BASIS OF THE USSR'S LENINIST POLICY TOWARDS CHINA............233

First printing 1972

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

FOREWORD

It would be hard to overestimate Lenin's contribution to the theory and practice of Karl Marx's great international teaching. The revolutionary movement of the working people of the whole world, including China, is associated with Lenin's name, which has become the symbol of the Soviet people's historic achievements, and with Leninism, the Marxism of the contemporary epoch.

Lenin had time and again turned his attention to China's problems during the first 20 years of the 20th century. On the basis of his analysis of that country's internal situation, its position in the world and the liberation movement that was spreading in it under the conditions springing from the general crisis of capitalism, he foresaw the inevitable formation in it of a revolutionary party of the working class which would really renovate Chinese society. That party was formed in China under the impact of the Great October Revolution. The seeds of Marxism-Leninism sown in one of Asia's largest countries on soil that had been cultivated by the epoch itself thus gave their first sprouts.

The victory of the people's revolution in China delivered hundreds of millions of people from imperialism's colonial system and was further evidence of international MarxismLeninism's vitality. This momentous achievement of Marxism opened for the Chinese people the prospect of development along socialist lines. But by virtue of a number of factors the destiny of the Chinese revolution has taken a dramatic turn in recent years.

As long as the leaders of the People's Republic of China kept in step with the world communist movement and its foremost contingent, the world socialist system, the building of socialism's foundations proceeded successfully. Internationalist proletarian solidarity and, above all, massive

assistance from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries created every possibility for socialist development; inspired the Chinese people and gave them confidence in the triumph of the new social system. Many achievements were recorded during the first decade after the revolution. But the normal course of socialist transformations was cut short when the Chinese leaders began to flout the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, substitute barrack ``socialism'' for scientific communism, turn China against the countries of the socialist community and propound Great-Power chauvinism, hegemonism and bellicose anti-Sovietism. Socialist transformations have given way to the demolition of the people's democratic system and the installation of a military-bureaucratic dictatorship. The antiLeninist, nationalistic policy of the Chinese leaders has inflicted and is still inflicting enormous damage not only to socialism in China but to the unity of the worldwide antiimperialist front.

The articles in this volume deal with various aspects of modern China's economy, state system, ideology and politics. Without claiming to offer an exhaustive analysis, they show the beneficial impact of Lenin's teaching in China and the Maoist distortions of the basic postulates of Leninism in the country's national economy, political organisation, culture and ideology.

With the international nature of the Marxist-Leninist teaching and its universal applicability as their starting point, the authors set themselves the aim of using China's example to show the grave consequences that stem from distortions of Leninism in the theory and practice of building socialism.

In examining the processes threatening the achievements of the Chinese people the authors strove to lay bare the social basis of the policies currently pursued by China's leaders. "Experience," it is stated in the Theses of the CC CPSU on the Centenary of the Birth of Lenin, "shows that wherever petty-bourgeois elements succeed in exerting their influence, they try to prevent the normal course of socialist transformations, to set the socialist countries against each other, to revive opportunist, revisionist and nationalistic views which play into the hands of imperialism.''

One should not make the mistake of identifying the Chinese people with the present leaders of China. Although the 9th

Congress of the Communist Party of China has in effect jettisoned the party's general line of building socialism in the People's Republic of China, the trend to preserve the country's socialist gains lives on in the Chinese working class, the working peasants and large sections of the intelligentsia, in all the suppressed but not broken healthy elements in the CPC. There is no doubt that the working people of China will honourably emerge from this tragic period of their history and return their country to the banner of Marxism-Leninism, and that the good-neighbourly, friendly relations between the peoples of the Soviet Union and China will be fully restored. This, as was noted at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, "would meet the vital, long-term interests of both countries, the interests of world socialism, the interests of intensifying the struggle against imperialism".*

24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, p. 213.

M. I. SLADKOVSKY LENIN AND CHINA

``In the many centuries of world history there have been thousands of leaders and scholars whose beautiful words have never been translated into reality. You, Lenin, are an exception. You not only spoke and taught but made your words come true. You created a new country. You showed us the road for a joint struggle.""" These heartfelt words of Sun Yat-sen, a great son of the Chinese people, expressed the admiration of China's millions and the oppressed peoples of the world for the leader and teacher of the international proletariat, the founder of the world's first socialist state---Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Lenin closely followed developments in the East, particularly in China, which at the turn of the century had found herself at the hub of the contradictions between the leading imperialist states. In those bitter years, when the imperialist powers were carving up China, when "one after another the European governments began feverishly to loot, or, as they put it, to `rent', Chinese territory",""'^^1^^'' Lenin came forward resolutely in defence of China's sovereign rights and called on the Russian proletariat to fight the tsarist autocracy, which had joined in the policy of plunder that "the bourgeois governments of Europe have long been conducting ... with respect to China"/^^4^^"*"" He showed that the colonial policy of the bourgeois states was disastrous not only to the peoples of China but also to the working people

* Sun Yat-sen, "Statement on the Death of Lenin", Soviet-Chinese Relations, 1917-1957. A Collection of Documents, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1959, p. 79.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 373-74. *** Ibid., p. 373.

of Russia and other capitalist countries suffering from the wars that had been started to bring benefits "to a handful of capitalist magnates who carry on trade with China, to a handful of factory owners who manufacture goods for the Asian market, to a handful of contractors who are now piling up huge profits on urgent war orders".*

The revolutionary upsurge in Asia following the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905-1907 in Russia was characterised by Lenin as the "awakening of Asia". He noted qualitatively new features in the revolutionary movement of that period of "the political awakening of the Asian peoples".** In China the situation was complex and tangled, but Lenin saw its specific features. "In China, too," he wrote in 1908, "the revolutionary movement against the medieval order has made itself felt with particular force in recent months. True, nothing definite can yet be said about the present movement---there is such scanty information about it and such a spate of reports about revolts in various parts of the country. But there can be no doubt about the vigorous growth of the 'new spirit' and the 'European currents' that are stirring in China, especially since the Russo-Japanese war; and consequently, the old-style Chinese revolts will inevitably develop into a conscious democratic movement."***

The programme of revolutionary reforms drawn up on the basis of the three national principles (national liberation, the formation of a democratic republic and national welfare) proclaimed by Sun Yat-sen in 1906**** received sympathetic understanding and support from Lenin. "Every line of Sun Yat-sen's platform," Lenin wrote, "breathes a spirit of militant and sincere democracy. It reveals a thorough understanding of the inadequacy of a `racial' revolution. There is not a trace in it of indifference to political issues, or even of underestimation of political liberty, or of the idea that Chinese 'social reform', Chinese constitutional reforms, etc., could be compatible with Chinese autocracy. It stands for complete democracy and the demand

for a republic. It squarely poses the question of the condition of the masses, of the mass struggle. It expresses warm sympathy for the toiling and exploited people, faith in their strength and in the justice of their cause."*

At the same time, he drew attention to the shortcomings and petty-bourgeois substance of Sun Yat-sen's programme. The Chinese democrats, including Sun Yat-sen, were not versed in Marxist theory and were unable to understand the objective laws of their country's social development. They believed that in China it was possible to forestall capitalist development by instituting state control over big, monopoly capital (chiefly foreign). They, therefore, reduced the social tasks of the Chinese revolution solely to the abolition of feudal exploitation and the establishment of `` equitable'' land-tenure.

Sun Yat-sen called for a revolution and the "creation of a state that would be not simply a people's but a socialist state".** He contended that "as yet there are no capitalists in China",*** that "our working class, usually known as coolie, lives in want and will therefore welcome any capitalist who opens even a small enterprise and gives him employment",**** and drew the conclusion that "in our country the social revolution will be painless''.

While noting Sun Yat-sen's lofty, subjectively socialist aspirations, Lenin showed the historical narrowness of his programme: "From the point of view of doctrine, this theory is that of a petty-bourgeois `socialist' reactionary.... And Sun Yat-sen himself, with inimitable, one might say virginal naivete, smashes his reactionary Narodnik theory by admitting what reality forces him to admit, namely, that 'China is on the eve of a gigantic industrial [i.e., capitalist] development' .. . that ... 'we shall have many Shanghais', i.e., huge centres of capitalist wealth and proletarian need and poverty."*****

While underscoring the extremely contradictory nature of the Sun Yat-sen programme, which along with its repudiation of capitalism expounded an essentially capitalist

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 164. ** Sun Yat-sen, Selected Works, p. 127. *** Ibid., p. 128. **** Ibid., p. 320. ***** _V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 166-67.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 375.

** Ibid., Vol. 15, p. 220. ***---- ----

Ibid., p. 185.

**** Sun Yat-sen, "The Three National Principles and China's Future", Selected Works (translated from the Chinese into the Russian), Moscow, 1964, pp. 121-33.

theory of agrarian reforms, Lenin wrote: "The dialectics of social relations in China reveals itself precisely in the fact that, while sincerely sympathising with socialism in Europe, the Chinese democrats have transformed it into a reactionary theory, and on the basis of this reactionary theory of `preventing' capitalism are championing a purely capitalist, a maximum capitalist, agrarian programme!"""

The contradictions between Sun Yat-sen's subjective socialist aspirations and the theoretical essence of his programme mirrored the objective contradictions obtaining in Chinese society at the time. The relatively swift expansion of large-scale factory industry, operated chiefly by the monopolies of the Western imperialist states, gave rise to mounting class contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and helped to bring into China not only modern machinery but also progressive ideas. However, the development of capitalist relations was confined to the seaboard regions, to the "spheres of influence" of the imperialist powers. Meanwhile, feudal and even slave-owning relations prevailed in the interior provinces, and the principal social task of the bulk of the population of these provinces was to fight for land and overthrow the rule of the feudal lords headed by the Ching (Manchu) imperial court. "They (Sun Yat-sen and his followers.---M.S.)," Lenin wrote, "are subjectively socialists because they are opposed to oppression and exploitation of the masses. But the objective conditions of China, a backward, agricultural, semi-feudal country numbering nearly 500 million people, place on the order of the day only one specific, historically distinctive form of this oppression and exploitation, namely, feudalism."**

Despite its inadequacy, utopianism and inconsistency, the programme of the Chinese democrats, Lenin pointed out, exercised a progressive influence on the working masses of backward, feudal China. "The real emancipation of the Chinese people from age-long slavery," he wrote, "would be impossible without the great, sincerely democratic enthusiasm which is rousing the working masses and making them capable of miracles, and which is evident from every sentence of Sun Yat-sen's platform."***

The reactionary Great-Han* nationalistic ideas that had piled up through the ages and the country's isolation from the rest of the world likewise influenced the development of social thought in China. Characterising this aspect of Chinese society, Sun Yat-sen wrote: "China's isolationism and arrogance have a long history. China never knew the benefits of international mutual assistance and for that reason she does not know how to borrow what is best from others in order to correct her own shortcomings. What the Chinese do not know or are unable to do they brand as generally unattainable."**

Chinese reactionary social and political leaders have sought to attribute the immaturity and racist, nationalistic hue of their social theories to the specifics of the Chinese nation, to its age-long culture which, they alleged, had always raised China above the rest of the world. The Chinese nationalists have done their utmost to conceal the class nature of the progressive, revolutionary struggle of the Chinese workers of foreign enterprises against the Western capitalist monopolies exploiting them, and sought to portray this struggle as a nationalistic struggle between the East and the West. Of immense theoretical and practical assistance to the Chinese revolutionaries in this connection was Lenin's conclusion that it was important for China to draw on the international experience of revolution. This conclusion served to debunk the above falsification of the nationalists.

Stigmatising the reactionary bourgeoisie of the West and showing that the national bourgeoisie of the East was still playing a progressive role, Lenin wrote: "Does that mean, then, that the materialist West has hopelessly decayed and that light shines only from the mystic, religious East? No, quite the opposite. It means ... that new hundreds of millions of people will from now on share in the struggle for the ideals which the West has already worked out for itself. What has decayed is the Western bourgeoisie, which is already confronted by its grave-digger, the proletariat. But in Asia there is still a bourgeoisie capable of championing

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 167. ** Ibid., p. 166.

* Han---the name of the Chinese proper as distinct from the other peoples inhabiting China (Chuang, Mongols, Tibetans, Li and so on). ** Sun Yat-sen, Selected Works, p. 251.

Ibid., p. 165.

sincere, militant, consistent democracy, a worthy comrade of France's great men of Enlightenment and great leaders of the close of the eighteenth century."*

However, in the light of the experience of the Chinese revolution of 1911 Lenin warned against the Chinese bourgeoisie's tendency for treachery. In 1912 he offered the conjecture that "Yuan Shih-kai, who represents a bourgeoisie that has only just changed from liberal-monarchist to liberal-republican (for how long?), will pursue a policy of manoeuvring between monarchy and revolution".** This surmise proved to be true. From the International Banking Consortium Yuan Shih-kai received a loan of about 250 million rubles on extortionate terms. This enabled him to consolidate the position of the reactionary classes 'and in 1916 to make an attempt to proclaim himself emperor of China.

As early as 1913 Lenin exhaustively characterised China's reactionary North and revolutionary South. "Sun Yatsen's party," he wrote, "is based on the south of China, which is the most advanced, the most developed industrially and commercially, and where the influence of Europe has been greatest.

``Yuan Shih-kai's parties are based on the backward north of China."***

Lenin saw the weakness of the Chinese liberal bourgeoisie in the fact that the Kuomintang set up by it under Sun Yat-sen's leadership had been unable "to involve the broad masses of the Chinese people in the revolution". Moreover, 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".****

While laying bare the reasons for the weakness of the revolutionary movement in China, Lenin had a high opinion of the efforts of the Chinese revolutionary democrats and believed that they would ultimately triumph. "Still," he

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 165. ** Ibid., p. 168. *** Ibid., Vol. 41, p. 281. **** Ibid., p. 282.

wrote, ". . .revolutionary democracy in China has done a great deal to awaken the people and to win freedom and consistently democratic institutions."*

When Lenin was working on his theory of imperialism he made use of extensive material on the economic and political situation in semi-colonial China in which the imperialist contradictions in the Far East were concentrated.** The figures on the size of the foreign investments on the eve of the First World War (US $1,610,300,000), which was approximately equal to the cost of five years' imports of foreign goods into China (US $1,641,800,000 for the period 1909-1913), amply confirmed Lenin's conclusion that "typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital".***

Using numerous facts Lenin exposed the policy of plunder and violence, which the imperialist powers were pursuing towards colonial peoples. He wrote that "the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating".**** He was merciless in exposing the falsity of bourgeois propaganda about the ``civilising'' role played by the European countries in China. "The Europeans' rule in China," he wrote, "sufficiently exposes the hollowness in actual history of the claims that considerations of a trust for civilisation animate and regulate the foreign policy of Christendom, or of its component nations.. .. When any common int emotional policy is adopted for dealing with lower races it has partaken of the nature, not of a moral trust, but of a business 'de aV."*****

The Great October Socialist Revolution embodied Lenin's teaching of the proletarian revolution in the epoch of

* Ibid.

** Lenin's notebooks give the titles of the following foreign books which he had studied: Baron von Mackay, China, the Middle Republic. Its Problems and Prospects; James Cantlie and Sheridan Jones, Sun Yatsen and the Awakening of China; Vosberg-Rekow, The Revolution in China; Joseph Schon, Russia's Aims in China; M.v. Brandt, East Asian Questions; Wilhelm Schiller, Outline of the Recent History of China (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 39, pp. 555, 556). *** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 240. **** Ibid., p. 295. ***** Ibid., Vol. 39, p. 424.

imperialism, which is the last stage of capitalism. As soon as the building of the world's first socialist state got under way Lenin gave much of his attention to Eastern problems, including the problems confronting China. In November 1917, acting on his instructions, the Soviet Government informed the Chinese Government through the Chinese Ambassador in Petrograd that it desired to enter into negotiations with the object of annulling the Russo-Chinese Treaty of 1896, the Peking Protocol of 1901'and all the agreements tsarist Russia had signed with Japan in 1906-- 1916 on China. It offered to sign new treaties founded on full equality and mutual respect of each other's sovereignty. However, pressured by Britain, France, the USA and Japan, the reactionary Peking Government turned down the Soviet proposals and continued maintaining relations with the tsarist envoy in Peking and with the Directing Manager of the Chinese-Eastern Railway, who had been relieved of his duties by the Soviet Government. On top of this headed by the Japanese puppet Tuan Chi-jui, the Peking Government took part in the imperialist intervention in the Soviet Far East. The Peking Government, whose suzerainty was, in effect, confined to the northern provinces, acted against the will of the Chinese people. The republican democratic forces under Sun Yat-sen were concentrated in the south of China. Sun Yat-sen and his followers remained friendly to Soviet Russia throughout these years, but due to the Civil War in Russia and the struggle against the reactionary north in China herself Sun Yat-sen was unable to establish direct contact with the Soviet Republic.

On August 20, 1919, after Kolchak's defeat and after the Red Army had entered Siberia, the Council of People's Commissars sent a message to the Chinese people and the governments of South and North China, repeating its proposal to annul the above-mentioned treaties and proclaiming Soviet Russia's renunciation of the Boxer Indemnity"" and all the rights and privileges that had been enjoyed by tsarist Russia and its citizens on Chinese territory under the

Russo-Chinese treaties. "The Soviet Government," this message stated, "is well aware that the Allies (the Entente countries.---M.S.) and Japan will again do everything in their power to prevent the voice of the Russian workers and peasants from reaching the Chinese people, and that to return to the Chinese people what had been taken away from them it will first be necessary to put an end to the vultures entrenched in Manchuria and Siberia. It is therefore now sending its message to the Chinese people together with its Red Army, which is marching across the Urals to the East to the assistance of the peasants and workers in order to liberate them from the bandit Kolchak and his ally, Japan.

``If, like the Russian people, the Chinese people wish to be free and avoid the fate prepared for them by the Allies at Versailles, with the aim of turning China into a second Korea or a second India, they must realise that the Russian workers and peasants and their Red Army are their only ally and brother in the struggle for liberty."*

Despite all the attempts of the imperialist circles and their Peking accomplices to prevent Lenin's ideas from penetrating the Chinese Wall and to discredit the first socialist state, the October Revolution increasingly influenced the progressive sections of Chinese society and the seeds of Marxism-Leninism found fertile soil in China. Li Tachao, Professor at Peking University and subsequently one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, ardently urged the people to study Bolshevism. "In this gloom over China and in dead Peking," he wrote, "we feel its (the October Revolution's.---M.S.) bright ray, which like a tiny star in the intense darkness illumines the road for the new mankind. We must use this light to press forward and work for the welfare of mankind. This will be our salute to the

1 •>)»(.««_

new epoch. ""

The old, reactionary theories crumbled in China. The illusions of the Chinese nationalists about a possible union with capitalist Japan in a single yellow state in opposition to the white West were finally dispersed by the inexorable

* Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1944. A Collection of Documents, Russ. ed., Vol. I, Moscow, 1944, p. 300.

** Li Ta-chao, "The New Era", Selected Articles and Speeches, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1965, pp. 85-86.

* After eight imperialist powers, including tsarist Russia, had crushed the anti-imperialist Boxer uprising an indemnity of 450 million taels was imposed on China. This indemnity was to be paid in the course of 39 years with an annual interest of 4 per cent (by 1940 the total would have amounted to 982 million taels).

2-1313

facts of Japan's imperialist brigandage during the First World War and of the perfidy of the Great Powers of the West at the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Nothing came either of the pacifist Construction Programme which Sun Yat-sen proposed to the victor powers in 1919, calling on them to help in China's development and "take the road of co-operation and mutual assistance in order to put an end once and for all to the trade war".^^1^^''' The imperialist powers cynically trampled on China's rights. At the Paris Peace Conference they rejected all the legitimate requests of the Chinese delegation, with the result that China remained a semi-colony.

A new road for China's national and social emancipation was shown by the Communist International that was set up on Lenin's initiative and under his leadership. At the opening of the Comintern 1st Congress on March 2, 1919, Lenin said:

``Our gathering has great historic significance. It testifies to the collapse of all the illusions cherished by bourgeois democrats....

``The bourgeoisie are terror-stricken at the growing workers' revolutionary movement. This is understandable if we take into account that the development of events since the imperialist war inevitably favours the workers' revolutionary movement, and that the*world revolution is beginning and growing in intensity everywhere.

``The people are aware of the greatness and significance of the struggle now going on. All that is needed is to find the practical form to enable the proletariat to establish its rule."**

The theses written by Lenin and adopted by the 1st Congress of the Comintern indicated the ways and means of ensuring the victory of the working people and the form of people's power for which a struggle should be waged: the peoples could achieve equality and national and social liberation only by overthrowing the power of the exploiters and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would ensure genuine democracy for the majority of the people.

Under Lenin's guidance the Comintern played an immense role in the development of the revolutionary movement in Eastern countries, including China, and in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party. At the 2nd Comintern Congress in 1920 Lenin formulated the programme propositions on the ways for the revolutionary development of the Eastern countries. Drawing upon the experience of the revolutionary movement and of the social changes in the backward, formerly outlying regions of tsarist Russia, he came to the conclusion that "with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage"* (my italics.---M.S.).

This was one of Lenin's key conclusions and a major contribution to the development of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.

In addition to working out theoretical and political principles, that were of programme significance to the Chinese revolution, the Comintern rendered considerable organisational and moral assistance to the scattered Marxist circles and individual revolutionary groups in China.

In 1920, with the Comintern's direct participation, the first Communist groups were set up in China and material aid was given to the journal Hsin Chingnien, which became the first communist publication in that country. Following the arrival of Comintern representatives in China, preparations were started for the formation of the Communist Party of China through the union of the existing scattered circles. The 1st Congress, which laid the beginning for the organised communist movement in China, was held in mid-1921.

At the first CPC congresses (the second was held in July 1922 and the third in June 1923) the Comintern helped the Chinese Communists to draw up their programme and constitution which became the CPC's political and organisational guideline. On January 12, 1923, the Comintern Executive passed a resolution headed "The Attitude of the Communist Party of China to the Kuomintang", in which it showed that it was necessary to set up a united front in China and suggested a concrete way of achieving such a

* Sun Yat-sen, Selected Works, p. 290. ** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 455.

Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 244.

front, namely, by the Communists joining the Kuomintang without curtailing the independence of the CPC.

For many years the CPC remained numerically small and had little influence in the country on account of the weakness of the working-class movement and the inadequate political maturity of the Chinese proletariat. Lenin foresaw that at a certain historical stage it might be possible and expedient for the future workers' party to co-operate with the Kuomintang and some other bourgeois organisations. He wrote: ".. .the Chinese proletariat will increase as the number of Shanghais increases. It will probably form some kind of Chinese Social-Democratic labour party which, while criticising the petty-bourgeois Utopias and reactionary views of Sun Yat-sen, will certainly take care to single out, defend and develop the revolutionary-democratic core of his political and agrarian programme."*

In his theses to the 2nd Congress of the Comintern Lenin defined the terms on which Communist parties could form an alliance with bourgeois-democratic organisations. "The Communist International," these theses stated, "must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement.""'* This was mirrored in the above-mentioned resolution passed by the Comintern Executive on January 12, 1923.

Significantly, a serious controversy flared up when this resolution was discussed in the Communist Party of China. The line of co-operation with the Kuomintang, as proposed by the Comintern, was opposed by Chen Tu-hsiu, Tsai Hohsiang and Mao Tse-tung, who insisted on a rupture of all relations with the Kuomintang. However, the internationalist core in the CPC leadership---Li Ta-chao, Chu Chio-po and others---emerged victorious and an alliance was formed with the large bourgeois-democratic Kuomintang.

At the 1st Congress of the Kuomintang (January 1924), which discussed co-operation with the CPC and the reorganisation of the Kuomintang itself, Sun Yat-sen called on the congress delegates to strengthen the party's foundation

and "make it as well organised and strong as the revolutionary party of Russia.... The strength of Lenin's ideas lies in his militant spirit and in the fact that his entire work is embodied in the party itself".*

The active participation of leading CPC functionaries in the Kuomintang Congress and in the subsequent activities of the revolutionary organs set up by the Southern Government in Kwangchow (Canton) enabled the CPC to exercise a powerful influence on the revolutionary movement in China. Under Sun Yat-sen's leadership the Kuomintang pursued a line of friendship with the Soviet Union, and the views of Sun Yat-sen himself and his political work underwent radical revolutionising changes.

Acting on Lenin's behests, the Soviet Union gave the democratic forces in China all-sided assistance. In the period from 1924 to 1927 it sent them armaments and fuel and helped them to train military and political cadres for the revolutionary armies of the South (Kwangchow and then Wuhan governments) and the North (the troops under Feng Yu-hsiang). V. K. Bliicher, M. M. Borodin and other prominent Soviet military and political figures worked in the revolutionary regions of China. The implementation of Lenin's advice that the CPC should co-operate with the Kuomintang was of great significance to the destiny of the Chinese revolution and strengthened revolutionary China's ties with the Soviet Union and the international revolutionary movement.

In defining the tasks of the revolution in colonial and dependent countries, Lenin gave prominence to the agrarian problem. He wrote: "With regard to the more backward states and nations, in which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind ... the need, in backward countries, to give special support to the peasant movement against the landowners, against landed proprietorship, and against all manifestations or survivals of feudalism, and to strive to lend the peasant movement the most revolutionary character."**

He showed the Communist parties concrete ways and

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 169. ** Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 150.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works

; P. 41 , Vol.

31, p. 149.

means of resolving the problems of the agrarian revolution. He denounced the attempts of the opportunist parties of the Second International to confine the proletarian movement to narrow trade and professional interests and criticised the Narodniks who failed to appreciate the leading role of the working class. "Only the urban and industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party," he wrote, "can liberate the working masses of the countryside from the yoke of capital and landed proprietorship, from ruin and the imperialist wars which will inevitably break out again and again if the capitalist system remains. There is no salvation for the working masses of the countryside except in alliance with the communist proletariat, and unless they give the latter devoted support in its revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the landowners (the big landed proprietors) and the bourgeoisie."*

Lenin's ideas on the agrarian question were used as the basis for the decisions of the 3rd Congress of the CPC. These decisions formed the guideline of the Chinese internationalist Communists in subsequent years as well. The Leninist agrarian policy was ardently upheld and propagated by Li Ta-chao, who was the first in China to substantiate and apply Lenin's thesis on the ways of resolving the agrarian problem under working-class leadership in the specific Chinese conditions. As regards Mao Tse-tung, whom Maoist propaganda is trying to portray as the author of the MarxistLeninist formulation of the problems of the agrarian revolution in China, he rejected the Leninist thesis that workingclass leadership of the peasant movement was an historic need in his very first pronouncements in 1927 and in all his subsequent pronouncements. Early in the 1930s he brought out his slogan calling for the "encirclement of the town by the village", which belittled the leading political role of the town and, consequently, of the working class in relation to the peasantry. Mao's entire activity in the CPC, particularly after he rose to the party leadership in 1935, was aimed at fighting proletarian, internationalist ideology. This led to the CPC's isolation from the Chinese working class and from the international communist and working-class movement.

As early as at the 2nd Congress of the Comintern Lenin had noted that in order to understand the colonial and national questions it was necessary to take account of the fact that after the imperialist war the relations between states were being determined by "the struggle waged by a small group of imperialist nations against the Soviet movement and the Soviet states headed by Soviet Russia"/^^1^^" Moreover, he drew attention to the detente between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting and the colonial countries, "so that very often---perhaps even in most cases---the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries, while it does support the national movement, is in full accord with the imperialist bourgeoisie, i.e., joins forces with it against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary classes".""*

These conclusions were of tremendous practical significance to the Chinese Communists because it was precisely in China that the tendency of the bourgeoisie towards an alliance with imperialism and towards anti-Sovietism had assumed the form of an organised counter-revolution within the country and was leading to the provocation of a political war against the Soviet Union. In this situation the Comintern's appeal to Communists for unity and solidarity with the Soviet Union---the homeland of the world proletariat---for its defence against imperialist aggression was of the utmost importance for the success of the working people's struggle against imperialism.

Appeals of this kind helped to strengthen the position of the internationalist Communists and unite the CPC and all consistently republican revolutionaries on the basis of proletarian internationalism in the struggle against counterrevolutionary Trotskyism, "national egoism" and the reactionary policy of Chiang Kai-shek, who was urging the Kuomintang to declare war on the Soviet Union and arguing that " `red' imperialism ... is much more dangerous than `white' imperialism".***

In the CPC leadership, along with the undisguised defectors to counter-revolutionary Trotskyism, among whom was the General Secretary of the CC CPC Chen Tu-hsiu,

* Ibid., p. 241. ** Ibid., p. 242. *** Soviet Fmeign Policy, 1917-1944, Vol. Ill (1925-1934), p. 349.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 152.

the anti-Leninist, anti-Soviet line was pursued by the ``Left'' deviation group of Li Li-san, whose views on basic issues of the revolution were shared by Mao Tse-tung. Contending that in China a revolutionary situation had emerged that was making it possible to start a nationwide uprising and thereby turn China into the centre of the world revolution, Li Li-san suggested at a meeting of the CC CPC early in August 1930 a series of steps designed to "push the world revolution". In particular, he proposed organising an uprising in Manchuria in the calculation that it "would be the prologue to an international war.... Japan would start a furious offensive against the USSR".* This adventurist plan of provoking a war between Japan and the USSR was supported by Mao Tse-tung in a letter to the CC CPC on October 14, 1930.**

The facts show that the anti-Sovietism of the Kuomintang ruling clique and of the Chinese nationalists in the CPC and their efforts to play China off. against the Soviet Union weakened China's international position and made her a prey to imperialist intervention. Such was the case in the 1930s, when the threat of colonial enslavement by imperialist Japan loomed large over China after she had broken off relations with the Soviet Union. The Chinese people, including the nationalists, should have seen that only the Soviet Union was their true friend among the countries of the world, that, as Lenin wrote, "under present-day international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics".***

A nationwide movement demanding the restoration of friendly relations with the Soviet Union compelled the Kuomintang Government to re-establish diplomatic relations with the USSR and promote political and economic ties with it. A Japanese invasion affected the destiny of the nation as a whole, overshadowing all of China's problems and difficulties and creating a situation favouring co-operation between the CPC and the Kuomintang.

The decisions of the 7th Congress of the Comintern on united anti-fascist front tactics in the West and on a united anti-imperialist front in colonial and dependent countries did much to rally the Chinese people. Founded on Lenin's teaching, these decisions enabled the CPC representatives in the Comintern to draw up a concrete programme for a united anti-Japanese national front. This programme was enunciated in the Appeal issued by the CPC on August 1, 1935. With the help of the Comintern an end was put in the CPC to sectarian sentiments, one of whose chief exponents was Mao Tse-tung who virulently opposed an agreement with the Kuomintang on an anti-Japanese front.*

This front was formed in 1937 at the initiative of the CPC and lasted until 1945. The USA, Britain and other Western powers turned away from the Kuomintang Government and, in effect, continued helping Japan. During these years the Soviet Union was the only country siding with China and giving her political and economic assistance. In the League of Nations the USSR gave its wholehearted support to every recommendation designed to curb Japanese aggression against China. It granted China three large loans totalling US $250 million.** According to the CPC leaders and progressive elements in the top echelon of the Kuomintang, Soviet armaments and Soviet airmen, tankmen and other military experts played an extremely important part in the war against Japan in that period. Such was the practical implementation of the Soviet Union's Leninist foreign policy towards China.

Soviet-Chinese relations veered off in a different direction

* In December 1936 Chiang Kai-shek undertook a tour of North China. In Sian he was kidnapped by generals Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang Hu-cheng. This created the threat of another civil war. Mao Tsetung opposed the peaceful settlement of the Sian incident (for details see K. V. Kukushkin, "The Comintern and the United Anti-Japanese National Front in China, 1935-1943" in the volume The Comintern and the East, p. 367). ** The Soviet Union granted two loans of US $50 million each in

1938, and signed an agreement on a third loan of US $150 million in

1939. In 1940 when the Kuomintang violated its agreement with the CPC on a united anti-Japanese front and its troops attacked the troops led by the Communists, the Soviet Government halted the supply of armaments under the third loan. Soviet deliveries under the third loan had by that time amounted to US $73,176,000.

** A. M. Grigoryev, "The Comintern and the Revolutionary Movement in China Under the Slogan of Soviets (1928-1930)" in the volume The Comintern and the East, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1969, p. 331.

** Ibid., p. 333. *** V, I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 150.

when nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Taking advantage of the Soviet Union's enormous difficulties during the initial period of the war with Germany, the Chinese nationalists of all complexions steered towards a rupture of relations with the USSR. This was the period when Mao Tse-tung started his attacks on Leninism and the internationalist Communists in the CPC. He began his open ideological assault on Leninism as early as 1940, when he published an article headed "On New Democracy","" which attacked Lenin's teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat. Unlike Lenin, Mao Tse-tung adopted a nationalistic, not a class, approach to the determination of the nature of a political system and, like his bourgeois-nationalist predecessors, accentuated the specific features of the Chinese revolution. He maintained that "the new democratic state founded on the alliance of several democratic classes differs fundamentally from the socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Throughout the period of the new democracy in China the dictatorship of one class and the monopoly position of one party in the government are unfeasible and therefore should not occur".**

As a result of this repudiation of the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leading role of the Communist Party, the CPC, now headed by Mao Tse-tung, severed its links with the proletarian centres and with the working class; Kuomintang officers, who came from the reactionary classes, filtered into the party and brutal terror was instituted in the CPC against internationalist Communists (the chengfeng or "rectification of style" campaign).

Mao's assumption that after victory over Japan a political system founded on an "alliance of several classes, including the bourgeoisie" would be in existence for a long time did not come true. After the Soviet Army had crushed the Japanese troops in Manchuria and the Soviet Union helped to restore industry and transport, the people's democratic authorities of this rich region found themselves in control of the entire formerly Japanese-owned industry, transport, communications, banks and foreign trade. The large war-

economic base in the Northeast (Manchuria) played a key role not only as a source of equipment for the People's Liberation Army, which, under CPC leadership, had finally smashed the forces of reaction, but also as the foundation for building up a state sector in the national economy. The people's democratic administration had in its hands not only political power but also the principal economic levers enabling it to influence the country's entire economy.

At the second plenary meeting of the seventh Central Committee of the CPC in March 1949, when the prospects of China's development were examined, the internationalist Communists rejected Mao Tse-tung's petty-bourgeois views, and the CPC, relying on the state sector that had already come into existence and on assistance from the Soviet Union, steered a line towards the building of socialism in China and co-operation with the Soviet Union. In 1950-1952 the CPC mapped out its general policy for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. Underlying this policy was Lenin's teaching on the historic mission of the working class and the leading role of the Communist Party in the socialist revolution and in the remaking of society. " Without the leadership of the Communist Party of China, armed with the Marxist-Leninist theory of the laws of social development and representing the interests of the working class. ..," it was stated in the theses on the general line of the CPC, "in our country it would be impossible to implement socialist industrialisation and the socialist reorganisation of agriculture, the handicraft industry and the trade and industrial enterprises owned by private capitalists."*

The theses stressed the importance of establishing Leninist norms in party life. Taking into account the dismal experience of the war years, when the dictatorship of Mao's personal power took shape in the CPC and the finest Communists were repressed, the theses noted: "Collective leadership is the highest organisational principle of our party..., unnecessary, excessive accentuation of the outstanding role of an individual, no matter who he may be, cannot be tolerated under any circumstances."** The CPC set itself

* This article was written on December 15, 1939 and published in Yenan in 1940. ** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Chinese ed., Harbin, 1948, p. 46.

* Theses for the Study and Propagation of the Party's General Line in the Period of Transition, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1954, p. 48. ** Ibid., p. 50.

the task of educating Communists and the people in a spirit of internationalist solidarity, friendship and co-operation with socialist countries. "The whole people," the theses stated, "must be educated in a spirit of understanding that assistance to our country from the Soviet Union and the People's Democracies and the powerful unity of the entire camp of peace, democracy and socialism ... are an indispensable condition for the successful building of socialism in our country."*

The GPC's economic policy was founded on Lenin's injunction that to attain communism it was vital to establish the "greatest and strictest centralisation of labour on a nationwide scale", that socialism cannot conceivably be built without centralised state planning of the national economy. Beginning with 1953 China's national economy was promoted on the basis of long-term (five-year) plans, the target being in the main to complete the socialist transformations and turn China into a leading industrial-agrarian power in the course of approximately three five-year plan periods (i.e., by 1967).

In the economic development plans the central place was accorded to industrialisation, to the building of a large-scale machine industry without which, as Lenin said, it was impossible to carry out the task of socialist construction. The guarantee of the successful implementation of the CPC's general line was the economic, scientific, technical and military assistance from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

Adherence to the CPC's general line, concretised in the first five-year plan of economic development (1953-1957), yielded gratifying results. At the 8th Congress of the CPC in September 1956 it was noted that "a decisive victory has already been won in the socialist transformation",** that the "people's democratic dictatorship, established after the nationwide victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, is in essence the dictatorship of the proletariat".*** Moreover, at this congress note was made of major shortcomings

* Theses for the Study and Propagation of the Party's General Line in the Period of Transition, pp. 54-55.

** Resolution of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol. I, Peking, 1956, p. 115. *** Ibid., p. 126.

in the party's work, attention was drawn to subjectivism, to the influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, to "erroneous Great-Hanist ideas".*

The success of the first five-year plan set Mao's nationalistic group into action. Some time after the 8th Congress it started an assault on the CPC's general line, the socialist methods of economic management and co-operation with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Further developments led to this group virtually usurping party and state power.

While giving assurances of its fidelity to MarxismLeninism, the Mao group began to trample the principles underlying the CPC's general line and rupture China's links with the socialist community and the international communist movement. They thereby endangered the socialist achievements of the Chinese people. However, the healthy, MarxistLeninist forces in the CPC did not follow Mao Tse-tung. They soberly assessed his adventurist policy, which had led to the catastrophic "big leap" and to international isolation, and came out in opposition to Maoism. At the eighth plenary meeting of the eighth Central Committee of the CPC in August 1959, Peng Teh-huai, member of the CC Political Bureau, Chang Wen-tien, alternate member of the Political Bureau, and a large group of leaders of provincial committees censured the "big leap". In a letter to Mao Tse-tung, Peng Teh-huai wrote: "Petty-bourgeois recklessness is making us fall easily into `Left' errors.... Our party's experience shows that on the whole it is harder to rectify such `Leftism' than to refute Right conservatism."**

When the Maoists saw that they had lost support in the party, in the Hrade unions, among the Communist youth, among intellectuals and among the veteran revolutionaries and top-ranking army officers they had recourse to massive terrorism in the country and to undisguised anti-Soviet provocations. The party, the trade unions, the Communist Youth League and the constitutional organs of state power that had been set up in the course of the preceding decade were decimated during the so-called "cultural revolution". The Mao group set up a state military and bureaucratic

* Ibid., p. 128. ** Tsukuo No. 48, 1968, Hongkong.

dictatorship of the "leader`s'' personal power. Severing China's links with the world socialist community and going to all ends to split the international communist movement, the Maoists set themselves the aim of turning China into a force capable of ensuring the attainment of Mao's chauvinistic objectives.

The Maoists are adapting the social superstructure to their Great-Hanist aspirations and endeavouring to change the nature and purpose of social production. Henceforth, as was formulated in the decisions of the llth and 12th "plenary meetings of the CC CPC" and of the 9th Congress of the CPC, the purpose of production is to "create a strong, mighty China" capable of ensuring the dissemination and consolidation of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung". The Leninist principle of building communism "not directly relying on enthusiasm, but aided by the enthusiasm engendered by the great revolution, and on the basis of personal interest, personal incentive and business principles"* is attacked violently and described as "bourgeois economism''.

The Maoists have destroyed the system of planned economic management and supplanted it with a system of army control. They have halted the building of large metallurgical and engineering centres, slowed down the development of the mining industry and geological surveys, and channelled investments mainly into the war, including nuclear industry. In the situation now taking shape in China, socialised industry and agriculture are losing their basic socialist features and have been deprived of the possibility of displaying their advantages as a highly productive socialist economy. China's socialist development is thus seriously jeopardised.

'

Aware of the popularity and strength of Marxism-- Leninism, the Maoist leadership is using as a cover the names of the great classics of scientific communism---Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin---and giving Maoism out as "Sinicised Marxism". Facts show, however, that Maoism has nothing in common with scientific communism, with the teaching of Marxism-Leninism.

The bitter experience of the past decade has shown the Chinese people and the Chinese Communists the grave trials

their country has had to undergo as a result of the adventurist experiments of the Peking leadership. The resistance that the present policy is encountering from the CPC rank and file and from broad sections of the working people is evidence that the healthy forces of the Chinese people are looking for a way out of this situation.

Leninism is invincible. It expresses the aspirations of all working mankind. The seeds sown by it have sprouted abundantly on Chinese soil, too. The Chinese people will most certainly follow the road charted by Lenin.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 58.

V. P. CHEKIKOV

MAOIST DISTORTIONS OF LENIN'S THEORY OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

development "from capitalism to imperialism, from monopoly to state control ... has brought the socialist revolution nearer and has created the objective conditions for it".^::'

He laid bare the objective conditions making the socialist revolution inevitable in the period of monopoly capitalism, drew the conclusion that socialism could triumph initially in one or several countries, characterised imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution and thereby laid the foundations for a scientific understanding of the contemporary epoch.

After the Second World War there was a further exacerbation of imperialism's contradictions. The world socialist system emerged, grew strong and increasingly became the decisive factor of world development. The working-class struggle gained momentum in the capitalist world. The national liberation movement destroyed imperialism's colonial system. Historical development bore out Lenin's prevision that the struggle between socialism and capitalism would be the main contradiction of our epoch.

China's present leaders propound quite different views. They contend that the main contradiction in the modern world is between imperialism and the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. They divide all countries into geographical zones regardless of their social structure. Moreover, in the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC one of the basic contradictions was said to be "between the oppressed nations, on the one hand, and imperialism and social-imperialism, on the other"/^^1^^""'

While reviling at the imperialists louder than anybody else, the Maoists make every effort to discredit the Sovret Union and have steered towards a complete rupture with the socialist community. They have turned a deaf ear to the conclusions of the 1969 Moscow International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, in whose Main Document it is noted: "The world socialist system is the decisive force in the anti-imperialist struggle. Each liberation struggle receives indispensable aid from the world socialist system, above all from the Soviet Union."***

* Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 240. ** Hungchi No. 5, 1969, p. 28.

*** International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, Prague, 1969, p. 21.

Lenin worked on the theory of the socialist revolution for many years before and after the October Revolution. With this theory as their guideline, the Communists not only find the sure road in the complex conditions of life and the international situation but correctly lay bare the substance of the stand adopted by those who misrepresent the ways and means of achieving society's revolutionary reorganisation and revise Marxism-Leninism from positions of Right or ``Left'' opportunism.

In their attacks on the CPSU and other Communist parties the Maoists use Marxist-Leninist terms as a screen and give their ``theories'' out as a creative application of Lenin's teaching of the socialist revolution. The purpose of this article is to show how the Maoists distort the basic points of Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution.

In a series of works Lenin showed that under imperialism all the contradictions of the capitalist system, above all the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private mode of appropriation, become aggravated to bursting point, and that capitalist society had entered the last phase of its development. He wrote: ".. .certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres","" and society's

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 265.

3---1313

Marxists-Leninists stress that mankind's most pressing problem is to avert a world thermonuclear war. They reject the argument that capitalism can only be destroyed as a result of a world war, contending that every victory in the struggle for peace aggravates contradictions in imperialist circles, strengthens the position of the Communists and democrats, wins them the support of the peoples and helps to activate the anti-imperialist forces. There is an indivisible link between the fundamental aims of the struggle of the peoples for peace and the struggle of the working class for socialism.

Marxists-Leninists regard peaceful coexistence as a form of the class struggle on the international scene which curbs the aggressive forces of imperialism and creates the conditions for the further unfolding of the revolutionary process. The Maoists, on the other hand, demagogically declare that peaceful coexistence signifies capitulation to imperialism and betrayal of the revolution. They have rejected the profound scientific Marxist-Leninist analysis in favour of sonorous pseudo-revolutionary verbiage. In the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC the following words of Mao Tse-tung were quoted: "As regards the question of a world war, there are only two possibilities: either war will precipitate revolution, or revolution will avert war."^::"

The Maoists pin all their hopes on the ``rifle''. At the 9th Congress they formulated the ``theory'' that war is a positive factor giving rise to revolution. This is a flagrant distortion of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on revolution. By regarding war as a positive factor of history, the Maoists ignore the Marxist postulate that genuinely new social processes and phenomena are predicated above all by the requirements of life. By itself violence has never created new phenomena, having, under certain conditions, only helped to engender them.

countries and also for economically undeveloped countries, in particular, like China.

The experience of Russia and other countries had brought Lenin round to the conclusion that the rate of the socialist revolution's advance is not directly proportionate to the maturity level of capitalist relations.* In analysing this issue, Lenin noted two factors:

1. The conformity between the maturity of economic and political conditions should not be oversimplified and interpreted dogmatically because there has never been nor will there ever be conformity between them. Lenin wrote: ". . .it would be a fatal mistake to declare that since there is a discrepancy between our economic `forces' and our political strength, it `follows' that we should not have seized power. Such an argument can be advanced only by a 'man in a muffler',** who forgets that there will always be such a ' discrepancy', that it always exists in the development of nature as well as in the development of society."*** This explanation is of fundamental importance for an understanding of the conditions in which the socialist revolution arises, whether in a highly developed or an economically backward country.

2. While showing that there could never be total conformity between the economic and political conditions of revolution Lenin never repudiated the general conformity of these phenomena, underlining the unique way in which this conformity manifests itself not in any one revolution taken separately, but in the world revolutionary process as a whole. On this point he wrote: ".. .only by a series of attempts (meaning the socialist revolution.---V.C.)---each of which, taken by itself, will be one-sided and will suffer from certain inconsistencies---will complete socialism be created by the revolutionary co-operation of the proletarians of all countries."****

Consequently, conformity is predicated not only by the given country's level of development but also by the maturity of capitalism as a whole and by the maturity of

The strength and viability of Lenin's theory of revolution is that it holds true for highly developed capitalist

* Lenin Miscellany XI, Russ. ed., p. 398.

** The principal character of one of Anton Chekhov's short stories. *** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 345-46. **** Ibid., p. 346.

~^^3^^*

35

Hungchi No. 5, 1969, p. 28.

the world proletariat. If world capitalism has matured for the revolutionary transition to the new society it means that the proletariat, too, has, as a whole, matured for the role of leader of the revolution.

Lenin made it abundantly clear that a revolutionary situation was also essential for the success of the revolution. The substance of this thesis is that the revolution requires a certain level of development of the productive forces and culture, but the concrete level at which the revolution takes place is determined by the existence of a revolutionary situation leading to a national crisis. In addition to objective conditions such as the revolutionary situation, Lenin attached immense importance to subjective factors such as the political consciousness of the masses, their level of organisation, and the experience and militancy of the genuinely revolutionary party. Not without irony Lenin asked the dogmatists that if a revolutionary situation had become a fact "why cannot we begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers' and peasants' government and the Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?"*

This point of view has been fully borne out by developments. The fact that the socialist revolution has triumphed in a number of countries, where that "definite level" of the development of the productive forces had obviously been inadequate, shows the tremendous importance of the relatively independent role of the revolutionary situation and also of the subjective factors that can precipitate a national crisis and thereby ensure the success of the revolution under different, but not absolutely different, levels of the development of the productive forces and culture.

As regards the Maoists, their argument is that the majority of the population exploited by capitalism is hostile to imperialism and is, therefore, ready for revolutionary action. Hence their theory that instead of organising the masses for a revolutionary struggle reliance should be placed on the actions of isolated groups. The revolution, they hold, springs from a people's war, which, in its turn, breaks out where it is started. But history shows that the people's discontent with their position is not enough. There must be

increased tension in the relations between classes, when the oppressed masses unite and consciously rise against the old system, while the defenders of that system are disorganised and weakened to such an extent that they are unable to govern in the old way. This point is reached by the development of the basic contradiction of capitalism and the maturing of the revolutionary situation, which is prepared by the purposeful work of the Communist Party among the masses. In the life of a people this point is a definite objective factor and an indispensable prerequisite for those who call on the masses to revolt.

The Maoists underrate the strength of imperialism, which they call a "paper tiger". The Chinese press asserts, for example, that US imperialism is experiencing a "swift decline", that it is in the throes of ``agony'' and living out its last days, that to collapse all it needs is a slight push. The Maoists call for armed action regardless of the actual situation. They prod the masses into adventurist actions that are fraught with grave consequences. This disregard of the alignment of forces in the world has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. "First and foremost," L. I. Brezhnev said at the 1969 International Meeting in Moscow, "we cannot afford to ignore the fact that the imperialism of our day still has a powerful and highly developed production mechanism. We cannot afford to ignore the fact that modern imperialism makes use also of the possibilities placed before it by the increasing fusion of the monopolies with the state apparatus."*

Imperialism is still quite strong and extremely dangerous. The struggle against it demands the mobilisation of all. the progressive forces in the world.

When Lenin was working on the theory of the socialist revolution he condemned the view, then widespread among Social-Democrats, that the proletarian revolution can be victorious only where the working class comprises the majority of the population, and that the revolution cannot

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 478-79.

* International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 141.

be victorious where the proletariat comprises only a small section of the population. It is hard to overestimate the importance of correctly resolving this question, because even today in many countries, particularly in China, the working class is a minority. This question, too, was examined scientifically by Lenin, who tied it up with the general nature of capitalism and with the place occupied by the working class in capitalist society.

Under capitalism large-scale production is the backbone of the entire economy. Lenin regarded large-scale production as the material foundation of socialism, and for that reason he held that where a large-scale industry was nonexistent industrialisation was the premier task after the revolution, that it created not only the material basis of the new system but also a working class, the consistently revolutionary force. He wrote that "the proletariat economically dominates the centre and nerve of the entire economic system"/^^5^^' This made it the leading force also in the country's social life. In other words, "the proletariat expresses economically and politically the real interests of the overwhelming majority of the working people under capitalism".**

Disagreeing with those who were for ``postponing'' the revolution until the proletariat had become the majority of the population, Lenin stressed: "The strength of the proletariat in any capitalist country is far greater than the proportion it represents of the total population."*** He noted that it would demonstrate its full strength when it acted as the leader in preparing and accomplishing the revolution. This, in turn, can only be achieved if the working class is led by the Communist Party, which expresses its ultimate ideals and is capable of linking them with the day-to-day struggle of the masses.

Lenin's teaching on the hegemony of the working class and, above all, on the alliance of the working class with the working peasants is a major contribution to the Marxist science of the socialist revolution. It is chiefly a teaching showing under what conditions the working class assumes the role of vanguard of the people and becomes the invin-

cible force of the revolution even in countries where it comprises a minority.

The proletariat's link with the people is profoundly dialectical: on the one hand, the working class is an inalienable part of the people and, on the other, it is not simply part but the vanguard of the people.

On the eve of the October Revolution in Russia a massive popular movement unfolded in which the workers fought for socialism, the peasant masses for land, the peoples of the outlying regions for national independence and freedom, and all working people for bread and peace. This movement embraced the demands o£ different strata of the people. The struggle of the workers for socialism was the direct task of the socialist revolution. The struggle of the peasants for land had not been consummated at the preceding, bourgeoisdemocratic stage of the revolution. The struggle for peace sprang from the concrete situation on the eve of the October Revolution.

The development of the socialist revolution in Russia was characterised by the fact that with the Bolshevik Party at its head the working class of Russia, above all the Russian proletariat, was able to achieve concerted action by the different popular movements and direct them towards the attainment of a single goal. In Russia the struggle for the socialist revolution developed into a nationwide struggle. The socialist revolution became a people's revolution at the same time. This was where the role of the working class as the leading force manifested itself most strikingly and profoundly, and for that reason the struggle was successful despite the fact that the working class was a minority of the population.

In Mao Tse-tung's pronouncements and in the Chinese press there are many kowtows to the Chinese working class. At the 9th CPC Congress, too, Mao's words were quoted that the "working class must exercise leadership in everything".* While verbally recognising the leading role of the working class, the Maoists in fact accord to it only the role of an unquestioning executor of Mao's instructions. Moreover, the working class is set off against the peasants, who are described as the most revolutionary force of modern times. In

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 274. ** Ibid. *** Ibid.

* Peking Review, Special Issue, April 28, 1969.

Lin Piao's article Long Live the Victory of the People's War, it is stated: "The village, and only the village, is the boundless and largest field of activity for revolutionaries. The village, and only the village, is the revolutionary base from which the revolutionaries set out to win final victory."*

Instead of stressing the proletariat's leading role in the entire liberation movement of modern times, instead of accentuating the immense significance of united action by the proletariat of the capitalist countries and the national liberation movements, the Maoists speak of the struggle of the "world village" against the "world town". And this when in reality it is precisely in the "world town" that the main forces, which will decide the destiny of the "world village", are springing up.

``The country," Lenin wrote, "cannot be equal to the town under the historical conditions of this epoch. The town inevitably leads the country. The country inevitably follows the town."** But the Maoists base themselves on that zigzag in world history when in the Chinese revolution the country advanced on the town, and seek to give this zigzag out as a general law.

Marxists-Leninists have always attached great significance to the alliance of the working class with the peasants in the revolutionary struggle. At the 1969 International Meeting L. I. Brezhnev said: "The central question of the revolutionary process in Asia and Africa today is that of the attitude of the peasantry, which make up a majority, of the population.

``The peasants in that part of the world are a mighty revolutionary force, but in most cases they are an elemental force, with all the ensuing vacillations and ideological and political contradictions. Nor could it have been otherwise for the time being, because the great majority of the peasantry still lives in conditions of monstrous poverty, denial of rights and surviving feudal and sometimes even prefeudal relations.

``The experience of the revolutionary movement in various parts of the world has shown that the surest way of effective-

ly involving the peasants in the struggle against imperialism, for true social progress, is to establish a strong alliance between them and the working class. That is also the task in the zone of national liberation."*

While recognising the significant role of the peasantry in the revolutionary movement in Asian and African countries, the Marxists-Leninists underscore that it "is the workingclass movement that will ultimately play the decisive part in this area of the world, too".**

In contrast to the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, the Maoists repudiate the importance of the alliance of the working class with the peasants in Asia and Africa, an alliance without which the further development of the world revolutionary movement is inconceivable. They not only undermine this alliance, but confuse the peasants. The small ``self-reliant'' farms, the barrack order that is being planted by the Maoists, their propagation of asceticism and their arguments in justification of the low living standard of the working people are discrediting the ideals of socialism among the broad masses.

Lenin comprehensively showed the role played by the working class in the revolution. He regarded the working class as the vanguard force of the nation. And in this respect, too, the October Revolution provides a vivid example. The working class of Russia, the Russian proletariat in particular, not only liberated itself from exploitation but came forward as the saviour of Russia, which, having been oppressed by its own and by foreign exploiters, lagged catastrophically behind the advanced countries.

The slogan formulated by Lenin ". . .either perish or overtake and outstrip the advanced countries economically as well"*'"* was as much proletarian and revolutionary as it was national, because the country's backwardness worried all the advanced elements in all the classes of Russian society, and on this issue the proletariat "truly represents the whole nation, all live and honest people in all classes".****

The Bolshevik victory in the October Revolution was more

* International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 153. ** Ibid.

*** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 364. **** Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 99.

* Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of the People's War, Russ. ed., Peking, 1965, p. 50.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 257.

than a social, class victory. It was a national victory. There too the working class controlled the country's destiny chiefly because it retained its independence as a socio-political force and marched at the head of the people. One of the Maoists' grave departures from Marxism-Leninism is that they dissolve the working class in the people, in the nation.

In all his pronouncements, even when the class struggle was most acute, Mao Tse-tung usually spoke of the victory of the Chinese nation generally, thereby concealing the paramount and decisive factor, namely, the social, class significance of the struggle waged by the Chinese working people. Naturally, in a semi-colonial country like China national unity was of tremendous importance in the revolution. Nonetheless, the slogans calling for the unity of the nation could not by themselves deepen and strengthen the class consciousness of the Chinese working people.

The Chinese working class was sometimes carried along by the national struggle and it acted below its capacity as an independent class force. This might never have happened if the party, as the vanguard of the working class, had educated itself and the proletariat to combine the class and national interests of the revolutionary struggle. In this question the Maoists confuse the issue not because the Chinese working class is small in comparison with the Chinese nation as a whole, but because they adopt a nationalistic, not a class, approach to the country's internal life and its international position and ignore the decisive role played by the working class.

By dissolving the working class in the nation, the Maoists falsify also the substance of the party of the working class. They have proclaimed the thesis that the Chinese Communists are "part of a great nation". They stress that this part should not tear itself away from the whole, but the crux of the matter is, above all, that this part belongs to and should lead the whole.

The Maoists have gone to the length of completely distorting Leninism, interpreting the world revolution from the standpoint of nationalism and educating the Chinese masses in a spirit of hatred of the USSR. By counterposing China to the Soviet Union and the world socialist community, the Maoists are undermining the foundations of socialism in China herself.

As any other genuinely scientific theory, Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution is a scientific abstraction of actually recurring laws and trends of the socialist revolution. This theory acquires enormous strength and becomes the guide to action when it is applied in accordance with the specifics of each revolution. In other words, it is an integral theory of the entire revolutionary process and mirrors only its most general features and laws, and for that reason it can always be "translated into the language of each people". That is the only way in which it is applied in practice and is constantly enriched.

The Maoists are likewise ``translating'' Marxism into the language of their people, but they twist this ``translation''. First and foremost, they refuse to see in Marxism an integral international teaching applicable in all countries, holding that such a teaching cannot be evolved. Mao Tse-tung completely misinterpreted the issue as early as 1938 at the sixth plenary meeting of the sixth Central Committee of the CPC. "Abstract Marxism does not exist," he said, "there is only concrete Marxism."*

Of course, Marxism is nonexistent as an ``abstract'' teaching divorced from life, but there is scientific Marxism which embraces the scientific theory of the socialist revolution. And if Marxism in general and the theory of the socialist revolution in particular are applicable in every country, it is because their postulates mirror all the most essential, basic aspects of any revolution. In this lies the objective possibility of Marxism's existence as a general theory and the possibility of translating it "into the language of every people". Had Marxism not been a universal theory but reflected only the specifics of some one country, it would be impossible to speak of its international significance or of general laws.

Having found themselves all adrift as to how to link the general up with the particular, the Maoists metaphysically counterpose the particular to the general. They do not see that the particular always contains the general, and that the general necessarily exists through and in the particular, that

* Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Chinese ed., Harbin, 1948, p. 928.

there is definite unity between the general and the particular, that they always exist together and that neither replaces the other.

Criticising those who underestimate or reject the general, Lenin wrote: "He who tackles partial problems without having previously settled general problems, will inevitably and at every step 'come up against' those general problems without himself realising it. To come up against them blindly in every individual case means to doom one's politics to the worst vacillation and lack of principle.'"^^1^^" The great scientist and revolutionary that he was, Lenin in this question too set a classical example of a dialectical understanding of the mutual link between the general and the particular and of applying them to practice. In a report to the 2nd Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East he said, "you are confronted with a task which has not previously confronted the Communists of the world: relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and practice".** As we can see from the above quotation, Lenin mentions the "general theory of communism". Moreover, he singles out two elements: (1) reliance on the general theory of communism and (2) the application of that theory in specific conditions.

Although he spoke of the "general theory and practice of Marxism", he did not consider that every detail of a concrete revolution, even if it was of an epoch-making significance like the October Revolution, was mandatory in all countries. In every revolution there are many transient, casual elements that express the concrete conditions obtaining in the given country. However, Lenin stressed that although the dictatorship of the working class would manifest itself in different ways in the different countries, it was an inalienable feature of every socialist revolution and that some basic features of the October Revolution might recur on an international scale. Having in mind the international impact of the October Revolution and of some of its concrete aspects he said that it was necessary to study "the specific conditions

of the Russian revolution and the specific path of its development"*

The Maoists, on the other hand, make much of "Sinicised Marxism", which they have declared as mandatory in all its details for all other revolutions. Back in 1951, Chen Pota, one of Maoism's high priests, wrote that the experience of the Chinese revolution "is universal".** This alone bares the nationalistic claims of the Maoists to the universality of the Chinese experience.

Theory and experience show that in order to bring the socialist revolution to victory in any country, the Communist Party has, under all circumstances, to bear the general features of the socialist revolution in mind and take account of the specifics of its own country. The theory and practice of the present CPC leadership do not tally with this axiom of Marxism-Leninism.

The teaching of the objective conditions making revolution inevitable and of the working masses as the makers of revolution forms the substance of Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution. The objective factors of revolution, revealed and generalised by Lenin, are steadily coming to the fore of life, while the untenability of the Maoist distortions of Leninism is growing increasingly more obvious.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 489. ** Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 161.

* Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 256.

.

** Chen Po-ta, Thought of Mao Jse-tung---Compound of MarxismLeninism and the Chinese Revolution, Russ. ed., Peking, 1951, p. 96.

V. Y. SIDIKHMENOV

AGAINST DISTORTIONS OF THE LENINIST PHILOSOPHICAL HERITAGE

epoch. In the Constitution of the CPC, adopted at the 9th Congress, it is stated: "The Communist Party is guided by Marxism-Leninism---the thought of Mao Tse-tung." "Chairman Mao," states an article in Jenmin Jihpao, "is the Lenin of our day. In our epoch his thought is the highest level of Marxism-Leninism."*

Mao's supporters attribute to him imaginary services in enriching and developing all aspects of Marxism, including Marxist philosophy. This article has been written with the purpose of showing the untenability of the Maoist claims to ``developing'' Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Inasmuch as in one article it is impossible to make a scientific examination of the entire range of philosophical problems, we shall review only some aspects of the Maoist philosophy.

Idealistic Interpretation of the Role

of Objective Conditions

and the Subjective Factor

Lenin upheld the fundamental principles of the Marxist teaching and developed and enriched the tenets of Marx and Engels in a sharp struggle against various bourgeois ideologists, opportunists and revisionists. Many decades ago he showed the danger harboured in the attempts of the Right and ``Left'' opportunists to distort Marxism and called for an uncompromising struggle against them.

Today when imperialist propaganda is intensifying its ideological sabotage against socialist countries and the international communist movement, Marxists-Leninists remain true to Lenin's behests. They defend the purity of the Marxist-Leninist theoretical heritage and expose the ``Left'' and Right opportunists who falsify that heritage. The Right opportunists are out to prove that Lenin's teaching is obsolete and that it is a purely Russian phenomenon. The ``Left'' opportunists falsify and revise Lenin's propositions and conclusions and, at the same time, seek to disguise the pettybourgeois character of their revolutionary verbiage.

``The dialectics of history," Lenin wrote, "were such that the theoretical victory of Marxism compelled its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists."* Peking propaganda goes to all ends to disguise the petty-bourgeois, nationalistic character of the Maoist programme with endless demagogical assurances of fidelity to Marxism-Leninism, and with garbled quotations taken from the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The Maoists have proclaimed that the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" is the Marxism-Leninism of the contemporary

In Lenin's works we find a profoundly scientific analysis of the role played by objective conditions and the subjective factor in the historical process, and of their functional and causal relationship.

Like Marx, Lenin always based his assessments of social phenomena chiefly on an analysis of objective conditions. "Marx's method," he wrote, "consists, first of all, in taking due account of the objective content of a historical process at a given moment, in definite and concrete conditions; this is in order to realise, in the first place, the movement of which class is the mainspring of the progress possible in those concrete conditions."**

The founders of Marxism-Leninism saw the objective aspect of a historical process above all in material production. The materialist understanding of history, Frederick Engels wrote, is based on the proposition that production and the exchange of products comprise the foundation of any social system, that the end causes of all social changes

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 584.

* Jenmin Jihpao, November 6, 1967. ** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 143.

and political revolutions must be sought not in people's minds but in the change of the mode of production and exchange.*

If by objective conditions one means everything existing outside and independently of the mind and will of man this should not bring one to the conclusion that the historical process is something fatally inevitable. Recognition of the objective laws of nature and society does not rule out the possibility of their being consciously and actively influenced by people, who, having mastered these laws, can enlarge or narrow their sphere of action. "Marxism," Lenin wrote, "differs from all other socialist theories in the remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition of the importance of the revolutionary energy, revolutionary creative genius, and revolutionary initiative of the masses."''^^1^^"""

The subjective factor plays an immense role in the historical process. Society's progress and development are inconceivable without it despite the fact that in the long run the role of the subjective factor is determined by objective conditions. Marxism-Leninism warns against any belittlement and against any exaggeration of the role of the subjective factor.

Proponents of the former view contend that if the mode of production represents the unity between the productive forces and the relations of production, and if the latter must conform to the character of the productive forces, people should not actively intervene in life: the productive forces must first be allowed to reach their full development and only after that is it possible to change the relations of production.

This approach belittles the role of the subjective factor, throttles the revolutionary initiative of the masses and thereby dooms the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, to passivity. It springs from an erroneous interpretation of the law, formulated by Marx, of the conformity of the relations of production to the character of the productive forces.

The proponents of the second view argue differently. Man, they say, is society's chief productive force, and without him the implements of labour are dead. Therefore, if man is armed with revolutionary ideas he can, regardless of the level reached by material production, achieve anything he wishes. Among these proponents are the Maoists, who interpret the categories "objective conditions" and "subjective factor" metaphysically (leaving out the functional and causal link between them) and idealistically (from positions of voluntarism).

The founders of Marxism-Leninism teach that there is a certain dialectically mutual predication between the producers and the implements of labour. Any attempt to counterpose man to material production, to accentuate attention on man generally and ignore the role played by implements of labour in social development, is a departure from Marxism-Leninism and leads directly to subjectivism and ideal-

ism.

When man develops and improves implements of production, he develops and improves his own experience at the same time. "Nature," Karl Marx wrote, "does not build machines, steam engines, railways, electric telegraphs, and so on. All these are products of man's labour; they are natural material turned into organs of power of man's will over nature or into organs of the execution of that will in nature. All this has been created by the human hand through the human brain; it is the materialised force of knowledge."* According to the Maoists, however, will, enthusiasm, courage, dedication, industry, perseverance and other ethical and psychological qualities of man should be considered in isolation from objective conditions, from the level . of development reached by material production, and play the decisive role in the historical process.

The Maoists cry down the importance of the "material element" and make a fetish of the role of the "personal element" in the productive forces, i.e., they argue that everything is dependent solely on the producer isolated from the material means of production. They believe that it is enough to ``pressure'' this producer, to ``fire'' him with labour and revolutionary enthusiasm to enable him to do anything re-

F. Engels, Anti-Duhring, Moscow, 1962, p. 365. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 36.

* Bolshevik No. 11-12, 1939, p. 63. 4---1313

quired of him, regardless of the given development level of material production.

This subjectivistic approach to the producer was most strikingly demonstrated during the period of the "big leap": from 1958 to 1960. As the Maoists saw it, renunciation of material incentives, backbreaking labour inspired by "revolutionary enthusiasm" and disregard of scientifically founded production technology on the pretext of promoting initiative by the masses would ensure the success of the "big leap" and bring China close to communism. They pinned their hopes only on man, on his consciousness, without linking them with the level of material production. Everybody knows what came of the "big leap". It was further vivid confirmation that the operation of the subjective factor ultimately depends on objective conditions.

In assessing the role of any class in society, MarxismLeninism first and foremost ascertains the implements of production it is connected with. The Maoists reason along different lines, approximately as follows: by virtue of their poverty the peasants are more revolutionary than the workers and are therefore the "greatest creative force". In the Chinese press one frequently finds slogans such as "Learn advanced ideology from the poor and lower middle peasants", "Poor and lower middle peasants direct schools", "Intellectuals should learn from the poor and lower middle peasants" and so on. The purpose of these slogans is to affirm the idea that the poorest section of the peasants plays the leading role in Chinese society.

No Marxist will deny that the peasants play an important role in socialist construction, but to regard a class linked with backward implements of production as the leading force in the building of the new society means to belittle the role of the working class and the significance of the "material element" of the productive forces.

In China they give wide publicity to the following pronouncement by Mao Tse-tung: "The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the American reactionaries are using to intimidate people. At first glance it looks terrifying, but actually it is not terrifying at all. Naturally, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass annihilation, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people and not by one or two kinds of new weapons.''

This is an obvious attempt to belittle the role of the material factor in war. The destructive action of the atom bomb as a weapon of mass annihilation is mentioned in passing, as something of secondary importance. But one cannot imagine man at war without weapons. During the Great Patriotic War Soviet people performed miracles of heroism in defending their country. But they won in that war not only because they displayed heroism but also because they had modern weapons---tanks, aircraft, artillery. Today the Soviet Army's adequate arsenal of inter-- continental missiles and nuclear weapons deters the imperialists from starting another world war. It is, therefore, unscientific to separate man from weapons because in war there is dialectical unity between them.

From their exaggeration of the role of man, whom they consider in isolation from material factors, the Maoists move on to the exaggeration of ideas. According to their line of reasoning, ideas are not a reflection of the existence of people but are self-contained and stand above the material world. That is why they hold that if one masters the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" one can resolve any problem. " Throughout our revolution and in all our construction," wrote the newspaper Kuangming Jihpao, "one has only to adhere to the thought of Mao Tse-tung, and then no matter how difficult the objective conditions are the effort of the masses will always be very great, the work will progress very actively and the cause of the revolution will develop very rapidly."*

The Chinese press gives numerous examples claiming to show how the most diverse problems had been resolved with the aid of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung". For instance, there was the case of the Shanghai surgeons who were told to read three articles by Mao Tse-tung** after they had failed to graft a finger that had been cut off in an accident. "After studying these articles," the Chinese press reported, "they realised that the chief obstacle was not the lack of technique but the lack of a sufficiently profound class attitude to the workers, peasants and soldiers. In short, they

* Kuangming Jihpao, September 11, 1964.

** "Serve the People", "In Memory of Norman Bethune" and "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed Mountains''.

4'

51

had not yet mastered the great thought of Mao Tsetung."*

Chinese propaganda endeavours to prove that the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" helps to resolve not only the direct dayto-day problems of people but also world problems. The world revolution, too, if one is to believe the Chinese press, can be victorious provided all the people of the world study the "thought of Mao Tse-tung". According to the Chinese ideologists, the world revolutionary process will be hastened and bring about the downfall of world capitalism not through the unity of the forces of socialism, the aggravation of the contradictions in the capitalist world, the persevering work of the Communist parties to consolidate all the progressive forces, the struggle of the working class, the growth of the national liberation movement and the strengthening of the economic and defence might of the socialist countries, but through the mastering of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung". "When the thought of Mao Tse-tung is disseminated throughout the world," the newspaper Jenmin Jihpao wrote, "and is gradually mastered by the revolutionary peoples of the whole world, it will change the spiritual image of the revolutionary peoples of the world and turn spiritual force into a tremendous material force."**

Marxists have never denied the impact of ideas on the historical process and this is mirrored in Marx's words that an idea becomes a material force when it captures the minds of the masses. "Man's consciousness," Lenin wrote, "not only reflects the objective world, but creates it."*** When people are armed with advanced ideas they change and remake the world. While regarding consciousness as a reflection of the objective world, Lenin underscored its active creative role. However, he warned against attempts to speed up that for which the historical conditions had not matured.

In its efforts to produce evidence in support of the Maoists' subjectivist views, the Chinese press usually has recourse to the pronouncements of the classics of Marxism-Leninism on the decisive role played by man in social production and on the fact that history is made by the people. Indeed, both

Marx and Lenin said that the working masses are the decisive force behind the development of society. The revolutionary class, Marx said, was the mightiest productive force. Lenin emphasised that the workers, the working people, were mankind's primary productive force. However, while saying that the people are the makers of history, Marxism-Leninism does not isolate man from material production and does not consider him in isolation from the means of labour.

When the Marxists say that the people are the makers of history and that their strength is inexhaustible, they mean that only the people are the producers of material values, that history is inconceivable without the people, that only the working masses are capable of carrying out the tasks posed by the development of material production. But the Marxists are aware that in every historical epoch the strength and potentialities of the masses are limited to the level achieved by the development of material production and that this must be reckoned with.

Philosophical concepts are not born out of nothing, accidentally, by the subjective will of their authors. In the final analysis their substance is determined by the conditions of society's material life. It is not philosophy that dictates its laws to material life. On the contrary, the material conditions of society's life give rise to the corresponding philosophical views.

Therefore, when we examine Mao Tse-tung's philosophical views we must, above all, bear in mind the material conditions of the life of Chinese society.

The relationship between past (materialised) and live labour is one of the criteria of the development level of the productive forces in any society. The growth of the productive forces is accompanied by a growth of- the share of past labour and a diminution of the share of live labour in material production. When man creates sophisticated implements of production he puts enormous work into them. Man's possibilities are greatly enhanced by automatic production lines, comprehensive mechanisation, nuclear power, electric power, chemistry, electronic engineering, cybernetics and large-capacity machines. However, less and less live labour is needed to handle these powerful productive forces. This is an objective process.

* Jenmin Jihpao, June 20, 1966. ** Ibid. *** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 212.

But there can be a different situation: the lower the development level of the material productive forces, the more live labour and the less past labour is used by man to create material values, the more insignificant becomes the role of machines. The small producer handles primitive implements of production, while man himself is the main force in the process of labour. The spade, the pick, the hoe, the sickle, the hammer and the tongs require an outlay of physical strength. The implements of production set in motion by animal power likewise require a great physical effort on the part of man. Naturally, even in the absence of mechanical power man cannot do without past labour, but its share will be exceedingly small. Under these conditions when man contends with nature he has to depend chiefly on his own physical and spiritual strength.

In China it is precisely the low development level of material production and the predominance of live labour in the creation of material values that give rise to the prerequisites for the emergence of the subjectivist Maoist conceptions, according to which everything depends not on the level of development reached by the productive forces as a whole but on man, on his physical and spiritual powers.

relationship between matter and consciousness from idealistic and metaphysical positions, failing to see the dialectical interaction between them. He and his disciples regard matter essentially in a static state where it cannot influence consciousness. They hold that consciousness develops not through its interaction with but independently of matter.

Lenin regarded a thing and a phenomenon as the sum and unity of opposites.* "That all dividing lines, both in nature and society, are conventional and dynamic, and that every phenomenon might, under certain conditions, be transformed into its opposite," Lenin noted, "is ... a basic proposition of Marxist dialectics."*""

Here Lenin had in mind opposites within a given phenomenon, and not any opposites. As for the Maoists, they seek to substantiate their idealistic conceptions by accommodating any opposites to the law of the unity and conflict of opposites. This is done in the following manner. They take two opposite conceptions: action and counteraction; positive and negative; attraction and repulsion; worker and capitalist; matter and spirit; war and peace; life and death, and so on. For their form these conceptions are of the same order and, therefore, the Maoists argue, they can change places: if something that is positive can become negative then, by analogy, the spirit may become matter and vice versa. That is why in Chinese philosophical literature one frequently finds the assertion that under certain conditions the "material becomes spiritual, and the spiritual becomes material", that there can be no peace without war, in the same way that there can be no war without peace, and so forth.

``From the standpoint of dialectical materialism," the Peking philosophers write, "the so-called unity of thought and existence means the following: existence is primary, thought is secondary; thought is the reflection of existence, but being secondary, thought, in its turn, can exercise the reverse influence on existence. This means that although thought is secondary and existence is primary they can, under certain conditions, change places." And further: "The material is primary and the spiritual is secondary, but under

Distortion of Materialist Dialectics

Lenin's philosophical works contain a classical definition of matter and consciousness and profoundly reveal the complexity of the interrelation between them. "Materialism, in full agreement with natural science," Lenin wrote, "takes matter as primary and regards consciousness, thought, sensation as secondary."*

This is acknowledged by the Maoists verbally. Mao Tsetung wrote: ".. .we recognise that in the development of history as a whole it is material things that determine spiritual things and social existence that determines social consciousness.""'"" While making this admission, he assesses the

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 46. ** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 2, London, 1954, p. 41.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 221. Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 309.

certain conditions they change places: the material becomes the spiritual, and the spiritual becomes the material.""" More briefly, this idea boils down to the following: "Matter turns into the spirit, and the spirit turns into matter---such is the great truth of materialist dialectics."**

Matter, existence, influences the spirit, the consciousness. In its turn, the spirit, the consciousness, influences matter, existence. But this does not in any way mean that these conceptions can change places as the Chinese theoreticians are trying to prove.

This oversimplified attitude to the material and the spiritual leads directly to idealism, to the recognition that consciousness is primary and matter is secondary.

Since the law of the unity and conflict of opposites presupposes a definite unity of opposites, the existence of negative and positive features in one and the same phenomenon and a conflict between them, to what category, in this case, can one attribute matter and spirit? Understandably, matter and spirit cannot be regarded as one and the same phenomenon. They are two independent phenomena, of which one (matter) gives birth to the other (spirit). By matter the classics of Marxism-Leninism mean the objective reality existing outside our consciousness. Matter has always existed and continues to exist independently of the spirit, while the spirit is the creation of matter. Since the ideal is but the reflection of the material in man's consciousness, there can be no question of the material and the ideal changing places. However, as the Maoists see it, the material cannot exist without the ideal. More, the Maoist theoreticians call the relationship between matter and consciousness "mechanistic materialism", and their own idealistic understanding they give out as "dialectical materialism''.

In their interpretation of the historical process and of the relationship between matter and consciousness the Chinese theoreticians are held captive by subjectivist idealism, and their method of understanding the environment is metaphysical.

Lenin compared the metaphysical and dialectical conceptions of development and noted that the former regarded development as diminution and enlargement, as repetition, and the latter regarded development as a unity of opposites (as the division of the unity into mutually excluding opposites and interaction between them). He stressed that according to the first conception the source of movement is carried in from without (god, subject and so on), while according to the second conception the source of movement lies in contradiction. "The first conception," Lenin wrote, "is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the `self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the `leaps', to the 'break in continuity', to the 'transformation into the opposite', to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new."*

Verbally the Maoist theoreticians acknowledge Lenin's definition of the dialectical method, but in fact they fully revise it, showing how fast they are held in the grip of metaphysics. This is manifested in particularly bold relief by their interpretation of the law of the unity and conflict of opposites.

Lenin said that this law was the backbone of dialectics. In his Philosophical Notebooks he showed the dialectical contradiction and mutual predication of this law, the absolute character of the conflict of opposites and the relative character of the unity of opposites.

The law of the unity and conflict of opposites is verbally recognised by Mao Tse-tung. For instance, in a work entitled On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People he wrote: "Marxist philosophy holds that the law of the unity of opposites is a fundamental law of the universe. This law operates everywhere, in the natural world, in human society, and in man's thinking. Opposites in contradiction unite as well as struggle with each other, and this impels all things to move and change."**

It would seem that this assessment of the law of the unity of opposites cannot provoke any particular objection. However, Mao's formal recognition that the opposite sides of a

* Kuangming Jihpao, September 11, 1964. ** Hsinhua Information Bulletin, April 15, 1970.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 360. ** Supplement to People's China, July 1, 1957, p. 8.

contradiction unite as well as struggle with each other does not -save him from his metaphysical and mechanistic approach to this law. His interpretation of this law is roughly as follows: there is unity on one side and contradiction on the other, and a struggle goes on between them. As a result of this struggle one phenomenon is transformed into its opposite. If there is unity, it is "pure unity", and if there is contradiction, it is also only "pure contradiction" because here it is only a case of changing places.

Marxism-Leninism teaches that any object or any phenomenon represents a certain unity and has its own opposite and its own past and future. There are no objects or phenomena in nature and in society that do not contain their own opposites. But these opposites exist in a definite unity, are mutually linked with each other and cannot exist in isolation from each other. Opposites mutually penetrate and mutually exclude each other. The Maoist ``law'' of the unity and conflict of opposites is based on a mechanical juxtapositioning of phenomena divested of mutual predication and mutual penetration.

The law of the unity and conflict of opposites operates within the boundaries of a given thing or phenomenon and, therefore, one cannot, like the Maoists, arbitrarily manipulate with any opposites.

Their favourite method of mechanically " counterpositioning various pairs of qualitative characteristics of a phenomenon or object can only be described as a vulgarisation of dialectics".*

The substance of this method is clearly seen on the example of such social phenomena as war and peace. "The state of war," writes A. M. Rumyantsev, "unquestionably differs from the state of peace. The outbreak of war puts an end to peace. When the war ends peace begins. That is quite obvious. But the question is whether war and peace are mutually predicated contradictory aspects of some one and the same phenomenon and is their opposite a driving force of social development? Let us answer this question at once: No, they are not."** The Maoists' approach to war

and peace as to two opposites of one and the same phenomenon serves to justify their thesis that wars are inevitable and makes them reject the expediency of the struggle for peace.

A philosophical discussion on how to understand the law of the unity and conflict of opposites was started in China in mid-1964. In this discussion the object of criticism was Yang Hsien-chen, former rector and reader in philosophy at the Higher Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, who had defended the thesis of the "union of the dual". In opposition to this, Mao Tse-tung and his supporters advanced the thesis of the "split unity''.

Yang Hsien-chen's critics gave the following reason why they thought his thesis was wrong: "In characterising the law of the unity of opposites he speaks only of the unity of opposites, ignoring the conflict of opposites and reducing the law solely to the unity of opposites."* It is hard to judge if there were any grounds for such an accusation because Yang Hsien-chen's articles were never published in the Chinese press. But even if one were to agree with this, one would find that his critics went to the other extreme. In opposition to Yang Hsien-chen's thesis they advanced their distorted version of the "split unity''.

Lenin, it will be recalled, stressed that the division of a unity and the cognition of its contradictory parts form the substance of dialectics.** This means that all the phenomena and objects of living and dead nature are divided internally and contradictory, and that in order to understand any phenomenon it is divided into its opposites. Lenin regarded the division of a unity into opposites in its dialectical mutual predication. The Maoists, on the other hand, regard the division of a unity in a metaphysical light as an outright negation without any mutual penetration.

This metaphysical approach to the law of the unity of opposites has been noted by some Chinese philosophers. For instance, Ai Hang-wu and Lin Chin-shang wrote: "In examining questions some of our comrades frequently, without realising it, have recourse to the metaphysical method, seeing only one aspect of a contradiction and failing to see

* Ma Ting, "Our Basic Divergence with the Theory of the 'Union of the Dual" ", Kuangming Jihpao, September 19, 1964. ** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 359.

* A. M. Rumyantsev, Problems of Modern Social Science, Russ. ed., Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1969, p. 153. ** Ibid., p. 154.

the other. They often adopt a categorical approach to the examination of a phenomenon: if it is good then it is absolutely good, if it is bad then it is absolutely bad. They lack a comprehensive approach---'love but know the weak points; consider it bad but know its good sides too'. They simply counterpose the opposite aspects, lapse into subjectivism, adopt a one-sided, narrow view, are unable to determine the opposite in the unity or the unity in the opposite, and the categories they operate with are absolute and incompatible opposites."*

This pronouncement quite clearly illustrates the metaphysical approach of the Maoists. In their metaphysical interpretation of the division of a unity into opposites the Maoists take Lenin's words on the division of a unity and the cognition of its opposites to mean that no organic relationship exists between opposites.

The unity of opposites embraces a conflict, but for a certain period the conflict between opposites does not destroy the old unity. "The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites," Lenin wrote, "is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute.""""" The Maoists give their own interpretation of Lenin's words about the absolute character of struggle and the relative character of unity. Their line of reasoning is that since unity is temporary and conflict is constant, attention must be centred on conflict.

This metaphysical understanding of the law of the unity and conflict of opposites is used by the Maoists as the foundation for their divisive policy in the international communist movement, their nihilistic attitude to the culture of past epochs and their interpretation of the historical process from the standpoint of vulgar sociologism.

Naturally, the old culture that had served the interests of the exploiting classes is open to criticism and MarxismLeninism has never asserted that the entire cultural heritage of past epochs is of equal value today. But a critical attitude should not be identified with nihilism, with indiscriminate destruction. Lenin wrote that the "elements of democratic

and socialist culture are present, if only in rudimentary form, in every national culture, since in every nation there are toiling and exploited masses".*

The Maoists, on the other hand, use the fact of the existence of two cultures---socialist and bourgeois---as a pretext for refusing to recognise the successiveness of historically shaped culture and consider the utilisation of the international elements in the culture of past epochs as the preaching of class compromise and class collaboration. "There is in China," Mao wrote in an article headed "On New Democracy", "an imperialist culture which is a reflection of the control or partial control of imperialism over China politically and economically. ... There is also in China a semifeudal culture which is a reflection of semi-feudal politics and economy... . Imperialist culture and semi-feudal culture are affectionate brothers who have formed a reactionary cultural alliance to oppose China's new culture. This reactionary culture serves the imperialists and the feudal class and must be swept away. Unless it is swept away, no new culture of any kind can be built up.... The new culture and the reactionary culture are locked in a struggle in which one must die so that the other may live."^;:'^::'

Thus, if we are to believe Mao, by some mysterious way the new culture emerges on the ruins of the old culture. There is no successiveness and no heritage. This most strikingly illustrates Mao Tse-tung's metaphysical understanding of the law of the unity and conflict of opposites.

A result of this metaphysical understanding of the core of dialectics is that other laws of dialectics are misinterpreted and abused.

Lenin regarded development as a complex dialectical process and described it as follows: "A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis ('the negation of negation'), a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; 'breaks in continuity';

Kuangming Jihpao, May 29, 1964.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 360.

* Ibid., Vol. 20, p. 24. ** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, London, 1954, p. 141.

the transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses towards development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws."*

This Leninist interpretation of development shows its many-faceted dialectically dependent and mutually exclusive aspects. Lenin had probingly analysed the nature and forms of the transition from the old to a new qualitative state, showed the dialectical dependence and mutual predication of quantitative and qualitative elements and revealed that a leap was a fundamental qualitative change. However, even this teaching of the transformation of quantity into quality is distorted by the Maoists.

First, they portray quantity and quality as antithetical, absolute opposites devoid of any inner connection. Second, the entire diversity of the world is reduced to various quantitative combinations of homogeneous simple elements. Third, development is reduced to a simple diminution or increase of quantitative elements. Fourth, a leap is regarded not as the result of a gradual quantitative change leading to a new quality but as purely a change of quantity unrelated to qualitative changes.

This distortion of the law of the transformation of quantity into quality was used by the Maoists as the theoretical basis for their "big leap" of 1958. In practice, a simple quantitative increase of the output of steel and pig iron by primitive methods was regarded as the decisive condition for the creation of the material and technical basis of communism. It was believed that a faster rate of industrial output could be achieved not by expanding the basic funds of industry and modernising production but simply by drawing almost the entire population into primitive steel and pig iron smelting industries. Everybody knows what came of that.

Falsification of Lenin's Theory of Cognition

The Maoists' distorted interpretation of the laws of materialist dialectics is closely linked with their falsification of Lenin's theory of cognition.*

Marxist-Leninist philosophy regards as untenable any one-sided approach to the theory of cognition, examines empirical and rational elements in their unity, and dialectically links the process from sense perception to logical cognition. This is expressed in Lenin's classical definition of the process of cognition: "From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice,---such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality."**

The Maoists have revived the metaphysical approach to the theory of cognition, an approach that has been condemned by Marxist-Leninist philosophy. In their interpretation of the theory of cognition one can easily pick out the following methodological flaws: pragmatism (truth is regarded only from the angle of its utility); metaphysics (sense perception is isolated from logical cognition); empiricism (excessive belittlement of the role of logical cognition); eclecticism (on the one hand, an exaggeration of the role of sense perception and belittlement of the role of logical cognition and, on the other, exaggeration of the role of logical cognition and belittlement of sense perception).

The purpose of the theory of cognition is to open the road to truth and determine the criteria of the authenticity of truth. Marxism-Leninism holds that objectivity is the inalienable quality of any truth. "To be a materialist," Lenin

* The Maoist distortions of Lenin's theory of cognition have been scientifically criticised in Soviet philosophical literature. See M. Altaisky, V. Georgiyev, The Anti-Marxist Essence of Mao Tse-tung's Philosophical Views, Russ. ed., Moscow, Mysl Publishers, 1969; N. G. Senin, " PseudoDialectics as the Method Underlying the Special Line of Mao Tse-tung and His Group" in the book Anti-Marxist Essence of Mao Tse-tung's Views and Policies, Russ. ed., Moscow, Politizdat, 1969; K. V. Ivanov, "Ideological Sources of Maoism", Voprosy filosofii No. 7, 1969; A. Rumyantsev, "Maoism and the Anti-Marxist Essence of Its `Philosophy' ", Kommunist No. 2, 1969.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 171.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 54.

wrote, "is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense-organs. To acknowledge objective truth, i.e., truth not dependent upon man and mankind, is, in one way or another, to recognise absolute truth."* It is not a case of truth standing above man's consciousness, but of an objective reflection of the world's diversity in man's consciousness, which does not depend on the subject. This Leninist understanding of truth is directed against the idealists, who hold that truth is the product of the mind.

The Chinese theoreticians depart altogether from Lenin's understanding of truth. They contend that the criterion of truth is not objective reality but the latter's conformity to the instructions of Mao Tse-tung. Their understanding of truth is revealed by the following: "To depart from the instructions of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the militant orders of the proletarian headquarters is to depart from truth and deprive oneself of the criteria for determining truth and falsehood"**; "Subordination to the proletarian revolutionary line of Chairman Mao Tse-tung is subordination to truth"*''^^1^^'*; "Every word uttered by Chairman Mao Tse-tung is the truth".****

.This destroys the materialist foundation on which objective truth emerges, and everything is reduced to the subjective opinion of one man. The Peking leaders require from the Chinese working people not intelligent action, not intelligent assessments of objective reality but blind obedience to the instructions of the "great helmsman". "Every revolutionary fighter," wrote the newspaper Chiehfang Chunpao, "should unquestioningly obey and consistently carry out every instruction of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and every order of the proletarian headquarters whether he understands it or not."***** Subjectivism, voluntarism, tyranny and violence are the concrete manifestations of the Maoists' anti-scientific approach to truth. This approach is purely pragmatic. Whereas Marxism-

Leninism shows that truth cannot be identified with utility, the Maoists hold that truth is what is useful to their special line. Take anti-Sovietism, which is the official line of the Chinese leaders. Whatever its source, even if it comes from the imperialist circles of the USA, Britain and other countries, anti-Sovietism will be supported by the Chinese leaders because it is in tune with their own official policy.

In the theory of cognition Marxism-Leninism accords first place to practice. It is practice in the form of sense perception, linked above all with material production and the revolutionary remaking of the world, that is the point of departure of the theory of cognition and of the materialist understanding of history as a whole. "The question whether objective [gegenstdndliche] truth can be attributed to human thinking," Marx wrote, "is not a question of theory but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, and this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question."*

Human activity begins with practice, and practical activity forms the only foundation for correct theoretical generalisations. "Practice" Lenin wrote, "is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of universality, but also of immediate actuality."** Furthermore, Lenin stressed that the "standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge".***

The Maoists give verbal recognition to the conclusion of Marxism-Leninism that practice is the criterion of truth. "In judging the trueness of one's knowledge or theory, one cannot depend upon one's subjective feelings about it, but upon its objective result in social practice. Only social practice can be the criterion of truht."**** However, the Maoists display a vulgar, primitive and distorted understanding of practice. Whereas Marxism-Leninism takes practice to mean, in the broadest sense, the material and spiritual activity of

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 133. ** Chiehfang Jihpao, August 7, 1968. *** Ibid., January 21, 1969. **** Chiehfang Chunpao, December 19, 1966. ***** Ibid., August 7, 1968.

* K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. I, p. 13.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 213. *** Ibid., Vol. 14, p. 142. **** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, London, 1954, p. 284.

5---1313

people aimed at remaking the environment in the interests of mankind, the Chinese theoreticians reduce practice, in effect, to physical labour, which is regarded as the only means of understanding truth.

While lauding physical labour, the Chinese press goes to all ends to belittle theoretical knowledge, which, it says, does not produce anything useful and only befuddles people's minds. The newspaper Jenmin Jihpao wrote the following about college education: "The present system of education places much too much emphasis on so-called systematic knowledge. By so doing it virtually encourages dogmatism, metaphysics and scholasticism." And further: "The longer students study the dimmer become their minds. Teachers . . .stuff students with knowledge."""

Excerpts of Mao's talk with medical workers in 1965 were published in the newspaper Hungchi Chanpao. These excerpts contain hitherto unpublished "instructions of Mao" in the sphere of medicine, in particular, the instructions that institutions of medical learning "should not necessarily enrol graduates from secondary and incomplete secondary

schools-----Three years of study," Mao Tse-tung said, "is

quite enough for graduates of elementary schools. Knowledge should be acquired chiefly in practice". Evidently explaining the meaning of these words, Mao, according to the newspaper, declared: "The more books you read the more stupid you become."*""

A clamorous campaign was started in China in 1969 to send several million literate young people to the countryside in order "to merge with the poor and lower middle peasants". In connection with this campaign the newspaper Jenmin Jihpao wrote: "The unbounded spaces of the countryside are the universities for reshaping literate young people."*** These young people, it was underscored in the Chinese press, were being sent to the countryside in order "to receive a new education from the poor and lower middle peasants because if they were isolated from physical labour they might be infected with revisionist ideology".****

But in itself a criticism of empiricism will not fully reveal the Maoists' distorted approach to the theory of cognition. While discrediting theoretical knowledge and relying on empiricism as their method, they exaggerate the role of logical cognition, which they interpret idealistically. It is in this that their eclectic approach to the theory of cognition manifests itself.

Whereas Marxism-Leninism does not divorce thinking from sense perception and regards the latter as the primary form of cognition, the Maoists, on the contrary, run down the sense element of cognition, dissolving it in thinking and denying it the right to independent existence. They thus undermine the materialist foundation for an objective knowledge of the world. Having metaphysically divorced the sense element from logical cognition, they see the surrounding world not through practice as it is understood scientifically but through the "thought of Mao Tse-tung". This takes them directly to subjective idealism, to the recognition that consciousness is primary and sense perception, experience is secondary.

They try to see the objective world not through living contemplation but through bare subjectivist deduction, and in order to confirm their conclusions they endeavour to make objective reality fit into their schemes. But since objective reality does not dovetail with subjectivist deductions, their only recourse is to assess practice not from the viewpoint of objective reality but from the viewpoint of the Maoist dogmas. That is why in their case the process of cognition starts not from a thorough and objective study of reality but from bare subjectivism, which they give out as a "great truth". And where dogma does not conform to objective reality, so much the worse for the latter. Take the monstrous ``conclusion'' that "capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union" and that "the Soviet Union is conspiring with US imperialism". Having adopted this conclusion they regard it as indisputable and go to all ends to ``prove'' it even at the cost of flagrant distortions of reality.

* Jenmin Jihpao, July 14, 1966. ** Pravda, March 26, 1967. *** Jenmin Jihpao, January 17, 1969. **** H_si_nh_ua N_ews Agency, January 5, 1969.

Practice and experience are the test of any theoretical conception. Lenin's theoretical conceptions are borne out best of all by socialism that has been built in the Soviet

Union, by the appearance of the world socialist system and by the growth of the world communist, working-class and national liberation movements.

The grave difficulties caused by the "cultural revolution", the economic dislocation, the falling standard of living, the steady deterioration of the political situation in the country and China's isolation from the socialist states and the international communist and working-class movement are all fruits of the policy pursued by the present Chinese leaders and this is the surest criterion showing that their philosophical conceptions are untenable and anti-scientific.

L. M. GUDOSHNIKOV, B. N. TOPORNIN

``LEFT'-OPPORTUNIST REVISION OF LENIN'S TEACHING ON THE STATE

1. Historic Significance of Lenin's Teaching

on the State and Its Reflection in China's State Structure (1949-1956)

Lenin's teaching on the state is one of the most powerful weapons of the international communist and working-class movement, of all genuinely revolutionary trends. Lenin devoted unremitting attention to problems concerning society's political organisation, particularly to the problems of power, administration and democracy, because the correct solution of these problems is of paramount importance in the struggle of the working people to establish and build socialism.

At the very outset of his road as a revolutionary Lenin was confronted with a considerable task, which, he subsequently said, was "to re-establish what Marx really taught on the subject of the state".* Opportunists of various complexions, who had taken over control of the Second International, sought to portray the bourgeois state as an organ promoting conciliation between classes, rejected the teaching that the proletarian dictatorship was universal and mandatory and built up the myth that ``pure'' democracy was supra-class. However, despite formal distinctions, the views of Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, the Russian Mensheviks and other ``refuters'' of Marxism showed a "similarity of the line of thought and the tendencies of opportunism"/^^4^^''* Lenin

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 386. ** Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 403.

exhaustively analysed the reformist and revisionist concepts and laid bare the hollowness of those who, while donning the toga of Marxism and hiding behind revolutionary verbiage, were in fact betraying the aims and principles of socialism.

Lenin not only upheld the purity of Marxism but, above all, revealed and formulated the key laws of society's political development in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, of mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism and of the building of socialism. The world's first socialist state, the Republic of Soviets, was created and strengthened under his direct leadership.

Lenin's teaching on the state embraces the most diverse aspects of modern society's political development. Lenin showed the principal features of statehood and political organisation under capitalism and worked out the question of the attitude of the proletariat to the various institutions of this organisation on the eve of and during the socialist revolution. He did not confine himself to upholding the Marxist proposition that the proletariat had to seize political power. He made an exhaustive study of the ways and means leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, devoting particular attention to the forms and methods by which the proletariat could achieve an alliance with the peasants and other working people. His propositions on the break-up of the old state machinery of the bourgeoisie and the creation of a new apparatus serving the interests of the working class and its allies are a vital component of revolutionary strategy and tactics.

He formulated and substantiated the principles underlying the political organisation of socialist society and determined the role and place of the state and socio-political institutions of that organisation. He dealt at length with the problems of party leadership of society and with democratic centralism as the organisational foundation of the party's political structure. Time and again he stressed that being the main vehicle for the revolutionary remaking of society, the proletarian state was "democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the propertyless in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie)".*

The genuine international character of Lenin's teaching on the state is demonstrated by the fact that its laws of society's political life manifest themselves under the most diverse social conditions: in highly industrialised countries and in economically undeveloped, dependent and semicolonial countries. Lenin was careful to make the point that the proletarians of all countries should pay the closest attention to national features, to local specifics. As early as 1916 he advanced the proposition that the working class would exercise its leadership of society in different countries in different ways. "All nations," he said, "will arrive at socialism---this is inevitable, but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life."*

History has borne out the insuperable strength of Lenin's teaching. Guided by this teaching and creatively enlarging on and enriching it with account of the concrete historical situation, the Marxist-Leninist parties are leading the proletariat and all working people from one triumph to another. Having long ago spread beyond the boundaries of one country, socialism is more and more manifestly becoming the decisive factor of present-day development.

Lenin's teaching on the state was reflected also in the state structure of the People's Republic of China in the years when the petty-bourgeois line had not yet become predominant in all spheres of that country's political and social life.

The 1954 Constitution of the PRC, embodying the general line of the Communist Party of China for the period of transition, was drawn up as the constitution of a country building socialism. It proclaimed that China was a People's Democracy headed by the working class and founded on the alliance between the workers and the peasants. It gave legislative embodiment to the leading role of the Communist Party in the state and in the leadership of the united people's democratic front. It proclaimed the equality and unity of all the nationalities in the country and stated that their specifics would be taken into account in the socialist trans-

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 412.

Ibid., Vol. 23, pp. 69-70.

formations. The state structure proclaimed by the Constitution was founded on representative organs patterned on the Soviets in the USSR and the people's councils in other socialist countries. Under the Constitution, all organs of state power were formed by representative bodies and were accountable to them. The state apparatus was built up on the principle of democratic centralism with collective leadership combined with personal responsibility and control by the masses. Of immense importance were the provisions on the rights of citizens, including socio-economic rights, whose embodiment is intrinsic to socialist constitutions. Although the material guarantees of civil rights were, in the main, formulated as programme propositions, their significance was very great: like the Constitution as a whole, they were the banner of the Chinese people's drive to build socialism.

The initial years following the adoption of the Constitution witnessed the implementation of its provisions: a new system of state organs was set up and a series of laws was passed which brought the political and juridical system into line with the Constitution. True, this process was hindered by a number of factors, one of which was the resistance of the Maoist group. At the time, however, this group did not come out openly against the socialist political system, and for that reason the period following the adoption of the Constitution and up to the "big leap" may be, on the whole, assessed as one of progressive state development.

The decisions passed by the 8th National Congress of the CPC in the autumn of 1956 took account of Lenin's teaching on the socialist state. The Congress resolution stated in part: "We must struggle perseveringly and tirelessly against the bureaucratic practice of divorcing oneself from the masses and from reality. We must do so by strengthening the party's leadership and supervision over state organs; by strengthening the supervision of the people's congresses at every level over the state organs at every level; by strengthening the mutual supervision among state organs at all levels both from above downward, and from below upward; and by more vigorously encouraging the masses, and subordinate personnel in state organs, to criticise and supervise the organs of the state.... The state must work out comprehensive law codes, systematically and step by step, according to the need. All organs of the state, and all government workers, must

abide strictly by the law, so that the state may give full protection to the democratic rights of the people."* The resolution spoke of the need to strengthen the united people's democratic front, cement the unity of all the nationalities in the country and secure their joint advancement.

These practical decisions were not destined to acquire flesh and blood. The Maoists soon jettisoned them and drew the people into the adventurist "big leap" and `` communisation'', which-had nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism. A serious threat hung over China's socialist achievements. Started eight years after the "big leap", the "cultural revolution" led to a further loss of the Chinese people's socialist gains, including their gains in building up the socialist political system. The loss in this sphere was the result of the Maoist revision of Lenin's teaching on the state.

2. Anti-Leninist Nature of the Maoist Political Ideology

The development of world socialism is a complex process characterised by an uncompromising, sharp struggle of the Marxists-Leninists against all Right and ``Left'' attempts to revise revolutionary theory. A formidable threat to the world revolutionary movement comes today from the nationalistic, hegemonistic policies of the Chinese leaders, who have flagrantly violated Lenin's behests and supplanted scientific communism by vulgar and essentially anti-- revolutionary dogmas. The events over the past few years, above all the notorious "cultural revolution", have shown that the leadership in China has, both in theory and practice, gone over to a fundamental revision of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the state and democracy and is more and more openly fostering a far-reaching reorganisation of the main political institutions that had taken shape in China during the years of the people's power.

The form taken by the developments in China does not always mirror the real aims of the Maoist leadership. For instance, the "cultural revolution" was called ``proletarian''.

* Resolution of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol. I, pp. 126-29.

Mao defined the state power in China as a "democratic dictatorship of the people" and did not forget to add that this dictatorship presupposed leadership by the working class/^^1^^" But this was only a piece of propaganda camouflage.

The Maoists are constantly manoeuvring, changing slogans and giving prominence now to one section of society now to another. But they keep up their propaganda clamour about the need "to follow the line of the masses, to learn from the masses, to maintain day-to-day contact with the masses". Action by incited mobs is given out for " revolutionary action by the masses". The Maoists attack their adversaries in the CPC on the pretext of cutting short the perfidious designs of "persons in power following the bourgeois road". The "cultural revolution" is given out as the "seizure of power from a handful of people in power in the party". But behind all this camouflage and manoeuvring, the seeming spontaneity and even contradictory nature of the developments in China's present-day political organisation, one cannot fail to see an increasingly distinct line, a deliberate calculation and a considered strategy, namely, the fact that the Maoist leadership is putting into effect its antiLeninist views on the state and democracy which in their totality take the shape of a definite concept. Although Maoist ideology, whose evolution took a fairly long time, is not distinguished for its logic and demonstrative power, it is necessary to take a closer look at its general features and its treatment of key issues of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state and legal system.

Actually, one can speak of the Maoist concept of the state and democracy only with large reservations. It cannot be said that these questions are totally ignored in the works of Mao. In On New Democracy, For a New Democratic Constitutional Administration, On the Democratic Dictatorship of the People and On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, and in his speeches at various congresses, plenary meetings and conferences he touched on various aspects of power in China, on the role of the state after the victory of the revolution, the style and methods of state and party work, and on the position occupied by the

Communist Party and the various organs of power in society. However, he is very brief on all these points.

This is not surprising. Maoism's theoretical principles are deeply coloured by a narrow national, purely local approach to generalising the experience of the revolutionary movement in China, the petty-bourgeois element strongly influencing the entire activity of the CPC.

The problems linked with the establishment and development of political power in society are examined by the Maoists mainly through the prism of war and armed struggle. They regard any state, including the socialist state, principally as an apparatus of violence and suppression. The propositions of the classics of scientific communism are interpreted in such a way as to give prominence to the army, the organs of security, the court and the procurator's office. "According to the Marxist theory of the state," Mao declared as early as 1938, "the army is the chief component of the political power of a state."*

The Maoist emphasis on methods of compulsion in the decision of economic, political and cultural problems is made all the more dangerous by the fact that it is linked with their extremely loose, non-class approach to the division of society into those who support the socialist line of development and those who are opposed to it. Mao has departed even from the propositions advanced by himself at the beginning of his political career, when he wrote: "To distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective attitudes towards the revolution."** In recent years the Maoists have been more and more energetically preaching vulgarised views about the ``people'' and "enemies of the people" and, conformably, about two types of social contradictions: "the contradictions between us and our enemies and the contradictions among the people."***

These views are portrayed as the summit in the development of Marxist philosophy and, in effect, serve to justify nihilism in law, the total absence of juridical guarantees of

* Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 2, London, 1954, p. 272. ** Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 13.

*** Mao Tse-tung, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, Chinese ed., Peking, 1957, p. 4.

* Mao Tse-tung, On New Democracy, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1960, p. 105.

legality, the arbitrary reprisals and mass repressions. Granted that methods of dictatorship may and should be used against counter-revolutionaries, and since for the Maoists ``counter-revolutionaries'', "enemies of the people" are not class concepts but denote people who do not support their ``socialist'', ``revolutionary'' political line, nobody in China is guaranteed against violence and lawlessness.

It should be borne in mind that in the Maoist jumble of propositions on problems of the state, propositions couched in Marxist language, it is sometimes not easy to see their real intentions and aims. So as not to lose sight of the keynote of the Maoists' aspirations it is therefore necessary to analyse their actions.

Particularly striking in this connection are the social processes linked with the "cultural revolution". Like the preceding vociferous "big leap" and people's communes campaigns, the "cultural revolution", was entirely the brainchild of the Maoist group, which inspired and directed the actions of the hungweipings, tsaofans, the Army and the public security organs. The pronouncements of Mao himself and of his followers, the documents of the group for "cultural revolution" affairs at the Central Committee of the CPC, the countless Tatzupao (wall newspapers) and, above all, the practical steps of the Maoist leaders have revealed the real purpose and aims of the political shake-up and the attitude of the Maoists to the party, the state-legal institutions, operating legislation and mass public organisations. As the "cultural revolution" progressed it became possible to get a deeper insight into what lay behind official propaganda.

It is now quite obvious that the political campaign started by the Maoists is leading to a fundamental reorganisation of the state that had emerged as a result of the revolution and the proclamation in 1949 of the People's Republic of China. The state and local representative institutions set up in accordance with the 1954 Constitution have been dissolved, the President of the republic has been removed from office, and many of the constitutional organs are not functioning: they have been either paralysed so that they now exist only formally or have been reorganised in such a way that only the name has remained of their initial purpose and form of operation. The 1954 Constitution and all the legislation founded on it have lost their import. Public or-

ganisations have stopped functioning. In other words, many of the key links of China's political system have been shattered.

This was not the accidental result of the "cultural revolution". The mechanism of the people's power was built up and, during the first years of the PRC, developed in accordance with the Leninist principles of socialist statehood. Use was made of the experience of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In a report on the draft 1954 Constitution at the First National People's Congress Liu Shao-chi noted: "It is obvious that the experience of the advanced socialist states, headed by the Soviet Union, has been of great help to us. Our Draft Constitution embodies the experience of our own country and that of other countries."""

Despite all its shortcomings, China's political system was designed to give effect to the purposes and tasks of the proletarian dictatorship and promote the full-scale building of socialism. As Chinese society made headway in socialist construction, the conditions were created for bringing the democratic substance of the people's power more fully to light, activating political life and drawing millions of people into the administration of the state.

But even during these initial years China's development cannot be regarded as a smooth onward process, because nationalistic petty-bourgeois, adventurist policies gained the upper hand from time to time, socio-economic changes were "speeded up" and there were repressions and other excesses. For instance, the mid-1950s witnessed a large-scale campaign for the "suppression of counter-revolution", which was directed, among others, at the broad mass of peasants and a considerable number of Communists who supported the party's earlier decision to co-operate agriculture in the course of three five-year plans although Mao had already ordered a super rate of co-operation. The actions of the Maoists in Sinkiang and some other areas against the nonChinese intelligentsia, the Sinicisation of the system of education and so on cannot be qualified otherwise than GreatHanist and chauvinist. However, in those years, these were not the decisive developments.

* Documents of the First Session of the First National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, Peking, 1955, pp. 27-28.

The mechanism of people's power, which mirrored and embodied the general features of the political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that was first given shape and put into effect in the Soviet Union, was fundamentally alien to the Maoist understanding of the content and forms of power. Moreover, the preservation of this mechanism, even after the many ``rectification'' and ``improvement'' campaigns, and the drives against ``Right-wing'' and ``bourgeois'' elements made the Maoists fear for the stability of their position.

Indeed, the democratic organisation of political life, the growing consciousness and creative initiative of the people and their decisive say in fundamental questions of social development hindered the planting of the "great helmsman" cult and of dictatorial methods of administration. In the party, the state apparatus and public organisations there were many veteran cadres, who wielded authority, had extensive experience and, in spite of the efforts of the Maoist group, had remained loyal to Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism and the traditions of the fraternal friendship with the USSR and the CPSU. The Constitution of the PRC and the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC contained provisions calling for a tireless struggle against bureaucracy, the observance of people's democratic legality and respect for the democratic rights and liberties of citizens. Had these Leninist principles been consistently implemented the Maoist group would have been unable to concentrate all the power in its hands and do away with its political adversaries. Maoism's political-legal ideology mirrors the extraordinarily complex specific conditions of the struggle for socialism in China, a country with a predominantly peasant population and with the bitter heritage of economic and cultural backwardness left by the rule of foreign capitalists, the compradore bourgeoisie and the landowners. In its formative stages Maoism had been powerfully influenced by peasant psychology, which bore the imprint of feudal and semifeudal relations and medieval ideology. The Communist Party of China, which was founded in 1921, experienced objective difficulties caused, in particular, by the fact that it could rely only on a numerically small proletariat. Since the 1930s, its ranks swelled chiefly through an influx of peasants.

A specific of the theory and practice of Maoism, which has had an extremely adverse effect on the country's political development, is the preaching of the "great helmsman" cult, which has reached the most fantastic proportions. Mao Tse-tung has been deified and elevated to the rank of a prophet. His ``thought'' is equated to an "all-destroying spiritual atomic bomb". His instructions are set above the Constitution, laws, state and party decisions and the will of the people. Anybody who doubts or even passively carries out these instructions is declared a counter-revolutionary, a "black bandit", a "person taking the capitalist road". Mao's pronouncements are learned by heart and carried out implicitly regardless of time, place or conditions.

Although the Maoists have dealt summarily with their principal adversaries and seized the key positions in state and public life, the struggle in China continues. Possibly this struggle will force the Maoists to introduce various modifications in their strategy and tactics. But even today there is abundant material providing the grounds for speaking of the anti-Leninist substance of Maoism's political ideology.

3. Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Maoist "Dictatorship of the People"

Lenin enriched the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat with new propositions reflecting the laws of social development in the epoch witnessing the disintegration of the foundations of imperialist rule and the establishment and consolidation of socialism. He emphatically condemned the reformists and revisionists, who were belittling the significance of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiating its objective, universal character and portraying it as a specific, purely Russian, phenomenon. The dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin noted, "is the key problem of the entire proletarian class struggle"/^^1^^' "This," he wrote, "is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested."**

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 231. ** Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 412.

He showed that the dictatorship of the working class, the leading class of modern society, was not an invention of the Marxists but the objective need of the period of transition from capitalism to the new society. Without a firm dictatorship the proletariat cannot cope with the desperate resistance which the deposed exploiters put up against the new power. In order to crush the counter-revolution, which, even after power is seized by the people, retains important positions in all spheres of social life and has the support of foreign imperialist forces, the proletariat must have unchallenged authority and a centralised organisation. Lenin wrote that the "forward development, i.e., development towards communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way".*

The functions of the proletarian dictatorship cannot be reduced to coercion, to breaking the resistance of the deposed classes. Its main and determining function is creation. As Lenin put it, the dictatorship of the proletariat "is not only the use of force against the exploiters, and not even mainly the use of force. The economic foundation of this use of revolutionary force, the guarantee of its effectiveness and success is the fact that the proletariat represents and creates a higher type of social organisation of labour compared with capitalism . .. this is the source of the strength and the guarantee that the final triumph of communism is inevitable".**

Lenin exhaustively studied the problem of the proletariat's allies in the building of socialist society. He condemned the attacks of the opportunists on the proposition that the proletarian and peasant movements had to be combined, and showed that the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry was an indispensable condition and the supreme principle of the new power. In this alliance the leading role could be played only by the proletariat. "The supreme principle of the dictatorship," Lenin noted, "is the maintenance of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry in

order that the proletariat may retain its leading role and its political power."*

The proletarian revolution can triumph and the dictatorship of the working class can be established both in countries where the proletariat comprises the majority and in countries where the overwhelming majority of the population are peasants. Lenin sharply criticised the opportunists and the overt enemies of communism, who asserted that in countries where the proletariat was numerically small its dictatorship signified the coercion of the majority by the minority. By virtue of its position in social production and in social life as a whole, the working class champions the interests of all working people, and rallies them for the building of socialism and communism. It is, therefore, Lenin stressed, "assured of the sympathy and massive support of the working peasantry and all those who do not live on the labour of others."**

A point made repeatedly by Lenin was that a creative, concrete-historical approach had to be adopted to the implementation of the principles and aims of the proletarian dictatorship and that every specific of each country had to be taken into consideration. He pointed out that in countries where the peasants comprised the majority of the population, the proletariat could have recourse to different forms and methods of organisation than in industrial countries with a large working class. In a speech on the attitude of the proletariat to petty-bourgeois democracy in 1918, he said that "the socialist revolution and the transition from capitalism to socialism are bound to assume special forms in a country where the peasant population is numerically large".*** These propositions were unquestionably of vital significance in China, where the proletariat comprised a tiny percentage of the population. Moreover, the Communist Party of China consisted predominantly of peasants and, besides, there was immense pressure from the views and traditions of petty-bourgeois revolutionism.

In this situation enormous responsibility devolved on the CPC leadership and the people's state, which should have

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 461. Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 419.

* Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 490. ** Ibid., p. 118. *** Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 201.

6-1313

abided firmly by the principles of Marxism-Leninism and displayed the utmost vigilance with regard to all attempts to misrepresent the revolutionary theory. Maoism, however, not only showed its incomprehension of the Leninist teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat but engaged in distorting it. Mao Tse-tung began by underestimating the role of the proletariat, belittling its revolutionary potentialities and exaggerating the revolutionism of the peasantry, and finally switched to a revision of Lenin's entire teaching on the leading role of the working class in modern society and on the mandatory nature of its dictatorship during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Extremely indicative in this respect is Mao's article "On New Democracy", which was written long before people's power was established in China. In this article the Chinese revolution is described as a purely peasant revolution, and the question of power is reduced to its transfer to the peasants. This is clearly stated in the following passage: ". . .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."*

In this and other articles dating from the period of the Chinese people's struggle against the Japanese invaders and the Kuomintang, one is struck by the fundamental difference between Lenin's and Mao's understanding of the revolutionary movement in a country with a predominantly peasant population. Conscious of the specifics of such a political situation, Lenin raised first and foremost the question of the attitude to the peasants, the forms of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, and the ways of ensuring the leadership of the proletariat in this alliance for the proletariat was the only class capable of leading the masses against the bourgeoisie/^^1^^""" Mao, on the other hand, regarded the numerical preponderance of the peasantry and the fact that for many years rural areas had been the bastions of the Chinese revolution as proof that there had been a reassessment of values.

Mao Tse-tung's pet thesis is the "democratic dictatorship of the people''.

* Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, London, 1954, pp. 137-38. ** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 200.

The terms "dictatorship of the people" and the " democratic dictatorship of the revolutionary people" had been introduced into political and scientific use by Lenin in works dating from the period of the first bourgeois-- democratic revolution in Russia/^^1^^" Mao gives these terms a totally different meaning and misrepresents the prospect for the development of the "democratic dictatorship of the people''.

By "dictatorship of the people" Lenin meant the power exercised by the proletariat and the peasantry after the first stage of the revolution had, on the whole, carried out its bourgeois-democratic and general democratic tasks. The aim of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry was to promote the revolutionary process and bring about the triumph of the socialist revolution. Lenin wrote of this in 1905 in an article entitled "Social-Democracy's Attitude Towards the Peasant Movement", in which he pointed out that after "the democratic revolution we shall at once, and precisely in accordance with the measure of our strength, the strength of the classconscious and organised proletariat, begin to pass to the socialist revolution. We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We shall not stop half-way".**

The Chinese revolution had likewise passed through two basic stages: the stage of democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal reforms and the stage of socialist transformations. From the outset it was a genuinely people's revolution, in which the principal motive forces were the broad masses led by the proletariat and its militant vanguard, the Communist Party. The first stage, in which imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism were overthrown, ended with the establishment of revolutionary power in the large cities and the formation of the People's Republic. This was followed by a gradual transition to the second stage, to the socialist revolution.

Since the power established as a result of the first stage of the Chinese revolution was a democratic dictatorship of the people, it was natural to expect its development into the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was prompted by the experience of the socialist countries where, as in China, the

Ibid., Vol. 10, pp. 244, 246, 247; Vol. 31, pp. 353-54. Ibid., Vol. 9, p. 237.

revolution had passed through two stages and where the victory of the first stage had led to the establishment of a transitional power in the form of the democratic dictatorship of the working people with the leading role played by the working class. The transitional power fulfilled its historic mission: it had put into effect a series of important socioeconomic reforms of a democratic and socialist character and had thereby laid the ground for the full-scale building of socialism. But only the dictatorship of the proletariat could put a final end to the resistance of the deposed exploiters and begin building socialism. "The transition from capitalism to communism," Lenin wrote, "is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat."''

In Mao's writings there is the proposition that the Chinese revolution divides into two stages and that the "democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable trend of the democratic revolution"."""" However, Mao says nothing about the power growing into the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, he stresses the possibility of the democratic dictatorship of the people remaining in existence for a relatively long time, writing that "for a long time to come there will exist in China a particular form of state and political power, i.e., New Democracy based on the alliance of several democratic classes, a system which is distinguished from the Russian system and which is perfectly necessary and reasonable for us".***

Naturally, China's national specific had to be taken into account. The working class, which had grown markedly following the establishment of the people's power, was still relatively small and, besides, it was still concentrated mainly in several large industrial centres. The bulk of the population (over 80 per cent) consisted of peasants, whose level of political consciousness and activity was still influenced by the consequences of the semi-feudal relations that had been predominant in the Chinese countryside. The new people's

intelligentsia was still only in its formative stage. Considerable sections of the former exploiting classes were still active, while the national bourgeoisie was permitted to take part in the country's economic and political life without any particular restrictions.

Unquestionably, this could not fail to complicate the processes linked with the establishment and development of the dictatorship of the proletariat and introduced its own specific into the forms and methods of setting it up. This made it all the more important to keep to the main line of development and constantly strengthen the power of the working class. The unfavourable factors of the socio-political situation could have been surmounted only if the leadership of the CPC and the PRC had fully realised the danger of the petty-bourgeois pressure on the political power and had been uncompromising towards all attempts to undermine the leading role of the working class in the government and in society. But events followed a different course. The policy of dissolving the proletariat in the mass of those who were exercising the "democratic dictatorship of the people", to equate the working class with other classes, social strata and groups was evidence that the Maoists had jettisoned the Marxist-Leninist, strictly class approach to political power. This is amply shown by Mao Tse-tung's own definition of the concept ``people''. "At the present stage, in the period of socialist construction," he writes, "the people embrace all classes, substrata and social groups that approve and support the building of socialism and are active in it; the enemies of the people are all the social forces and groups that resist the socialist revolution, are hostile to and undermine socialist construction."""

This interpretation made it possible to exclude from the concept ``people'' those contingents of the working class that disapproved the Maoists' political line and, at the same time, it implied that the national bourgeoisie would exist for a' long time as part of the ``people''.

Maoist propaganda demagogically clings to the slogan of dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact this slogan was used as the screen for the "great cultural revolution", during

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 413. ** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, London, 1954, p. 101. *** Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 278.

* Mao Tse-tung, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, p. 4.

which a wave of lawlessness swept the country and the socio-political and state-legal institutions of Chinese society were shattered and broken up. The Maoists called their policy "the proletarian revolutionary line" and qualified the opposition in the leadership of the CPG and the government as a "counter-revolutionary revisionist line". The struggle between these forces was proclaimed as a "life-and-death struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the socialist way and the capitalist way". But the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat was steadily stripped of its class content. In the summer of 1968 Jenmin Jihpao wrote without reservations that the "dictatorship of the proletariat is a dictatorship exercised by the masses"."" This was part and parcel of the Maoist line of revising the Leninist teaching, for now nothing was said of the alliance of the working class with the peasantry or of the leading role of the working class in this alliance.

4. The Maoist Renunciation of the Leninist Principles of Socialist Democracy

The Chinese revolution opened up the widest possibilities for the establishment and promotion of the Leninist principles of socialist democracy. With the overthrow of the local and foreign exploiters, the Chinese people began building and consolidating their own state for the first time in their history. The abolition of the omnipotence of private property, the nationalisation of the basic means of production, the agrarian reform and the first steps towards cooperation in the countryside created the material foundation for a genuine people's power. A firm dictatorship of the proletariat and society's guidance by the Communist Party would have been an iron-clad guarantee of the establishment of a democracy of a higher, socialist, type in China.

Lenin stressed that this democracy's basic advantages over all the other known norms of political power lay, above all, in the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat ensured the promotion of democracy on an unprecedented scale for the gigantic majority of the population which had been oppressed by capitalism, and enabled the working people

themselves to make full use of the proclaimed rights and liberties. This political power, Lenin noted, is "a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic".*

Under the proletarian dictatorship, when the class struggle becomes especially acute, it is possible and necessary to deny political rights to the former exploiters and their accomplices, who aspire to regain their positions in society. But for the proletariat and for have-nots in general, Lenin pointed out, the socialist state provides all the benefits of democracy. "It is the people," he wrote, "who even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, while possessing equal rights by law, have in fact been debarred by thousands of devices and subterfuges from participation in political life and enjoyment of democratic rights and liberties, that are now drawn into constant and unfailing, moreover, decisive, participation in the democratic administration of the state."**

He attached immense importance to working out and legalising democratic forms of exercising political power in a society building socialism. A system of organs of socialist representation of the people resting chiefly on the decisive participation of the working class and peasantry in the administration of the state was built up and perfected in Soviet Russia under his direction. He laid the foundation for the democratic organisation and functioning of the apparatus of state administration, the courts and the procurator's office and of the organs of people's control. He showed the role and position of the Communist Party, the trade unions, the Young Communist League and other mass public organisations in ensuring and implementing socialist democracy.

However, after the Maoists seized the key positions in the Communist Party and the government of China they not only flouted Lenin's teaching but, as developments of the past few years have shown, started an undisguised assault on the socialist democratic institutions that had been set up during the early years of the People's Republic of China. They demonstrated their hostility for genuine political rule' by the people, their scepticism of the people's creative abili-

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 248. ** Ibid., p. 465.

Jenmin Jihpao, July 19, 1968.

ties, initiative and energy, and their fear of the people's will. Instead of socialist democracy they are forcing on the Chinese people the forms and methods of power ruling out the people's effective participation in the administration of public affairs.

Maoism hides its real physiognomy behind a facade of demagogic verbiage about the need to pursue the "line of the masses", about the "masses having inexhaustible creative energy", about the importance of establishing "close contact with the masses" and about the duty of leaders to "rely on the masses". These pompous phrases and slogans are at variance with the actions of the Maoists. During the years of the "cultural revolution" it became quite obvious that the only purpose of this flirtation with the people, usually combined with massive repressions, was to turn the various social groups and strata into obedient tools for the removal of political opponents and for the attainment of the Maoists' hegemonistic ambitions. They rely on inexperienced and politically ignorant strata, who are especially receptive of crude and clamorous propaganda.

The Maoists launched the hungweiping and then the tsaofan movements, which were initially supported by the Army, in order to go over to an open assault on the foundations of the people's power in violation of the PRC Constitution, the Constitution of the CPC, and other fundamental political and legal documents. Society's democratic organisation requiring the functioning of people's representation, extensive democracy in the CPC, a system of people's control over the state apparatus, and the strict observance of legality and law and order did not suit the nationalistic, hegemonistic ambitions of the Maoists. They needed an obedient and rigidly centralised hierarchic apparatus that would not be accountable to the people and their elective organs. In this apparatus conscious discipline was supplanted by "obedience to Chairman Mao always, everywhere and in everything''.

The anti-democratic line of the Maoists manifested itself above all in the fact that by shattering and paralysing the mechanism of people's power built up in accordance with the 1954 Constitution they directed their main assault on the elective government and party bodies and at the trade unions and the Young Communist League. In the Army the

``cultural revolution" wrought changes only in the top echelon, with the result that the henchmen of Mao Tse-tung occupied key positions in the command and staffs and in the political organs of the Armed Forces. The Army was placed in control of the public security organs and also of non-elective branch organs of administration, where changes were effected only in the leadership. There was, of course, no question of dissolving these organs.

The "cultural revolution" demolished the democratic institutions in all the links of the political mechanism of power: in the administration, the Communist Party and public organisations. Mao's directive "Open Fire at the Headquarters" (1966) was the signal for the demolition of the "old state machine". It called for the destruction not only of the party committees but also of the organs of state power. This was not accidental, because the military-- bureaucratic dictatorship could not afford to permit any real implementation of the will and interests of the people. It demanded the political system's isolation from the masses and the conversion of the Communist Party into an obedient tool of the Maoist clique.

Maoist propaganda calls socialist democracy a "bourgeois heritage" and "revisionist trash". Instead, the Chinese people are given the monstrously hypertrophied personality cult, which suppresses the democratic norms of party and state life, is intolerant of criticism and control from below and demands unquestioning, blind obedience to the will of the ``leader''. The people are not even required to understand the sense and purport of the various decisions, for, as the Chinese press points out, it is necessary "to carry out the instructions of Mao Tse-tung regardless of whether we understand them or not".""

Drawing on the feudal tradition of deifying the country's rulers and playing on the age-old habit of the Chinese peasants to obey the authorities and on the low cultural level of large sections of the population, Maoist propaganda seeks to preserve and perpetuate the political passivity of the masses, plant a system of bureaucratic administration, and foster subjectivism in the adoption and implementation of decisions on all major and minor problems of social life.

Jenmin fihpao, June 16, 1967.

The Peking leaders make no mention of the fact that when Lenin headed the Communist Party and the Soviet Government he emphatically and uncompromisingly forbade any exaltation of his work. The Maoists savagely attack the decisions of the CPSU and fraternal Communist and Workers' parties denouncing the personality cult and providing firm guarantees against subjectivism and arbitrary rule. They insist on the "unconditional propagation of the thought of Mao Tse-tung" as the medium organising and arming the people."" As Lenin saw it, democratic centralism implies that the leadership of society from a single centre and according to a uniform plan and the subordination of the lower to the higher organs should be combined with every encouragement for the local initiative of the masses. The Maoists supplanted this with their own pattern, which boils down to rigid centralism, i.e., blind fulfilment of orders "from above", to strictly hierarchic relations in the party and the state apparatus.

Moreover, the very concept of democracy, which presupposes the promotion of the people's political power and the enlistment of large sections of the people into the country's administration, is currently interpreted in China solely as a means of ensuring the fulfilment of decisions adopted in the centre. The "latest instructions of Chairman Mao", published early in 1969 in a joint editorial in the newspapers Jenmin Jihpao and Chiehfang Chunpao and in the journal Hungchi, stress that democracy must ensure "correct centralism".**

The "revolutionary committees", portrayed by the Peking leaders as the proponents and champions of the will of the "three revolutionary forces"---'the Army, party and state cadres devoted to Mao Tse-tung and the hungweipings and tsaofans---today provide the foundation of the Maoist dictatorship's political mechanism. These ``committees'', whose composition, in accordance with official instructions, on the whole corresponds to the composition of territorial and production party committees, have supplanted the people's committees and, in addition, are becoming the organs of management at enterprises, offices and educational institu-

tions. In other words, the "revolutionary committees" are being set up not only on the territorial but also on the production principle and play the role of universal organs putting into effect the tasks set by the Maoists in all spheres of state and socio-political activity.

The first "revolutionary committee" was established in January 1967. At provincial, autonomous region and city levels the formation of these ``committees'' was completed in the autumn of 1968 and was accompanied by sanguinary fighting between the supporters and opponents of the " cultural revolution" and between the warring factions among the Maoists themselves. At the same time, "revolutionary committees" were formed in lower territorial administrative units and also at factories, offices, rural communes and educational institutions. All of them consisted of appointees "from above", from among the most devoted supporters of Mao. There could be no question of electivity of any sort. The key positions in the "revolutionary committees" were occupied by the military.

In order to justify the disbandment of elective party and state bodies, the Maoists had recourse to a revision of Lenin's teaching on the socialist state. They declared that the party and state bodies set up by the revolution in the course of socialist construction were ``bourgeois'' and that they were "following the capitalist road". They announced that the demolition of the socialist political system was the " continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat''.

The virtual dissolution of the elective assemblies of people's representatives is further evidence of the Mao group's sharp deviation from the Leninist teaching on socialist democracy. "We cannot imagine democracy, even proletarian democracy," Lenin said, "without representative institutions."* He wrote that the democratic and socialist nature of the workers' and peasants' power is expressed by the fact that the organs of state authority "are made up of representatives of the working people (workers, soldiers and peasants), freely elected and removable at any time by the masses".** He stressed the importance of elections for the

Kuangming Jihpao, January 16, 1969. Jenmin Jihpao, January 1, 1969.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 424. ** Ibid., Vol. 42, p. 100.

formation of the higher organs of state power, noting that "supreme power in the state must be vested entirely in the people's representatives, who shall be elected by the people and be subject to recall at any time".* But the Maoists, realising that they could never remain in power under a normally functioning socialist political system founded on the electivity of state organs, made the following revelation: "Blind faith in elections is yet another manifestation of conservatism." It goes without saying that with the question of elections put in this way only an undemocratic, sham " representation of the masses" is possible in Mao-ruled China.

As head of the world's first socialist state, Lenin solicitously fostered the Soviets of Working People's Deputies, the new type of representative institutions set up by the proletarian revolution. He pointed out that being the product of the revolutionary creative genius of the people, the Soviets were a form of democracy that had no equal in any other country. "Compared with the bourgeois parliamentary system, this is an advance in democracy's development which is of world-wide, historic significance,"** he wrote. The history of the proletarian and people's democratic revolutions in other countries has borne out the depth of Lenin's inspired prevision. In the socialist countries of Europe and Asia people's representative institutions were set up as the backbone of the state apparatus.

Such institutions had been elected in China, too, prior to the "cultural revolution". But during the years directly preceding the "cultural revolution" their development was not entirely progressive. In particular, the socialist democratic forms envisaged by the country's Constitution and laws on local assemblies of people's representatives, local people's committees and the National People's Congress were curtailed. In fact, the representative institutions had no control over executive bodies, and the political activity of the electors and delegates was frequently reduced to empty formalities.**""

As from the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s no elections were held although the representative bodies had completed their term of office. They held their sessions irregularly. Even the National People's Congress, the supreme representative body, acquired a formal character. In effect, it ceased to be a legislative organ and increasingly acquired the nature of a body removed from the decision of problems concerning the vital interests of the Chinese people. For example, in 1958 the Chinese leaders departed from the main line of the country's economic development and set the so-called "big leap" in motion without consulting the people's elected representatives. They acted similarly in ``communising'' the countryside, which, in addition to other calamities for the people, led to the abolition of the rural representative bodies.

The demolition of the socialist state apparatus---the system of representative institutions---which began with the ``communisation'' of the countryside, was completed during the "cultural revolution". The present political system in China, under which elective bodies are only formal appendages of the Maoist "revolutionary committees", is far removed from socialist political ideals and from the Leninist teaching on the socialist state and democracy. In this system the predominant role is played by military and paramilitary organs, which exercise state leadership chiefly by compulsion and coercion which are not typical for a socialist state. These organs, naturally, by no means fit into Lenin's definition of political power in socialist society, where the working people know "no authority except the authority of their own unity".*

Coercive methods have been spread to economic management as well. Troops are in occupation of industrial enterprises, where they act as overseers. Factories are headed by Army-supervised "revolutionary committees" nominated by the Maoists. The chairmen of these ``committees'' are accountable to military organs. Military control committees have been set up at some factories. Labour discipline is maintained by bare compulsion.

Economic incentives for the working people, the importance of which had been repeatedly underscored by Lenin,

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 471-72. ** Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 104.

*** It must be noted that even in preceding years representative bodies were not set up in all .units of the actually existing administrativeterritorial division. For instance, they were nonexistent in the "special regions" (chuang chu) that had been formed in almost all the provinces.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 423.

have been stigmatised as "counter-revolutionary economism". The working class is now unable to defend its interests and promote its participation in economic management through the trade unions. To the Maoist leadership the trade unions appeared to be much too dangerous, for in accordance with the traditions of the Chinese proletariat's long struggle they raised and discussed questions linked with economic development and the material condition of the workers. Although the role of the trade unions was not particularly great in the PRC and despite the fact that they were obviously influenced by the ideology and practice of Maoism, they were dissolved, sharing the fate of other democratic institutions in China.

ting up the new party. The delegates to this congress were not elected. They were appointed by the "revolutionary committees" or even only by the "leading core of the revolutionary committees" (true, for the sake of appearances, "democratic consultations" regarding the nomination of delegates were held at some large factories; these were `` consultations'' not with Communists but with the non-party ``masses''). Consequently, the delegates did not represent any organisation, and the congress was, in effect, a national Maoist conference.

The report extolled in glowing terms the "great proletarian cultural revolution" and, of course, the father and architect of that ``revolution''---the "great helmsman". In the report there was no hint of an analysis of the economic situation in China or any mention of the tasks of socialist construction.

After the report was approved, the congress adopted a new Constitution of the CPC and formed its leading bodies. The Constitution, an extremely brief document (a preamble and 12 articles), contains general formulations worded in such a way as to allow for any interpretation suitable to the Maoists. For instance, the Maoists hesitated to renounce the principle of electivity for the party's leading organs, but they specified that elections were to be held "through democratic consultations". The "democratic consultations" that were held before the 9th Congress of the CPC are a sure indication that the approval of Maoistselected candidates at meetings of non-party ``masses'' or of the Maoists themselves would be considered as elections of party bodies.

The new Constitution of the CPC sets no time limit for the convocation of plenary meetings of the new party's Central Committee. The Central Committee formed at the congress makes it obvious that the Maoists have no intention of making that organ decisive. Most of this Maoist CC consists of persons whose sole function is to create, by their presence in the CC, the impression of representing the " revolutionary masses". The Political Bureau has been somewhat enlarged as compared with the Political Bureau that was in office before' the "cultural revolution". It includes almost all members of the "proletarian headquarters" headed by Chairman Mao.

It is very important to note that lately the Maoist leadership has undertaken new manoeuvres with regard to the Communist Party of China. The party was virtually demolished during the "cultural revolution". The Political Bureau and the Secretariat ceased to function and the party committees were disbanded. The "group for,cultural revolution affairs", which in fact set the hungweipings and tsaofans against party bodies and inspired the massacre, of party functionaries, acted in the name of the party's central bodies. The CPC was thus virtually dissolved as an organisation.

However, further developments show that the Maoists have no intention of renouncing the name of Communist Party of China. On the contrary, they are placing in their own service the party's revolutionary past, its fighting experience, its prestige among the people and its huge organisational, ideological and educational possibilities. They are using the name of the CPC to form their own mass political organisation as a means of mobilising the population for the fulfilment of Mao's precepts and ensuring the necessary activity within the boundaries of these precepts. The new party is planned as a congregation of "stainless screws of Chairman Mao" cemented by mechanical discipline and fanatic devotion to Mao Tse-tung. The 9th Congress of the CPC was held in April 1969 for the express purpose of set-

The Maoist political practices are discrediting socialism, rendering an enormous service to the imperialists and giving rich food for their propaganda, which invariably seeks to compromise socialist ideals. For that reason, while unalterably pursuing its policy of international solidarity with the Chinese Communists and the Chinese people, the CPSO has stated its determination to expose the anti-Leninist views and Great-Hanist nationalistic policies of the present Chinese leaders and to step up the struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism and the general line of the communist and working-class movement charted by the 1957, 1960 and 1969 International Meetings in Moscow. It "has resolutely opposed the attempts to distort the Marxist-Leninist teaching, and to split the international communist movement and the ranks of the fighters against imperialism"/^^1^^"

The Maoists by no means represent the whole of China. There are healthy forces among the Chinese people and the Chinese Communists.

Expressing the will of the Soviet Communists and of all Soviet people, L. I. Brezhnev said at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties: "We do not identify the declarations and actions of the present Chinese leadership with the aspirations, wishes and true interests of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people. We are deeply convinced that China's genuine national renascence, and its socialist development, shall be best served not by struggle against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, against the whole communist movement, but by alliance and fraternal co-operation with them."""*

T. R. RAKHIMOV

GREAT-HANIST CHAUVINISM INSTEAD OF THE LENINIST TEACHING ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION

Marxism-Leninism scientifically charted the way to solve the national question, showed the class essence of this question, and determined its place in social development and in the proletarian revolution.

One of the greatest services rendered by Lenin was that he not only upheld the teaching of Marx and Engels on the national question against the attacks of the opportunists of all hues but profoundly and creatively enlarged on that teaching under new historical, conditions.

He was the first to evolve an integral theory of national colonial revolutions as part of the general question of the proletarian revolution and the world revolutionary process. He proved that colonialism would inevitably perish and mapped out the ways and means for the struggle of the oppressed peoples for national independence, democracy and socialism. He showed that in the epoch of imperialism the national question merged with the colonial question, that it affected the interests of the overwhelming majority of mankind and that the liberation struggle became its basic content. In the van of this movement are the Marxist-Leninist parties, which are fighting for the complete eradication of imperialism's colonial system, for the internationalist unity of the working class and the oppressed peoples, for the noncapitalist development of the liberated countries and for the establishment of totally new relations between peoples founded on fraternal friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance.

Guided by Lenin's teaching, the world revolutionary movement has accumulated vast experience in resolving the national question. However, the Chinese leaders ignore the

* 24th Congress of the CPSU, p. 15.

** International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 160.

7---1313

experience of the international working-class movement, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and are counterposing Great-Hanist chauvinism to Leninism.

The People's Republic of China is a multinational state with an intricate national structure. According to official Chinese statistics, 94 per cent of the population are Chinese proper (Han). In addition there are about 50 different nationalities and national groups. The Maoists call them " national minorities''.

Even if we are to accept the figure stating that the " national minorities" comprise 6 per cent of the population, it will be seen that with the whole population numbering over 700 million the non-Chinese peoples number 42-43 million"": Chuang (roughly 8 million), Uigurs (4 million), Tungkang (4 million),-"-* Yi (3.3 million), Tibetans (3 million), Miao (2.5 million), Manchus (2.5 million), Mongols (1.5 million), Puyi (1.5 million), and Koreans (1.2 million).

In addition there are many nationalities numbering several hundred thousand each. They include the Tung (700,000), Yao (660,000), Pai (560,000), Tuchia (540,000), Kazakhs (500,000), Hanyi (500,000), Tai (500,000), Li (360,000), Lisu (310,000), Kawa or Wa (280,000), Yu (210,000) and Kaoshan (200,000).

A point to be noted is that the official figures for the nonChinese population are greatly understated. For instance, prior to 1949 it was considered that the non-Chinese peoples comprised approximately 10 per cent of the population, but the census for 1953-54 gives the percentage only as 6. The Chinese scholar Liu Chen-yu found there were 7 million Tungkang; the 1953-54 census places the number at 3,500,000. Formerly the Chinese themselves had written that there were 5-6 millions of Mongols in China, but according to official statistics their number does not exceed 1,500,000.

Similar understatements are to be found in the statistics for the Uigurs, Tibetans and many other peoples inhabiting China. This deliberate understatement of the numerical strength of the non-Chinese peoples is part and parcel of the

Maoist nationalistic, Great-Hanist policy of forcibly assimilating the Tibetans, Uigurs, Mongols and other peoples.

The non-Chinese peoples inhabit Western China and also some areas in the south and north, occupying almost 60 per cent of China's territory.

Until 1949 huge areas such as Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Chinghai were populated chiefly by non-Chinese.

According to the accepted genealogical and linguistic classification, South and Southwest China are populated by peoples belonging to the Chuang-Tai group (Chuang, Tai, Li, Puyi, Tung and others), the Tibetan-Burmese group ( Tibetans, Yitsu, Hanyi, Lisu, Nahsi, Chingpo, Pai, Lahu, Tuchia and others), the Miao-Yao group, the Mon-Khmer group (Kawa, Puenglung, Kaoshan and others) and also the Tungkang, who linguistically belong to the Chinese group. The non-Chinese peoples inhabiting South and Southwest China constitute roughly 70 per cent of the total number of the numerically small peoples of China. With the exception of the Tungkang, they are closely linked with the peoples of Southeast Asia by origin, language and economic and cultural traditions.

North, Northwest and Northeast China are populated by the Turkic group (Uigurs, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Uzbeks, Tatars, Salar and Yuku or Yellow Uigurs), the Mongol group ( Mongols, Taku, Tunghsiang, Paoan, Tu) and the TungusManchurian group (Manchus, Hsipo or Hsiping, Nanai [Hoche], Evenk, Orochon). According to Chinese statistics the peoples belonging to the Turkic, Mongol and TungusManchurian groups constitute over 20 per cent of the nonChinese population of China. Moreover, there are Koreans in Northeast China, and Tajiks in Sinkiang.

More than half of the Tungkang population live in Northwest China.

The Chuang, Uigurs, Mongols, Tibetans and many other peoples differ fundamentally from the Chinese culturally and linguistically. They have preserved their national specific and have their own history and traditions. For instance, the Uigurs are among the most ancient Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Their long history is closely linked with the history of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Their language, culture and art are closer to those of the Uzbeks. Even according to the understated Chinese statistics, there

* Jenmin Shoutse, 1967.

** Tungkang are locally called Hueitsu, which means Moslem people.---Ed.

7»

are about 4 million Uigurs. Their homeland is Sinkiang, which prior to its conquest by China was called East Turkestan. This area measures 1,700,000 square kilometres, which is one-sixth of China's entire territory.

The Uigurs have their own ancient culture. Their written language dates back 1,000 years. It was adopted by all the Turkic peoples and also by the Mongols and Manchus, who use it to this day with some modifications. At the close of the 9th century the Uigurs created their own state on the foothills of the Tien Shan. The Uigur kingdom, which existed for nearly 500 years, was one of the most developed in Central Asia. It became known for the high level of irrigated farming, handicrafts, sculpture, painting and literature.

For many centuries the Uigurs unceasingly fought their oppressors, for national freedom and independence. The last major attempt to achieve liberation was the rising in Sinkiang in 1944-49. As a result of the armed struggle against the brutal tyranny of the Kuomintang reactionaries, a struggle which was joined by the Kazakhs, Kirghiz and other peoples, three districts in Sinkiang (Hi, Tarbatai and Altai) were cleared of the Kuomintang and a people's democratic government was set up in the liberated territory. A national army was formed, the Chinese name of Sinkiang was dropped and the independent East Turkestan Republic was proclaimed. The Declaration and other legislative acts called for the abolition of the reactionary, anti-popular Kuomintang regime in Sinkiang, the further consolidation of the East Turkestan Republic, the enforcement of democratic reforms, economic development, the promotion of culture and education, the achievement of a higher living standard, the training of national cadres, and other measures. In the national liberation movement of 1944-49 in Sinkiang an outstanding role was played by the national heroes Ahmejan Kasimi, Ganibatyr, Abdukerim Abbas and Ishakbek.

The Chuang,* one of the most ancient peoples of China, are numerically second to the Chinese. According to the statistics for 1957 there were nearly 7 million Chuang in the Kwangsi-Chuang Autonomous Region alone. Besides, there are over half a million Chuang in Yunnan Province and

more than 100,000 in Kwangtung Province. As early as the 9th century the Chuang already had a rich national culture, and their 17th-century outstanding poet Wei Chih-tao, whose poems and songs are revered by the Chuang to this day, occupies a worthy place in world culture.

One of the oldest peoples of Central Asia, the Tibetans constitute the indigenous population of Tibet, whose territory together with the Champo District covers an area of about 1,200,000 square kilometres. Tibetans also inhabit considerable areas in the neighbouring provinces of Chinghai, Szechwan, Yunnan and Kansu. In Chinghai Province they inhabit more than 70 per cent of the territory, and in Szechwan Province the entire western mountainous area occupying nearly half of the province.

The main occupations of the Tibetans are nomad stockraising and farming. They have a totally different culture, national specific and religion than the Chinese. They had their own state as early as the 7th century. Tibet was incorporated in China in 1792, but its dependence on China was largely formal and until 1912 was confined to the presence in Lhasa of a small contingent of Chinese troops and a few Manchu officials. The administration was entirely in the hands of the Tibetan government.

The Mongolian, Tungkang, Miao and many other peoples of China likewise have their own national specific and a long history of struggle for liberation.

For centuries on end the Chinese exploiting classes had pursued a policy of colonisation and conquest towards numerically small peoples. China became a multinational country as a result of military expansion by the Chinese feudal warlords, who annexed vast territories of the non-Chinese peoples in the north, west and south of present-day China.

Many hundreds of thousands of Mongols, Tibetans, Uigurs and other peoples were ruthlessly annihilated in the course of these wars of conquest. During the conquest of modern Sinkiang (1757-59) the Ching troops massacred more than a million people, killing almost the entire population in some areas of that territory.

During the period of the national liberation struggle in China (1921-49) the healthy forces in the Communist Party of China used Leninist principles as their guideline in resolving the national question. As a result the Communist

* In literature the Chuang are also known as Puchuang, Putai, Punung and Pulan.

Party drew up and proclaimed its programme on this question. At the time it was obvious to 'the party that unless the peoples of China were granted the right to self-- determination there could be no question of equality or of the establishment of genuinely fraternal relations between the peoples of China.

The national question was considered for the first time at the Communist Party's 1st Congress in July 1921. It was laid down that the party's main task was to secure the social and national liberation of the peoples of China. The national question figured also in the decisions of the party's 2nd Congress in May 1922. In these decisions it was stated that the revolution's immediate aim was to set up a federal republic on the basis of the equality of all the peoples inhabiting the territory of China. "Mongolia, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan," the decisions recorded, "shall be granted autonomy and turned into democratic federations."* Moreover, it was stated that "China proper, Mongolia, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan shall be united on the basis of a system of free federations and the Chinese Federal Republic shall be formed".**

At its 6th Congress in the summer of 1928, the Communist Party regarded the right to self-determination up to and including secession as the principal means of ensuring the political equality and voluntary union of the peoples of China. The congress adopted a document whose Article 3 spoke of China's union and the recognition of the right to national self-determination. This was dealt with also in the resolution on the national question passed by the 1st National Congress of Soviets in November 1931. It stated: "The Chinese Soviet Republic unequivocally and unconditionally recognises the right of all nations to self-determination.

``This means that in regions like Mongolia, Tibet, Sinkiang, Yunnan, Kweichow and others, in which the majority of the population belong to non-Chinese nationalities, the working masses of these nationalities have the right to determine whether they wish to secede from the Chinese Soviet Republic and set up their own independent state or

enter a Union of Soviet Republics or form an autonomous region within the Chinese Soviet Republic."*

The right of the peoples of China to national self-- determination was recorded in the Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic that was adopted at the congress. "The Soviet power in China," Article 14 of the Constitution stated, "recognises the right of small nations to self-determination, their right to secede and form independent states."**

The CPC's policy in the national question was reaffirmed also in the provisional Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic adopted in January 1934 at the 2nd National Congress of Soviets.***

In the preamble of the CPC Constitution adopted at the party's 7th Congress in 1945 it is stated that the Communist Party of China would "fight for the establishment of a new democratic federal republic as an independent, free, democratic, single and mighty alliance of all the revolutionary classes and a free union of all nationalities".**** This was also the gist of the declaration published on October 10, 1947 by the Command of the People's Liberation Army. The declaration demanded, among other things, the unity of the peoples of China and the "recognition that all the national minorities in China have equal rights and the right to autonomy and to accede freely to the Chinese Federation".***** Thus, in the period from 1921 to 1949 the Communist Party of China acted in accordance with the proletarian stand and principles on the national question and fought to translate these principles into reality. This conformed to the Leninist teaching on the right of nations to self-- determination.

The people's revolution in China was victorious as a result of the common struggle and concerted efforts of all the peoples of China. It opened the road to socialism, to the florescence of all the peoples under conditions of full equality,

* The Soviets in China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1934, p. 440. ** Ibid., p. 422.

*** 2nd Congress of the Chinese Soviets, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1935, p. 145.

**** Constitution of the Communist Party of China, Chinese ed., Talien, 1949, p. 2.

***** G. Yefimov, Outline of China's Modern and Recent History, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1951, p. 465.

* Chang Chih-i, The National Question in the Chinese Revolution. Lectures on the National Question, Uigur ed., Peking, 1958, p. 23. ** Ibid.

friendship and fraternal co-operation. The Chuang, Uigurs, Mongols, Tibetans and other peoples of China had every reason to believe that the establishment of people's rule had given them a real possibility of setting up national states in People's China on the basis of national self-determination.

However, the Maoists renounced the Leninist principles of national self-determination and federal state organisation which had been proclaimed by the Communist Party of China at its congresses. This was a direct revision of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the national question, and a glaring manifestation of Great-Hanist chauvinism. In order to justify this nationalistic policy the Maoist `` theoreticians'' falsify reality in order to prove that in China the conditions do not exist for proclaiming the right of nations to self-determination and for forming a federal state. They allege that the non-Chinese peoples have no territory of their own.

They argue also that ever since ancient times China had taken shape as a "single state", there was "eternal friendship between the Chinese and other nationalities in all the epochs" and that if there had been cases of one nation achieving a higher status and ruling another nation this was "a matter between brothers of one big family". Any demand for self-determination or even a federal organisation of China is branded as illegal, ``counter-revolutionary'', ``nationalistic'' and undermining the "unity of the peoples of China". To back up their assertions that the Leninist principle of national self-determination is inacceptable to China, they offer the following Great-Hanist argument: the Chinese constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, they are the principal nation in the country and occupy the leading position politically, economically and culturally. Mao's recipe for the ``unity'' and ``solidarity'' of the peoples of China amounts to ``unity'' and ``solidarity'' without equality, without national independence, on the basis of the absorption and forcible assimilation of the non-Chinese peoples, the denial to them of the right to national self-determination and the suppression of their aspiration for independence. Naturally, such ``unity'' and ``solidarity'' are unstable and short-lived.

The experience of national development in the USSR and other socialist countries has convincingly shown that genuine

unity and solidarity can be achieved among nations only on the basis of their full equality in all spheres of life, including the political and juridical sphere, which is basic for the national question.

By denying the non-Chinese peoples the right to selfdetermination and the creation of their own state organisation, the Maoists openly flout the Leninist principles in the solution of the national question. The so-called territorial national autonomy"" practised in the PRC has nothing in common with the Marxist-Leninist solution of the national question and pursues Great-Hanist, chauvinistic aims. The creation of these "national autonomies" clearly demonstrates the aspiration of the Chinese leaders to disunite the peoples and foster their speediest assimilation and absorption by the Chinese. This is proved by facts.

National autonomy for the Tibetan people was envisaged in the agreement of May 23, 1951 between the central people's government of China and the local Tibetan government. Under this agreement China pledged to guarantee the freedom of the religion and customs of the Tibetan people, to promote economic, cultural and educational development in Tibet, and so on. However, the creation of the Tibetan Autonomous Region was ``proclaimed'' only in September 1965, fourteen years later.

Numerous facts show that the Maoists have not fulfilled virtually any of the terms of the 1951 agreement. Their policy has been and remains one of completely subjugating Tibet and abolishing all its rights to autonomy.

In addition to the Tibetan Autonomous Region there are nine autonomous districts bordering on Tibet. Their population consists of Tibetans, but the Peking leaders have refused to unite all the Tibetans in one autonomous unit. As a result of this "divide and rule" policy, more than half of the Tibetans in China live outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region. In Tibet itself, the Chinese, of whom there were almost none, today comprise about half the population.

* Three types of national autonomous units have been set up in accordance with the Constitution of the PRC. These are autonomous region, autonomous district and autonomous county. In China today there are five autonomous regions---Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang-Uigur, Kwangsi-Chuang, Ningsia-Hui and Tibet; 29 autonomous districts and 64 autonomous counties.

Matters are not any better as regards the granting of autonomy to the Chuang people. The Chuang live in compact communities in a single territory lying in Kwangsi, Kweichow and Kwangtung provinces, but they are not united in a single autonomous unit. For instance, the KwangsiChuang Region was formed in Kwangsi Province, South China, in such a way as to make the Chuang a minority. Of the 21 million people in this region, 7 million are Chuang and the rest are mostly Chinese. Yet in direct proximity to the Kwangsi-Chuang Autonomous Region---in Kwangtung and Kweichow provinces---there are autonomous districts and autonomous counties of the Chuang and other peoples. Typical of the Maoist practices, part of the Chuang in Kweichow Province has been marked out as an independent nationality called Puyi, while the population of that name inhabiting the far bank of the river has been included in the Chuang nation. The ``autonomy'' of the Chuang is such that more than a million of these people have remained outside the Kwangsi-Chuang Autonomous Region.

The Tehun Autonomous District of the Tai and Chingpo nationalities was set up in Yunnan Province in 1953. In order to increase the proportion of Chinese in that district its territory was extended to include the Chinese town of Paoshan and the adjoining counties with their preponderantly Chinese population. Paoshan supplanted the Tai town of Mangshi as the district centre. The example of Inner Mongolia is typical. In that area an autonomous region was set up as early as 1947 as a result of the Mongolian people's struggle for democracy. The Province of Suiyuan (former Jehol Province) and part of Ningsia Province with their Chinese population were included in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in 1954 on the pretext of rendering "fraternal assistance" to the Mongolian people and uniting all territories with a Mongolian population in a single region. This administrative measure reduced the Mongols to a minority (not exceeding 8-10 per cent of the population) in their own autonomous region.

There were favourable possibilities for uniting the Yi people in an autonomous unit or together with the Lisu, Nahsi, Hanyi and other kindred peoples. But these possibilities were not used.

The formation of mini-autonomous units in the shape of

autonomous counties is another Maoist chauvinistic stratagem to disunite the peoples.

Despite the discontent of the indigenous population, the traditional Chinese names of many national autonomous units have been preserved. For instance the name Sinkiang (in Chinese meaning "new frontier" or "new territory") was given to that region after it was incorporated in China as a colony. In the minds of the Uigurs, Kazakhs and other peoples inhabiting this territory the name Sinkiang is, therefore, associated with the policy of conquests pursued by the Chinese emperors. Following the victory of the Chinese revolution and the formation of the People's Republic of China, the Uigurs, the largest national group in Sinkiang, wanted the name Sinkiang changed to Uiguristan. But this was rejected and even assessed as a manifestation of bourgeois nationalism, as a separatist movement.

Marxism-Leninism teaches that the national question cannot be fully resolved without granting formerly oppressed peoples genuine equality, i.e., not only legal equality but also equality in the economic, cultural and other fields. The social, economic and cultural backwardness of the non-Chinese peoples was the principal obstruction to the attainment of real equality among the peoples of China. Social changes, economic development and the promotion of the culture of the peoples inhabiting China were therefore the tasks facing the Communist Party of China in this sphere.

During the initial years following the proclamation of the PRC and during the years of the first five-year plan, when the proponents of the petty-bourgeois, nationalist line in the CPC had not yet gained the upper hand, the economic and cultural development of the non-Chinese peoples received due attention. In areas with a non-Chinese population the agrarian reform was on the whole completed and feudal relations abolished in 1954. In the livestock-breeding areas the main effort was directed towards the abolition of the system of feudal privileges. In the non-Chinese regions the agrarian and other democratic reforms were followed by socialist transformations. As a result the non-Chinese peoples received the possibility of beginning socialist construction without having to go through the painful capitalist stage, and in some cases even the feudal stage, of development.

During- the initial years of the PRC and during the period of the first five-year plan attention was also accorded to the industrial development of regions with a non-Chinese population. Various industries began to spring up in the Sinkiang-Uigur, Inner Mongolia, Kwangsi-Chuang and other autonomous regions. A drive was launched to abolish illiteracy, promote culture and education, improve the medical service and study the languages and literatures of the nonChinese peoples.

The Leninist teaching on the national question was reflected in the documents of the 8th Congress of the CPC (September 1956). "To consolidate unity among all the country's nationalities," stated the congress resolution on the political report, "and to foster their common progress is an important task of our state.

``We must fully protect their right to national equality, and the right to regional autonomy of all national minorities living in compact communities. We must pay close attention to giving a fully national character to these organs of self-government, and to training more cadres from among the national minorities. Cadres of Han nationality working in national minority areas must overcome all erroneous Great-Hanist ideas. They must help the national minorities, actively and patiently, to become masters of their own affairs."-" *

In the promotion of the economy and culture of the nonChinese areas China received extensive help from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In Sinkiang, for example, the Soviet Union helped to lay the foundations of oil, coal and light industries, and to organise the development of deposits of non-ferrous and rare metals. Hundreds of Soviet skilled workers, engineers and technicians worked at the factories in Sinkiang, and many Soviet scientists, cultural workers and teachers worked in the various educational and cultural institutions in that area.

However, the Maoist "big leap" and the policy of setting up people's communes had a more pernicious effect in the non-Chinese areas than in the rest of China. At the few industrial enterprises built in these areas production dropped sharply. Agriculture declined.

* 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol 1, p. 128.

The mass resettlement of Chinese in these areas is adversely affecting the economy and the life of the local population. For example, as a result of massive settlement the Chinese are now the majority group in Sinkiang, whereas in 1949 they constituted 3 per cent of the population.

The Sinicisation of the non-Chinese areas is being fostered also through forced marriages between local inhabitants and Chinese (resettlers and soldiers). This practice has become widespread in Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and other non-Chinese areas. "Sinicisation," says the Kazakh poetess Marfuga Aitkhozhina, who lived in Sinkiang, "is being pushed forward on a steadily growing scale. Girls of non-Chinese nationalities are forced to marry only Chinese, while young men can only marry Chinese girls. Repression and exile are the punishment for disobedience.''

``Millions of Chinese have settled in Sinkiang," relates Abdrakhmanov, a former resident of that region. "The local population is being expelled from its primordial lands and compelled to settle in arid deserts. Forcible assimilation is on the order of the day. Kazakh, Uigur and Kirghiz girls are taken away from their parents and forced to marry Chinese on pain of death.''

The Mongols in Inner Mongolia fare no better. Livestock-breeding is declining. The Chinese settlers from the central regions are ploughing up the pastures, thereby undermining livestock-breeding and the economy of that territory.

Enormous difficulties are being experienced in Tibet. Economic development is, in effect, confined to the building of strategic highways with the employment of forced labour. The certain socio-economic changes (for instance, the abolition of the large feudal and monastery estates) have not improved the material condition of the working people. On the contrary, the high taxes, the levies for the upkeep of the army and so on have sharply affected the living standard. Food is strictly rationed. In Tibet there are forced-labour camps, and the most fertile land of the Tibetan peasants is turned over to Chinese settlers and to soldiers of the People's Liberation Army stationed in Tibet.

Mao Tse-tung and his abettors have even evolved the "theoretical principles" of the forcible assimilation of nonChinese people. "The Han constitute 94 per cent of China's

population," the journal Sinkiang Hungchi wrote in 1960, "and they are the most advanced as regards their political, economic and cultural development. The merging of nationalities should therefore be put into effect on the basis of one nationality. In China's case, this backbone should be the Han."* "The specifics of the Han nation," the same journal wrote, "will become the common national specifics of the national minorities." "This merging," the newspaper Sinkiang Jihpao announced, "is Marxist and communist assimilation. It is an inevitable trend in society's development. Those who oppose such assimilation oppose socialism and communism, they oppose historical materialism."**

This is totally at variance with Marxism-Leninism, which deprecates forcible assimilation. The union of nations, i.e., the erasure of national distinctions is, as Marxist-Leninist theory sees it, a longer and much more complex process than the erasure of class distinctions and can take place only at the highest phase of communism, when all-round florescence has been achieved by all nations and nationalities. National distinctions, Lenin noted, would remain in evidence for a very long time even after the dictatorship of the proletariat was established throughout the world.

The Maoist nationalistic policies are adversely affecting the national culture, education and art of the Uigur, Kazakh, Mongolian, Tibetan and other peoples of China. The newspapers, journals and books brought out in tiny editions in the Tibetan, Uigur, Mongolian and some other languages are exact replicas of Chinese-language publications. They are filled with laudations of Mao Tse-tung and his ``thought''. Works by non-Chinese authors about the life of non-Chinese peoples are not published.

In order to draw formerly oppressed peoples into the building of socialism it is vital to promote their spoken and written languages and create the conditions for the free .use of these languages. "A democratic state," Lenin wrote, "is bound to grant complete freedom for the various languages and annul all privileges for any one language."*"""" However,

scientific work on the development of the languages of the non-Chinese peoples and the elaboration and improvement of their written languages, started during the initial years of the PRC, has now been almost completely halted. Official policy in this question is entirely subordinated to the Maoist nationalistic line of Sinicising the culture of all the nonChinese peoples.

On the pretext of ``developing'' the languages of the small peoples the Maoists are introducing Chinese words, and they have forbidden the use of native words and also international terms that have long ago become part of the languages of the non-Chinese peoples. The Roman alphabet, adopted with account of the phonetics of the Chinese language and designed for the transcription of Chinese characters, is being forcibly introduced in the non-Chinese written languages. At the close of 1959, for instance, this Chinese written language was forced on the Uigurs, Kazakhs and some other non-Chinese peoples despite the fact that many of the letter combinations were alien, for example, to the Uigur and Kazakh languages. As regards peoples who had no written language of their own, they are simply forced to adopt the Chinese spoken and literary languages.

The purpose of all this is quite obviously to isolate the languages of the non-Chinese peoples from world civilisation, squeeze them into the Chinese language and turn them into dialects of that language. In line with this chauvinistic policy the Maoists are propounding the theory that the "Mongolian spoken and written languages are transitory" and that "in the immediate futuit the Mongolian language will die away". The Maoists are pursuing a similar policy in relation to the languages of the other peoples of China.

Today the desire of the non-Chinese peoples to study their own language and culture are branded as `` revisionism'', "bourgeois nationalism" and "action against the party and socialism", against the "thought of Mao Tse-tung''.

In the non-Chinese areas very many children still do not go to school. At secondary and technical schools and at institutions of higher learning instruction is conducted in the Chinese language and the works of Mao Tse-tung are the main subject of study. In the non-Chinese areas the students of many secondary schools and institutions of higher learnIll

* Sinkiang Hungchi No. 23, 1960. ** Sinkiang Jihpao, March 21, 1960.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 224.

ing are exclusively Chinese. Non-Chinese young people are forcibly sent to the central provinces. Textbooks and education aids are permeated with chauvinism. The history of the non-Chinese peoples is falsified. In spite of historical facts, it is asserted that the Uigur, Tibetan and other small peoples had always (almost since the Stone Age) lived in territory belonging to China (actually the Manchus conquered Inner Mongolia in the 17th century, Sinkiang in 1759, and Tibet in 1792). The rich, century-old culture of the Uigur, Tibetan, Mongolian and other peoples has been proclaimed ``reactionary'' and ``feudal'' and is ignored.

It is well known that religion has extremely strong roots among many of the peoples in China. In Tibet, for example, until very recently it was the custom for at least one son from every family to become a monk and nearly a quarter of the population were monks. Patient atheistic propaganda was renounced by the Maoists in favour of arbitrary administrative measures. They closed most of the temples and monasteries. Monks and priests are persecuted, unfrocked, forced to wear secular clothes and compelled to marry. Tens of thousands of lamas have been repressed and sent to forced labour camps. It should be borne in mind that most of them are from the poorest strata of the population. The struggle against religion and lamas has thus developed into a campaign of mass repressions against a considerable section of the Tibetan people.

The Maoists pursue a Great-Hanist chauvinistic line in filling government and party posts. In total violation of legislation, all the key positions in the non-Chinese regions are in the hands of Chinese. A large section of the national cadres in Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and other areas has been massacred on the pretext of putting an end to local nationalism.

Very indicative in this respect are the documents of a plenary meeting held from December 16, 1957 to April 30, 1958 by the CPC Committee of the Sinkiang-Uigur Autonomous Region. At this plenary meeting the local non-- Chinese cadres were denounced for suggesting renaming Sinkiang into Uiguristan, favouring the Soviet model for the solution of the national question in China and demanding equality for non-Chinese in appointments to posts in the party and the government. They were accused of "betraying

the country and the party" and called "Right deviatipnists, bourgeois nationalists, pan-Turkicists" and so on.

The plenary meeting was followed by mass repressions against non-Chinese cadres. Many were relieved of their posts and sent to "labour re-education" camps. Very few survived this ``re-education''. Among the repressed were Ziya Samedi, a prominent Uigur writer who was head of the Culture Department and Chairman of the Union of Writers of the Sinkiang-Uigur Autonomous Region, Ibrahim Turdy, a poet who headed the region's Internal Affairs Department, Abduraim Saidi, mayor of Urumehi, and Abduraim Aisa, head of the Hi District, who committed suicide. In 1957 the Kazakh writer Kajykumar Shabdanov was sent to a "labour re-education" camp, where the methods of ``re-education'' finally led him to suicide.

Naturally, Peking's Great-Hanist policy with its mass repressions and persecutions has aroused the bitter discontent of the non-Chinese peoples. This discontent frequently assumes sharp forms. Risings flare up periodically in the nonChinese areas. In Tibet, for example, they began as early as 1956. In that area the uprising in March 1959 involved not only the higher clergy and the big feudal lord* but broad masses of the people. In that period the struggle of the Chinese authorities against the Tibetan reactionaries grew into a struggle against the people and led to massacres of the Buddhist clergy. There were large waves of unrest in Tibet in March 1965 and early in August 1965, on the eve of the "cultural revolution". A guerilla war is in progress to this day in the mountains of Tibet. Fear of repression has driven nearly 100,000 Tibetans from their homeland.

A striking example of the discontent with the GreatHanist chauvinistic policy of the present Chinese leaders was the flight of more than 65,000 Kazakhs and Uigurs from Sinkiang to the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan and Central Asia) in 1962.

In the non-Chinese areas the situation has deteriorated still further as a result of the "cultural revolution", which was an unequalled tragedy for all the peoples of China. In 1967 and 1968 armed actions were fought by the people against the Maoists in all the non-Chinese areas; Tibet, loner Mongolia, Sinkiang and the Kwangsi-Ghuang and Ningsia-Hui autonomous regions. Although these actions were

8-1313

brutally suppressed by the Maoists, the struggle against the anti-popular regime was not halted.

In the non-Chinese areas, as throughout China, the constitutional organs of power have been dissolved. The formation of a "revolutionary committee" was proclaimed in Inner Mongolia on November 1, 1967. The official text of this proclamation stated that "henceforth all the authority vested in party, administrative, financial and cultural institutions in Inner Mongolia shall be wielded by the revolutionary committee". The same fate overtook the Ningsia-Hui Autonomous Region in April 1968, the Kwangsi-Chuang Autonomous Region in May, and the Sinkiang-Uigur and Tibetan autonomous regions in September of the same year. In fact, this meant the total dissolution of the organs of people's power and of the party committees. Moreover, the remnants of the autonomy granted to the Mongolian, Tibetan, Chuang, Uigur, Tungkang and other peoples by the PRC Constitution have been abolished. In the autonomous regions the "revolutionary committees" consist mainly of

Chinese.

The further dislocation of the economy in the non-- Chinese areas, the curtailment of industry, the steps being taken to abolish national culture, art and science and the closure of the non-Chinese schools are the direct consequences of the "cultural revolution''.

The Maoists are afraid of the truth about the situation in the Soviet Union. Above all they fear the natural attraction that the peoples of Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia have for the kindred peoples of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and the Mongolian People's Republic. The population of Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang have been forbidden all contact with the peoples of the MPR, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The import and dissemination of books, journals and newspapers published in the USSR and the MPR in the Mongolian, Uigur, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek and other languages understood or used by the peoples of Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia have been banned.

The present Peking leaders have thus renounced the Leninist teaching on the national question and pursue a policy that is alien to the principles of proletarian internationalism. As a result of their chauvinistic line, large nations like the Chuang, Uigurs, Tibetans, Mongols, Tungkang

and Manchus have been deprived of the right to set up their own national state organisation and promote their national economy and culture.

The 9th Congress of the CPC, held in April 1969, only reaffirmed the nationalism and chauvinism of the Maoists. In the party Constitution adopted at that congress there is not a word about national policy, and the non-Chinese are not even mentioned. The Maoists are giving out that nonChinese peoples no longer exist in China, that they have ``merged'' (i.e., have been forcibly assimilated) with the Chinese people.

By their theory and practices the Maoists only intensify distrust and hostility among the peoples of China, undermine proletarian internationalism, and flout the principles of socialism. The national question in China can only be resolved on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist teaching.

G.

both directly and through the Soviets, the organs of state, and public organisations.

In management, Lenin insisted, above all, on a scientific approach, on a determination of the prospects and priority of the tasks on the agenda, and on production's orientation on the most up-to-date equipment, technology and experience. In other words, underlying Lenin's approach to planning and management, as to all other aspects of the activity of the party and the socialist state, are the dialectical method of taking account of the place and time of action and intolerance of stereotypes and of bureaucratic bigotry.

As the basic means of production are socialised, Lenin wrote, "there necessarily comes to the forefront the fundamental task of creating a social system superior to capitalism, namely, raising the productivity of labour, and in this connection (and for this purpose) securing better organisation of labour".''^^1^^'

He showed the methods and the necessity for placing the small producers onto the road of socialist development. He regarded co-operative forms of socialist reorganisation as the most expedient for their economies. Correspondingly, two forms of ownership---co-operative and collective-farm, and state---emerged with the implementation of Lenin's cooperation plan.

Socialism was the first social system in history to create the conditions for the equality of people with regard to the means of production, thereby putting an end to the exploitation of man by man. This equality is put into practice through the distribution of material blessings among working people in accordance with the quantity and quality of the labour expended by each in social production.

Lenin regarded socialist distribution as the lever capable of ensuring the growth of labour productivity, improving the quality of labour and promoting initiative by the workers. At the same time, he saw the historical limitations of the socialist mode of distribution. From the very first days of Soviet power he attached the utmost importance to the shoots of the new, communist attitude to labour. He saw these shoots as "the beginning of a revolution that is more difficult, more tangible, more radical and more decisive than the

LENIN ON SOCIALIST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

THE PRACTICE OF SOCIALIST

CONSTRUCTION IN CHINA

The victory of the Great October Revolution in Russia, which in those days lagged far behind the leading countries economically and culturally, brought the Communist Party and the working people face to face with the enormous problem of achieving the economic and cultural level required by the new, advanced social system. The way to solving this problem was charted by Lenin, who showed that it was possible to build a socialist society in Russia. This problem is dealt with in The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, A Great Beginning, On Co-operation and other works by Lenin.

According to Lenin's teaching the main instrument for building socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, which enables the working class to counter capitalism, the bourgeoisie's contacts, experience of administration, ideology and psychology with proletarian conviction, political consciousness, organisation and discipline.

Lenin's principle of democratic centralism envisages centralised economic management in accordance with a plan and the promotion of collective and individual initiative by the working people. This initiative, Lenin said, could be successfully released only by putting an end to all kinds of parochialism and "bureaucratic centralism".*

The Communist Party unites, co-ordinates and directs the work of all links of the management, carrying out its tasks

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 207-08.

Ibid., p. 257.

overthrow of the bourgeoisie, for it is a victory over our own conservatism, indiscipline, petty-bourgeois egoism, a victory over the habits left as a heritage to the worker and peasant by accursed capitalism"/^^1^^"

The adversaries of socialist changes are trying to prove that Leninism is a "purely Russian phenomenon", that Lenin's teaching and analyses are inapplicable to other countries. In this category are the attempts of petty-- bourgeois ideologists and politicians to play "local specifics" off against the general laws of the revolutionary process.

True, without taking the concrete historical, national and other specifics of a given country into account it is impossible to promote socialist changes and socialist construction in that country. However, in speaking of the diversity of the ways of transition to socialism, the Communists have always emphasised the fact that no specific can or should overshadow the basic features characterising the socialist revolution and society's socialist reorganisation.

Lenin's genius lies precisely in the fact that he singled out these general mandatory features in all spheres of society's socialist reorganisation, including the economy. The Soviet Union's long experience of socialist construction and also the experience of other socialist countries have borne out Lenin's teaching on the building of the economic basis of socialism. Moreover, this experience shows that any attempt to go against Lenin's basic propositions in the given field is fraught with grave consequences for the cause of socialism and inflicts considerable damage on it. Today one can say with full grounds that these consequences and damage were brought to the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people by the adventurist policies of the Maoists.

After the People's Republic was proclaimed, a state socialist sector emerged as a result of the expropriation of state-monopoly (bureaucratic) capital.

In 1949 the state sector accounted for 8 per cent of the country's gross output, the co-operatives 0.2 per cent, state capitalist enterprises 0.4 per cent, private capitalist enterprises 14.6 per cent and small-commodity production 76.8 per cent.* In industrial output the share of the state sector was 26.3 per cent, and of the co-operatives---0.4 per cent. State capitalist industry yielded 1.6 per cent of the total output while private capitalist industry contributed 48.7 per cent and the handicraft industry 23 per cent.""""

The branch structure of the industry accentuated the backwardness of production's material and technical base, a backwardness that was typical of the colonial and dependent countries of the East. Thus, nearly 65 per cent of the total output came from the light industry and only 6.8 per cent from the metalworking industries. The share of the engineering industry in the metalworking sector amounted to less than 40 per cent.*""*

So-called modern production accounted for half of the total cost of industrial output; the other 50 per cent consisted of the output of handicraft enterprises and manufactories.

Few of the industries working chiefly for the foreign market had a full cycle of production. Equipment, too, was extremely obsolete. Only 27 per cent of the industrial enterprises used electric power. According to the industrial census for 1947, the per factory average of mechanical power was only 58 hp.**** Correspondingly, labour productivity was tens of times lower than in the industrially developed countries.

In 1949 three-quarters of the total industrial output came from the seaboard provinces. Four major ports---Shanghai, Tientsin, Kwangchow (Canton) and Tsingtao---had 70 per cent of the country's factories. The manufacturing industry

All the socio-economic formations known to history, from primitive in the inland areas to large capitalist in the big cities and along the coast, were in existence in China at the time the people's revolution was accomplished. However, the small-peasant semi-natural economy predominated in the country as a whole.

* Sovetskoye kitayevedeniye No. 1, 1958, p. 63.

** Basic Indices of Economic Development in the People's Republic of China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1958, pp. 34-35. *** The Great Decade, Chinese ed., Peking, 1959, p. 81. **** Hsinhua Yuyehpao No. 1, 1949, p. 10.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 411.

was isolated from the raw-material and fuel resources. Many of the factories, particularly in Shanghai, used imported raw materials and fuel. Vast inland regions with a population of over 300 million, to say nothing of Tibet, Sinkiaflg, Inner Mongolia and other outlying areas (nearly 60 per cent of the country's territory), had no industry at all. Feudal relations were still supreme in these regions.

The dislocation caused by the long wars added to the enormously difficult task of achieving an economic upsurge. In 1949 industrial output fell to 50 per cent of the maximum level in the years preceding the formation of the People's Republic of China.* Heavy industry was the hardest hit. Pig-iron production was only 13.6 per cent and steel production only 17.2 per cent of the maximum level.** The output of grain dropped to 74.6 per cent and cotton production to 52 per cent of the prewar level.***

As a result of the glaring industrial backwardness the Chinese proletariat was numerically small. In Chinese industry in 1936 there were roughly 4,200,000 factory and office workers, of whom 3,200,000 were engaged directly in production.**** Of this total nearly 2,000,000, or 60 per cent, were employed at small and tiny factories, most of which did not use mechanical power. In 1936 there were 7,600,000 handicraftsmen.*****

The Chinese workers had the worst working conditions and the lowest wages. Even the income of the "most prosperous" contingents of working people---industrial workers employed in large-scale production and handicraftsmen--- averaged only 12-18 yuan per month (correspondingly 25 and 37.5 yuan according to the 1955 index).*'

In old China the national bourgeoisie was extremely weak and dependent. Foreign capital and the bureaucratic capital collaborating with it predominated controlling 62.2 per cent

of the total investments in industry.* It was only in the textile industry that 56 per cent of the investments belonged to the national bourgeoisie.** Bureaucratic capital forged into the limelight after the war with Japan ended. Many of the Japanese-owned industrial enterprises were taken over by the Kuomintang "National Resources Committee", which was actually a total of the notorious "four families''.

Nine-tenths of China's population lived in the countryside. At the time the People's Republic of China was formed poor peasants and farm labourers constituted 90 per cent of the rural population but owned- only 30 per cent of the land. The rest of the land belonged to the landowners and kulaks, who, together with the usurers, held the peasants in their fist. The annual land rent paid by the peasants to the landowners amounted to over 30 million tons of grain. All this created insuperable barriers to the development of the productive forces in the countryside. Medieval backwardness, which had been surmounted in the more developed countries, remained almost inviolable in China.

The Chinese revolution triumphed when the foundations of the world socialist system had already been firmly laid. The world socialist system emerged as a result of the victory over the fascist-military bloc in the Second World War, in which the decisive part was played by the Soviet Union. The international situation thus allowed revolutionary China to consolidate her position and build the foundations for future socialist development.

Furthermore, the possibility for China's socialist development was ensured by a number of favourable objective conditions: her vast territory, rich natural resources and a large hard-working population spurred by revolutionary energy.

During the initial period of the people's power the Communist Party on the whole pursued an economic policy which enabled it to lay the foundations of a socialist economy despite the enormous difficulties. This was further confirmation of the vitality of Lenin's propositions on the transition of backward countries to socialism and on the ways of achieving that transition.

* Economic Achievements of the People's Republic of China in 1949-53, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1954, p. 164. ** Basic Indices..., p. 40. *** Economic Achievements.. ., p. 175.

**** Economic Development and Life of the People in China, Chinese ed., Peking, 1958, p. 295. ***** Ibid. *) Ibid., pp. 297, 298.

* A Course in the Economics of Chinese Industry, Chinese ed., Peking, 1958, p. 17.

** Economic Development and Life.. ., p. 6.

In the People's Republic of China the key task in economic development during the period of transition was the building of a modern industrial base. This task was carried out parallel with society's reorganisation along socialist principles, which envisaged the final abolition of all exploiting classes and the transition from the old forms of private ownership to socialist ownership.

In the decisions adopted by the CPC during this period it was stated:

``The country's socialist industrialisation and the gradual socialist reorganisation of agriculture, the handicraft industry and the trade and industrial enterprises in the hands of private capitalists shall be effected in the course of a fairly long span of time." Further, it was pointed out that a departure from this line would "inevitably lead to errors of a Right or `Left' deviation"/^^1^^"

In 1950-52, guided by the party's general line, the Chinese people carried out an agrarian reform, which created the economic foundation for a firm alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

The state sector had strong positions in the leading branches of the heavy industry and controlled the bank and financial system and foreign trade.

In the period from 1950 to 1952 the Chinese people in the main restored the national economy to its highest prewar level and even completed the initial stage of socialist transformations, which were characterised by a rapid growth of the lower forms of co-operation in agriculture and the swift spread of the primary forms of state capitalism in the towns.

Economic co-operation between the Soviet Union and China developed throughout the period of rehabilitation. During these years China received considerable credits from the Soviet Union. Soviet specialists worked in the leading branches of the national economy.

As a result of the period of rehabilitation, the balance of the social sectors in industry changed in favour of socialism. The socialist and state-capitalist sectors began to play the leading role in all types of basic heavy industry output. They accounted for from 70 to 95 per cent of the output of the

* Theses for the Study and Propagation of the Party's General Line in the Period of T transition, p. 10.

heavy engineering, chemical, metallurgical and power engineering industries. This provided the foundation for launching the industrialisation programme on the basis of planned economic development.

The first five-year plan of economic development for 1953-57 was finally endorsed in July 1955. As regards the targets of this plan, the accompanying decision stated: "The primary basis for the country's industrialisation shall be built ... and the primary basis for the socialist reorganisation of agriculture and the handicraft industry shall be created through the promotion of agricultural producers' cooperatives founded on partial collective ownership and also of producers' co-operatives of handicraftsmen; the basis for the socialist reorganisation of private industry and trade shall be created through the reorganisation of private capitalist industry and trade along the lines of various forms of state capitalism.''

Under the first five-year plan the gross output of the state sector almost trebled, its share of the national economy rising from 19.1 per cent in 1952 to 33.2 per cent in 1957. Substantial headway was made in the establishment of cooperatives of handicraftsmen which accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the country's industrial output, meeting from 70 to 80 per cent of the countryside's requirements in means of production and manufactured goods.

The highest form of state capitalism, which placed under state control, regulation and management not only the sphere of circulation but also the production sphere, likewise made steady headway. The production sphere was represented by a rapidly expanding sector of mixed enterprises, part of whose capital belonged to the state. Compared with the beginning of the five-year plan period the number of these enterprises trebled in 1954-55, while their share of the value of the gross output rose to 16.1 per cent. In the total output of the private capitalist and state-capitalist sectors, the latter's share rose to 50 per cent by the close of 1955 as against 11 per cent in 1952.

By mid-1956, as a result of sharply accelerated reorganisation, practically the whole of the private-capitalist industry (99 per cent in terms of value and 98 per cent in terms of the number of employees) was reorganised into a mixed state-private industry. Correspondingly, in 1956 the

share of the various sectors in the country's industrial output underwent a substantial change. For instance, the state and co-operative sectors produced nearly two-thirds of the output as against 44.7 per cent in 1952, the state-capitalist sector (consisting of mixed enterprises), which was closely affiliated to the state sector, yielded 26 per cent of the total output as against 4 per cent in 1952, while the private capitalist sector now produced only 0.1 per cent as against 30.7 per cent in 1952, and the small-commodity sector accounted for 8.5 per cent as against 20.6 per cent in 1952.

The state plan, which envisaged increasing the share of the state and co-operative sectors in industry to 59 per cent, of the state-capitalist sector to 10 per cent, and of the cooperative sector in agriculture likewise to 10 per cent, was thus considerably overfulfilled almost two years before the end of the five-year plan period. In agriculture the five-year plan target was to draw nearly 30 per cent of the peasant households into producers' cooperatives.*

Until the autumn of 1955 co-operation proceeded generally in line with Lenin's proposition that the "proletarian state must effect the transition to collective farming with extreme caution and only very gradually, by the force of example, without any coercion of the middle peasant".** Using the age-old tradition of mutual help in the countryside, the Communist Party at first organised the peasants into mutual-aid teams in which, under the new conditions, the accent was placed on the utmost development of the socialist principles of collective work. Agricultural producers' co-operatives began to be set up fairly quickly on private land already at the outset of the five-year plan. In these lower-type co-operatives the peasants worked collectively but the land remained privately owned. At the same time, there appeared, by way of an experiment, individual agricultural co-operatives of the higher type, in which the land, the basic farm implements and draught animals were turned over to collective ownership.

However, at the close of 1955 and the beginning of 1956 Mao Tse-tung forced the party to adopt a policy of sharply accelerating the socialist reorganisation of the countryside.

* Documents of the Second Session of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1956, p. 340. ** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 157.

By administrative order co-operation embraced the whole country within six months, beginning in the winter of 1955. As a rule the transition was effected from individual husbandries to the higher-type agricultural co-operatives, in which the land became collective property. More than 740,000 agricultural producers' co-operatives were set up in 1956. These embraced 96.3 per cent of all the peasant households, of which 87.8 per cent were organised at once into higher-type co-operatives.

The plan of social reorganisation in the countryside charted in the CPC's general line for the period of transition was thus subjected to a ``Leftist'' revision.

On the whole, the first five-year plan was successfully fulfilled despite the objective difficulties, the subjective miscalculations, the shortcomings in planning, and so on. Altogether, 55,000 million yuan were invested in capital construction during the five years (1953-57). Of this sum over 25,000 million yuan were invested in industry. The 85 to 15 ratio of the investments in the heavy and light industries ensured the accelerated building of the material and technical basis of socialism. New industries such as the automobile, aircraft, instrument-making, heavy engineering and power engineering industries sprang up during the period of the first five-year plan. In all, 694 large industrial projects were built, including the metallurgical plants in Wuhan and Paotow, the automobile works in Changchun, the tractor and ball-bearing factories in Loyang, and the heavy engineering plants in Fulaerhti and Taiyuan.

During the five-year period the annual increment rate of gross output averaged almost 14 per cent. Industrial output showed an annual average increment of 18 per cent, and agriculture 4.5 per cent. The output of the means of production registered the fastest rate of growth.

In this period there was a considerable numerical growth of the working class. At the close of 1957 there were 24,500,000 factory and office workers. The number of workers employed directly in production totalled 9,000,000 as against 4,900,000 in 1952. In 1956 there were 82 engineers and technicians per 1,000 workers as against 42 in 1952. True the engineer-technician ratio was only 1:12, and most of the technicians did not have the necessary general education.

II

The sharp acceleration of social transformations in 1955- 56, first in the countryside and then in the towns, was theoretically explained by Mao Tse-tung with the thesis that co-operation in agriculture must precede industrialisation and would create the correct conditions for swift industrial development.

This was a direct infraction of the Marxist-Leninist proposition that in a predominantly peasant country the socialist reorganisation of the countryside through co-operation was necessary and could be successful only with the growth of industry and through a production union between socialist industry and the individual small-commodity husbandries in the rural areas.

Mao Tse-tung tried to prove that co-operation would, without substantial material expenditures by the state, create an "unbounded market" and a "rapidly growing demand" for manufactured goods, including heavy industry products, in the countryside.

In line with this theory an attempt was made to achieve a high rate of industrial growth soon after the forced cooperation of agriculture and the handicraft industry and the reorganisation of private capitalist industry into state-- capitalist industry.

In the foreword to a volume entitled Socialist Upsurge in the Chinese Countryside, which was brought out in December 1955, Mao called for the "breaking of the old framework" of the first five-year plan. The bumper harvest of 1955, the available reserves and a number of subjective factors made it possible to boost production in 1956 by 28 per cent (with a 40 per cent increase of the output of the means of production). This was achieved mainly through a sharp expansion of the use of live labour. For instance, in 1956 alone the number of factory and office workers increased by 5,000,000, i.e., by 27 per cent as against 1955.

The economy was heavily hit by the attempt to "break the old framework": the co-operative-production links in industry were disrupted, quality deteriorated and many industrial projects were uncompleted. In the Central Committee political report to the 8th Congress of the CPC in September 1956 it was pointed out in this connection that

the deviation from the party's general line would inevitably lead to Right or ``Left'' errors.

Characterising the ``Left'' deviation, the Central Committee of the CPC noted that it lay mainly "in the demand to build socialism 'in one fine morning'; in the refusal to see that the transition to socialism should be effected by gradual progress"/^^1^^'

Mao's ``Leftist'' line was manifested in the forcing of socialist transformations, in attempts to achieve a sharp acceleration of the rate of industrial development. This subjectivist, adventurist line was denounced by the 8th Congress of the CPC.

The 8th Congress ruled that after socialist transformation had been on the whole completed, the key task of the socialist revolution should be the building of the material and technical basis of socialism. To this end industrialisation, with priority for the heavy industry (heavy engineering and metallurgy), was to be pursued in the course of three fiveyear periods (or a somewhat longer period).

The control figures for the second five-year plan envisaged raising output by 53.8 per cent in 1962 over the 1957 level (in terms of value). The gross industrial product was to total 140,800 million yuan as against 78,400 million yuan in 1957 (an increase of 78.3 per cent); agricultural output was to rise to 72,500 million yuan as against 60,300 million yuan in 1957 (an increase of 20.2 per cent).

Under the second five-year plan the annual rate of growth of gross output was to be approximately 20 per cent in industry and 5 per cent in agriculture. Correspondingly, the wages of factory and office workers and the incomes of the peasants were to rise 20-30 per cent as compared with 1957.

The fulfilment of the extremely important tasks set by the 8th Congress required the efficient organisation of all branches of the managerial and production apparatus of the national economy. The attainment of the high indices envisaged by the second five-year plan for such sophisticated and, for China, new branches of production as, for instance,

* Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Russ. ed., Vol. I, Peking, 1956, p. 18.

oil extraction and refining, the manufacture of metal-cutting lathes, heavy machines and mechanisms, and much else called for the steady development of economic, scientific and technological co-operation with the advanced industry and science of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. This co-operation, as was shown by the experience of the first five-year plan, helped China to surmount difficulties such as the shortage of cadres, the lack of economic, managerial and technical know-how and the inadequate capacities for the production of up~to-date plant for modern industries.

However, after the 8th Congress the nationalistic group headed by Mao steered the country towards the so-called "big leap forward" whose method was unmitigated voluntarism and whose ``theoretical'' foundation was subjectivism springing from recognition of the "decisive role" of the ``leader'' in the economy. This quickly brought the country's economy to an impasse, threw it back 10-12 years, drastically narrowed the front of technological progress and seriously affected the living standard.

A simple calculation shows that had economic development proceeded as envisaged by the second and the third (1963-67) five-year plans, China would have increased her national income in 1967 by at least 200 per cent as compared with 1952, and the total value of her industrial output would have been 12.5 times greater than in 1949.*

Renunciation of the scientific principles of planning sharply slowed down China's economic growth and upset the inter-branch proportions. Individual achievements, for instance, in the output of mineral fertilisers and oil in 1967, were whittled down, and there was a general slackening of growth in other major indices.

III

The Great-Hanist aspirations of the proponents of the nationalist line steadily diverged from the objectively necessary direction of China's development and came into conflict with the principles of scientific communism.

In defining the relationship between politics and economics, Lenin stressed that under conditions of socialist construction politics were the concentrated expression of the requirements of economic development. This is due to the fact that in the stated period economics were "our principal policy", and economic development was given priority. The destiny of socialism, Lenin said, depended on how successfully politics coped with this task.

In opposition to the Marxist-Leninist materialist approach, which recognises the ultimate decisive importance of economic relations in the entire system of social relations, the Maoists are guided by the principle that "politics are the commanding force". They absolutise politics and completely isolate it from and set above economics as a self-sufficing force.

In this context the precept that "politics are the commanding force" hardly differs from the proposition expounded by the petty-bourgeois Socialist Eugen Karl Diihring, who held that politics underlay development and that economics were a secondary factor. The Maoist interpretation of politics stems directly from their unscientific understanding of the decisive role of the leader in historical development.

The call to "break the old framework" of the first fiveyear plan, made at the second session of the 8th Congress of the CPC, was tantamount to a renunciation of balanced proportionate economic development in accordance with the country's real potentialities and resources. In other words, the Maoists rejected planning as a mandatory condition for the development of the socialist economy. Instead, they advanced the thesis of ``zigzag'' development: ".. .an upsurge, then an ebb, and then an even bigger upsurge or, in other words, a leap forward"."" This thesis has been used to supplant the law of planned proportionate development.

* For the sake of comparison we offer data showing the growth of the national income in the 17 years from 1951 to 1967 (1950=100): CMEA countries---380; Common Market countries---240; USA---190. Growth of the volume of industrial output in the CMEA countries as compared with the prewar level: Bulgaria---27-fold; German Democratic Republic---5-fold; Poland---13-fold; USSR---almost 10-fold; Hungary---7-fold; Mongolian People's Republic---14-fold; Rumania--- 12-fold; Czechoslovakia---6-fold.

* Second Session of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Peking, 1958, p. 29.

9---1313

The Maoists have evolved the so-called "law of divided unity" to replace the dialectical law of the unity and conflict of opposites and used it as the philosophical foundation for the ``zigzag'' development of the economy. They contend that the disproportions created in the national economy by zigzag development are a manifestation of the division of the opposite sides of equilibrium and bring the entire economy into a state of non-equilibrium, which alone is "revolutionary, creative''.

Leninism attaches great importance to the problem of improving the relations of production under socialism. Marxists-Leninists consider that the relations of production develop with the growth of the productive forces and at each new, higher stage of the building of socialism, of the development of the socialist economy, they steadfastly pursue a line of improving the relations of production in accordance with the changing level of the productive forces.

In the Maoist economic practice everything is the other way round. The relations of production are regarded as virtually the determining component in the socialist mode of production and are turned into an object of wilful `` transformation'' from which a radical and immediate growth of the productive forces is expected. In line with this view, in 1958 the Maoists forced the Communist Party of China to institute the communisation of the countryside on a national scale and calculated on following this up with the establishment of a system of people's communes in the towns.

``The most perfect relations of production", which had allegedly taken shape in the people's communes, were characterised by the total collectivisation of all, including personal, property. The people's communes had an obsolete technical basis and, as in individual peasant farms, manual labour was predominant. The "most perfect relations of production" therefore soon led to a drastic decrease of labour productivity and to a decline in agriculture. It will be recalled that the situation was somewhat improved only when the adventurist experiments with the people's communes were in effect dropped.

Lenin teaches that socialist democracy is fostered by the development and improvement of socialist relations. In this sense, he noted, the dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian, socialist democracy are identical concepts.

In present-day China, on the contrary, bureaucracy and administration by injunction are inevitably intensifying in the economy and all other aspects of life. The Maoist economic policy is aimed at freezing the living standard at the bare existence minimum and mobilising all means and resources in order to step up military construction, whose scale far exceeds the country's material possibilities. This policy is sharply at variance with the Marxist-Leninist proposition that the interrelation and community of the interests of individuals, production collectives and social groups and classes with those of society as a whole grow and develop as socialist construction gains headway.

The maximum satisfaction of the material and cultural requirements of groups of working people and of individuals is only achieved through the successful development of social production. The fact that the interests of the Chinese working class and peasants are being increasingly sacrificed for the military Great-Hanist policy endorsed by the 9th Congress of the CPC is striking evidence of the Maoists' departure from the Leninist principles of socialist construction.

A principle in operation under socialism is "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work". Maoism has rejected the law of distribution according to work and proclaimed egalitarian distribution as its ideal. It must be stressed that this sort of ``ideal'' is needed by the Maoists in order to justify their policy of keeping the living standard at the fringe of the bare existence minimum, and of counterposing the interests of the state and society to the interests of individuals.

Maoism preaches that moral incentives for work become a "universal factor" already at the stage of transition from exploiting society to socialism. "Work for the sake of the revolution and not for the sake of money" is declared an economic law and the ideal of the Chinese workingman. Any aspiration to better one's material condition through work is regarded as ``egoism'' and "counter-revolutionary economism''.

This is entirely at variance with Lenin's precept that socialism cannot be built on enthusiasm, that it can only be built through material incentives backed up with enthusiasm. As regards the countryside, Lenin sternly cautioned those Russian Communists who were hurrying to communise

«*

131

it: "As long as our countryside lacks the material basis for communism, it will be, I should say, harmful, in fact, I should say, fatal, for communism to do so."^::"

The logic of Maoism's "new propositions" has inexorably led to the negation of all the positive aspects of the experience and economic methods applied in the socialist countries, particularly in the USSR. The Maoists describe this experience as ``revisionist'' because these countries use material incentives, the category of profit, and so on, i.e., take into account the operation of the law of value in the building of the new society. The rejection of socialist material incentives and of economically substantiated methods of development was inevitably followed by the denigration of Soviet economic achievements.

In practice the separation of the interests of the Chinese working people from the interests of society and the state takes place as the alienation of the people from state and public property in the towns and the countryside. This is the inescapable result of the dissolution of the trade unions, the abolition of the system of production conferences and, lastly, the use of Army units to control factories and agricultural production teams.

tem. There is no need to prove this system's progressive nature and how beneficial it is to the working people of the different countries.

In the course of their "big leap" and "cultural revolution" the Chinese leaders severed their country's successfully developing economic relations with the socialist community. They advanced the theory of "reliance on one's own resources" and feverishly began to reorient China's key heavy industries on co-operation with Japanese, West German, British and other monopolies. They believed this would swiftly meet the requirements chiefly of the war, notably missile, industry. Moreover, their policy of dumping sales of textiles and other traditional products, for instance, in Southeast Asian countries was linked directly with the rigid restriction of consumption, which worsened the already difficult condition of the Chinese working people.

Lenin attached great importance to the centralised management of the economy on a national scale. "Socialism," he wrote, "is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation, which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution."*

While preparing for the "big leap" the Maoists began decentralising the management and planning of production, including the heavy industry. On Mao's instructions 80 per cent of the industry was transferred in the summer of 1958 to the jurisdiction of local organs of government.

During the "cultural revolution" the Chinese leaders again reverted to this pattern with the sole difference that the decentralisation of economic management was now justified and explained as stemming from the need to set up a system of self-sufficing units "against the eventuality of war", so that each of these units would be an "unassailable military fortress". Actually, by rupturing co-operation among the different regions this system nourishes the centrifugal tendencies and forces that are traditional in China and retards technological progress. Under it nationwide economic links cease to be an expression of a rational division of labour and must evidently be sustained, so to speak, by superstruc-

The emergence and growth of the world socialist system brought to life phenomena such as the co-ordination of economic planning in socialist countries and the promotion of advanced forms of economic relations between these countries. Socialism creates the conditions for comprehensive economic co-operation between peoples. This co-operation benefits all the participants and its aim is to foster the speediest progress of all members of the socialist community. It combines the national economies of the socialist countries in an integrated economic system.

Lenin pointed out that the drawing together of nations begins in capitalist society,** but the creation of a worldwide economy regulated jointly by the workers of all nations is placed on the agenda only with the rise of the socialist sys-

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 465. ** Ibid., Vol. 20, p. 27; Vol. 31, p. 147.

Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 339.

tural means through a military-bureaucratic machinery of administration. In this sphere, too, we see a case of economics being separated from politics. Instead of being the concentrated expression of economics, politics hold sway over economics.

The decentralisation of economic management in China by no means implies greater democracy in the management of industry. Whereas under socialism centralism, in its Leninist interpretation, organically combines with consistent democracy (the principle of democratic centralism as applied in the economy), the transfer of economic management to the localities in China presupposes, on the contrary, a shift of the responsibility for the production programme to the local authorities ("revolutionary committees") without any material or, frequently, even technical assistance, or without centralised financing from the government. This pursues the purpose of releasing centralised resources for the financing of the military programme and other, chiefly noneconomic, projects. The system of "managerial tiers" in the Chinese economy is sooner reminiscent of the "bureaucratic centralism" that was condemned by Lenin.*

In the light of the aforesaid one can clearly see the hollowness of the Maoist attacks on the principle of one-man management in production under socialism. Socialism, Lenin noted, "calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people``/'^^1^^'* But the Maoists have rejected the socialist principle of one-man management in production and replaced it by the leadership of the party committee at the enterprise. Such a system not only deprives the management of the necessary operational efficiency but, particularly in view of the experience of the "cultural revolution", places the head of a factory or other enterprise in the position of almost a hired ``specialist'' to whom the interests of the people are alien, and stifles his economic and technical initiative.

The history of industrialisation in the Soviet Union offers many vivid examples of creative initiative by the people in promoting the country's economy. "Our first five-year

plans," L. I. Brezhnev said, "were real battles for socialism, and like any other battle they gave birth to talented commanders and selfless heroes. The party embarked on extensive work and moved to the fore a galaxy of outstanding organisers of industry, of leaders of the national economy."*

The promotion of experienced and resourceful leaders of production remains a characteristic feature of the Leninist style and methods of organising and managing the national economy in socialist countries. In present-day China, however, the principal criterion for appointing leaders of industry, construction and transport is their ability to ``prove'' their devotion to the ``thought'' of Mao and to him personally. This criterion of a "foremost worker in industry" by his unerring declamation of excerpts from the Mao book of quotations is quite official.

In short, the Maoist concept of economic development rejects all the fundamental tenets of the Marxist-Leninist theory and practice of socialist economic development. In line with this concept the socio-economic structure of the state is portrayed as a system consisting of numerous selfsufficing closed communes or units. Each of these units produces just enough to provide its members with a minimum living on the basis of "reliance on one's own resources". In other words, the state does not finance the national economy. The central authority, like the beekeeper who extracts honey from his hives, puts its hands on the surplus and even a good portion of the necessary product in the form of taxes, deliveries in kind, and so on. These accumulations are used for the upkeep of the state-bureaucratic apparatus, for the enlargement of the war industry and for the realisation of foreign-policy plans.

As may be seen from the decisions adopted on August 29, 1958 by an extended sitting of the Political Bureau, ever since the "big leap" Mao saw his ideal economic structure in the rural people's commune with its "composite character" and ability to promote industry, agriculture, trade, finances, military training and education. Its prototype was the 100 per cent peasant and handicraft economic organisation

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 207, ** Ibid., p. 268.

* L. I. Brezhnev, Fifty Years of Great Achievements of Socialism, Moscow, 1967, p. 23,

in the liberated areas of the period of the war against Japan, during the so-called Yenan period.

For some years after the setbacks suffered by the people's communes, Mao doggedly sought to organise an economy that would serve as the model for agriculture and industry. This was the so-called Tachai brigade and the Taching Oilfield. The substance of this experiment was that the state should halt all investments in agriculture and that its investments in industry should be used exclusively for production needs. The growth of production was to be ensured by intensifying labour, material incentives were to be annulled, the expenditures on wages were to be reduced to the minimum, expenditures on social and everyday requirements were to be practically stopped, and labour and the everyday life of the people were to be organised on the Army pattern. The ``self-sufficiency'' of each production unit was to be ensured by "combining industrial and agricultural production" and the funds thus ``saved'' were to be used for centralised, above all military, requirements.

The collapse of the "big leap" and the ensuing severe crisis of the entire economic system led to widespread criticism of Mao's economic principles in the Communist Party of China. This criticism noted that Mao's concept of economic development was characterised by petty-bourgeois traditions and dogmatism. For instance, Sun Yeh-fang, a leading economist, noted that the rejection of objective economic laws in favour of slogans like "politics is the commanding force" had stripped the relations of production of all meaning. Further, Sun Yeh-fang pointed out that in economic theory and practice precedence had been given to the bureaucratic system of administration by injunction, to the ideology of ``self-sufficiency'' and to the natural economy, that in many cases the economic management was structured along the lines of a feudal estate or a primitive commune. Such views, the Chinese press reported, were current not only among economists but also among leading cadres in state economic institutions and at the factories.

The period of ``regulation'' (1961-65) that followed the "big leap" and lasted almost five years witnessed an evident but not always consistent restoration of the socialist principles of managing and organising the national economy

and a return to the programme tenets of the party's general line of the period of transition and of the 8th Congress. The relatively swift rehabilitation of the severely dislocated economy gave the party further proof that only scientific socialist principles of economic development could ensure China's economic growth and turn her into a developed, advanced, socialist state. Mao realised that in this situation he could not pursue an anti-socialist line through the organs of people's power and the party apparatus. At the close of 1965, relying on the Army which had been carefully prepared, he accomplished a political coup. This was the "cultural revolution''.

On the pretence of fighting ``economism'' and ``egoism'' the Maoists launched a fresh assault on the living standard of the working class and the peasants. A military-- bureaucratic regime was set up.

China's socio-economic system is founded on state and cooperative ownership of the means of production resulting from the confiscation of foreign and bureaucratic capital, the abolition of the landed estates and the formation of cooperatives in the countryside. However, serious infractions of the economic laws and principles of socialist economic management, and the destruction of the political superstructure that had been built up after the people's revolution have emasculated the elements of socialism in China's socio-- economic system.

The aim of socialist society, Lenin emphasised, is to ensure "full well-being and free, all-round development for all the members of society".* The Maoists have abandoned that aim. The operation of the basic economic law of socialism has been disrupted in China.

The Maoists are out to use the military-bureaucratic regime to subordinate the development of social production to their hegemonistic ambitions to the detriment of the people's interests. Far from promoting the welfare of the people the distribution of the national income is used as a means of fostering the Great-Hanist designs of the Maoists.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 54.

The measures instituted by the Maoists are largely aimed at using political manoeuvres and direct repressions to suppress the legitimate economic demands of the people and production collectives. One of socialism's basic principles, which calls for the people's participation in economic management, has been jettisoned. The organs set up to crush the resistance of the exploiting classes and external enemies are being used more and more against the people, who are demanding the reassertion of their political rights. The planned proportionate development of the economy has been replaced with voluntaristic ``leaps''. Egalitarianism has ousted distribution according to work. Material incentives have given way to non-economic compulsion. All this is undermining the nature of state ownership as ownership by the people.

The intensification of para-military and bureaucratic methods of leadership and the removal of the working people from economic management are bringing the people round to regarding state property as alien to them. It seems quite possible that state interests will be totally isolated from the entire range of objectively existing economic interests of the labouring classes and social groups of the population. Subordination of social production to the interests of the military-bureaucratic dictatorship contravenes the aspirations of the Chinese people and the task of building socialism.

The Maoists' policies and practices have brought the country's economy to an impasse. The economic system, which had begun to recover from the shattering effects of the "big leap", found itself rocked again to its very foundations by the "cultural revolution". There is only one way out of this situation, and it is to return to the Leninist principles of economic development based on a profound knowledge of the objective laws of social development.

V. KHLYNOV

DEVELOPMENT OF STATE CAPITALISM

IN CHINA AND THE MAOIST ATTITUDE

TO THE NATIONAL BOURGEOISIE

The founders of Marxism held that in the concrete conditions of the socialist revolution the forms and means of abolishing capitalism conforming most fully with the interests of one country or another would be found by the Communist parties themselves. At the same time they outlined some possible ways of abolishing capitalist ownership and noted that when the proletariat seized power it could take over the means of production simply by force or pay compensation for them in full or in instalments."" The experience of the socialist countries has borne out this scientific prevision and shown that the various means used by the dictatorship of the proletariat to put an end to capitalist relations of production are determined by concrete socio-economic conditions and by the alignment of class forces in the country itself and on the international scene. Despite certain distinctions, all the methods of abolishing capitalist property pursue the purpose of turning it into public property.

After the October Revolution in Russia the Communist Party launched a programme for the nationalisation and socialisation of the basic means of production. A socialist system began to take shape. In the conditions obtaining at the time the Communist Party found it expedient to combine the nationalisation of the key branches of the economy with state capitalism.

* K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1970, pp. 352-53.

J39

In the spring of 1918 Lenin wrote that state capitalism would be a "step forward" and that its attainment would be a victory.* He regarded the development of state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat as one of the possible ways of abolishing capitalist ownership and socialising the means of production.

However, in reply to efforts to achieve a peaceful reorganisation, the Russian bourgeoisie questioned the very existence of Soviet power. It "went to all ends to provoke us into an extremely desperate struggle",""* which led to an incomparably faster and more radical breakup of the old relations.

Following the Civil War and the foreign intervention, when the Soviet state adopted the New Economic Policy, i.e., after the capitalists had been in the main expropriated, the need arose, as Lenin put it, for "a retreat to the position of state capitalism", for a "policy of reverting" to "the ways, means and methods of state capitalism".**"" Soviet Russia's economy embraced all the main forms of state capitalism, which were subsequently used in countries that embarked on socialist development, including China: concessions, leases, trade on commission, mixed companies, state allocations of raw materials to private enterprises, a grain monopoly, state-controlled entrepreneurs and traders, and bourgeois co-operatives.

Lenin analysed and generalised Soviet Russia's experience of state-capitalist development. He stressed that under the dictatorship of the proletariat state capitalism was " unconventional, even quite unconventional", and rejected the view of the Trotskyites and the "Left Communists", who argued that under the dictatorship of the proletariat state capitalism was ``absurd'' and ``ridiculous''. Ridiculing the dogmatists for their inability to understand the new conditions under which state capitalism was developing or the new character of state capitalism, Lenin stressed that under the dictatorship of the proletariat state capitalism was "a new concept because it is a new phenomenon".****

Lenin pointed out that in the multi-structural economy of the transition period some capitalist development was inevitable, firstly, because private capital was still partially in existence (mainly the middle and petty bourgeoisie) and, secondly and chiefly, because small-commodity production, which constantly breeds capitalism, still prevailed. In this period a ban on capitalist development was "foolish and suicidal".* The state of the working class permitted some development of capitalism for a limited period in order to utilise it in the interests of socialism, direct its development through state capitalism towards socialism and thus create the conditions for the total abolition of capitalism. "The whole problem---in theoretical and practical terms---is," Lenin noted, "to find the correct methods of directing the development of capitalism (which is to some extent and for some time inevitable) into the channels of state capitalism, and to determine how we are to hedge it about with conditions to ensure its transformation into socialism in the near future."** Consequently, as Lenin saw it, in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism state capitalism is capitalism limited by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which determines the principles, ways, means and forms of control and regulation, and the conditions, extent and direction of the development of capitalism. "To achieve state capitalism . .. means putting into effect the accounting and control" of capitalism "for the benefit of the working class, for the purpose of withstanding the as yet strong bourgeoisie, and of fighting it".***

Lenin's understanding of the substance of state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be reduced solely to control of capitalist development by the socialist state, for while it is one of the key elements of state capitalism during the period of transition control cannot by itself ensure the capitalist economy's transformation into a socialist economy. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat an essential feature of state capitalism is that it represents a special transitional form of the revolutionary reorganisation of the capitalist economy into a socialist economy.

*

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 293, 334-35, 338.

**

Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 91.

***

Ibid., pp. 93, 94, 95.

****

Ibid., 5th Russ. ed., Vol. 45, p. 412.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 344. ** Ibid., p. 345. *** Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 294; Vol. 32, p. 491.

Lenin pointed out that "state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled and socialised".* Through state capitalism the socialist state lays the economic foundations for the socialist socialisation of private capitalist (principally small and medium) production, centralises and intensifies large-scale production, amalgamates small industries, promotes the development of the productive forces, surmounts the spontaneity and anarchy of pettybourgeois and private-capitalist production, and strengthens state-regulated relations "against the anarchy of pettybourgeois relations".** State capitalism ensures the socialisation of production and the gradual change of the economic activity of capitalist enterprises, subordinates them to the new principles of economic development, to the principles of planning implemented by the socialist state, and leads to the reorganisation of capitalist relations of production.

Lenin regarded state capitalism as an economic system whose socio-economic content is characterised by a unique combination of elements of private capitalism and socialist state economy with the socialist state playing the leading role. In view of the economic role played by the socialist state, which is the principal vehicle for the building of the new, socialist system, the role, importance and content of all the economic levers regulating the private-capitalist economy undergo a fundamental modification. By means of these levers it becomes possible to utilise, limit and reorganise the capitalist economy. In characterising some forms of state capitalism in the Soviet Union, Lenin showed, for instance, that in mixed companies "competition is created between capitalist methods and our methods"*** and that by leasing concessions the "capitalist operates as a contractor leasing socialist means of production".**** Speaking of commission trade, Lenin said "this is capitalism-\-socialism" ***** Thus, as Lenin saw it, under the dictatorship of the proletariat state capitalism was in some sense an intermediate stage between private capitalism and socialism, a stage that differed from private capitalism and from socialism.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 294. ** Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 346. *** Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 272. **** Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 297. ***** Ibid., Vol. 36, p. 539.

Laying bare the class aspects of the problem of state capitalism, Lenin showed that under the dictatorship of the proletariat state capitalism was a continuation of the class struggle with the bourgeoisie, a struggle which decided the cardinal issue of the period of transition, namely, the issue of "who will win". It did not signify a class peace. On the contrary, it was a war waged by the capitalists for private ownership against the state power abrogating that ownership. At the same time, state capitalism signified a form of the class struggle that was advantageous to the proletariat and other working people because in the course of that struggle far from undergoing any destruction the productive forces are developed.* In addition to methods of suppression, the state lays considerable emphasis on methods of administration. The capitalists are enlisted into the service of the socialist state. Further, Lenin noted that state capitalism was a kind of alliance with the bourgeoisie and that if necessary the working class could pay a certain compensation to the bourgeoisie.**

An analysis of Lenin's propositions on state capitalism brings into bold relief the fundamental fact that in creatively enlarging on the teaching of Marx and Engels on the possibility of buying out the capitalists, Lenin evolved the theory of state capitalism in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, demonstrated that it was possible to promote state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat, charted the principles and methods of economically regulating the development of the private-capitalist economy, described the main forms of state capitalism, and, in effect, determined the key elements of the policy of utilising, limiting and reorganising the capitalist economy. This provided the theoretical foundation for the Communist Party's practical work in this sphere. The experience of socialist economic transformations in other socialist countries has borne out Lenin's theory of state capitalism and shown its great viability.

In this connection attention must be drawn to the fact that in Chinese publications, particularly those brought out since the end of the 1950s, one will not find a profound

* Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 239. ** Ibid., Vol. 32, pp. 339, 346-47.

analysis of Lenin's teaching. Instead, attempts are made to portray his integral theory of state capitalism only as " separate pronouncements" or to belittle its significance with assertions that only the experience of the People's Republic of China fully reveals the substance of state capitalism in the period of transition.

China's experience from 1949 to the latter half of the 1950s is undoubtedly of great interest, chiefly because despite the certain peculiarities springing from the specific conditions in that country and despite the attempts to belittle the significance of the Soviet experience the development of state capitalism was in the main based on the principles formulated in Lenin's teaching on state capitalism and, on the whole, did not run counter to the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the ways of resolving that problem.

The Maoists, it should be noted, had always passed over in silence Lenin's teaching on state capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was evidently due to the attitude adopted to this problem by Mao Tse-tung. In the article "On New Democracy" and in pronouncements made on the very eve of victory, in which he drew a picture of China's future and of her development after the revolution, Mao said nothing about state capitalism or about the expropriation of that section of the bourgeoisie with which he was eager to form a political alliance and to co-operate for a long time to come. On the eve of the revolution's victory he was still urging that the capitalist economy should be allowed to exist and develop, repeating Sun Yat-sen's slogan about "containing capitalism"/^^1^^" He did not examine the problem of state capitalism even after the revolution, and there is nothing in his works that could be called an integral theory of state capitalism.

period of transition to socialism."" These conditions are: firstly, the conquest of power by the working class headed by the Marxist-Leninist Party and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This power makes it possible to "suppress the military and subversive resistance of the capitalists". Secondly, the concentration of the key economic positions in the hands of the state and the creation of a state socialist sector of the economy. Thirdly, the inclination towards a compromise on the part of those sections of the bourgeoisie, which, after the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, remain in possession of private-capitalist enterprises. Lastly, the alignment of the class forces on the world scene and the international conditions under which socialism is built.

Lenin's analysis of the conditions for the development of state capitalism and of the possibilities for peacefully reorganising part of the capitalist economy is thus founded on a strictly scientific class basis with the accent placed on proletarian socialist tasks and interests.

The Maoists, on the other hand, have adopted a non-class attitude towards the Chinese national bourgeoisie. They have advanced a nationalist thesis attributing an exclusive, special character to the Chinese national bourgeoisie and accentuating, above all, its "revolutionary quality" and its distinction from the bourgeoisie of Russia in particular."""" It is significant that some Chinese authors quote Mao Tse-tung in their blunt statements that "until the victory of the revolution in China the bourgeoisie generally was not an adversary of the revolution".***

In the People's Republic of China the development of state capitalism is attributed to the "peculiarity of the national bourgeoisie's class nature", its "special political substance", the "specifics of the Chinese national bourgeoisie", its " positive qualities" and so forth.****

Lenin pinpointed the principal economic and political conditions that, provided the Marxist-Leninist Party pursued a principled and flexible policy, created the possibility for "the peaceful subjugation of the ... capitalists" by the workers and for the utilisation of state capitalism during the

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 344. ** Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, London, 1954, p. 117. *** Feng Tin, Some of the Issues Concerning the Chinese National Bourgeoisie, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1959, p. 33.

**** j-[_suen Mu-chiao, Su Hsing, Lin Tsu-li, Socialist Reorganisation of China's National Economy, Chinese ed., Peking, 1959; Sun Yang, Economic Lau/s of Socialism in the Transition Period in China, Chinese ed., Peking 1957; Wu Chiang, Problems of the Reorganisation of

* Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. IV, Peking, 1961, p. 367.

10-13-13

Naturally, with the bourgeoisie having common basic features as a class (these features are intrinsic to the Chinese national bourgeoisie as well), the conditions of historical development in the different countries make their imprint on the capitalist economy and, consequently, affect the political behaviour of the bourgeoisie or some of its sections. Vacillation and a contradictory attitude to the revolutionary struggle are typical of the national bourgeoisie in the less developed countries. This is true also of the Chinese bourgeoisie. Until the victory of the revolution national interests converged for a definite period and to some extent in the single torrent of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle. In that period the national bourgeoisie did not, of course, fight for socialism. Its main concern was to secure the free development of national capitalism.

The formation of the People's Republic of China ushered in a new period of struggle---the struggle for socialism. The basic contradiction was now between the working class and the bourgeoisie. In the unfolding class struggle the task of the people's power was to direct the country to the road of socialist development.

What made the national bourgeoisie accept the leadership of the people's state at this stage? On the basis of the Leninist approach to this question we can single out the general and specific features which together ensured the subordination of the Chinese national bourgeoisie to the working class and the people's state and opened the road for the development of state capitalism in China.

As in the Soviet Union, these conditions were the formation of a people's state and the transfer of power to the working people headed by the Communist Party; the creation of a state socialist sector which occupied the leading position in the economy and provided the material resources for the building of socialism and the implementation of social reforms.

Moreover, in China there were features which predicated the peculiarities of the subordination of the bourgeoisie to the working class and the development of state capitalism.

Capitalist Industry and Trade in China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1960; Hu Hsi-kuei, Peaceful Reorganisation of Industry and Trade and the Class Struggle in China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1957.

Let us briefly examine these features.

China's backwardness profoundly influenced the decision of all the problems of the revolution. The material, technological and cultural level was extremely low, the socialisation of production had made little headway, and the structure of the economy was archaic. Prior to liberation, industry, exclusive of the handicraft industry, accounted for 17 per cent of the gross national product as against 42 per cent in Russia in 1913.

Under these conditions correct economic relations with the national bourgeoisie had to help speed up the restoration of the national economy, increase the output of manufactured goods, particularly goods which could be exchanged with the peasants for farm produce and thus help to strengthen the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, consolidate the people's power and improve the economic situation. Inasmuch as large-scale socialist production could not be built at once, it was necessary to restore the small-scale industry, which, as Lenin wrote, "does not demand of the state machines, large stocks of raw materials, fuel and food, and which can immediately render some assistance to peasant farming and increase its productive forces right away".* The immediate expropriation of the national bourgeoisie could cause serious economic and political difficulties. The nationalisation of the many hundreds of thousands of small enterprises of the millions of national capitalists required extensive preparatory work and the creation of the necessary economic and political prerequisites. Lenin said that "we shall not ... be able to nationalise petty enterprises with one or two hired labourers at short notice or subject them to real workers' control",""'^^1^^" that in the case of small shopkeepers "it is not only imprudent to nationalise them, but... there is even need for certain sacrifices in order to improve their position and enable them to continue their small trade".**"" In China the privately owned industry was characterised by its backwardness, fragmentation and low level of socialisation. In 1954 there were nearly 134,000 capitalist enterprises, but only 1.23 per cent had

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 343.

** Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 172. *** Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 160.

over 100 workers. Two-thirds of trie total had less than 10 employees."" In trade the private enterprises were even more numerous and smaller. In 1955 their number was almost 3,000,000.** All these circumstances made it imperative to promote state capitalism and gradually reorganise the fragmented capitalist economy.

China's backwardness predicated the particularly grave danger of the Chinese proletariat and its party falling under petty-bourgeois and bourgeois influence and gave rise to immense difficulties in promoting state capitalism. Lenin had stressed that the successful subordination of the bourgeoisie to the working class and the development of state capitalism "depend not only on the state authorities but also, and to a larger extent, on the degree of maturity of the proletariat and of the masses of the working people generally, on their cultural level, etc.".*** In this respect the Communist Party of China was faced with extraordinarily difficult problems. There were very few industrial workers, the working class had little experience of directing the mass movement of the different strata and of managing the economy, and there were no trained specialists. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Mao Tse-tung in effect belittled the leading ideological, political and organisational role of the industrial proletariat.

At the same time, China's socialist tasks were immensely lightened by the international conditions, the most important of which was the existence of the socialist community and the world socialist economic system. Internationalist assistance from socialist countries was a tremendously important factor facilitating the peaceful socialist transformation of the property of the national bourgeoisie, strengthening the position of the working class and the people's power, considerably improving the economic conditions for socialist construction, safeguarding China against imperialist intervention and internal armed counter-revolution and delivering her from the economic blockade. The new alignment of forces in the world powerfully influenced the alignment of

forces in China. But even under these conditions the socialist reorganisation of the capitalist economy was accompanied by a multiform class struggle. By the very nature of its class aspirations the national bourgeoisie was opposed to socialism. It could accept socialist transformations only as a result of a struggle of the socialist forces against its class ambitions.

As soon as the People's Republic of China was proclaimed the bourgeoisie began its attacks on the socialist transformations instituted by the state. The targets of these attacks were chiefly: in the economic sphere---the socialist sector of the economy, the country's socialist industrialisation, state planning and the development of state capitalism; in the political sphere---the leading role of the working class and the Communist Party, the state apparatus, and the political measures of the people's state. In the ideological field the bourgeoisie used every means to foster its own ideology and nationalism and attack the proletarian world outlook and China's friendship with the USSR and other socialist countries.

Capitalist ownership was reorganised through the strengthening of state power and the state sector, in close connection with China's general internal and external economic and political situation, the whole process reflecting the alignment of class forces in the country at the various stages of socialist construction.

An analysis of the socio-economic situation in China predicating the development of state capitalism thus shows that it would be a simplification and a nationalistic distortion to reduce all the reasons determining the possibility and necessity for that development to "the unique class nature" of the Chinese national bourgeoisie.

The generally successful development of state capitalism in China during the period of the first five-year plan was, above all, due to the fact that it was linked with the general movement towards socialism and was based on the laws formulated by Lenin.*

* Chingchi Yanchiu No. 2, 1956, p. 43.

** Chien Hua et al, Changes in China's Private Industry and Trade in the Course of 7 Years (1949-1956), Chinese ed., Peking, 1957, p. 13. *** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 185.

* It is highly indicative that this is admitted, inadvertently or deliberately, in some official Chinese documents. For instance, in the report made in July 1961 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Communist Party of China, the socialist reorganisation of the capitalist

During the initial years following the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the CPC leadership used the experience of socialist countries as its orientation. The internationalist forces in the party regarded this as the basic condition for successful socialist reorganisation in China.

The socialist reorganisation of the capitalist economy through various forms of state capitalism was part and parcel of the CPC's general line in the period of transition and one of the key factors in the fulfilment of the principal tasks of that period. In 1956-57 the state capitalist enterprises accounted for 32.5 per cent of the value of the country's industrial output (exclusive of the output of the handicraft industry).*

In China state capitalism had a variety of forms, ranging from the lower to the higher.** These forms differed from each other in the type and character of the links between the socialist and the capitalist economy.

These links were gradually expanded and strengthened, from temporary and unstable to permanent and stable, from state control in the sphere of circulation to control in production. The accent was gradually shifted from the utilisation and restriction of the capitalist economy to its transformation.

Generally speaking, in the specific conditions obtaining in China state capitalism represented relations that could be described as transitional from capitalism to socialism. Elements of the capitalist economy were gradually restricted and replaced by elements of the socialist economy, and capitalist enterprises were gradually reorganised and turned into semi-socialist enterprises with the view of ultimately changing them into socialist enterprises.

economy was linked with the implementation of the teaching of Marx and Lenin in Chinese conditions, and with the experience of the Soviet Union, while the name of Mao Tse-tung was associated chiefly with the "three red banners" policy. * The Great Decade, p. 32.

** The early forms were: state orders for the processing of stateowned raw materials and for the manufacture of finished products; centralised purchases; guaranteed sales; commission trade, and so on. The higher forms were mixed state-private enterprises.

In the initial forms of state capitalism the links between the socialist and the capitalist sector were established mainly in the sphere of circulation. The enterprises remained the property of the capitalists. However, by supplying them with raw materials and goods, granting them loans and handling the marketing of the output, the state cut short the internal links of the capitalist economy and acquired control of the sphere of circulation of the capitalist enterprises. Through prices, taxes and methods of distributing profits the state limited capitalist exploitation, and a considerable portion of the net income went to the state and not to the bourgeoisie.

The means of production were beginning to pass into the hands of the working class and the state. A movement against "five abuses"* was launched in the first half of 1952. Control was established over most of the capitalist enterprises, in effect depriving the capitalists of the right to uncontrolled management of their enterprises. The sphere of operation of the law of surplus value was limited. The capitalist economy found itself dependent on the socialist sector, capitalist enterprises were in varying degree drawn into the sphere of state planning, and the anarchy of capitalist production was substantially restricted. The volume and rate of production and the direction of investments were increasingly determined not by the race for profits but by the state plan.

The transition from the early forms of state capitalism to the higher form---mixed state-private enterprises---signified a radical change in the capitalist relations of production. Manifest changes were taking place in the forms of ownership. Enterprises that had been the private property of capitalists were becoming the joint property of the state and the capitalists. Direct state control was instituted over production and the means of production. Enterprises were reorganised in accordance with socialist methods of management and included in the sphere of state planning.

The "branch reorganisation" of private enterprises into mixed enterprises in 1956 and the introduction of the payment of a fixed percentage fundamentally changed the rela-

* These were: (1) bribery, (2) tax evasion, (3) embezzlement of state funds, (4) unconscientious fulfilment of state orders, (5) stealing of state economic information.

tions of production of capitalism. All the means of production passed directly into the hands of the state.

In China state capitalism contributed towards establishing links between socialism and small-scale production. A survey of 12,298 capitalist enterprises, conducted in 1953 in 20 leading industries, showed that 40.2 per cent of these enterprises had been set up after 1949 and that part of them had developed from small-commodity production.* This inevitable development of capitalism was directed into the channel of state capitalism. In this sense, state capitalism fulfilled the role of a link between small-commodity production and socialism.

Private trade was a typical petty-bourgeois sphere in China. In the trade network the share of large capitalist enterprises was very small: in 1955 no wage-workers were employed by 96 per cent of the private home trade enterprises/^^1^^"* and even in the private wholesale trade only 11.7 per cent employed wage-workers. Part of this essentially petty-bourgeois trade was included in various forms of state capitalism, which prepared its transition to socialism.

With regard to small traders and shopkeepers the same forms of state capitalism were applied as to capitalist retail trade. But since most of the shopkeepers worked (this being the source of their main income), owned inconsiderable capital and rarely hired wage-workers, state capitalism in this sphere assumed the form of co-operatives, which provided an economic link between the state and the smallcommodity economy under state control. These were cooperatives of private enterprises, shops and groups uniting the owners of small enterprises.

Moreover, state capitalism was used to cut short the link between urban and rural capitalism, between capitalist industry and trade and between capitalism and the handicraft industry. As a result, the earlier existing capitalist links were temporarily and partially replaced by links provided by various forms of state capitalism. For instance, during the initial years of the People's Republic of China the urban capitalist trade network was used partly to organise trade between the towns and the countryside.

Furthermore, state capitalism was a major vehicle for building up large-scale production and achieving a higher level of organisation and socialisation, making it possible cautiously to "pull up" or somewhat approximate the small and medium private enterprises to the level of large-scale production and thereby prepare the conditions for including them in the planned socialist economy. State capitalism was used: (a) to change the orientation of production, and regulate and somewhat change the branch structure of the capitalist economy; (b) regulate the flow of capital and its transfer from non-productive spheres to the sphere of production; (c) amalgamate small enterprises and centralise, concentrate and, in some degree, specialise and combine the production of private capitalist enterprises; (d) achieve better technical and economic indices, reorganise the management, and organise the labour process, financial activity and so forth.

On the whole, the early forms of state capitalism were typical of the period of economic rehabilitation (1949-52) and the first year of the first five-year plan (1953-57). At the time the country's central task was to restore the national economy, build up and enlarge the state socialist sector, consolidate its leading role with regard to all the other sectors of the multi-structural economy, secure a radical improvement of the financial situation, and resolve the problems inherited from the democratic stage of the revolution (e.g., the agrarian reform). The conditions for the large-scale, planned development of the national economy were only taking shape, and the socialist reorganisation of agriculture, the handicraft industry and the capitalist economy had only been started. The practical conditions for drawing private capitalist enterprises into the system of state capitalism were created during that period. In 1952 the enterprises embraced by the early forms of state capitalism yielded roughly half of the output of the privately-owned industry.

Economic rehabilitation was completed in 1952. There was a considerable improvement of the economic situation. The state sector firmly occupied the leading place in the economy. In 1953 the Chinese people embarked on the fulfilment of a five-year plan of economic development. The Communist Party published its general line for the period of transition and proclaimed its policy of gradually liqui-

* Chingchi Yanchiu No. 6, 1956, p. 124. ** Chien Hua et al, op. cit, p. 13.

dating the property of the national bourgeoisie and abolishing the bourgeoisie as a class. An offensive was started against the positions held by the bourgeoisie.

The years 1954 and 1955 were characterised, above all, by the development of mixed state-private enterprises.

It was planned to effect the further reorganisation of the capitalist economy "gradually, in the course of a relatively long period".* However, in 1955 Mao initiated a sharp acceleration of socialist transformations. Approximately 90 per cent of the private enterprises were to be turned into mixed state-private enterprises in the course of two years (1956 and 1957). But even this rate did not suit Mao. He demanded the "breakup of the old framework" and a "rapid advance", a faster reorganisation. The capitalist enterprises were turned into mixed enterprises during the first few months of 1956.

The feverish rate of reorganisation in 1956, stemming from the Maoist leadership's desire to prepare the sociopolitical conditions for their new course that subsequently became known as the "three red banners" policy, caused enormous difficulties in the national economy. The unfounded merging and amalgamation of enterprises frequently led to a disruption of the established production and trade links, to the disorganisation of production and exchange, to a decline of output, the narrowing down of the assortment of products and a deterioration of the supplies and services for the population.

from the bourgeoisie by the socialist state signifies the return to the working people of what had been created by their labour and appropriated without compensation by the bourgeoisie. After seizing power the working class takes the means of production from the bourgeoisie and has every economic and political right to pay no compensation for them. However, in order to facilitate the transition to socialism Lenin allowed for the possibility of "buying out" the bourgeoisie, of paying compensation for the alienated means of production if the circumstances compelled the bourgeoisie to accept the leadership of the working class peacefully."" Essentially, this buying-out operation is not an exchange, a sale-and-purchase deal or a trade transaction in any sense, for the working class does not pay the bourgeoisie the value of the means of production owned by it; it buys out the bourgeoisie. It was not accidental that Marx said that the working class should "buy out the whole lot of them".** Lenin enlarged on this when he wrote of the methods of reaching a compromise or buying out the capitalists who accepted state capitalism."***

Marxism-Leninism presupposes that compensation is paid out by the state on terms that are advantageous to all the working people. The working class is quite obviously not obliged to pay the bourgeoisie the full value of its means of production.

Soviet Russia was the first country where the means of production were redeemed from the bourgeoisie under a proletarian dictatorship.**** Compensation for nationalised enterprises was paid out in a number of People's Democracies, too. In China compensation was paid to the bourgeoisie chiefly in the form of incomes deriving from the temporary preservation of some of its rights to the means of production and representing part of the surplus product created by the

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 338-39. ** K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 3. p. 474.

*** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 338-39. **** In the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of April 18, 1918, for instance, it was stated that the owners of shares and other securities that had been correctly and opportunely registered would "in the event the enterprises are nationalised receive the right to remuneration, whose size and terms shall be established by the nationalisation law" (Politicheskoye samoobrazovaniye No. 5, 1961, p. 71).

The development of state capitalism was accompanied by the purchase of the means of production from the national bourgeoisie. This was a unique operation.

The Marxist theory of reproduction shows that the expropriation of the expropriators is not only a progressive measure deriving from the requirements of the law of conformity of the relations of production to the nature of the productive forces, but also an act of exemplary historical justice, because the alienation of the means of production

* Liu Shao-chi, The Draft Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1954, p. 24.

workers (this included dividends, net profit, remuneration to members of the board of directors, and the payment of a fixed interest). In 1949-55 the Chinese capitalists received as compensation part of the total profit of the enterprises concerned.""

Early in 1956 the capitalists began receiving a fixed sum equal to 5 per cent of the capital that passed into the hands of the people's state. Compensation thus took the form of a substantial salary received by the capitalists as a share of the surplus product created by the workers. In the foreign trade enterprises in Shanghai, for example, there were 682 capitalists whose monthly salary averaged 223 yuan. This was 250 per cent more than the average salary in the country. Of these 682 capitalists, 465 received a salary that was over 100 per cent above the salaries of other state employees holding similar posts. The monthly salary of some of the Shanghai capitalists exceeded 1,000 yuan, while in individual cases it reached 1,600 yuan.**

The Chinese Communists were categorically opposed to the demand of the national bourgeoisie to be paid the "full value" of their capital.*** For instance, in 1957 the capitalists demanded a fixed interest and a large salary for a period of 20 years. Distorting the compensation policy, Chang Nai-chi, Li Kang-nien, Chang Chieh-to and other `` theoreticians'' of the Right wing of the national bourgeoisie pictured compensation as purchase and sales relations between the state and the capitalists and almost went so far as to bargain with the CPC by stipulating a ``fair'' and "full price" for the means of production passing from the hands of the bourgeoisie to the state. Backing the propositions of vulgar political economy they described capital as ``savings'', and the fixed interest on these savings as a kind of remuneration or income earned without exploiting the labour of

others."" These claims were rejected. However, further developments showed that in order to win the support of the national bourgeoisie for their nationalistic, chauvinistic ambitions the Chinese leadership conceded to these demands of the Chinese capitalists, paying them more than the "full price" of the means of production that had belonged to them.

Thus, in industry where the means of production that had passed into the hands of the state were assessed at 1,780 million yuan, the sums paid out in 1950-55 in the form of personal net income from profits totalled nearly 590 million yuan or 33-34 per cent of their capital"''"''; in 1956-69 the capitalists received another 70 per cent of their capital (at an annual rate of 5 per cent in the course of 14 years). Thus, in the form of dividends alone, not counting the part of the compensation paid out in salaries, the Chinese industrialists recovered more than 100 per cent of their capital.

The picture becomes even more striking if we consider the situation in the country as a whole, in all branches of industry, and take the high salaries of the capitalists into account. In 1950-55, i.e., before the "branch reorganisation" was started, the Chinese capitalists received a personal income of over 1,000 million yuan from the profits of enterprises."^"" In 1956-62 they received 840 million yuan (120 million yuan per annum) in the form of a fixed interest. Their salaries in 1950-55 amounted to nearly 2,000 million yuan; even if half of this sum"""''** is included in the `` compensation'' it will be found that in six years the Chinese capitalists received an unearned income of almost 1,000 million yuan in the form of high salaries. Inasmuch as after 1955 the salaries of the capitalists were not reduced, it may be assumed that during the next seven years (1956-62) they received at least 1,000 million yuan compensation in the shape of ``salaries''. Consequently, by the end of 1962, when payment of the fixed interest was to be stopped in accor-

* In this period the profits of capitalist enterprises were usually distributed according to the ``four-way'' principle: the total profit was divided into: (1) income tax to the state, (2) the enterprise's accumulation fund, (3) the enterprise's bonus fund, and (4) the dividends. The incomes of the capitalists were not to exceed 25 per cent of the total profit of the enterprise concerned.

** Socialist Reorganisation of Capitalist Industry and Trade in China, Chinese ed., Peking, 1962, p. 226. *** Hsiuyehhsi No. 13, 1957, p. 15.

* Jenmin Jihpao, June 2, June 6, 1957; Shanghai Kungshang No. 10, 1957; Takung Pao, June 9, 1957.

** Economic Development and Life of the People in China, p. 93. *** Hsiuyehhsi No. 13, 1957, p. 15.

**** This conditional division is founded on the fact that salaries of the capitalists are twice as high as the salaries of executives holding similar posts.

dance with the initial scheme, the capitalists had received as compensation more than 3,900 million yuan, a sum considerably in excess of the capital that had passed to the state.* Nonetheless, in 1962 the payment of the fixed interest was continued and, besides, the capitalists went on receiving their high salaries. Thus, according to approximate estimates, the capitalists have received a further compensation of at least 1,500 million yuan since 1962.

The unearned income in the form of a fixed interest is distributed unevenly among the bourgeoisie. The bulk is received by several thousand big capitalists. Thus, in industry about 1 per cent of the capitalists (roughly 5,000 persons) receive up to 45 per cent of the sum paid out as a fixed interest to all capitalists. Deposits exceeding 1 million yuan are owned by 90 capitalists. For example, the capital available to Jung I-jen, one of the biggest capitalists in China, totals more than 18,500,000 yuan. Every month he receives over 77,000 yuan as a fixed interest and over 700 yuan as a ``salary''. In other words, his monthly income is nearly 1,470 times more than the average monthly wage of a worker or an employee. Capitalists having a capital of over 2,000 yuan (these comprise only 20 per cent of the capitalists in the country) receive an average of over 440 yuan per annum in the form of a fixed interest. The remaining 80 per cent receive about 20 yuan per annum per person. This situation evidently satisfies the small group of big capitalists maintained by the Chinese leadership.

As a result of the Maoist policy, the burden of the economic dislocation and disorder in the country fell on the shoulders of the small capitalists, many of whom became rank-and-file workers in industry and trade, while the big capitalists remained in a privileged position.

opment of the economy and the productive forces, start the country's socialist industrialisation, consolidate collective farming in the rural areas, modernise agriculture and carry out a cultural revolution. The internal and external situation was favourable for the implementation of these tasks, and their fulfilment required a correct general political line and economic policy in China and closer fraternal co-operation with the Soviet Union and all other socialist countries.

However, at the close of the 1950s Mao Tse-tung and his supporters began pushing the party and the country more and more openly towards a nationalistic, chauvinistic policy. The Maoists abandoned the general line adopted by the CPC in 1953 and the decisions of the first session of the CPC's 8th Congress in 1956, broke with Marxism-Leninism and adopted a policy hostile to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and to the world communist movement.

This was effected at a time when socialist reorganisation had not been completed at the mixed enterprises (no law nationalising capitalist enterprises had been passed; the Constitution safeguards the property rights of the capitalists), the semi-socialist ``co-operative'' shops and groups had not been finally turned into state enterprises and socialist co-operatives, the free market had not been brought under control, and the class struggle against the bourgeoisie had not been brought to completion. Bourgeois elements, concentrated chiefly in the cities, played a considerable role in the country's life and could exercise a certain influence on various groups of the population."" A total of 1,140,000 capitalists were receiving a fixed interest totalling 120 million yuan per annum, and 810,000 were working in various offices, organisations, industrial enterprises and so on: of this number 60-65 per cent were engaged directly in production at factories and 35-40 per cent (or 280,000-320,000 persons) were executives.*"" There were eight ``democratic'' parties uniting mainly the bourgeoisie and circles linked with it, and also the Association of Industrialists and Traders with a network of lower-echelon organisations. In the 1960s of the 1,200 deputies in the National People's Congress about

* According to Chinese statistics, by the beginning of the 1960s bourgeois elements and the intellectuals closely associated with them numbered nearly 8,000,000 persons (People's China No. 3, 1957, p. 11). ** Socialist Transformations..., pp. 214-15.

After socialist transformations had been on the whole completed, the tasks facing China were to foster the devel-

* According to Chinese statistics, in 1950 the capital of the national bourgeoisie in industry and trade totalled somewhat over 3,000 million yuan. In 1956 capital valued at 2,400 million yuan became the property of the people's state.

260-270 represented the ``democratic'' parties. Of the 1,000 seats in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference 190-195 were held by these parties. The national bourgeoisie had quite a few representatives in the higher state organs. In 1965 of the 18 deputy chairmen of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress six represented the ``democratic'' parties. Some of the ministers and deputy ministers were representatives of the national bourgeoisie. In the State Defence Council nine members represented the bourgeoisie and of these two were deputy chairmen of the Council. Under these conditions there was strong pressure from petty-bourgeois ideology, and bourgeois elements had many possibilities of spreading their influence.

In view of this situation the CPC leadership might have been expected to pay special attention to questions linked with the final abolition of the bourgeoisie as a class and the elimination of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois influence in the country. However, further developments showed that the nationalistic views of the Maoists became increasingly manifest in the CPC leadership's policy towards the national bourgeoisie.

In the article "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" written in 1957, Mao called for political co-operation with the bourgeoisie, declaring that the working people and the national bourgeoisie had "basically the same interests". At the second session of the 8th Congress of the CPC in May 1958 it was declared that there were "two exploiting classes" in China: one "consisted of anti-socialist bourgeois Right-wing elements, of people belonging to the deposed classes of landowners and compradores, and other reactionaries", and the second---"of the national bourgeoisie, that was gradually accepting socialist transformations, and its intelligentsia".*

This definition of classes (not political groups and forces, but precisely classes), in which one ``class'' is arbitrarily ``formed'' of people belonging to different classes, the bourgeoisie is divided into two ``classes'', and the intelligentsia is classified as part of a class, constitutes a total departure from Marxism. In line with Mao's injunctions on the handling

* Second Session of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Parly of China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1958, p. 19.

of contradictions with the national bourgeoisie as contradictions "among the people", the utilitarian political objective of these ``theoretical'' manipulations is to separate the national bourgeoisie as a political force from "bourgeois Right-wing elements", save it from being hit by the campaign that was soon afterwards started by the Maoists, and spearhead the class struggle not against the national bourgeoisie and not even against the "Right-wing elements" but against the "modern revisionists", in which category were bracketed all the opponents of Mao and his entourage.

Slogans such as "do not stop halfway, bring the class struggle to completion", "lay bare class contradictions" and "wage an uncompromising struggle against the class enemy"* were advanced after the 10th plenary meeting of the CPC Central Committee in 1962. It was natural to expect that in this "class struggle" the accent would be on a struggle with actual bourgeois influence. In fact, the line of spoiling China's relations with the USSR and other socialist countries and whipping up Great-Hanist chauvinism and nationalism brought the Maoists steadily closer to the Chinese national bourgeoisie. Against the background of calls for vigilance with regard to bourgeois influence and for an activation of the "class struggle", steps were initiated to relax the contradictions with the bourgeoisie, to make concessions to and flirt with it with the aim not only of neutralising it but enlisting its assistance for the anti-Soviet policy. To achieve this objective the Maoists went so far as to extend the property privileges and political rights of the national bourgeoisie. In addition to paying a fixed interest on capital, the Chinese leadership amnestied exposed Right-wing elements, who constituted approximately 10 per cent of the bourgeoisie (according to Chinese statistics).""* The ideological and political work among the bourgeoisie was subordinated to the task of "fighting modern revisionism", disseminating the views of the Maoists and forming a bloc with the bourgeoisie against the CPSU and the general line of the world communist movement. The Maoists called on the ``democratic'' parties to "apply themselves actively to the struggle against

* Hungchi No. 22, 1962; Jenmin Jihpao, July 9, 1963. ** Socialist Transformations. . . , p. 265.

11---1313

modern revisionism".* In 1965 all restrictions for admission to the Young Communist League and the Communist Party were lifted for members of bourgeois families.** This was followed by instructions calling for a "further strengthening and development" of the united front by winning over reactionaries such as Li Tsung-jen, who had been a prominent Kuomintang general.

In the hegemonistic plans of the Maoist leadership a special place is accorded to the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie. Some 16-18 million Chinese live outside China, chiefly in Southeast Asia. The overseas Chinese communities have a very motley social composition. The working people live in difficult conditions. They are ruthlessly exploited and this forces them to take action against oppression and tyranny. However, a considerable section in these communities consists of bourgeois elements, who, particularly in a number of Southeast Asian countries, hold important economic positions. In the mid-1950s overseas Chinese investments in Southeast Asian countries totalled about 3,000 million dollars and exceeded the direct investments of any of the principal capitalist countries. The Maoists are trying to lay their hands on this titbit, to use the economic potential of the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie to further their own ends and form a kind of alliance with the propertied strata of overseas Chinese on the platform of anti-Sovietism, bellicose nationalism and chauvinism. The Maoists are giving the Chinese trade and industrial bourgeoisie political and moral support and granting them benefits and privileges in trade with the People's Republic of China. They actively use the mediation of the Chinese bourgeoisie in trade with capitalist countries. Many of the transactions are handled by overseas Chinese firms in Singapore and Hongkong. Moreover, the Chinese domiciled abroad keep the Maoists informed of the political and economic situation in various countries and of the market conditions there. The propertied sections of the overseas Chinese send considerable sums of money to China (cash remittances which in the 1950s amounted to 110-125 million dollars a year, and food parcels to relatives, which in 1960-61, according to some estimates, were worth 20 mil-

* Hsin Kungshang No. 4, 1963, p. 231; No. 3, 1962, p. 2. ** Jenmin Jihpao, April 4, 1965.

lion dollars a year, and nearly 40 million dollars in the form of customs dues).

For many years the Maoists have been pursuing a policy of attracting overseas Chinese investments to China's economy. This has given rise to a special form of state capitalism--- investment companies which invest money received from overseas Chinese capitalists. Besides a central office in Peking there were more than 10 branches of the investment companies in the provinces and also branches in towns and counties; more than a hundred projects financed by overseas Chinese were under construction in the 1960s.* According to the rules,** the investments of overseas Chinese "shall remain the property of the investors even after socialism has been built". Investments are ensured with a fixed dividend of 8 per cent per annum. The annual convertible currency investments of the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie in China's economy totalled approximately 100-120 million dollars.

Despite the official pronouncements about "fighting bourgeois influence", the "cultural revolution" launched by the Maoists in May 1966 was not directed against the national bourgeoisie. There was not a word about the national bourgeoisie or about the ``democratic'' parties in the decision on the "cultural revolution" or in other documents of the CPC Central Committee. However, popular resentment of the privileged position of the national capitalists spontaneously grew into demands for the abolition of their unearned incomes. Leaflets and Tatzupao (wall newspapers) were put with demands such as "Cease the payment of fixed interest to the national capitalists", "Abolish the high salaries paid to the capitalists", "Remove the capitalists from all leading positions and administrative posts" and "Forthwith reorganise mixed enterprises into state enterprises". Furthermore, they demanded a halt to the payment of interest on the investments of overseas Chinese and the liquidation of the

* Tsukuo No. 38, 1967; Chiaowupao No. 4, 1962.

** Collection of Documents on the Policy Towards Overseas Chinese, Chinese ed., Peking, 1957, pp. 96-97; Chiaowupao No 2, 1962, p. 3; Chingchi Taopao, Supplements to Nos. 2, 4, 6, 1963.

Il*

investment companies engaged in attracting convertible currency from the overseas Chinese.

However, those who took the Maoist call for a "struggle against bourgeois influence" at its face value were quickly checked. As early as October 1966 it was officially declared that in China the contradictions with the national capitalists "must be resolved as contradictions among the people".* A representative of the People's Bank (the Chinese state bank) in Hongkong officially assured the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie that the former practice of currency remittances would be preserved in China.""*

The 12th plenary meeting of the CPC Central Committee (October 1968) announced that the "cultural revolution" was a "political revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes" which would decide the outcome of the "struggle for hegemony between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie". However, the former capitalists continued to receive interest on their capital and enjoy all their former privileges. Not one of the bourgeois leaders occupying important posts in the government was repressed. All this acquired special significance when the Maoists began to shatter the organs of people's power, the Communist Party and the trade unions and attack the political and economic rights and interests of the people. In some measure the policy pursued by the Peking leaders under the guise of a "cultural revolution" unquestionably suits the national bourgeoisie and conforms to the ambitions of the big Chinese capitalists. The anti-socialist aims, nationalism, Great-Hanist chauvinism and anti-Sovietism underlying the Maoist policies have never been alien to the interests of the bourgeoisie, especially in view of the fact that objectively these policies tend to give the national bourgeoisie a bigger role in the country's socio-political life. This is true, above all, of the bourgeoisie's concepts and ideological and political positions, which are founded on nationalism and Great-Hanist aspirations. The national bourgeoisie could not fail to see the possibility of achieving their nationalistic

* In May 1968 the newspaper Wenhuipao wrote that in addition to paying a fixed interest to capitalists in the country the People's Bank was still paying dividends to shareholders who had fled to the USA and acquired American citizenship.

** South China Morning Post, September 1, 1966.

objectives, which the present Chinese leadership have raised to the level of official policy.

The positions of the Maoists and the national bourgeoisie are thus objectively drawing closer while the irreconcilable contradictions between the real interests of the Chinese working class and the bourgeoisie are in effect preserved. The Maoists are trying to divert attention from these class contradictions by nationwide political and ideological campaigns against so-called ``anti-party'', ``anti-socialist'', ``revisionist'' elements among party and other cadres and among intellectuals, and against all indications of popular opposition to the present policies. Whereas during the initial years of the people's power the policy of the Peking leadership towards the national bourgeoisie objectively and in the main pursued the aim of softening resistance to socialist changes in the economy and utilising the experience and knowledge of the bourgeoisie to restore the national economy and help build the material basis for the new society, in recent years this policy has in fact been aimed at attaining the hegemonistic, anti-socialist objectives of the Maoists.

V. VOLZHANIN

cultural revolution has had and still has special significance. Without the energetic and comprehensive development of all spheres of culture China cannot conceivably be turned into a modern and powerful socialist state. This was appreciated by many Chinese Communists-internationalists, including people like Li Ta-chao and Tsu Chiu-po, who were among the party's leaders during the early phases of its history. »The successful development of revolutionary culture in China in the 1930s and 1940s and the indisputable advancement in education, science, literature and art during the initial years of the People's Republic of China were due, above all, to the fact that at the time the CPC was guided (though not always consistently) by Lenin's teaching on the cultural revolution and by the Soviet Union's vast experience of building up socialist culture.

However, this road did not suit the Maoists. In line with their vulgar, crudely utilitarian concepts about culture, they started a regular campaign in 1958 against intellectuals generally and cultural workers in particular, steering towards the replacement of professional by amateur art and drastically curtailing cultural exchanges with socialist countries: The failure of the "three red banners" line forced them to beat a temporary retreat, but they did not abandon their aims. This became quite evident during the "cultural revolution", which was a calamity for Chinese culture and its exponents. It signified a complete rupture with the Leninist theory and practice of cultural development. Its objective was to subordinate culture and the intelligentsia entirely to the hegemonistic, nationalistic ambitions of the present Peking leadership.

LENINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF CHINESE CULTURE

In enlarging on the theoretical heritage of Marx and Engels under new historical conditions, Lenin formulated, among other important propositions, the tenet that a cultural revolution was an indispensable part of the process of transition from capitalism to communism. "Lenin's programme for the cultural revolution was an important contribution to revolutionary theory and practice."*

The Soviet Union's achievements in education, science, literature and art, achievements known to the whole world, are due to the fact that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been guided by the world-historic Leninist teaching on culture and the cultural revolution. This teaching shows how to build up a genuinely people's, socialist culture in countries where the revolution has been victorious, and helps the peoples fighting for national and social liberation to mould their own revolutionary literature and art. Practice continuously confirms that a consistent and creative application of the Leninist teaching with due consideration for historical conditions and national specifics leads to the swift and successful development of the new culture, while any deliberate departure from Lenin's behests heavily hits culture and social progress.

For a huge country like China, where survivals of the past are deep-rooted, Lenin's teaching on culture and the

Lenin's basic works dealing with problems of literature and art were published in the Chinese language in the period from the late 1920s to the early 1950s, but that did not mean that until then progressives in China knew nothing about the development of Soviet culture or of the Leninist principles underlying that development.

The finest representatives of the Chinese intelligentsia, Li Ta-chao and Lu Hsun among them, welcomed the triumph of Bolshevism and wrote with inspiration about the "rising

* Lenin's Ideas and Cause Are Immortal. Theses of the CC CPSU, Moscow, 1970, p. 30.

dawn in the North". From the beginning of the 1920s onwards the Chinese periodical press carried articles about cultural events in Soviet Russia and about new works by Soviet writers and artists. This information convincingly refuted bourgeois and whiteguard propaganda, which claimed that "Russian culture was perishing", and held the interest of all who were engrossed in the problems of moulding and promoting a democratic culture in China, problems that were placed on the agenda by the May 4, 1919 Movement. Unbiased reports about the development of Soviet culture in those years were printed in the literary journal Hsiaoshuo Yuyehpao, whose editor-in-chief, Shen Yan-ping (Mao Tun)^ later became a prominent writer. A strong impact was made by Tsu Chiu-po's articles in the press. One of these articles, sent from Moscow and headed "The Wounds of War and the Bloom of Culture" (March 1921), contained an interview with the People's Commissar for Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, who spoke of the educational system in Soviet Russia and of the measures that were being taken to promote revolutionary culture. Two years later Tsu Chiupo published an article under the heading "New Writers of Workers' and Peasants' Russia". This article gave Chinese readers their first insight into how Lenin's proposition on the service of writers to the revolution was being translated into practice. Among the writers who had sided with the proletariat the young Chinese Communist mentioned Maxim Gorky.

In 1923, Chungkuo Chingnien, one of the most influential progressive journals in China, published a series of articles by Yun Tai-ying, Teng Chung-hsia and Hsiao Chu-niu, all of whom subsequently became prominent in the Communist Party of China. The keynote of these articles was that in China it was necessary to evolve a genuinely democratic literature that would serve the country's social development. They propagated the idea that the poet should take part in the practical revolutionary movement and emphatically rejected the bourgeois concept of ``neutral'', "pure art''.

A very large contribution was also made by the articles written by Kiang Kuang-tzu, a poet and writer who had studied in Moscow and had a good knowledge of the cultural life in the Soviet Republic. His articles such as " Proletarian Revolution and Culture" (1924) and "Contemporary

Chinese Society and Revolutionary Literature" (1925) gave the Chinese reader a fuller idea of the principles Lenin had laid down for the creation of the culture of a liberated people and of the role literature had to play in the revolutionary struggle. Chinese translations of works on the theory and practice of the literary movement in the USSR and also of works dealing with various aspects of Lenin's teaching on culture began to be printed in China in 1925. Among these were the volume Literary Debate in Soviet Russia with a foreword by Lu Hsun and a long article "On Proletarian Art" that was prepared by Mao Tun on the basis of material sent from Moscow (the article was printed in five issues of the journal Wenhsueh Choupao).

Appearing at a time when the revolutionary movement in China was on the upswing, these materials had a wide response among progressive literary and art circles, so much so that in 1926 one of the leading literary groups, calling itself Creativity, began actively popularising the slogan of revolutionary literature and urged writers to go to the factories, to the soldiers, "to the crucible of revolution''.

These were but the first steps in the dissemination in China of the Marxist-Leninist theory of literature and art. The disseminators themselves, mostly young people, did not have an adequate theoretical training or much practical experience. In a situation where a torrent of new ideas and notions had suddenly flooded China it was not at all easy to see and understand their political and class substance. But the important thing was that progressive Chinese intellectuals were becoming acquainted with Lenin's teaching on the role played by literature in social life and on its tasks in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.

In 1926 the journal Chungkuo Chingnien printed a translation of Lenin's article "Party Organisation and Party Literature". This was one of the first works by Lenin to be published in China. Written when the revolutionary storm was mounting in 1905, when it was of the utmost importance that political and ideological positions should be clear-cut, it conformed entirely to the task of giving proletarian ideology a strong foothold in Chinese culture under conditions witnessing the spread and deepening of the revolutionary struggle.

``It must become party literature," Lenin wrote. "In con-

tradistinction to bourgeois customs, to the profit-making, commercialised bourgeois press, to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, 'aristocratic anarchism' and drive for profit, the socialist proletariat must put forward the principle of party literature, must develop this principle and

put it into practice as fully and completely as possible-----

Literature must become part of the common cause of the proletariat."*

For the Chinese intelligentsia this formulation of the question of party literature, of its subordination to the general tasks of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat had a special significance.

For many long centuries in old China it was invariably preached that "literature must convey a teaching", meaning, of course, the official neo-Confucianist ideology. Progressive literary circles, who were discontented with the existing practices, usually turned to ``pure'' literature and went "to the fields and forests" in order to accentuate their independence.

The May 4 Movement and the accompanying "literary revolution", a major component of which was a struggle against feudal and, in particular, neo-Confucianist ideology, gave fresh impetus to individualism among Chinese men of letters. For many, primarily young, writers the striving to dissociate themselves from a definite reactionary ideology and the organisational forms linked with it grew into distrust of organisation generally, into calls for unrestricted `` freedom'', and the very idea of serving something was frightening.

Lenin had in mind such subjectively honest people filled with good intentions when he wrote that "one cannot live in society and be free of society",** that for an artist real freedom lay in serving the great ideal of the people's happiness, which could only be achieved through the liberation struggle of the proletariat. This extremely important tenet gradually became known to steadily broader circles of Chinese creative intellectuals. By propagating it the Communist Party of China was very successful in drawing intellectuals into the organised struggle for the country's liberation and, after the victory of the revolution, into the building of socialism.

However, it must be noted that Chinese Communists and intellectuals paid far less attention before and after the revolution to another important proposition formulated by Lenin in the above-mentioned article: ".. .literature is least of all subject to mechanical adjustment or levelling, to the rule of the majority over the minority. There is no question, either, that ... greater scope must undoubtedly be allowed for personal initiative, individual inclination, thought and fantasy, form and content."* Whereas at first the inadequate attention to this proposition could be justified by the exceptionally difficult conditions of the struggle, after the revolution and the formation of the People's Republic of China the excessive petty ``tutelage'' of the creative intelligentsia and the predominance of administrative methods of directing creative processes seriously hindered the development of Chinese culture.

The defeat of the revolution of 1925-27 in China caused only a short-lived decline of the activity of progressive intellectuals, for soon the struggle for a revolutionary literature and art was resumed with redoubled vigour. In January 1928 Cheng Fang-wu published an article under the heading "From the Literary Revolution to Revolutionary Literature". Using Lenin's propositions he showed that being a weapon of the class struggle literature should place itself in the service of the policy and tasks of the revolution; that progressive writers should acquire the Marxist world outlook, dissociate themselves from petty-bourgeois ideology and take a direct part in revolutionary activity; that the worker and peasant masses should be in the focus of literature and that the writer should be understandable to them and have their interests at heart.

Cheng Fang-wu was backed by other members of the Creativity group and also by the members of another progressive literary association called Sun. However, these intellectuals were unable to apply correct propositions to the concrete situation. Their criticism was directed not so much at the exponents of bourgeois, compradore and nationalistic ideology as at the leading proponents of realistic literature

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 45. Ibid., p. 48.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 46.

in China. The Sun and Creativity critics accused Lu Hsun and Mao Tun of propounding "petty-bourgeois ideology" and even of "regarding reality from the standpoint of the ruling class", and also of "hostility for revolutionary literature''.

These unjust attacks were given a sharp rebuff by Lu Hsun and Mao .Tun. They showed that their opponents had drawn hasty conclusions and had a simplified idea about revolutionary literature. This debate, excessively sharp at times, had a positive result in that it aroused still greater interest in Marxist-Leninist theory, which was actively expounded in those days by, among others, Lu Hsun.

In 1928-30 the periodical press printed translations of Lenin's works, and documents on the cultural policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin's works were brought out also in separate collections. Chinese publishing houses printed the works of Plekhanov, Vorovsky and Lunacharsky, Soviet studies on the history of Russian and West European literature, and classical Soviet fiction such as The Rout by Alexander Fadeyev, The Iron Flood by Alexander Serafimovich and Cement by Fyodor Gladkov.

Lenin's works propounded a broad and objective approach to art and helped to surmount elements of schematism and sectarianism and to strengthen realistic trends in the work of revolutionary writers.

It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of Lenin's brilliant analysis of the work of Leo Tolstoy for the budding Marxist aesthetic thought in China.

As Tsu Chiu-po justifiably pointed out, "the real contact with the theory of revolutionary literature and art in fact signified the birth (in China) of a new revolutionary proletarian literature". This idea was also expressed by Lu Hsun, who wrote in 1931: "The founding of the Left Writers' League in Shanghai last year is an event of major importance. This has happened because in China there had appeared theoretical works by Plekhanov and Lunacharsky, thanks to whom all of us are studying and improving our work and gathering determination and strength."''^^1^^"

Indeed, the founding of the Left Writers' League, which

was headed directly by the CPC, was---as the subsequent founding of the League of Left Workers of the Theatre and Allied Organisations---of immense importance for the further development of revolutionary culture in China. The League's members circulated Marxist works on aesthetics and also works by Russian revolutionary democrats, of whom Lenin had a high opinion. Lu Hsun and Tsu Chiu-po, the League's ideological leaders, waged an uncompromising struggle against all reactionary concepts in literature and art and energetically propagated the achievements of Soviet and world progressive culture. In their own work, members of the League and progressive artists siding with it---Mao Tun, Tien Han, Hung Shen, Pa Chin, Chang Tien-yi, Yeh Tzu, Jou Shih and many others---wrote vividly and faithfully about the sufferings and struggle of the people, of their growing determination and political awareness.

In the activities of the Left art front there were weaknesses springing from the difficulties caused by the Chiang Kai-shek terror regime, survivals of sectarianism and a vulgar-sociological deviation. But this in no way justifies the despicable campaign to discredit the literature and art of the 1930s that was conducted by the ideologists of the "great cultural revolution". Their accusations that the Left League "preached bourgeois ideology" have nothing in common with reality; the League had committed errors, but they were of a Leftist character.

The present ``critics'' are least of all interested in objective truth.. They are determined to discredit the literature that was engendered by the spirit of internationalism and produced vivid images of social reality. They are out to ``prove'' that prior to Mao Tse-tung's pronouncements on the subject (1942) mass revolutionary literature and art did not exist in China. That must be the starting point of everything. The only exception is Lu Hsun because, evidently, early in the 1940s the "great helmsman" had spoken highly of his work and his role as "the standard-bearer of the new culture" (subsequently, Mao said nothing publicly about Lu Hsun). Moreover, the Maoists want to use that great writer's prestige in their fight against the finest traditions of the literature of the 1930s. From Lu Hsun's rich heritage they arbitrarily select and one-sidedly interpret only individual articles, while his fundamental works, which are

* Lu Hsun, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 4, Peking, 1957, p. 237. Lenin's name was barred by the censors; he was usually referred to as ``Vladimir'', ``Ilyich'', "a known revolutionary" and so forth.

permeated with social truth and lofty humanism, are passed over in silence. They reach the height of absurdity when they attempt to portray Lu Hsun as an ``admirer'' and even ``disciple'' of Mao Tse-tung, a supporter of his "line in literature and art", a line which had not taken final shape in the writer's lifetime.

Lu Hsun and his friend and associate Tsu Chiu-po were unshakably opposed to all reactionary trends. From MarxistLeninist positions they substantiated and upheld the fundamental principles governing the development of modern Chinese culture, a culture that would serve the cause of liberating the people, the cause of the international struggle against imperialism. They devoted themselves to carrying out the Left League's programme, which stated in part: "The purpose of our literary movement is to secure the liberation of the rising class, use the experience of the rising foreign literature and expand our movement; help to educate new writers and find writers in the midst of workers and peasants; reassert the Marxist theory of literature and criticism; create literary works of the rising class" (due to the censorship the proletariat was designated as the "rising class", and Soviet literature as the "rising foreign literature").

In the difficult ideological situation of the early 1930s Lu Hsun, Tsu Chiu-po and their supporters had to wage a struggle in several directions. On the one hand there was a small but vociferous group of "nationalistic writers", who declared that "nationalism is the highest principle in literature". They attacked the class approach to social problems, contending that class consciousness was a "trap in which, if caught, the nation will perish". The political significance of this ``supra-class'' attitude was laid bare by their mad calls for a repetition of Genghis Khan's invasion of the West, against the "state of the dictatorship of the proletariat". Realising that this was beyond the power of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, they called on the Japanese imperialists to head the invasion and proclaimed them the "leaders of the yellow race''.

On the other hand, revolutionary literature and art were attacked by the bourgeois liberals (calling themselves "free people"), petty-bourgeois individualists who styled themselves as the ``thirds''---neither bourgeois nor proletarian---

and the proponents of "entertaining literature". Common to these trends were their attempts to divorce literature from

Eolitics, their refusal to serve the people, their scorn for alk genius and their repudiation of the need for the organised unity of progressive intellectuals in face of the Kuomintang repressions.

In many well-argumented articles Lu Hsun, Tsu Chiu-po and other members of the Left League laid bare the untenability of the stand adopted by their adversaries and the harm they were inflicting on the liberation movement in China. These debates and the continuing spread of MarxistLeninist theory despite all obstacles led to the further strengthening of revolutionary literature and art and silenced most of its active adversaries. Therefore, Lu Hsun had full grounds for stating in 1933 that in China there was actually "no literature except Left literature". As regards the budding Chinese film industry, in which a leading role was played by progressive producers and script writers such as Hsia Yan, Tien Han and Yang Han-sheng (all of whom fell victim to the "cultural revolution"), the noted film historian Georges Sadoul justifiably noted that in the mid19308 it was second only to the Soviet film industry for its incisive social content.

A particularly large role in disseminating and implementing Lenin's teaching on culture was played by Tsu Chiu-po, theoretician, critic and translator. Drawing on the Lenin heritage and on the works of Soviet authors, and creatively applying them under Chinese conditions, he offered a detailed and largely correct interpretation of the cardinal problems of the development of revolutionary literature such as its creative method, which he characterised as " proletarian realism" (Tsu Chiu-po did not yet use the term "socialist realism", but these are essentially identical terms), the relationship between art and politics, the accessibility of literary genres and of the literary language, and the importance of mastering international experience. Although he erred in some issues---for instance, in his appraisal of the Chinese classical heritage he attached importance only to folklore---his propositions were on the whole correct: they laid a firm foundation for the further struggle for a democratic and socialist culture in China.

During the last years of his life (1934-35), as People's Commissar for Education in the Central Soviet Region and Rector of the Soviet University, Tsu Chiu-po directed cultural activity in the regions liberated by the Chinese Red Army. A large network of general-education and night schools, illiteracy abolition classes, clubs, amateur art groups, and the Gorky Theatrical School were set up under his direction. Actually, this was the first attempt in China to give practical effect to Lenin's teaching on the cultural revolution as part of the social revolution. The life and work of this ardent revolutionary and his heroic death at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's hangmen were an example of dedication to the motherland and the revolution. During the "cultural revolution", acting on orders from above, the hungweipings tried to smear the memory of Tsu Chiu-po and profaned his grave. But this was a vain attempt to strike the name of this valiant Communist-internationalist from the memory of the Chinese people.

supporters from the midst of all and sundry educated people".* However, it must be noted that under the guise of ``unity'' progressive circles sometimes made concessions to bourgeois ideology.

Chinese culture developed under specific conditions in the liberated areas, where a considerable section of Chinese progressive intellectuals, including some of China's topranking writers, artists and scholars, was concentrated. The presence of these intellectuals and the political enthusiasm of the students created favourable soil for cultural work. Indeed, institutions of higher learning, the Lu Hsun Institute of Arts among them, were opened in Yenan, and the publication of journals and books was started in that city. Theatrical propaganda teams toured the combat units at the firing lines, amateur art was encouraged, steps were taken to wipe out illiteracy, especially among the troops, and superstition was combated. On the whole, the work begun in the Soviet regions under the direction of Tsu Chiu-po was continued. However, the war against the Japanese invaders, the Kuomintang blockade and Northwestern China's cultural and economic backwardness predicated many difficulties: there was a shortage of all that was most vital---teachers and simply literate people, school premises, textbooks, paper and so on.

This was the period when Mao Tse-tung formulated his system of views on problems of culture: literature and art, the role of intellectuals, the attitude to the cultural heritage, and so forth. This system was presented in a more extended form in Mao's pronouncements at a conference on questions of literature and art in 1942 and was augmented and `` developed'' (in a direction opposite to Marxism-Leninism) in other articles and speeches in the 1940s-1960s. All the more or less correct propositions in these pronouncements were in practice discarded or were put forward only for tactical reasons from the very beginning. The essence of Mao's views was fully laid bare during the "cultural revolution", which amounted to an assault on socialist culture.

It may be presumed that in the specific conditions that obtained in the liberated areas some of Mao's pronouncements and recommendations had certain practical significance.

During the war against Japanese aggression (1937-45) the Communist Party of China acted in line with the united front slogan, which had been advanced in the decisions of the 7th Comintern Congress before that war broke out. This slogan embraced culture as well.

The National Association of Literary and Art Workers was founded in 1938 as a weapon against the enemy. This association united the efforts of patriotic intellectuals in territory ruled by the Kuomintang. This and other organisations of the united cultural front enabled Communist intellectuals to influence wide circles of the Chinese intelligentsia. Although Marxist-Leninist views could not, of course, be propagated in Kuomintang-held territory, joint work helped Communist and uncommitted intellectuals to surmount misunderstanding and even distrust for socialist ideals. The overwhelming majority of the Chinese intelligentsia was thus prepared for its subsequent acceptance of the people's revolution of 1949. This was a major achievement of the Communist Party of China, which implemented in practice the proposition suggested by Lenin as far back as 1902 that "the proletariat is not only advancing intellectuals from its own midst, but also accepts into its ranks

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 198. 12-1313

But after the revolution had triumphed and the People's Republic was formed and particularly during the past decade they have been absolutised, proclaimed as the ''highest achievement of Marxist thought","" and contraposed to the Marxist-Leninist teaching on culture.

The basic divergences between Mao's views on culture and the Marxist-Leninist teaching cover a large range of problems, but the essence lies chiefly in the view on the role played by culture, literature and art in social life. For Mao Tse-tung the functions of culture are purely utilitarian, while its task is to ensure the concrete requirements of policy, principally the enforcement of his own instructions. Nowhere in his works does he say that the task of culture and art is to mould the spiritual image of the man of the future communist society, where, as is stated in the Communist Manifesto, the "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". Mao's interpretation of culture clashes with Lenin's thesis that "you can become a Communist only when you enrich your mind with a knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind".**

A purely utilitarian approach to the tasks of culture, an approach founded on the "needs of the moment", renders cultural wealth superfluous for it makes people ponder whether Mao's "latest instructions" are expedient and reasonable.

Whereas Lenin had made extensive use of data on Russian reality drawn by him from the works of Russian writers and whereas Engels had spoken highly of the wealth of information on the French economy in the works of Balzac, the high priests of Maoism do not so much as assume that they can learn anything from writers. On the contrary, writers and intellectuals generally are usually accused of "entirely lacking an understanding (of what is happening) and having entirely no or little experience of practical

matters".* The Maoists in effect deny to art the ability to understand reality, leaving it only the duty to illustrate ready-made theses and formulas "with examples from life". Didactic agitation and propaganda are the chief function accorded to literature and art. They have to be a textbook of life (a viewpoint that was widespread in feudal China), expose the concrete adversary (in the given case---Liu Shaochi) and glorify officially approved heroes (Mao himself and his ``cogs'' of the Lei Feng type). Nothing is said in Mao's works about the fact that literature should show the truth of life in its development and with its contradictions, and enrich the spiritual life of the people. Mao's attitude to culture may be formulated as follows: "Culture is the votary of cult.''

This impoverished, narrow utilitarian interpretation is fundamentally at variance with Lenin's proposition on party literature, on the party spirit that "enjoins the direct and open adoption of the standpoint of a definite social group in any assessment of events".** While underscoring what literature has in common with other spheres of social life, including the extremely important principle of partisanship, Lenin noted its specific, namely, that "the literary side of the proletarian party cause cannot be mechanically identified with its other sides".*** He stressed the active role of revolutionary literature, whose task is to fertilise "the last word in the revolutionary thought of mankind with the experience and living work of the socialist proletariat".**** To fertilise and not merely to illustrate, to portray "the experience and living work of the proletariat" and not only "political directives". So far as the Maoists are concerned, there is only a one-sided link between art and politics: politics directs and nourishes art, while art in no way helps to mould politics (or ideology generally) and its task is only to help give effect to politics.

Mao says a lot about the "object served by revolutionary literature". This object, in his opinion, must be the workers, peasants and soldiers (in the first printing of the Speeches

* Mao Tse-tung on Literature and Art. Chinese ed., Peking, 1961, p. 91.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 401. *** Ibid., Vol. 10, p. 46. **** Ibid., p. 49.

* In 1961 the newspaper Jenmin Jihpao carried a semi-official article headed "Let Us Raise Still Higher the Banner of Mao Tse-tung's Thought on Literature and Art", in which it was maintained that Marx, Engels and Lenin had only advanced individual propositions and given only a preliminary outline, while Mao had evolved an "all-embracing teaching on literature and art" where such a teaching had been almost totally nonexistent.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 287.

12*

the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia were also named, but later mention of them was dropped). The artist must serve the workers, peasants and soldiers firstly by "ensuring the accessibility of his works", secondly, by ``merging'' with the masses. It would seem that here Mao is following Lenin, who stressed that art should serve "tens upon tens of millions of working people" and "sink the deepest roots in the very thick of the masses". Actually, Mao differs fundamentally from Lenin in his understanding of the link between culture and the people.

Here is how Lenin put this question: our workers "are entitled to real great art. That is why we put foremost public education and training on the biggest scale. It creates a basis for culture. . .".* Lenin's injunction to revolutionary workers in culture was that they should not "go down" to the cultural level of the masses, but that they should raise that level, educate the reader and viewer and lead them forward. Lenin always underscored their flesh-and-blood link with the people. As soon as it was established Soviet power concentrated on opening for the masses the finest examples of Russian and world culture, of really great art, and on making these masterpieces understandable to all. Mao Tse-tung, on the other hand, preaches a primitive `` accessibility'' and maintains that "the peasantry is the chief object of the movement for culture''.

It is unquestionably vital to awaken in the peasant an interest in art and to satisfy this interest, but to make the entire development of literature and art dependent on the ability of the peasant to understand them is to deliberately doom Chinese culture to prolonged stagnation. As Mao sees it, the immediate task of literature and art is not to place knowledge and culture within reach of the masses and not to raise the aesthetic level of the people, but to adapt themselves to the existing low cultural requirements of the Chinese peasant. More, during the "big leap" and on the eve of the "cultural revolution" the Maoists announced that cultural workers should learn from the masses, chiefly from the peasants, and that amateur art was immeasurably higher than professional art, that in general one could do quite well without professional art.

Such are some aspects of Mao's attitude to culture. The Mao directives, proclaimed as the guide to action, have severely hit the development of socialist culture in China. Moreover, vicious trends have steadily acquired increasing importance and become predominant during the "cultural revolution''.

As Lenin teaches, the political victory of the working class marks the beginning of a cultural revolution, a revolution in spiritual life, which is one of the laws of the transition to socialism. No important economic, political or ideological task of socialist development can be carried out without cultural reforms, without considerably raising the cultural level of the masses.

Underlying Lenin's theory of cultural revolution is the proposition on the all-sided spiritual growth of the masses, on the growth of their political consciousness and historical activity. The victory of the October Revolution showed that communism "can (and should) be built from the mass human material which has been corrupted by hundreds and thousands of years of slavery, serfdom, capitalism, by small individual enterprise, and by the war of every man against his neighbour to obtain a place in the market, or a higher price for his product or his labour".'^^1^^" This can be achieved because "nine out of ten of the working people have realised that knowledge is a weapon in their struggle for emancipation, that their failures are due to lack of education, and that now it is up to them really to give everyone access to education".**

Hence Lenin's thesis that the "task of raising the cultural level is one of the most urgent confronting us"***; if we "confine ourselves to internal economic relations, the emphasis in our work is certainly shifting to education".**** It was imperative, Lenin wrote, to turn "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".***** This was an incredibly difficult

* V. I.

Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 388.

** Ibid.,

p. 88.

*** Ibid.,

Vol. 33, p. 73.

*»»* Ibid.,

p. 474.

***** Ibid.,

Vol. 27, p. 412.

* V. I. Lenin, On Literature and Art, Moscow, 1970, p. 253.

task but it was carried out in the USSR under the leadership of the Communist Party.

The need for a cultural revolution was even greater in China where "the gap between the grandeur of the tasks imposed and our poverty, not only material but also cultural"? was much wider than in Russia. Nearly 90 per cent of the population was illiterate; schools, particularly secondary schools and institutions of higher learning, were out of the people's reach; modern science was making hardly any progress. Taking this into account, the overall programme of the People's Political Consultative Council in 1949 noted the need for balance and consistent measures in order "to introduce general-education schools, improve secondary and higher education, pay special attention to technical education and intensify the education of the working people in non-working time''.

In the theses of the CPC Central Committee for the study and propagation of the Party's general line in the period of transition it was pointed out that on account of the difficulties confronting the country it would require "a fairly long period in order to create the economic and cultural prerequisites ensuring the complete triumph of socialism". Note was made in the theses of a favourable factor for the building of socialism in China, namely, the possibility of utilising the Soviet Union's extensive experience and fraternal assistance.

This assistance was indeed broad and effective. In the 1950s over 10,000 Chinese undergraduate and post-graduate students studied at Soviet institutions of higher learning and nearly a thousand Chinese scientific workers underwent training in the Soviet Union. Almost 2,000 Soviet teachers and scientists worked in the People's Republic of China. In 1956 Soviet scientists helped to draw up a long-term plan of scientific development in China. Several thousand Soviet textbooks and educational programmes were translated into the Chinese language and broadly used in the education system, which was reorganised in 1951 with account of the experience gained by Soviet schools. Works of Soviet literature and art, which educated the masses in the spirit

of proletarian internationalism and socialism, were widely popularised.

The new literature and the new art, inspired by the ideals of socialism and internationalism, made swift headway during the period of rehabilitation and during the period of the first five-year plan. Mastering the creative method of socialist realism and drawing on the experience of Soviet culture and their own revolutionary traditions, Chinese writers and artists sought to portray more fully and realistically the mass heroism displayed by the people in the liberation struggle and their enthusiasm in rebuilding their life along socialist lines. A prominent place in poetry, publicism and the fine arts was given to the theme of friendship with the Soviet Union and the theme of the unity of the world's progressive forces in the anti-imperialist struggle. A new direction was given to the development of the theatre and the film industry, and arts like the opera, ballet and easel painting appeared in China for the first time.

During these years, too, naturally, there were shortcomings in literature and art, some of which were serious; they were partly due to the youth or inadequate training of many of the workers in culture, and also to the adverse influence of Mao's tenets. But, on the whole, it may be said that in China progress was being made by literature and art that were educating the people in the socialist spirit. Much was achieved in those years in promoting education. By 1952 as compared with 1949 the number of pupils in elementary schools had more than doubled, increasing from 24,400,000 to 51,500,000. During the period of the first fiveyear plan the number of pupils quadrupled in secondary schools and doubled in technical schools, while the number of students at institutions of higher learning increased 2.3- fold. By the beginning of 1956 some 32 million workers and peasants had learned to read and write. This was a considerable achievement of the cultural revolution, but it was only the first step.

In that same year, 1956, .almost half (48 per cent) of the children of school age still had no opportunity of going to school. It was planned to effect the transition to universal elementary education in the course of 7-12 years. The institutions of higher learning were annually training only 63,000 people---a very modest figure for a country like

:18S

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 574.

China. The new, workers' and peasants' intelligentsia had only begun to take shape. But in the obtaining situation it was impossible to speed up this process. Haste could only bring harm; it was not accidental that in an analogous situation Lenin had noted that "in matters of culture, haste and sweeping measures are most harmful".* This was evidently appreciated by some of the Chinese leaders. Speaking in Peking in 1957 Liu Shao-chi said: "China is a large country and it is a difficult and complicated matter to build socialism in it. The working class must therefore have a huge army of intellectuals.... The training and strengthening of this army is the common historical task of our whole party and of the entire people of our country." But this was still a far cry from solving the problem.

A vital condition for the cultural revolution in China was the active enlistment of available scientific cadres of the intelligentsia into socialist construction. This was predominantly a bourgeois intelligentsia, which had come from the exploiting classes and been trained either in Western capitalist countries or at Chinese universities, where the influence of the Western bourgeoisie was strong. Most of them patriotically welcomed the people's power but were far removed from communist ideals.

Lenin warned: "Communism cannot be built without knowledge, technique, and culture, and this knowledge is in possession of bourgeois specialists. Most of them do not sympathise with Soviet power, yet without them we cannot build communism. They must be surrounded with an atmosphere of comradeship, a spirit of communist work, and won over to the side of the workers' and peasants' government."""* He held that the proletariat would achieve victory by "removing those of them who are incorrigibly bourgeois, reforming, re-educating and subordinating the waverers, and gradually winning ever larger sections of them to its side".*** It must be said that during the first years of people's power in China attempts were made to win the old intelligentsia over to the side of the proletariat. Trained specialists were given the jobs they were fitted for and provided good

material conditions, and many intellectuals were elected to various organs of power. The task was set of re-educating the intelligentsia. However, mass ideological campaigns became the basic form of re-education, and as time went by these campaigns were turned into a means of crudely pressuring the intelligentsia.

In the period from 1950 to 1957 there were four major and several minor ideological campaigns, each of which lasted several months and embraced tens and hundreds of thousands and, sometimes, millions of people.

Some of these campaigns---criticism of the film The Life of Wu Hsung (1951), and the criticism of the concepts propounded by the bourgeois scholar Hu Shih (who had sided with Chiang Kai-shek) in 1954-55---pursued the definite aim of acquainting the intelligentsia with Marxism and with the struggle against bourgeois ideology. However, as one campaign gave way to another it grew increasingly obvious that the aim was to enforce the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" and remove all opposition to this ``thought''. This was most strikingly manifested during the brutal campaign against the group headed by Hu Feng, a literary critic and poet, who, though not yet a mature Marxist, had nevertheless opposed many of Mao's vulgar tenets in literary policy.

During these campaigns strong moral and political pressure was brought to bear on intellectuals, who were forced to ``admit'' all sorts of sins and attend brainwashing meetings for weeks and months on end. Instead of the comradely atmosphere insisted on by Lenin, the atmosphere was one of constant tension and suspicion. This prevented the intelligentsia from mastering the Marxist-Leninist teaching and hampered its creative work.

In January 1956 Chou En-lai acknowledged that intellectuals were being used insufficiently, that respect had to be shown for the intelligentsia, that it had to be given moral and material encouragement and that softer forms of educational work had to be used. In May of the same year Mao Tse-tung advanced a policy described as "may a hundred flowers blossom, may a hundred scientists compete". It was promised that all the administrative restrictions in culture and science would be lifted and freedom was proclaimed for the activity of the various scientific schools (up to permission to teach idealist philosophy), and for the contest of

* V. I, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 487, ** Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 147. *** Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 425.

various creative methods, styles and forms in literature and art. The architects of the above-mentioned policy hoped this would win over the largest possible section of the intelligentsia. The official interpretation of this policy was different, of course.

In a report to the 8th Congress of the CPC Liu Shao-chi explained the "hundred flowers" policy as a desire "to ensure the full flowering of science and art ... and place them in the service of socialist construction". The congress approved this interpretation of the policy. It condemned "restrictions and arbitrary measures in science and art" and noted that "we must inherit and assimilate all useful knowledge whether it is a legacy from old China or has been introduced from abroad".*

The "hundred flowers" policy failed to yield the results anticipated by its initiators. On the one hand, the position of the advocates of genuine socialist culture was strengthened, and there was a growing demand for an actual, not only verbal, implementation of Leninist methods of directing the development of literature and art. Some books dealt realistically with the difficulties and contradictions in Chinese society, and there was mounting interest in scientific and cultural life in the USSR and other countries. On the other hand, certain bourgeois, anti-communist literary circles became active. Alarmed, the Peking leaders in effect abandoned the "hundred flowers" policy in the summer of 1957, leaving only its name, and started a campaign against ``Right'' elements. The Maoists dealt most brutally with writers, artists and scholars who had been championing socialist principles in the development of culture.

During the "three red banners" campaign (1958-60) the Maoists sought to effectuate their anti-Leninist line in culture. They refused to benefit by the foreign, above all, the Soviet experience of promoting socialist culture and science; belittled the role of the intelligentsia; gave precedence to amateur art over professional art; rejected the method of socialist realism in favour of the so-called method of combining revolutionary romanticism with revolutionary realism, which meant the blacklisting of the truth of life;

demanded quantity to the detriment of quality in literature and art and, particularly, in education; and extolled the "thought of Mao Tse-tung''.

The total failure of the "big leap" compelled the Maoists to beat a retreat on the cultural front as well. As the Maoist pressure diminished, leading intellectuals began to urge a return to the socialist and internationalist principles of cultural development.

However, the Maoists resumed their attacks after the 10th plenary meeting of the CPC Central Committee in September 1962. On the pretence of fighting revisionism they started a campaign of slander against Soviet literature and art and severed China's cultural relations with the Soviet Union. A "revolution in the Peking musical drama", which led to a total ban on the classical repertory, was carried out under the direction of Chiang Ching, Mao Tsetung's wife. This was followed by a wave of virulent criticism of prominent writers, playwrights and cinematography workers, most of whom were veteran party members. Non-professional art was again given priority and the names of writers and artists of any repute ceased to appear in the press. The struggle against ``revisionism'' from the standpoint of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" was virtually proclaimed as the sole task of the social sciences.

Chinese culture was dealt a further heavy blow by the "cultural revolution", which was a political campaign designed to establish a military-bureaucratic regime in China. At its outset in 1966 it was announced that one of its principal objectives was to overthrow the "old culture". By "old culture" the Maoists meant Chinese and world classical literature and art, folklore, almost the entire progressive literature and art of the period from 1919 to 1949, and most of the cultural values created during the years of people's power. The destruction of the "old culture" was in the main completed during the summer and autumn of 1966 by the hungweipings. Books, works of art and architectural monuments were destroyed, libraries, museums and theatres were closed, and the publication of books and journals was halted. This was accompanied by a mass campaign of

* Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol. 1, p. 125.

physical and moral terror against writers, artists and scientists. The sharp edge of this campaign was directed against Communists holding prominent positions in creative unions, leading cultural agencies, and research and educational institutions.

Studies at all institutions of learning were stopped in the spring of 1966 and it was declared that there would be a fundamental reform of the system of education introduced in the 1950s, which was branded as ``bourgeois''.

The justification that the Maoist ideologists gave for this campaign of terror was that a ``bourgeois'' and ``revisionist'' line had been predominant among cultural leaders. Lu Ting-yi, Chou Yang, Tien Han, Hsia Yan, Yang Hansheng and other persons heading ideological organs and creative unions were named as the proponents of this line. These people were accused of overt or clandestine opposition to the "thought of Mao", of admiring foreign (read Soviet) and classical art, of patronising "bourgeois intellectuals" and so forth.

The published material enables one to draw the conclusion that on individual issues of cultural policy there had indeed been differences between some leaders of ideological and creative organisations and ``true'' Maoists. But the main reason for the persecution of "persons in power", in the cultural field was, evidently, the fact that the Maoists had failed in their campaign to re-educate the intelligentsia in the spirit of Maoism and had decided that their hopes lay mainly with young cadres and non-professionals, who, they felt, were more reliable and pliable ideologically. This presupposed the discrediting of the old intelligentsia, chiefly of its leading figures, especially as many of them had fairly extensive experience of the revolutionary struggle and had adopted the Marxist-Leninist teaching long before its Maoist falsification. These people were the obstacle to the final consolidation of vulgar, sectarian concepts in culture.

Although the hungweipings and tsaofans were the most active force during the first phase of the "cultural revolution", the leading role was in effect accorded to the Army. The "cultural revolution`s'' programme in literature and art, with the Army assigned to fulfil this programme, had been formulated in effect as early as February 1966 at the "con-

ference on questions of work in literature and art in the Army" (the verbatim report of this conference was published in May 1967 after it had been edited by Mao Tse-tung). The Army received increasing powers as the hungweiping organisations became involved in an internecine struggle. The Army was given the task of re-opening the institutions of higher learning and schools and controlling all ideological activity in cultural organisations. The schools and institutions of higher learning were reorganised on the Army pattern---the classes, groups and departments were replaced with squads, platoons and companies. The military were assigned not only "to raise the ideological level in literature and art" but to carry out a purge among the literary and artistic intelligentsia. Moreover, some of the leading theatrical companies (the Peking Musical Drama Theatre, the ballet troupe at the Central Opera and Ballet Theatre, the First Peking Troupe of Peking Musical Drama, and others) were turned over to the jurisdiction of the People's Liberation Army and became "theatrical brigades''.

The campaign against socialist culture and against the cultural heritage has been conducted under the guise of creating a new, allegedly proletarian culture. Lenin had long ago demolished these sectarian ideas about the ways of building up the new culture. "The latter (proletarian culture.---Ed.)," he wrote, "is not clutched out of thin air; it is not an invention of those who call themselves experts in proletarian culture. That is all nonsense. Proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner and bureaucratic society."""

The Maoists use high-flown verbiage about proletarian culture chiefly to camouflage their cardinal aim, which is to create a cultural vacuum, make the people's minds, as Mao put it, "a blank sheet of paper" on which anything can be written. The glorification of the "great helmsman" cult and of his ``thought'' is currently the sole content of the meagre artistic---if it can be called that---output in China. No books and journals have been published for a number of years; paper is allocated solely for the works of Mao Tse-tung (a total of 280 million copies of selected works and 740

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 287.

million "books of quotations" were published in the period from the beginning of 1966 to November 1968).* Film studios produce only documentaries in which Mao Tse-tung invariably figures, his portraits and statues replace art and sculpture, and all theatres stage the same six plays and three concert programmes that have received the blessing of Chiang Ching.

A reform of the system of education was actively started in the autumn of 1968. This reform had been announced two years earlier but it was not put into effect on account of the disorders sparked by the "cultural revolution". Its aim is to educate the rising generation in the spirit of devotion to the ``leader'', limit the cultural and material requirements of young people and shift almost all the expenditures on education to the shoulders of the people. This aim is being achieved by reducing the volume of the material to be studied, accentuating the study of the "thought of Mao" and transferring schools to the jurisdiction (and maintenance) of the people's communes in rural areas and to factories and street committees in the towns.

As early as 1964 Mao Tse-tung asserted that the "course in science could be halved", backing up his argument with references to the experience of Confucius and the Ming emperors. Taking the hint, the secondary schools in Kweichow Province, for example, now devote 58 per cent of the study time to the "thought of Mao Tse-tung and lessons in the class struggle", 21 per cent to "learning from workers and peasants" and only 21 per cent to general education. This does not include work in production and military training, which occupy half the time of the pupils. Further, if it is borne in mind that the term of study in a secondary school has been cut by three years and the fact that most of the trained teachers have been expelled, one will see the poverty of the knowledge acquired by the graduates of these schools. "Devotion to Chairman Mao" has been proclaimed as the chief criterion in assessing the progress of pupils. This is also the criterion for selecting ``diligent'' pupils for enrolment at institutions of higher learning. At these institutions the term of study has been shortened to 2-3 years and theoretical subjects have been

sharply curtailed. All these measures will unquestionably have an adverse effect on the further destiny of China's economy and culture.

At the same time the Maoists have stepped up the campaign of "re-educating the intelligentsia", with physical labour in the countryside as the principal means of `` reeducation''. The Maoists see the ``fusion'' of the intelligentsia with the masses as the utilisation of trained cadres and generally educated young people on the most unskilled labour. Instead of bringing knowledge and culture to the countryside and helping modernise agriculture, the hundreds of thousands of trained people who are being sent to rural localities are forced to engage in unproductive work and endure unnecessary privation. The heads of the "May 7 School of Cadres" in Heilungkiang Province, where more than 500 people are being ``re-educated'', smugly told a Jenmin Jihpao reporter of the hardships they had created for the ``re-educatees'': "We have put them on the hardest work so they should undergo ordeals and become steeled, so they would study and apply the thought of Mao Tse-tung in real life. They are sent far away from settled areas across tall mountains and swamps. They plough up virgin soil, dam up rivers, live in huts and sustain themselves on wildgrowing roots."*

From time to time the press raises the question of exonerating some of the repressed intellectuals, noting that those who had committed ``errors'' should be given a "way out". Considerations of a practical nature are evidently inducing the Maoists to allow intellectuals, who they feel have been sufficiently ``re-educated'', to return to their professions. But they continue to distrust the intelligentsia and regard it as an actual or potential opposition to their policies. This is borne out by the documents of the 9th Congress of the CPC, which show that the Peking leadership is bent on continuing the "cultural revolution" in all spheres of the superstructure and intensifying political and ideological pressure on the intelligentsia. These documents contain no hint of a constructive programme in culture.

* Jenmin Jihpao, January 3, 1969

* Jenmin Jihpao, October 10, 1968.

The Maoist policy in culture and towards the intelligentsia is fundamentally at variance with the principles of Lenin's teaching. The PRC's initial achievements in education, science, literature and art have been threatened or completely effaced by the "cultural revolution". Instead of steadily raising the education level, the Maoists are forcing schoolchildren to memorise the Mao book of quotations. Instead of serving "the millions and tens of millions of working people---the flower of the country, its strength and its future",* literature and art have been harnessed to the personality cult. Instead of utilising the advanced experience of the socialist countries and world culture the Maoists venomously run down everything Soviet and cultivate scorn for the national and foreign heritage. Instead of making the maximum use of the intelligentsia's knowledge and abilities for the cause of socialist construction, the Maoists slight and repress intellectuals and deliberately squander their strength on unproductive work.

This is evidence of the fact that in order to wield undivided power the Maoists unscrupulously sacrifice the vital interests of their people and retard China's economic and cultural development. But this is precisely what makes their position vulnerable. China's basic problems can be resolved and she can be turned into a modern state with a nourishing economy and culture only through socialist construction, only through a genuine cultural revolution, whose principles have been laid down by Lenin and which has been so successful in the Soviet Union. This is clearly appreciated by many Chinese Communists-internationalists and by broad circles of Chinese intellectuals, who are familiar with the real teaching of Marx and Lenin and not only with its ``Sinicised'' version, and who have seen for themselves the advantages of the Soviet experience of cultural development and the beneficial influence of Soviet assistance for the advancement of Chinese culture. They can be forced to remain silent and some of them can be deceived for a time. But the demands of life and the laws of social development will come into their own sooner or later. The future of Chinese culture lies with socialism.

A. M. DUBINSKY

THE MAOIST DISTORTIONS OF LENIN'S VIEWS ON WAR AND PEACE

In the foreign policy programme of the present ruling group in the People's Republic of China war is given out as an immutable and decisive motor of progress. China's rulers are actively and purposefully propagating war.

In the article "Long Live the Victory of the People's War", Lin Piao explained Mao's tenets as follows: "War tempers the people and moves history forward. In this sense war is a great school."* Since the 9th Congress of the CPC the Chinese press has been widely propagating this view, stressing that the "proletariat cannot do without war". Those who want to avert another world war are called "opportunists and betrayers of the proletariat".** The press continuously repeats Mao's thesis that it is necessary "to oppose war with war".***

Mao Tse-tung maintains that "war is the highest form of struggle between peoples, states and blocs", that 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 is flagrantly at variance with Leninism. The Maoists are fostering a cult of crude violence and employing military-bureaucratic methods of administration. This contravenes the vital interests of the people, clashes with the

* Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of the People's War, Chinese ed., Peking, 1965, p. 65.

** Chiehfang Jihpao, May 14, 1969. *** Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Peking, 1966, p. 67.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp. 48-49.

"eking Review No. 36, September 3, 1965, p. 23.

13---1313

laws of social development, undermines socialist construction in China and, in the long run, plays into the hands of imperialism.

economic relations, which compel them to make contact with us."* He formulated the principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, a principle that is increasingly winning recognition in the practice of international relations.

Firmly and consistently championing the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and the equality of all nations, big and small, he spoke time and again of the essence of his concept of peaceful coexistence. This concept envisages the utilisation of peaceful means of fighting capitalism, through a competition between the "two methods, two political and economic systems---the communist and the capitalist",** in order to "prove to the whole world that we are a force capable not only of resisting any attempt to crush us by force of arms but of setting an example to others"*** and thereby consolidate the position held by socialism, demonstrate to all mankind its advantages and beat capitalism in the decisive sphere of activity---the sphere of material production.

Socialism's principal weapon on the international scene is thus its "superiority over the old system in social organisation, political system, economy, the improvement of the standard of living and spiritual culture".****

Contrary to the assertions of some Western politicians, peaceful coexistence is by no means a tactical slogan. It springs logically from Lenin's conclusion that socialism can triumph initially in one or several countries and from the profound belief that the coexistence of the two different social systems is an objective law which inevitably operates for a long time.

Lenin always made the point that peace on earth was the most favourable condition for the building of socialism and that the struggle for it should be one of the cardinal foreign policy functions of the socialist state.

However, to translate the prospect for lasting peaceful relations between nations into reality there had to be, as Lenin noted, a fundamental change in the balance of forces

The more than half-century experience of the Soviet Union on the international scene has proved that the principles worked out by Lenin are of unfading significance.

Lenin pinpointed two principles that must underlie foreign policy and which are closely interrelated: proletarian internationalism and the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems.

On the eve of the October Revolution he wrote: "The foreign policy of the proletariat is alliance with the revolutionaries of the advanced countries and with all the oppressed nations against all and any imperialists."*

Soviet Russia's very first foreign policy acts---the annulment of the unequal treaties signed by the tsarist and Provisional governments, the recognition of the independence of Finland and Poland, support for the liberation struggle of the peoples of Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Mongolia, China and other countries, and the exposure of secret diplomacy---embodied the principle of proletarian internationalism. Lenin insisted that this principle should be the basis for relations between the peoples of all countries.

The main contradiction of the epoch, namely, the contradiction between the socialist and the capitalist system, Lenin emphasised, had to be resolved not by war but by an economic, political and ideological struggle. "All our politics and propaganda," he wrote, "are directed towards putting an end to war and in no way towards driving nations to war. Experience has shown sufficiently that the socialist revolution is the only way out of eternal warfare."**

He foresaw that capitalist countries would inevitably enter into economic and trade relations with socialist states. "There is a force," he wrote, "more powerful than the wishes, the will and the decisions of any of the governments or classes that are hostile to us. That force is world general

* Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 155. ** Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 456. *** Ibid., p. 417. **** The Road to Communism, Moscow, 1961, p. 504.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 87. Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 470.

13*

in the world. This predetermined socialism's emergence from the boundary of one country, its conversion into a community of socialist states, and the fulfilment 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)"."" Lenin considered that this development of the world revolutionary process was inevitable. His prevision has been borne out by the formation of the world socialist system after the Second World War.

By the mid-1950s the world socialist system had begun to turn into a decisive factor of social development on a global scale. The colonial system fell apart under the blows of the national liberation movement. Many new sovereign, independent states have appeared on the political map of the world.

The contemporary epoch witnesses the growth of the forces of democracy and peace and a turbulent scientific and technological revolution. Moreover, unparalleled means of mass annihilation have appeared. With the development of nuclear weapons the struggle against the threat of thermonuclear war has become vital to the interests of all nations.

Nadezhda Krupskaya has left us her reminiscences of how Lenin assessed the prospects for the development of armaments. In a talk with her early in 1918 Lenin said that modern technology was now increasingly fostering the destructive nature of war. But the time would come when war would be so destructive as to render it generally impossible. Lenin brought the subject up again sometime between 1920 and 1921. He told me of a conversation he had had with an engineer who had said that things were moving towards an invention that would allow destroying a large army from a distance. This would rule out the possibility of any war. Lenin was very enthusiastic about it. It was his ardent wish to make war impossible. He analysed the question of war in

its development. In fact, this was his approach to any question."*

After the Great October Revolution had triumphed, Lenin wrote: "We know, we know only too well, the incredible misfortunes that war brings to the workers and peasants. For that reason our attitude to this question must be most cautious and circumspect."""* The greatest caution and circumspection are all the more needed in the situation obtaining today. Marxists-Leninists hold that another world war can and must be averted. By joint effort the world socialist system, the international working class and the national liberation movement, which are the three great forces of modern times, are capable of upholding peace.

Passiveness, renunciation of the struggle against the threat of another world war, and the adoption of a theoretically false and politically barren thesis that war is inevitable would signify, as was noted at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, the abandonment of the struggle for conditions most favourable to the working people of all nations for the solution of the principal conflict of our epoch, the conflict between socialism and capitalism.

In line with Lenin's teaching, the working people of the countries belonging to the socialist community and all Marxists-Leninists consider that their prime internationalist duty is to ensure the most favourable optimal conditions for socialism's further triumphs on an international scale.

This in no way contradicts the Marxist-Leninist view that a revolutionary war is a form of the class struggle against imperialism. The Marxist-Leninist view is that the working class and the oppressed peoples have every right to choose any means of struggle for their liberation: violent or nonviolent. The choice depends entirely on the situation and on the alignment of the social forces in the given country.

The struggle for peaceful coexistence is a form of the class struggle on the world scene between socialism and capitalism. Far from being a hindrance it facilitates the success of the struggle for progress and the happiness of peoples.

* N. K. Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, Russ. ed., Moscow, I960, pp. 40-41.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148.

** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 148.

The interests of all progressive mankind are served by the peace programme of the socialist countries, a programme whose main points are: the banning of nuclear weapons, the implementation of general and complete disarmament, the renunciation of force in international relations, and the political settlement of outstanding international issues. However, the socialist countries are aware that the threat of war will not disappear as long as imperialism exists and, therefore, they must have the means to enable them to give a rebuff to any imperialist aggression. The Soviet Union, the most powerful of the socialist states, has the most modern weapons and uses them as a mighty shield to safeguard the entire socialist community against imperialist intrusion.

As was underscored at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, the task facing all progressive forces today is to compel the imperialists to accept peaceful coexistence and put a halt to the attempts of imperialism "to overcome its internal contradictions by building up international tension and creating hotbeds of war".*

1937-45. Already then Mao Tse-tung had spoken against "foreign patterns" or, to be more exact, against close ties with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In spite of the Maoist intrigues, the internationalist line was reaffirmed in the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC in September 1956. In the resolution on the CC's political report, the congress called on the Chinese people to "strive to achieve lasting world peace". In international affairs the following line was set: to continue to strengthen eternal and unbreakable fraternal friendship with the great Soviet Union and all the People's Democracies; to establish and promote friendly relations with Asian and African countries and with other countries that accepted the Five Principles*; to continue to oppose the use of force, or threats of force, in international affairs, and to oppose the preparations for a new war; to support the peace movement of the peoples of the world and develop friendly contacts with the peoples of various countries; to oppose colonialism and support all struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America that are directed against colonialism and aimed at safeguarding national sovereignty; and, lastly, to support the socialist movement of the working class and the labouring people in all countries, and to strengthen the solidarity of the proletariat of all countries based on a spirit of internationalism.** In the resolution on the CC's political report it was stated that it was necessary to educate Chinese personnel "in all their contacts with foreign countries and their people, to treat others on a really equal footing, and strictly to oppose great-nation chauvinism".***

However, as early as 1957, the Maoists launched what in effect amounted to an assault on the decisions of the 8th Congress. The speech made by Mao Tse-tung at the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in the autumn of that

While genuine Communists champion the Leninist peace programme on the international scene, the Maoists have adopted a diametrically different stand, describing the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" as the "Marxism-Leninism of modern times". Their distorted interpretation of Lenin's teaching is reflected in their foreign policy.

This policy did not appear suddenly and is in no way an accidental phenomenon. It sprang from the long struggle in the Communist Party of China between the MarxistLeninist, internationalist line and the petty-bourgeois, nationalist trend.

When the People's Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949 the CPC leadership pledged to abide by socialist principles in foreign policy. This was a triumph for the Chinese Communists-internationalists, who had upheld these principles in the struggle against nationalism, which the Maoists had been fanning during the war against Japan in

* These five principles, proclaimed when the Premier of the State Council of the PRC paid a state visit to India, were formulated as follows in the published communique: 1. Mutual respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2. non-aggression; 3. non-interference in each other's internal affairs; 4. equality and mutual benefit; 5. peaceful coexistence.

** Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Peking, 1956, Vol. I, p. 129. **» Ibid.

* International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 31.

year showed how far removed he was from the Leninist understanding of the problem of war and peace. "Can one assume," he said, "how many lives would be lost in the future war? Possibly, the loss would amount to one-third of the 2,700 millions in the world, i.e., only 900 million people. I consider that little if atomic bombs are indeed dropped. Naturally, this is appalling. But it would not be so bad even if half were lost. Why? Because we do not want this, but they are forcing war on us. If we shall have to fight, atomic and hydrogen weapons will be used. Personally, I think there will be terrible suffering in the world when half or, possibly, more than half of mankind perishes. I had an argument on this question with Nehru. In this respect he is much more pessimistic than I. I told him that if half of mankind were destroyed, there would still remain the other half, but on the other hand imperialism would be destroyed and there would be only socialism in the whole world, and in half a century or a century the population would again grow, even more than by half."*

A pamphlet with the pretentious title Long Live Leninisml was published in Peking in 1960. It stated that after a nuclear war "the victorious people would very quickly build on the ruins of demolished imperialism a civilisation that would be a thousand times higher than the capitalist system; they would build their truly wonderful future".** The authors expressed their doubts about the ability of the socialist countries and all the other progressive forces to prevent the imperialists from starting a thermonuclear war. "Of course, the imperialists will ultimately start a war---this does not depend on us, for, after all, we are not the chiefs of the general staffs of the imperialists."***

The Maoists are thus prepared to attribute to imperialism possibilities which it no longer possesses. According to Mao Tse-tung and his supporters, it depends solely on imperialism whether there will be a war. While giving themselves out for "uncompromising revolutionary fighters", they maintain that any war is desirable because in a war there is always the possibility of putting an end to the capitalist

system. On December 31, 1962 the newspaper Jenmin Jihpao wrote: "As regards the assertion that peaceful coexistence is a means of delivering the world from wars, it is ... utter nonsense." As early as 1959 Mao regarded any aspiration to achieve a relaxation of international tension as a ``prejudice''.* The efforts of the progressive forces to relax tension and secure disarmament are portrayed by the Maoists as "capitulation to imperialism". This predicates China's refusal to take part in any world disarmament conference.**

The "special line" of the Chinese leaders on the international scene is testimony of their final departure not only from the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC but also from the collectively adopted documents of the 1957 and 1960 international meetings of Communist and Workers' parties.

Lin Piao's article "Long Live the Victory of the People's War" was published in September 1965 after the failure of the Maoist efforts, in 1958-63, to win the leading role in the world communist movement and, in 1963-65, to split the socialist community and the international communist movement. In this article Lin Piao sought to substantiate Mao's theory of "people's war". He argued that war was the only way to defeat imperialism. "To dare or not to dare to wage a spear against spear struggle," he wrote, "to dare or not to dare to wage a people's war in face of armed aggression and armed suppression by imperialism and its myrmidons is, in the final count, a question of to dare or not to dare to carry out a revolution".***

What is the purpose of this pseudo-revolutionary verbiage in which war is identified with revolution?

The Maoists want to be regarded as the principal and almost the only anti-imperialist force. Actually, they are out to subordinate some areas of the world, above all the Third World countries, to their interests.

Closely connected with the Mao theory of "people's war" is the doctrine of ``anti-Americanism''. In this light it would

* Pravda, September 21-22, 1963. ** Lone Live Leninism!, Russ. ed., Peking, 1960, p. 23. *** Ibid.

* World Marxist Review No. 6, 1964. ** Jenmin Jihpao, June 20, 1966.

*** Lin Piao, "Long Live the Victory of the People's War", Chinese ed., Peking, 1965, p. 47.

be in order to review, briefly at least, the relations that have taken shape between the People's Republic of China and the USA in Southeast Asia.

In Washington they have noted long ago that in spite of their vociferous but empty threats the Chinese leaders wished to avoid a conflict with the USA, which is claiming supremacy in Southeast Asia. They were perfectly well aware that there was absolutely nothing in the unending stream of Maoist statements about their ``uncompromising'' struggle against US imperialism. The USA drew definite conclusions from this and launched an open intervention in Indochina.

What, in fact, was the worth of the Chinese policy of ``rebuffing'' US aggression in Vietnam?

As early as 1963-64 the Maoists began accusing the entire communist movement of ``passiveness'', of reluctance to help either the Democratic Republic of Vietnam or the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Peking went so far as to accuse the Soviet Union of ``conspiring'' with the USA.

In mid-1964 when the foreign press reported that Chinese land and air forces were concentrating in South China close to the frontiers of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the PRC leadership issued a statement which made it obvious that China had no intention of taking any military action so long as her own frontiers were not threatened.

In August 1964 the press carried an interview with Hugo Portich, publisher of the newspaper Der Kurier, who had visited Peking and had had talks with high-ranking government officials who desired to remain anonymous. In these talks it was stressed that China would enter the war in Vietnam only if the United States "attacked North Viet-

possibility of China reacting to the US action was worded very vaguely"" and no practical steps were taken.

China's passivity in face of US imperialism's escalation of its war in Vietnam was backed up, as it were, by a statement made by Mao Tse-tung to the American journalist Edgar Snow. In January 1965 Edgar Snow was told: "Only if the United States attacked China would the Chinese fight."** A few months later, Chen Yi, then Chinese Foreign Minister, expressed his firm conviction that the Vietnamese people would themselves fight a protracted war against the US aggressors and drive them out, and if that did not happen in the lifetime of the present generation the struggle of the Vietnamese "will be continued by the next generation".***

For US imperialism it was vital to preserve the advantage accorded to it by the special position of the PRC leaders, who had renounced united action with all socialist countries, with all the Communist and Workers' parties in support of the liberation struggle of the peoples.

For their part the US politicians made every effort to ``calm'' China, assuring Peking that US action in Vietnam did not threaten China's security. As was stated in 1966 by Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defence at the time, "in our Vietnam policy we have no intention of taking any action against China ... we shall not spare and are not sparing any effort... publicly or privately to give Communist China to understand that the US limited objectives do not threaten her in any way".****

Had the Chinese leaders given up their special position US imperialism would at once have found itself at a disadvantage. Hence the USA's "cautious line" towards China, a line designed to avoid hostility from nationalism, which is described as the "great force of Asia". There are many indications that Washington is inclined to come to terms with Peking, having in mind that in its turn the latter would show "good will". The USA is determined to direct the chauvinistic energy of the Maoists exclusively against the USSR and the socialist community as a whole.

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It will be recalled that on August 5, 1964, after the staged ``incident'' in the Gulf of Tonkin, the US Air Force began raiding the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In the Chinese Government statement of August 8, 1964 it was pointed out that the "US encroachment on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is an encroachment on China". However, the

* The data on US-Chinese relations in 1964-66 in connection with the US aggression in Vietnam are from a manuscript prepared by G. A. Bogolyubov of the Institute of the Far East, Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

* Hsinhua Information Bulletin, August 8, 1964, p. 2. ** The New Republic, February 27, 1965, p. 22. *** Hsinhua Information Bulletin, June 1, 1965, pp. 1-2. **** Enterprise No. 574, Paris, September 8, 1966, p. 15.

The decisions of the 9th Congress of the CPC showed that the Maoists regard their anti-Soviet line as a long-term foreign policy programme.

At the congress mention was made of four ``basic'' contradictions in the world today, namely: "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 revisionist countries; the contradiction between the imperialist states and the social-imperialist country, among the imperialist countries themselves; the contradiction between socialist countries, on the one hand, and imperialism and social-imperialism, on the other."*

By calling the USSR a ``social-imperialist'' country, the Maoists completely ignore the class nature of the world's first socialist state and bracket together the policy of the USSR with that of the imperialist states. They claim that "irreconcilable antagonisms" are making ``revolutions'' inevitable in the socialist countries, which they call `` revisionist''. The international situation is thus utterly distorted.

The Maoists reject the class assessment of the balance of strength in the world and place the socialist community and the imperialist camp in one and the same category.

In the Chinese press currency was given to Mao's following pronouncement: "As regards the question of a world war, there are only two possibilities: one is that war will lead to revolution, and the other is that revolution will avert war." The struggle for peace and for a relaxation of internanational tension is thus completely excluded from China's foreign policy programme and revolution is linked solely with war.

The Peking ruling group dismisses the possibility of joint action with the USSR and other socialist countries in Southeast Asia and rejects the need for negotiations on such crucial international problems as collective security, disarmament and the settlement of the Middle East crisis, asserting that talks with capitalist states "amount to the undermining and suppression of the revolutionary struggle of the

oppressed nations, an encroachment on the independence and sovereignty of other countries and a threat to their security". This has not prevented the Peking leaders from conducting talks at ambassadorial level with the principal imperialist power, the USA, over a period of many years.

They attack the Warsaw Treaty, which is a reliable barrier against the enemies of socialism. They resort to the most unscrupulous means in an effort to discredit the CPSU and the Soviet Union in the eyes of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. After the 9th Congress of the CPC the entire Chinese press was filled with slogans such as "do not for a moment forget the great strategic line of Chairman Mao" and "in the name of the people [!?] make ready for war, calamity and hunger''.

The Chinese leaders are cultivating a spirit of militarism in order to turn China into a country with a militarised economy. Peking is speeding up the development of costly strategic weapons, medium-range missiles and nuclear warheads. During the past ten years military expenditures have more than trebled. In terms of the national income the share of these expenditures is among the highest in the world. Enormous sums are spent on the purchase of strategic materials abroad.

In order to break the isolation in which they had found themselves during the "cultural revolution" the Chinese leaders have lately declared their willingness to base their relations with all, including socialist, countries on the "five principles of peaceful coexistence''.

What lies behind this zigzag in Chinese diplomacy? Obviously, the unchanging attempt to bracket the USSR and all other socialist countries with the imperialist states.

Hungchi No. 5, 1969, p. 28.

G. V. ASTAFYEV, M. V. FOMICHOVA

THE MAOIST DISTORTION OF LENIN'S THEORY OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT

in the Main Document of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, the "main direction of mankind's development is determined by the world socialist system, the international working class, all revolutionary forces".*

After political independence had been achieved, the national liberation movement was faced with the more complex task of winning economic independence. The young states are compelled to fight imperialism's subtle and sinister neocolonialist tactics designed to intensify social differentiation, split the national liberation movement and preserve monopoly capitalist rule with the support of local reactionaries.

The Maoists' policy of trying to split the world revolutionary movement and their hegemonistic ambitions with regard to the national liberation movement are objectively helping imperialism to preserve its economic domination and, consequently, its political influence in the developing countries.

The Maoist foreign policy, in which great-nation chauvinism, a form of extreme nationalism, combines with Left adventurism, seriously threatens the cause of socialism and social progress because the Chinese leaders camouflage their Great-Power ambitions with anti-imperialist and specious ultra-revolutionary verbiage. Peking's ``Leftist'' and antiimperialist demagogy elicits a definite response in capitalist and, particularly, in developing countries that are oppressed by imperialist monopolies. This enables the Maoists to exploit the revolutionary movement in some countries to further their own nationalistic aims.

Since 1963, while continuing their prattle about an armed struggle with imperialism, the Maoists have shifted the accent in their foreign policy to gaining control of the national liberation movement, believing they could achieve their Great-Power objectives by drawing the peoples of the developing countries into numerous so-called "people`s'' wars with imperialist countries. They are hoping to make these peoples accept first their ideological and then their political leadership. This policy pursues the objective of effectuating the Maoists' Great-Power designs with the hands of others without involving China in war.

* International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 13.

The fundamental laws and ways of development of the national liberation movement, which is now a major component of the world revolutionary process, were brought to light and scientifically substantiated by Lenin. His teaching on the national and colonial question opened for the oppressed peoples of the world the prospect of winning complete liberation through an alliance with the world proletariat in the struggle against imperialism, for the triumph of the socialist revolution.

Guided by this teaching the national revolutionary forces have used the favourable international situation after the Second World War---the change of the balance of strength in favour of socialism, the weakening of imperialism, the crisis of its rule in the colonies, and the assistance and support of the socialist countries---to win political liberation for most of the colonial territories and form young national states, which now play an important role on the international scene. Lenin's scientific prevision that "in the impending decisive battles in the world revolution, the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism"* is coming true.

The revolutionary liberation movement is steadily winning stronger positions fully in line with Lenin's general strategy of the development of the world revolutionary process, of mankind's struggle for socialism---which constitutes the main content of the contemporary epoch. As was stated

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 482.

Claims to hegemony in the Third World had repeatedly been made by the CPC leaders earlier. In 1946 they claimed that Mao Tse-tung had evolved a special, ``Asian'' form of Marxism that was allegedly suitable for all Asian countries. In 1945-49 they used their influence over the Chinese communities in Southeast Asian countries to force their experience of revolutionary action on the peoples of Malaya, Burma and the Philippines, who had risen against British and United States imperialism. Despite the fact that the Chinese experience did not justify itself and the insurgent movement in Malaya and the Philippines was defeated, the Maoist leadership of the CPC declared in 1949 at a number of international congresses in Peking that the Chinese way in the national liberation revolution was the model for many colonial and semi-colonial countries, while in 1950 the Chinese revolution was proclaimed a "classical type of revolution" for all colonial and dependent countries and, in this sense, was counterposed to the Great October Socialist Revolution. The latter, the Maoists argued, could be an example only for the revolution in imperialist countries.

By 1963, to back up their ``right'' to hegemony in the Third World, the Maoists had mapped out a special theoretical programme and framed their own strategy and tactics for the development of the national liberation revolution which were entirely at variance with the principles laid down by Lenin. For instance, they contend that in the world revolutionary process the principal role is now played by the national liberation movement, which is portrayed as a struggle of the "world village" against the "world town", that guerilla warfare is the only form of revolutionary struggle and that a revolutionary situation obtains constantly in the world. The thesis about "reliance on one's own resources" was designed to keep the national liberation movement from the temptation to use the assistance of socialist countries, particularly of the Soviet Union. Naturally, they stress the "special role" of the Chinese experience and the "special significance" of the "thought of Mao Tsetung" for the national liberation movement.

In the Maoist theoretical programme imperialism is regarded not as a complex of social relations founded on a monopoly of the means of production and of economic territory, including colonies, on the scale of the entire capitalist

world, but only as a colonial system of political oppression of backward and weak countries by strong, industrialised countries, chiefly by the USA. The Maoists ignore the fact that imperialism's colonial system is only a part, though an important one, of the sum of social relations of imperialism.

In the given case, accentuation of the political factor, i.e., of political oppression, has led the Maoists to declare the struggle against imperialist rule in colonial and dependent countries as the principal task of the world revolutionary movement. The struggle against imperialism (and capitalism as a whole) is thus reduced to the political liberation of colonial and dependent countries which would automatically bring about the collapse of imperialism.

In Lenin's teaching on imperialism the colonial monopoly of imperialism and the question of the national liberation revolution occupy an important but not the chief place.

Lenin gave most of his attention to imperialism's inner features---the concentration of production and capital, the merging of industrial and bank capital and the creation of a financial oligarchy, the export of capital and the emergence of international monopoly associations of capitalists, which divided the world up among themselves, i.e., to the monopolisation of capital, production, circulation and distribution that creates the conditions for the transition from capitalism to a higher socio-economic system.

In analysing the origin of monopolies as the basic feature of imperialism, Lenin noted that they had grown out of the concentration of production at a very high level of its development, out of the monopoly seizure of raw materials sources, out of the banks and, lastly, out of colonial policy. In a report to the 2nd Congress of the Communist International (1920), in which he assessed the international situation of those days, Lenin pointed out: "Imperialism's economic relations constitute the core of the entire international situation as it now exists."""

In his criticism of Kautsky, who regarded imperialism not as a definite stage in the development of capitalism embracing all its phenomena, but as a definite policy of the industrialised capitalist powers aimed at subordinating agrarian regions, Lenin stressed that "Kautsky detaches the

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 215. 14---1313

politics of imperialism from its economics" and had lapsed into a reformist point of view that the major capitalist states could pursue a non-imperialist policy.*

The Maoists regard imperialism mainly as a colonial policy and offer the opportunist conclusion that imperialism can be destroyed simply by destroying its colonial monopoly. Here they ignore two major consequences of imperialism's colonial policy.

First, imperialism subordinates colonial and dependent countries not only in the sphere of the political and ideological superstructure but also in the sphere of the economic basis. This creates the conditions for the development of capitalism in these countries, for fundamental changes in their economic and social structure, and for the appearance of inner objective prerequisites (including the emergence of a proletariat) for a liberation struggle against colonial dependence.

Moreover, imperialist monopoly objectively leads to the formation of a close tie between the struggle of the proletariat of the imperialist countries for social emancipation and the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples.

The interdependence between the struggle of the workers of imperialist countries and the revolutionary onslaught of all the oppressed peoples was defined by Lenin as follows: ".. .final victory can be won only by the proletariat of all the advanced countries of the world.... But we see that they will not be victorious without the aid of the working people of all the oppressed colonial nations, first and foremost, of Eastern nations."**

Further, Lenin noted that the decisive role in the struggle against imperialism was to be played by socialist countries (at the time, Soviet Russia), which would group all the antiimperialist forces round themselves: "... following the imperialist war, reciprocal relations between peoples and the world political system as a whole are determined by the struggle waged by a small group of imperialist nations against the Soviet movement and the Soviet states headed by Soviet Russia. Unless we bear that in mind, we shall not be able to pose a single national or colonial problem cor-

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 270. ** Ibid., Vol. 30, pp. 161-62.

rectly, even if it concerns a most outlying part of the world."* Therefore, Lenin explained, the Soviet Union inevitably groups around itself "on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, who are learning from bitter experience that their only salvation lies in the Soviet system's victory over world imperialism".**

From his theory of imperialism Lenin deduced three cardinal conclusions, which he formulated in his theory of the national liberation revolution: the social struggle of the proletariat of the imperialist countries was bound to merge with the anti-imperialist struggle of the working people in the colonies and dependent countries; the final victory over imperialism could be achieved only by the proletariat of the imperialist countries with the assistance of the working people of the colonies; the decisive role in destroying imperialism would be played by the socialist countries, which would, in the course of the anti-imperialist struggle, group round themselves all the torrents of the world revolutionary movement.

These key conclusions, which to this day underlie the strategy and tactics of the national liberation revolution, have been jettisoned by the Maoists and supplanted by theses dictated exclusively by Peking's Great-Power designs, by unscientific theses that are prejudicial to the world revolution and the national liberation movement itself.

The proposition that the main contradiction of the contemporary epoch is not between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and, as its principal manifestation, the contradiction between imperialism and socialism, but between imperialism and the developing countries, was propounded in a series of anti-Soviet articles and pamphlets of a programme nature published in the period between 1962 and 1964, notably in the Proposals for the General Line of the International Communist Movement and Lin Piao's article "Long Live the Victory of the People's War". This contradiction is proclaimed as the chief, fundamental and most acute contradiction of the modern epoch. The national libera-

* Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 241. ** Ibid., p. 146.

14*

tion movement and the peasantry are, therefore, described as the decisive factor in the anti-imperialist struggle, while Asia, Africa and Latin America are proclaimed as the "main storm zone of the world revolution''.

In the pattern evolved by the Peking theoreticians the socialist countries, which are the vanguard of the international proletariat, are accorded the role of rear base for the national liberation movement. The Maoists contend that the international proletariat has lost its revolutionary potential and accuse the socialist countries, its vanguard, of degeneration and revisionism. To all intents and purposes, they have rejected the Marxist proposition on the leading role, on the hegemony of the proletariat in the anti-imperialist struggle.

The absolutisation of the national liberation movement as the only force on which the destiny of world communism as a whole allegedly depends is expressed in the thesis that the centre of the revolutionary struggle has shifted from the West to the East. The hegemonistic substance of this thesis is revealed by the assertion that China has become the leading centre of the world revolution and that the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" is the summit of revolutionary theory, the "Marxism-Leninism of the contemporary epoch.

Characteristic in this respect is the article "The International Situation Is Excellent" by Feng Pao, head of the Jenmin Jihpao information department, published in January 1968 in Kwangchow. "A country like China," it is stated in the article, "cannot be resisted or injured in any way. China is the centre of the world revolution. Formerly the centre of history was principally in the West, but today it has shifted to China, which has become not only the political and economic centre but also the cultural centre. It is the only country of its kind in the world. In future the centre of science and technology will likewise shift to China.. .. Armed with the thought of Mao Tse-tung, People's China will inevitably become the political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological centre.''

The Leftist propositions which Lenin had scathingly criticised at the 2nd Congress of the Comintern have come to life on a new basis and with a new purpose in the Maoist theories.

In scrutinising the national-colonial question in close relation with the internationalist interests of the proletarian class struggle and considering the national liberation movement as an important ally of the proletariat, the vanguard of the revolutionary process, Lenin underscored the danger of the thesis advanced by the Indian Communist M. N. Roy, who absolutised the "Eastern route" of the world anti-imperialist revolution and declared that virtually the destiny of world communism depended on the course of the revolution and the triumph of socialism in the East. Lenin emphatically rejected this formulation, which counterposed the East to the West and supplanted class criteria with national and geographic concepts. By stressing that the struggle against imperialism could not be only ``Western'' or only ``Eastern'', Lenin foresaw, as it were, the outcome of such a division. He regarded the struggle against imperialism as a single world revolutionary process with the international working class playing the decisive role in it. He urged the creation of a united front of the working class and oppressed peoples of all countries and worked to unite them round Soviet Russia, which in those days was the only country of the dictatorship of the proletariat. "Our Soviet Republic," he said at the 2nd Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East in 1919, "must now muster all the awakening peoples of the East and, together with them, wage a struggle against international imperialism.""" Without belittling the role of the national liberation movements, Lenin's propositions were directed against any one-sided exaggeration of their role, reaffirmed the thesis on the need for the hegemony of the proletariat of the developed countries under conditions in which large masses of non-proletarians in the Eastern countries were joining the struggle, and underscored the importance of the international proletariat's vanguard role in the struggle waged by the peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies.

The question of the internationalist unity of all the revolutionary torrents has today become more crucial than ever in view of the new balance of strength between socialism and capitalism. The Maoists, however, pursue a strategy of destroying the unity of the revolutionary movement, of

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 161.

isolating the national liberation movement from the international working class and the world socialist system. This obviously anti-socialist strategy is undermining the class foundation of the world anti-imperialist movement.

For instance, in 1962-63 the Maoist thesis about the main contradiction still had some, though utterly distorted, class content. But in 1964-65 it was supplanted by a new thesis founded on racial, chauvinistic principles, namely, the thesis of the "world village" and the "world town''.

In contravention of class principles, this new thesis counterposes the less developed countries to the highly industrialised states and draws no distinction between imperialist and socialist countries: both are regarded as being hostile to the Third World, as exploiting countries which the "world village" has to surround, fight, and conquer.

According to this thesis the different classes in the imperialist states, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, have no antagonistic contradictions and, in effect, merge into a single force opposed to the peasantry, which is predominant in the "world village". In the final analysis, this means ranging the world peasantry against the world proletariat.

The Maoist thesis about the main contradiction underwent a further transformation in 1969 when Peking sharply intensified its anti-Soviet policy. An utterly absurd proposition that in the world today there were four major contradictions leading to revolution was put forward in the report at the 9th Congress of the CPC. The imperialist countries and the USSR (called ``social-imperialism'') are now regarded as a single political force opposing the oppressed nations and the socialist countries.

These propositions are designed to play on the nationalistic feelings of the peoples of the developing countries, notably the peasants, on their distrust for former oppressor nations, and thereby isolate and divorce the national liberation movement from the USSR, the world socialist system and the international communist and working-class movement. The class significance of this policy is that it aims to smash the unity of the three main torrents of the international revolutionary movement and rupture the alliance of the world proletariat with the world peasantry, and of the socialist community with the national liberation movement.

The same objectives are pursued by the Maoist "theory of intermediate zones", which likewise seeks to replace the struggle between socialism and capitalism by a struggle of the Third World headed by China against the USA and the USSR. Bracketing the developing and embattled countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America ("1st intermediate zone") with industrialised capitalist countries, allegedly opposed to the USA ("2nd intermediate zone"), among which are the West European countries and also Japan, Canada and Australia, the Maoists call this a "universal anti-imperialist front''.

This theory reduces the concept imperialism to the neocolonialist policy of the USA and regards all other imperialist states, including their monopoly elite, as oppressed by the USA and therefore capable of joining a Chinese-led national liberation struggle against US imperialism. The socioclass interests of the oppressed nations are thus overshadowed by the Great-Power, nationalistic ambitions of the Maoists.

In the national liberation movement the Maoists' tactics are subordinated entirely to their strategic objectives and likewise run counter to the Leninist tactics. They are out to canonise the experience of the Chinese revolution, absolutise that revolution's specific features that had manifested themselves in the concrete conditions obtaining in China, and transfer them to the entire national liberation movement without taking into account the time or the alignment and balance of class forces. Ignoring the local conditions in each country and taking no account of the multiformity and specifics of the revolutionary movement, the Maoists regard the revolutions in all oppressed countries in the light of the Chinese revolution, as people's democratic revolutions, and propound the thesis that the hegemony of the proletariat is ``mandatory'' even at the earliest stages of these revolutions.

This formulation of the question is not new. Even before the October Revolution of 1917 Lenin had underscored the danger of Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" and warned against utilising the socio-economic backwardness of the East as a factor that allegedly strengthened the position of the proletariat in the Eastern countries and facilitated the immediate "introduction of socialism". Lenin denounced Trotsky's line of skipping some stages of the revolution and

condemned the assertion that there was no period of transition from capitalism to socialism. This, he said, was tantamount to "a break with Marxism".''^^1^^

He was sharply critical of those who ignored the revolutionary importance of the bourgeois-democratic movements and insisted on an immediate socialist revolution in all countries, disregarding the difference between the objective possibilities for socialist development and the concrete revolutionary situation in each country separately or in a group of countries. All of Lenin's propositions on this question have acquired crucial urgency today.

It is indicative that when a socialist revolution had been accomplished successfully only in one country and the peoples fighting for liberation had only Russia's experience to go by, Lenin spoke against a mechanical transfer of the Bolshevik tactics to the soil of the colonial East. He made it plain that it was necessary to take into account the lower level of economic and political development in the oppressed countries. While calling on the Communists to work perseveringly for the support of the masses and for a united front, he warned against any attempt to forestall the development of the national liberation movements.**

Breaking with Lenin's teaching, the Maoists have absolutised the experience of the revolutionary movement in China in the period from the close of the 1920s to the mid19408, when after the defeat of the revolution of 1925-27 the revolutionary forces had had to leave the towns and start a peasant guerilla war in the countryside against the numerically superior forces of imperialism and the reactionary Kuomintang regime. Mao and his supporters claim that the specifics of the Chinese liberation movement are to be met with in all the developing countries, holding that these specifics are universal. However, if we analyse these specifics in the light of Lenin's propositions we will see that they are in no wise typical and cannot be generalised.

The experience of the Chinese revolution does not bear out the Maoist thesis about the special role of the peasantry as the decisive strategic force of the revolution. Until 1927 China's revolutionary forces grew and developed in the

towns, while the transfer of the party organisations to the countryside after the counter-revolutionary coup of 1927 was, first, of a forced nature and, second, a process opposite to what the Maoists seek to give out. It meant not the conquest of the "counter-revolutionary town" by the " revolutionary village" but, on the contrary, the introduction of revolutionary consciousness from the town to the countryside and the revolutionisation of the countryside, i.e., it marked the beginning of a realistic approach by the CPC to the solution of the peasant question. The work that was subsequently accomplished by the Chinese Communists to win over the masses, strengthen the links with the peasants and enhance the revolutionary potentiality of the countryside conformed to the situation of those days and to Lenin's general theoretical propositions on the role of the peasantry. Lenin, it will be recalled, attached enormous significance to the peasantry of the backward countries as an ally of the European proletariat, stressing that it was of paramount importance to resolve the agrarian question in backward countries and that special support had to be rendered to the peasant movement.*

He stressed the need for a close alliance between the proletariat of the most backward countries with the peasantry. "It would be a utopia," he wrote, "to believe that proletarian parties in these backward countries, if indeed they can emerge in them, can pursue communist tactics and a communist policy without establishing definite relations with the peasant movement and without giving it effective support."**

Moreover, Lenin repeatedly noted the political passivity of the peasantry, saying that its revolutionary energy had to be stimulated through the seizure of power by the proletariat or other, politically more active, revolutionary elements. In the initial draft of his theses on the agrarian question Lenin wrote that the peasants, "incredibly downtrodden, disunited, crushed, and doomed to semi-barbarous conditions of existence in all countries, even the most advanced ---are economically, socially, and culturally interested in the victory of socialism, they are capable of giving resolute sup-

*V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 246, ** Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 149-50.

* Ibid. ** Ibid., pp. 241-42.

port to the revolutionary proletariat only after the latter has won political power, only after it has resolutely dealt with the big landowners and capitalists, and only after these downtrodden people see in practice that they have an organised leader and champion, strong and firm enough to assist and lead them and to show them the right path".*

This assessment concerns the poorest sections of the peasants in capitalist countries, peasants whose level of economic and political development is much higher than that of the peasantry in colonial and dependent countries. The Chinese leaders assess the role of the peasantry differently. "The village and only the village," Lin Piao wrote in the article "Long Live the Victory of the People's War", "is the revolutionary base from where the revolutionaries will march out to win final victory." Moreover, he insisted that the countryside would be turned not simply into a ``strongpoint'' but into "a great military, political, economic and cultural bastion of the revolution".**

Thus, whereas Lenin spoke of an alliance of the working class with the peasantry, the Maoists counterpose the countryside to the town (and even set them on each other); Lenin speaks of the town's leading role with regard to the countryside in the social revolution, while the Maoists, reviving an old Socialist-Revolutionary theory, argue that the countryside will achieve communism earlier than the town, that it will lead the urban population and that the encirclement of the town by the countryside is the only correct road " leading to the victory of the proletariat".***

In an effort to disguise their rupture with Leninism, the Maoists contradict their own thesis about the special role of the countryside when they insist that a mandatory condition of victory is the establishment of proletarian hegemony in the national liberation movement of any developing country. But, as everybody knows, in many developing countries the proletariat is only taking shape and is still weak and amorphous, while some of these countries do not have a working class at all.

Lenin regarded the hegemony of the proletariat as an

international condition for the victory of the national liberation movement, a condition that is fulfilled through the leadership of the proletariat of industrially developed countries. He said that the conquest of hegemony by the proletariat in individual backward countries was a strategic prospect that required the maturing of a number of political and economic conditions. The Maoists interpret the conquest of hegemony by the proletariat as the pressing task in every developing country.

The fact that this Maoist thesis is unrealistic and is patently at variance with their proposition on the decisive role of the peasantry shows that it is only a cover for their peasant policy, an attempt to depict their petty-bourgeois parties and groups as the proletarian vanguard. This stand has something in common with the Leftist propositions advocated by Roy, who urged the 2nd Congress of the Communist International to adopt the utterly unrealistic theory that it was possible to start a struggle against capitalism without first going through the national-democratic stage of the revolution.

This was rejected by Lenin, who said that the national liberation movement had to be started under bourgeoisdemocratic anti-imperialist slogans capable of bringing into a united front all the forces prepared to fight imperialism. In this struggle the proletariat had to preserve its independence and gradually broaden its influence among the peasant masses with the aim of winning hegemony when the conditions for it ripen. Further, taking into account the fact that as the liberation struggle unfolded in the backward countries the Communists would have to base themselves "on the bourgeois nationalism, which is awakening, and must awaken, among these peoples",* Lenin stressed that under no circumstances should the bourgeois-democratic liberative trends in backward countries be given "a communist colouring".**

While formally supporting the slogan of a united front in the developing countries, the Maoists are in effect nullifying it by their thesis that the hegemony of the local working class is mandatory in the national liberation move-

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 155-56. ** Hungchi No. 10, 1965. *** Jenmin Jihpao, October 17, 1967.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 162. ** Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 149.

ment and by insisting that an armed struggle is the only way to fight imperialism. This rules out the possibility and need for political forms of struggle without which the united front slogan and the slogan of the hegemony of the proletariat become an empty phrase.

Absolutisation of the armed struggle against imperialism is totally at variance with Lenin's propositions that in the course of the political struggle the masses in the backward countries have to be educated and organised over a long period of time in order to inspire in them "an urge for independent political thinking and independent political action, even where a proletariat is practically non-- existent"/^^1^^" This painstaking work among the masses is the factor ensuring success when sooner or later and quite unexpectedly uprisings, great battles and revolutions break out in these countries, i.e., when the need arises for non-peaceful forms of struggle, for which, Lenin said, it was necessary to be ready.**

The strength of the masses and class relationships, Lenin said, had to be assessed soberly, and the expediency of one form of struggle or another had to be carefully weighed. He pointed out that "an insurrection is not always expedient; unless the prerequisites exist among the masses it is a gamble".***

He ridiculed revolutionary phrase-mongering, condemned the theories about pushing the revolution and rejected the idea of provoking war for the sake of revolution, calling it a crime**** and stressing that "such a `theory' would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to `pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions. Such a theory would be tantamount to the view that armed uprising is a form of struggle which is obligatory always and under all conditions".*****

Unlike Leninism, Maoism holds that peaceful forms of struggle lead to "the destruction of the party and the de-

struction of people"/^^1^^" The Maoists have adopted the "theory of the omnipotence of war", declaring that "the world can be remade only with the aid of the rifle".** They have proclaimed that "Chairman Mao's theory of the people's war is the most important part of his thought, which is the Marxism-Leninism of the contemporary epoch".***

In spite of the assertions of the Maoists, the history of the revolutionary movement in China herself shows that the armed struggle has by no means always been the chief, determining form of the Chinese people's struggle against imperialism.

Significantly, in China the armed struggle was successful only when the conditions for it had been prepared by a political struggle that made it possible to unite the broad masses and prove that an armed struggle was inevitable and lawful. Such was the case in 1935-37, when, while repulsing the military assaults of the Kuomintang, the CPC united the masses around itself and led them against the Japanese invaders. Such was also the case in 1945-47, when in the course of the political struggle against United States imperialism and local reaction the CPC again united the overwhelming majority of the people. When we analyse the course of the revolution in China we have to bear in mind that in all cases the armed struggle was forced on the people by imperialism and reaction, and that this was also a favourable factor for the victory of the revolution.

Lenin's views on the forms of struggle are falsified in order to clear the road for Mao Tse-tung's hegemonistic ambitions. The armed struggle which the developing countries are called on to wage against imperialism has been conceived in the shape of numerous "people's wars" in all parts of the world, thereby fragmenting and fettering the forces of US imperialism and, at the same time, preventing it from using its nuclear-missile strategic advantage.

In the Maoist interpretation the "people's war" is not a means of struggle of the oppressed peoples for liberation from imperialism but a weapon of the Great-Power policy of the Maoists, who want to divert the attention of potential

* V. I.

Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 243.

** Ibid.,

pp. 96, 97, 103, 104.

*** Ibid.,

Vol. 27, p. 24.

*** Ibid.,

Vol. 31, p. 470.

*** Ibid.,

Vol. 27, pp. 71-72.

* Jenmin Jihpao, July 31, 1967. ** Hungchi No. 11, 1967. *** Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, p.

67.

adversaries from China, ensure themselves with freedom of action in regions adjoining China and in the developing countries, and play for time in which to complete the programme of China's nuclear-missile armament.

While propagating the idea of an armed struggle, the Maoists attack the principle of peaceful coexistence, demagogically lumping together colonial countries whose peoples are compelled to wage an armed struggle for liberation, and countries that have already won political independence. The Maoists see the "people's war" theory as a means for using the national liberation movement to activate any hostilities to the maximum and provoke a military escalation by the USA in order to precipitate a global military explosion.

The Maoist theoretical programme not only ignores the most pressing current problems of the struggle for economic independence and for a transition to a progressive road of development but is, in fact, designed to hinder that struggle. The theory of "reliance on one's own resources" has been evolved by the Maoists for the express purpose of steering the developing countries away from that struggle.

The Maoists are trying to prove that the peoples fighting for political or economic independence have to rely exclusively on their own resources. Their aim is to compel the embattled peoples and the liberated countries to renounce assistance of any kind from the world socialist community. They equate assistance from the socialist countries to aid from imperialist states, implying thereby that its objective is to enslave the developing countries. They have gone so far as to brand the economic assistance rendered by the USSR to developing countries as ``social-colonialism''/^^1^^"

The Maoist theory of "reliance on one's own resources", seeking as it does to force the liberated countries into political self-isolation and to perpetuate their economic backwardness categorically rejects Lenin's propositions on the need for all the revolutionary forces to unite in the struggle against imperialism and on the main trends in the economic development of socialist countries.

In noting the "tendency towards the creation of a single world economy, regulated by the proletariat of all nations

as an integral whole and according to a common plan", Lenin pointed out that "this tendency has already revealed itself quite clearly under capitalism and is bound to be further developed and consummated under socialism".* The Chinese leaders ignore this proposition and endeavour to act in opposition to this historical tendency.

At the same time they are virulently attacking Lenin's teaching on the non-capitalist development of economically backward countries. These attacks are the logical result of their adventurist propositions that the proletariat should achieve hegemony without delay and that an armed struggle should be waged regardless of whether the objective conditions for it had matured, and of their virtual disregard of the need for a political struggle and for a united-front policy.

Lenin had pointed out that it was possible for economically backward countries lacking the objective conditions for a direct socialist revolution to achieve socialism gradually, through a series of transitional stages. The Maoists' rejection of this possibility stems logically from their distortion and falsification of Lenin's strategic and tactical principles in the national liberation struggle and discloses their actual anti-socialist aims.

Making the most of the repercussions that the victory of the Chinese revolution had throughout the world and hiding behind a smoke screen of Leftist verbiage, the Maoists are trying to set the pattern for the development of the newly liberated countries.

They want to prove that already today the existing social structure of agrarian society makes it possible to destroy imperialism by means of "people's wars" not only in one's own country but on the international scene and to go over directly to the building of socialism on the principle of " reliance on one's own resources". They go to all ends to prove that the Chinese people had achieved victory in the liberation struggle against Japanese and then US imperialism by means of this strategy and tactics, which they claim are universal. But they draw the curtain over a number of essential factors, particularly the specific situation in China, which had been noted at the time even by Mao Tse-tung.

* Jenmin Jihpao, July 30, 1969.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 147.

``The phenomenon that within a country one or several areas under Red political power should exist for a long time amid the encirclement of White political power," he wrote in 1928, "is one that has never been found elsewhere in the world. There are peculiar reasons for this unusual phenomenon. It can exist and develop only under certain conditions."* Further, he names these conditions, which, taken together, were characteristic only of China. The chief of these conditions were the semi-colonial nature of Chinese society, the unceasing wars between "the various cliques of old and new warlords, supported by imperialism from abroad", the existence of a revolutionary situation throughout the country, the awakening of the worker, peasant and soldier masses in the course of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and the existence of a strong regular Red Army and a well-organised Communist Party.**

The Maoist assertions that the peoples winning liberation from colonialism can achieve socialism only by the Chinese road are glaringly at variance not only with Lenin's theory but with the revolutionary experience of the Chinese people and the objective conclusions that were drawn 40 years ago. Non-capitalist development, which gives the peoples a socialist orientation, is simply thrown out of their pattern. They openly maintain that the "thesis about the non-- capitalist road is merely empty talk".***

However, many of the peoples and countries of the Third World have seen through the substance of Maoism. They have grown more critical of the Chinese experience and are closely watching the countries that have passed through the stage of non-capitalist development, notably the experience of socialist construction in the Mongolian People's Republic. Having sensed a direct threat to their Great-Power aims with regard to the national liberation movement, the Maoists have published material that grossly distorts the substance of Lenin's ideas on this question. On October 17, 1967, Jenmin Jihpao carried an article running down the achievements of the Mongolian people, who had moved to socialism

through non-capitalist development, juggling with Lenin's teaching and attributing to him words and ideas he had never pronounced. "Lenin's thoughts," the article stated, "were crystal clear. He regarded propaganda and aid by the victorious proletariat and Soviet governments only as a favourable (our italics.---Authors.) international condition for the victory of the national-democratic revolution in backward countries that bypass the stage of capitalist development.''

Actually, Lenin regarded aid from the proletariat of the advanced countries as the cardinal condition of the transition of backward countries to non-capitalist development. In a report delivered on July 26, 1920 to the Commission on the National and Colonial Questions at the 2nd Congress of the Communist International, he pointed out: "It is unquestionable that the proletariat of the advanced countries can and should give help to the working masses of the backward countries, and that the backward countries can emerge from their present stage of development when the victorious proletariat of the Soviet Republics extends a helping hand to these masses and is in a position to give them support."* And further: "If the victorious revolutionary proletariat conducts systematic propaganda among them, and the Soviet governments come to their aid with all the means at their disposal---in that event it will be mistaken to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through the capitalist stage of development."**

Lenin recommended that the Comintern should theoretically substantiate the proposition that with assistance from the proletariat of the advanced countries backward countries could bypass the capitalist stage of development. The Maoists, however, go to all ends to belittle the significance of the assistance rendered by the Soviet working class and reduce it to the level of a "favourable international condition". But that is not all. In interpreting Lenin's views about the ways of development in backward countries, Jenmin Jihpao engages in flagrant distortion. In the above-- mentioned article it is stated: "It was precisely the great Lenin who repeatedly stressed that the proletariat and its political

* Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 64-65. ** Ibid., pp. 65-66.

*** For the Unity of the International Communist Movement, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1964, p. 197.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 243-44. ** Ibid., p. 244.

15---1313

parties in these countries should firmly maintain their hegemony in the national-democratic revolution, seize power, demolish the old state machine and create a new political power." But Lenin said the direct opposite: "The preponderance of pre-capitalist relationships is still the main determining feature in these countries, so that there can be no question of a purely proletarian movement in them."^::"

The Maoists' rejection of non-capitalist development, their theory of "reliance on one's own resources" and absolutisation of the experience of the Chinese revolution, and their emphasis on an armed struggle show that they aspire to prevent the developing countries from focussing attention on the attainment of economic independence and to isolate them from the world socialist community. Objectively, this strengthens the economic supremacy of imperialism in these countries.

The tactics used by the Maoists in the developing countries stem from their ideological programme.

To all intents and purposes the Chinese leadership ignores the Third World's division into countries with different political structures and, consequently, with different national liberation tasks: colonies, countries dependent on imperialism politically and militarily, politically independent countries and countries oriented on a progressive road of development.

The insistence on blanket patterns and tasks is linked not only with the dogmatic generalisation of the Chinese experience but also with the general aims, which the Maoists are setting the national liberation movement in line with their Great-Power designs. Moreover, they are not interested in the victory of the national liberation movement in any given country and are prepared to sacrifice these movements in order to achieve their own general objectives. While urging the peoples to start a revolutionary war, the Maoists preach a philosophy of despair, of "unbounded pessimism", a philosophy that "everything will perish anyway", in fact, the very sentiments that Lenin had denounced in a resolution which he had written in February 1918 for the Moscow Regional Party Bureau/^^1^^"*

By their tactics of using the forces of the national liberation movement to kindle "new revolutionary storms", the Peking leaders tried to protract and intensify the war in Vietnam. They rejected all the attempts to settle the conflict by political means. Accordingly, in the spring of 1968 when the meetings between representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the USA were activated in Paris, Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi reminded the Vietnamese that "no problem can be settled without victory on the battlefield''.

The Maoist ultra- ``Left'' -opportunist practices founded on non-Marxist, anti-Leninist doctrines came into the open in the Chinese policy towards Indonesia in 1965. The Maoists declared that China was the centre of the anti-imperialist struggle, that Southeast Asia was the "most revolutionary region" and that Indonesia was its ``beacon''. In pressuring the Communist Party of Indonesia and forcing it to accept its unrealistic theoretical patterns, Peking deliberately precipitated the outbreak of a political crisis in Indonesia which led to the tragedy of September 30. Peking's further policy relative to Indonesia---its attempts to impose the tactics of setting up ``Red'' partisan regions and a protracted armed struggle, its attempts to prove that a "superb revolutionary situation" existed in Indonesia despite the fact that the Communist Party of Indonesia had been destroyed and the reactionaries had strengthened their positions---clashed with the Leninist principles of the world revolutionary movement, undermined the influence of the progressive forces in Indonesia, fostered anti-communism in Asia and strengthened the hand of world imperialism.

In 1964-65 the Maoists intensified their propagation of the pseudo-revolutionary tactics of creating "several Vietnams"---in Congo (Kinshasa) (now Republic of Zaire), Mozambique (through COREMO), Angola (through UNTA),* in the south of the African continent and in other areas. During the Middle East conflict of 1967 the Maoists played a frankly provocative role by their efforts to wreck

* COREMO ("Revolutionary Committee of Mozambique"), a proMaoist organisation which in 1963 broke way from FRELIMO ( Liberation Front of Mozambique), a party that is in fact fighting for Mozambique's liberation. UNTA ("National Union for the Complete Liberation of Angola"), a pro-Maoist organisation that was set up in 1966.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 242-43. ** Ibid., Vol. 27, pp. 68-75.

15*

all the attempts of the peace forces to achieve a political settlement and by their aspiration to destroy the unity of the Arab peoples and disrupt the friendship and co-- operation of the Arab countries with the Soviet Union.*

Peking's divisive, adventurist position with regard to the national liberation movement has already had disastrous consequences, seriously damaging the position of a number of Communist parties in Asia (India, Indonesia, Burma, Malaysia and Thailand) and of individual contingents fighting for national liberation in Africa. It is indicative that the elements and groups that had followed in Peking's wake and broke away from the general torrent of the world revolutionary movement have lost their influence among the people and have found themselves in an impasse. Instead of carrying revolutionary activity and intensive political work among the masses (the only kind of work that can correspond to Lenin's teaching on revolution), many of the pro-Chinese groups in African, Asian and Latin American countries engage exclusively in anti-Soviet propaganda, provocations, and acts of terrorism against true revolutionaries.

A trend of the times is that Peking's anti-scientific theories and divisive practices are being more and more frequently criticised and condemned by the peoples and parties that are conducting an effective struggle for liberation and striking blows at international imperialism in accordance with Lenin's theory of the national liberation movement. At the International Meeting held in Moscow in June 1969, the Chinese machinations in the liberation struggle of the peoples of the Third World were exposed by representatives of India, Ceylon, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Sudan, Nigeria, Syria, Honduras and a numer of other countries.""""

Rodney Arismendi, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uruguay, declared that Peking's actions were a factor giving rise to ideological discord, diminishing the attractive force of socialism and

communism, undermining the "principles of proletarian internationalism and their application in the world socialist system". *

Mao Tse-tung's nationalistic ambitions were convincingly exposed by Meir Vilner, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Israel, who noted that Peking's divisive, anti-Soviet policy was causing "enormous harm to the antiimperialist struggle".**

A member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the People's Party of Panama said that since 1964 the CPC leaders had been carrying on a massive campaign "in much the same way as the oligarchy---in an attempt to undermine the influence of the party", that they had gone "further than their reactionary competitors", considering that "even physical annihilation of opponents is permissible".***

The fact that the Mao group was "in practice aiding and abetting the enemy" was noted by J. B. Marks, Chairman of the South-African Communist Party,**** and other Communists.

At the International Symposium in Alma-Ata (October 1969) devoted to the problem "Lenin's Teaching on the National Liberation Revolutions", the delegates reaffirmed their fidelity to Lenin's teaching, showed that the stand of the Chinese leaders was untenable and rejected their theories.

Amilcar Cabral, General Secretary of the African Party of Independence of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde Islands, declared that "by itself the national liberation movement cannot destroy imperialism or put an end to its dictatorship. The central place in this struggle is occupied by the socialist states and the international working class movement. They place the leading role in the assault on imperialism, in the struggle for the liberation of colonial and semicolonial countries. This is the lesson of the theory and practice of Leninism''.

* Jemnin Jihpao, June 11, June 26, July 18, 1967.

** International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, pp. 202-03, 274, 372, 421, 449, 469, 470, 519, 608.

* International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 202

** Ibid., p. 524. *** Ibid., pp. 664-65. **** Ibid., p. 671.

In 1969-70, when they saw that their anti-Leninist platform was leading them towards political isolation, the Chinese leaders adopted the tactics of disguising their actual views in an effort to surmount the unpopularity of their policies in the Third World. For the sake of appearances they censure the pro-Maoist organisations in a number of countries precisely for the "putschist adventurist tactics" which the Maoists had themselves forced on these groups. This is especially noticeable in Latin America, where on orders from Peking the pro-Maoist groups (for instance, in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia) are engaged in reorganisation and publishing new programmes permeated with Maoist theories which they are trying to fit to local conditions. This is being done chiefly to adapt these groups to the new situation and attract and utilise politically inexperienced young people, students and other circles.

The line towards militarisation and intensified antiSovietism pursued by the Maoists after the 9th Congress of the CPC is mirrored in China's foreign policy in the Third World countries, particularly where an active front of the anti-imperialist struggle exists.

Without altering the Great-Power, chauvinistic essence of their policies, the Maoists have in recent years somewhat modified their tactics, begun to give themselves out as supporters of a relaxation of international tension, perceptibly muffled their propagation of the "people's war" slogan and, in effect, abandoned the struggle against imperialism.

In 1971 this was the basis on which contacts were resumed between the PRC and the USA, and the Nixon visit to China and the further rapprochement between the two countries became possible.

Following the 9th Congress of the CPC, in order to bring their pro-US tendency into line with their outwardly `` revolutionary'' policies, the Peking leaders have advanced a new political concept, namely that the "small and medium" countries have to fight the "domination of the two super-powers", the USA and the USSR.

Actually, the thesis about an "aggressive conspiracy between the two super-powers" was evolved by Peking to disguise the aggressive nature of imperialism (this was strikingly mirrored by the Sino-US communique signed in Peking during the US President's visit); to counterpose the

Third World to the Soviet Union and substantiate China's right to play an independent role on the international scene as a new "global force", uniting and directing the development of the world revolutionary process.

As has been noted on many occasions in the press of a number of developing countries, Peking has in effect turned from an adversary, such as it had always given itself out to be, to a supporter of US imperialism in crushing the revolutionary struggle of the peoples of Vietnam, Bangladesh and other Asian countries. To achieve their nationalistic aims the Maoists have descended to outright betrayal of the revolutionary anti-imperialist forces, to a deal with the USA at the expense of the embattled peoples. Peking speaks of "revolutionary dual tactics" in order to mask its lack of principles, which became evident during the events in the Hindustan subcontinent at the close of 1971 and in Ceylon, and also in its attitude to the Sudanese Communists, the Palestinian Resistance Movement, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, and other liberation organisations. Actually, there is nothing revolutionary in these tactics. The Maoists have simply cut off assistance and support for all the groups and organisations that had in any way prevented them from starting an all-out diplomatic offensive in the Third World.

In January 1972 the Nigerian newspaper Daily Express noted that the peoples of the developing countries were beginning to see the difference between the "most revolutionary" pronouncements of the Peking leaders and their subversive actions; from their own bitter experience they had come to the realisation that Peking's ``anti-imperialism'' was only small change in the bargaining which the Maoists had started with the USA in pursuance of their own Great-Power objectives.

By misrepresenting Marxist-Leninist theory, which is universal and not transient and local, the Maoist leadership have come out openly as an anti-socialist force that is holding up the development of the national liberation movement

and helping not the. oppressed and embattled peoples but international imperialism.

Leninism is the only teaching that shows the peoples the sure road to liberation and the attainment of genuine independence and opens for them the prospect of socialist development.

A. KRUCH1N1N

PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM---THE BASIS OF THE USSR'S LENINIST POLICY TOWARDS CHINA

International working-class unity and solidarity against the bourgeoisie began to take shape as early as the 1840s. Already then the founders of scientific communism saw the international solidarity of the workers as a powerful factor that was greatly increasing the strength of the assault on the bourgeoisie. The motto of the working-class movement "Workers of all countries, unite!" was proclaimed in the very first document of Marxism---the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

The victory of the October Revolution and the consequent upsurge of the working-class movement in the capitalist countries and of the national liberation struggle in the colonial world considerably enriched the content of the slogan of the unity of the world proletariat. That was precisely why Lenin approved a new motto: "Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!" This motto, which underscores the leading role of the proletariat in the alliance of the anti-imperialist forces, has always been the guideline of the CPSU and of the other Marxist-Leninist parties.

``Today, the international communist movement, loyal to the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin," the CPSU Central Committee pointed out in its theses On the Centenary of the Birth of V. I. Lenin, "has put forward a new slogan, a slogan according with the enriched contemporary concept of revolutionary proletarian internationalism: 'Peoples of the socialist countries, proletarians, all democratic forces in the capitalist countries, newly free peoples and peoples still oppressed---join the common struggle against imperialism, for peace, national independence, social progress, democracy

and socialism!' "* This thesis was reaffirmed in the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU **

The experience of the international revolutionary movement thus shows that the solidarity of the revolutionary forces is objectively vital to the world liberation process. The need for solidarity constantly and steadily forces its way through a mass of all sorts of subjective obstacles created by the national egoism of the various classes that take part in the different stages of the revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the working class.

As Lenin put it, the struggle against the influence of nationalism in the ranks of the fighters for the revolutionary remaking of the world acquires increasing prominence as matters move towards turning the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national into an international factor "capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole".***

This farsighted tenet acquires special urgency in our day when the world socialist system has become the decisive force in the anti-imperialist struggle, and the defence of its achievements has become the internationalist duty of Communists. It is clearer today than ever before that the principles of proletarian internationalism can under no circumstances be shelved and national egoism allowed to take precedence. Nationalism and internationalism are incompatible and irreconcilable. It was therefore no accident that proletarian internationalism was one of the central questions examined by the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.

Regardless of who supports and champions it, nationalism is in all cases a manifestation of non-proletarian ideology.***"' The working class, naturally, is by no means indifferent to the interests of its country. More, the patriotism of the working class of the socialist countries is part and parcel of its

ideology and dovetails with the ideology of proletarian internationalism. But socialist patriotism has nothing in common with nationalism. There is no such thing as " proletarian nationalism" because nationalism is hostile to the ideology of the working class. Lenin's proposition that bourgeois nationalism and proletarian internationalism are "the two irreconcilably hostile slogans that correspond to the two great class camps throughout the capitalist world, and express the two policies (ney, the two world outlooks) in the national question"* has been and remains true.

In some socialist countries the struggle between nationalism and internationalism sprang directly from the struggle between socialism and capitalism. In countries where the influence of nationalism was not combated with adequate determination, tendencies of varying strength towards alienation from the socialist community began to develop.

Taking into account the positive experience and the negative factors of the development of socialist inter-state relations during the past decades, the CPSU and the MarxistLeninist parties of other socialist countries are improving the forms and methods of relations and co-operation between fraternal countries. These forms and methods spring from the very substance of the socialist community.

This is of immense significance to the development of socialism as a world system and to the success of the efforts to prevent the incalculable damage that might be inflicted on this system by nationalism. Parallel with the ideological struggle against nationalistic distortions, the steady improvement of the forms and methods of implementing the principles of socialist internationalism is a major factor facilitating the historically inevitable victory of internationalism over nationalism within the world socialist system.

Ever since its foundation the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been holding aloft the Leninist banner of proletarian internationalism, the principles of which have always underlain the policy of the Soviet Union. That is precisely why in unison with imperialist propaganda the opportunists and nationalists of all complexions are trying to discredit, above all, the Soviet Union's Leninist policy. Particularly venomous slander is being hurled at the USSR

* Lenin's Ideas and Cause Are Immortal, p. 50. ** 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, pp. 214-17. *** V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148.

**** This in no way implies that nationalism is in all cases a reactionary ideology. When directed against imperialism it plays a progressive role. While participating in the anti-imperialist struggle the proletariat of colonial and dependent countries is frequently compelled to back on this ideology and use it as a means of mobilising the masses.

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 26.

by the Maoists. In spite of obvious facts they argue that the Soviet Union does not discharge its internationalist duty to the revolutionary forces of the world. In order to discredit the Soviet Union's attitude to the national liberation movement the Maoists hinted in their Proposals for the General Line of the International Communist Movement that the Soviet Union and other socialist countries (with the exception of China, of course) are getting off with an "outward show of propriety", that they display national egoism and have little sympathy for oppressed peoples and nations.* They followed this up by alleging that Soviet assistance to the liberated countries damages the economic and political interests of these countries and discredits world socialism. As regards Soviet policy towards socialist states, the Maoists distort its substance with the monstrous accusation that the Soviet Union is opposed to the industrialisation of the countries belonging to the socialist community and seeks to turn the economy of these countries into an adjunct of its own industry.*"" They claim that the history of the relations of China's revolutionary forces with the USSR over a period of several decades has given them grounds for such conclusions. Yet inasmuch as it was pursued over a period of more than half a century and in sharply differing phases of China's socio-political development, it is precisely the policy towards China's revolutionary forces that best illustrates the Soviet Union's consistent internationalism.

The Soviet State and the Revolutionary Struggle of the Chinese People (1917-49)

Being in the vanguard of the world liberation struggle, the Soviet Union has been and remains the mainstay not only of the international proletariat but also of the fighting peoples of the colonial and semi-colonial countries. From the very outset it backed up its declarations of support for revolutionary forces throughout the world with tangible deeds. Attempts to establish contact "with the social forces

* Proposals for the General Line of the International Communist Movement, Chinese ed., Peking, 1963, pp. 27-28.

** Correspondence between the CC CPSU and the CC CPC, Chinese ed., Peking, 1964, p. 41.

in China who are fighting to liberate that country from foreign oppression and tyranny and turn it into a united democratic state",* constituted the content of Soviet policy towards China as early as 1919-20, i.e., when the Soviet power was engaged in a bitter armed struggle for its existence against the internal and external counter-revolution.

In reply to a letter from Sun Yat-sen of August 28, 1921, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G. V. Chicherin stated the substance of the Soviet Union's policy and stressed that regardless of the future international situation the Soviet Government "would never turn from the road of the most devoted, cordial and sincere friendship and co-operation with the Chinese people" and that it most earnestly desired the welfare and free development of the Chinese people.** In those and subsequent years the Soviet policy towards the Chinese people remained immutable. In 1923, in response to a request from the South China revolutionary government headed by Sun Yat-sen, the Soviet Government undertook all the expense of organising the subsequently famous Whampoa Military Academy, many of whose graduates became prominent commanders of the People's Liberation Army. Soviet military advisers, who played a very big part in reorganising and strengthening the armed forces of the Canton government and the army in North China, which supported that government, began arriving in South China that same year. Among them were noted Red Army officers and heroes of the Civil War headed by Vassily Bliicher.

During the national liberation revolution in China (1925- 27) the Soviet Union sent considerable quantities of weapons, ammunition, engineering equipment, medicaments and other supplies in order to strengthen the forces of the anti-- imperialist movement. These supplies included tens of thousands of rifles, hundreds of machine-guns, artillery, tens of millions of cartridges, tens of thousands of hand-grenades and so forth. The Soviet Union used every possible channel to give progressive public throughout the world truthful information about the developments in China and canvass support for the struggle of the Chinese people. A "Hands Off China"

* Soviet Foreign Policy Documents, Russ. ed., Vol. 2, Moscow, 1958, p. 730. ** Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 84.

campaign, started in the Soviet Union in 1924, quickly assumed worldwide proportions. Soviet people were active in collecting funds in aid of the Chinese people. Although as a result of the treachery of the national bourgeoisie the united front of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party came apart in 1927 and the revolution of 1925-27 was defeated, the experience of co-operation with the USSR showed the Chinese people that the Soviet Union was its most reliable and unfailing bulwark in the revolutionary struggle.

In subsequent years, too, the Chinese people's struggle for national independence always had the vigorous support of the USSR. Many Chinese revolutionaries studied in the Soviet Union and after receiving a thorough political and military training joined the Chinese Red Army or returned to underground activities in China.

The threat of enslavement by Japanese imperialism loomed over the Chinese people early in the 1930s. Organised resistance to the aggressor became the cardinal task of all the patriotic revolutionary forces in China. In that crucial period of resistance to Japanese aggression, the Soviet Union remained true to its revolutionary internationalist duty and sided with the Chinese people, rendering China political, diplomatic, economic and military assistance. This close cooperation of the Soviet Union with the patriotic national liberation forces of China showed most strikingly the need for a joint struggle and for mutual support between the forces of socialism and the national liberation movement.

In 1937-39, when the Japanese armies were fighting offensive battles and China was facing her gravest trial, Soviet assistance played a prominent role in helping the Chinese people to stand firm, organise resistance to the aggressor and foil his plan of speedily winning the war. It was vital to gain time, because for the Japanese invaders a protracted war held out no prospect of victory.

Soviet assistance to the Chinese people in 1937-45 acquired the most diverse forms. The Soviet Union supplied China with large quantities of arms and other military equipment and halted the sale of raw and other materials to Japan while the Western powers continued supplying the latter country with strategic raw materials until the very outbreak of the Pacific war in December 1941. Soviet military advisers

and instructors helped the Chinese Command to draw up strategic and tactical plans for the conduct of the war. Thanks to the USSR, during the initial years of the war China had a combatworthy air force that protected her cities from barbarous raids by Japanese bombers and struck telling blows at the rear installations of the Japanese invaders. Hundreds of Soviet pilots helped to defend the sky over China and many of them laid down their lives in the struggle for the independence of the Chinese people. In 1941 the noted American journalist Edgar Snow wrote that in the war against Japan China was using mainly Soviet aircraft and that almost all the victories in the air were won by Soviet pilots.* Lastly, in 1938-39 there were direct military clashes between imperialist Japan and the Soviet Union. Although these were short-lived collisions they seriously undermined the prestige of the Japanese military and dispersed the myth about the invincibility of the Japanese army. This gave a tremendous boost to the morale of the Chinese troops and of the whole Chinese people. Moreover, heavy casualties were suffered by the Japanese in these short clashes. For instance, the defeat at the hands of Soviet and Mongolian troops in the region of Khalkhin-Gol in MayAugust 1939 cost the Japanese militarists considerably more in terms of casualties than their losses during two years of the war in China.**

The Soviet Union's decisive participation in the defeat of Japan's armed forces in August 1945 not only contributed to China's national liberation but played an immense role in the destiny of the Chinese revolution.

If one does not strive to falsify historical facts one cannot help but admit that by supplying manufactured and other goods to the strongpoints of the people's power in China in 1946-49, by helping to restore their economy, giving every assistance in order to strengthen the People's Liberation Army, and safeguarding China against direct armed aggression by the imperialists, the Soviet Union consistently discharged its internationalist duty to the revolutionary forces of the Chinese people.

* Quoted from B. A. Borodin, Soviet Assistance to the Chinese People in the War Against Japan, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1965, p. 164. ** Pravda, August 19, 1969.

Socialist Internationalism as Reflected in Soviet Policy Towards the People's Republic of China

support from socialist states. No matter how China's present leaders try to belittle this support they cannot refute the fact that in China the material and technical basis of socialism was laid with decisive assistance from the USSR and other socialist countries.

The Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community vigorously helped to promote China's economy and culture, thereby strengthening the position of world socialism. But a huge country like China could not, of course, surmount her backwardness by relying solely on assistance from without. By comparing the size of the Soviet credits and China's expenditures on economic development, imperialist and Maoist propaganda are quite obviously trying to belittle the significance of socialist internationalism. With the help of this unseemly method the enormous real economic and political effect of the multiform assistance rendered by the Soviet Union is reduced solely to an assessment of its financial aspect. Yet it was precisely the general efficacy and direct and indirect influence of internationalist aid on China's socialist development that was of decisive significance. For instance, China's utilisation of the Soviet experience of state administration and economic management of socio-economic transformations enabled her to surmount tremendous difficulties within a relatively short span of time.

It will be recalled that the CPC's general line for the period of transition, published in 1953, stated that industrialisation was China's principal task parallel with socialist transformations in the towns and the countryside. It will be appreciated that for China it was of the utmost importance to make use of the scientific and technological achievements of the USSR and other socialist countries. In the period from 1950 to 1960 the Soviet Union presented China with 24,000 sets of scientific and technological documents, including 1,400 blueprints for large industrial enterprises/'^^1^^' In other words, in the course of ten years China received from the Soviet Union almost as many sets of documentation as did the CMEA countries in the course of 20 years.""^^1^^" This was quite natural because aid of this kind was needed by China

The formation of the People's Republic of China in October 1949 marked the beginning of a new stage in SovietChinese relations. They were promoted on the bedrock of proletarian internationalism.

The PRC became a member of the world socialist community at a time when the most adventurist forces of anticommunism were making every effort to precipitate another war against socialism. In this situation the moral and political support of all the anti-imperialist forces, above all of the Soviet Union, was of paramount importance to the young republic, on whose territory a civil war was still raging.

It was entirely due to the existence of the socialist community that the PRC did not experience international isolation and was not turned into an object of direct armed foreign intervention. Thanks to the policy of achieving the utmost expansion of economic relations with the PRC pursued by the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries international imperialism was unable to organise the economic blockade of China. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with the new China. This was quickly followed by the establishment of economic relations with the USSR and the other socialist countries. This was unquestionably an extremely difficult task in view of the fact that China needed first and foremost industrial equipment in order to restore her national economy and also to supply her population with manufactured goods, while in 1949 the Soviet Union had still far to go in eradicating the devastation caused by the nazi invasion, and was, in addition, rendering massive economic assistance to other socialist countries. It is important to note that during these years the Soviet Union was straining every effort to carry out its internationalist duty in ensuring the defence capacity of the socialist community in face of the nuclear blackmail by US imperialism.

The Soviet Union's all-sided assistance to China strikingly embodied Lenin's teaching that countries that had not passed through or had not reached the stage of developed capitalism could effect the transition to socialism with massive

* The World Socialist Economy, Russ. ed., Vol. 4, Moscow, 1967, p. 156.

** Pravda, January 21, 1969.

16---1313

more than by any other socialist country. First, China was one of the most backward countries scientifically and technologically, and, second, already under the first five-year plan economic development in China was directed towards the creation of an integral system of industry.

The incalculable importance of this documentation and China's acute need for it is borne out by the fact that within a short period 95 per cent of the blueprints were used in the process of economic development.*

In addition to making their scientific and technological knowledge available to China, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries made a direct contribution towards China's industrial development. With Soviet assistance China built 256 large industrial enterprises, individual workshops and other projects. The share of these enterprises in the various branches of industry is shown by the following figures: in 1960, in terms of China's total output, they produced 30 per cent of the pig iron, nearly 40 per cent of the steel, over 50 per cent of the rolled stock, 80 per cent of the trucks, more than 90 per cent of the tractors, 55 per cent of the steam and hydraulic turbines, 25 per cent of the electric power, 25 per cent of the aluminium, and so on.**

However, the significance of the assistance from the USSR and other socialist countries for China's industrial development should not be reduced solely to figures. The main thing was that thanks to the Soviet Union China came into possession of technologically modern enterprises---models for all major industries, including those that had been nonexistent in that country. The further development of these branches was determined chiefly by China's own financial resources. Without assistance from the socialist countries China would have been unable to build her technical foundation so quickly.

Socialist internationalism, the pivot of the Soviet policy towards China, was expressed also in the Soviet Union's profound understanding of that country's internal difficulties. As its own economic development progressed the Soviet Union undertook more and more commitments to China in the field of economic co-operation. In the period 1950-59

* The World Socialist Economy, Vol. 4, p. 156.

** The Soviet Unions Leninist Policy Towards China, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1968, p. 203.

the USSR helped China build, enlarge or modernise more than 400 large industrial and other projects.

With Soviet assistance China planned, only under the agreements signed in 1950-59, to build, among other projects, 12 metallurgical combines and plants with a total annual output capacity of 30 million tons of steel, 28 million tons of pig iron and 25 million tons of rolled stock.* The significance of these figures will be easily seen if it is remembered that today China produces not more than 13-15 million tons of pig iron and 11-13 million tons of steel. A comparison of these figures eloquently shows that a country which ignores the requirements of scientific socialism and breaks with the principles of socialist internationalism cannot successfully build the new society.

Had the Chinese leadership not abandoned the principles of proletarian internationalism and had it not halted socialist construction in China, the scale of Soviet assistance to the Chinese people, and also assistance from other socialist countries, would have unquestionably grown steadily and China's socialist industrialisation would have forged ahead.

The genuinely internationalist spirit, the consistently class proletarian character of the Soviet Union's policy towards China was again strikingly manifested in the complex situation of the 1960s. The Soviet Union made every effort to avert China's alienation from the socialist community and prevent any weakening of the anti-imperialist front. However, the Maoists steered China steadily away from the world's progressive forces. It was only on account of the restraint shown by the Soviet Government, its profound understanding of the lasting significance of the friendship and co-operation between the Soviet and Chinese peoples and its unchangeable recognition of the community of their genuine social and state interests and aims that it was possible to avoid a complete rupture of relations between the two countries.

The Soviet Union has never identified the pronouncements and actions of the present Peking leadership with the aspirations and true interests of the CPC and the Chinese people. While waging an ideological struggle against the nationalistic, anti-socialist political platform of Mao Tsetung and his supporters, Soviet people continue to show the

Ibid., p. 201.

16*

deepest respect and sympathy for the working people of China, for their history, and believe in their future, in the fact that the healthy forces of the CPC and People's China will return the country to the socialist road of development and to the ranks of the international revolutionary movement.

``We," L. I. Brezhnev said at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, "resolutely reject the slanderous inventions concerning the policy of our party and our state which are being spread from Peking.... It is all the more absurd and harmful to sow dissent between China and the USSR considering that this is taking place in a situation in which the imperialists have been stepping up their aggressive actions against the freedom-loving peoples....

``The CPSU will continue tirelessly to work for the cohesion of the socialist countries and the world communist movement on a Marxist-Leninist basis."*

The Maoist Rupture with Proletarian Internationalism

As many other trends hostile to Marxism-Leninism, Maoism has from the very beginning assumed the disguise of "genuine Marxism-Leninism". The Maoists are eager to make people believe that they are "firmly upholding the principles and policy of proletarian internationalism". Although they take every precaution to camouflage the actual significance of their ``theories'', their arguments (to say nothing of their practices) plainly reveal their nationalistic interpretation of proletarian internationalism.

Like many other lovers of revolutionary verbiage, the Maoists do not regard the building of socialism and communism as a revolutionary cause, as the key element of the world liberation process. They assert that the socialist countries are only the rear base not even of the entire world revolutionary movement but chiefly of the national liberation movement.

This is not a new phenomenon in the CPC. At the close of the 1920s, Li Li-san, who was General Secretary of the CC CPC at the time, propounded the provocative idea of a war between the USSR and Japan, of a world war which

would speed up the revolution notably in China, which, according to Li Li-san, would then become the "principal pillar of the world revolution". This viewpoint was adopted by Mao Tse-tung. In 1957 he urged testing the stability of world imperialism by war although he knew that this would cost mankind hundreds of millions of lives.

Now and again the Maoist propaganda screen of ultrarevolutionary slogans and vows lifts to reveal the plainly provocative substance of their foreign policy and their true national-egoistic aims. During the past decade the Maoists have activated their attempts to push the USSR and other socialist countries into a collision with international imperialism, mainly with the USA, and ensure for China the position of an indifferent observer. But since China is herself becoming a nuclear power and the danger that she will be one of the principal targets of a nuclear attack by the imperialists has increased, the Maoists have grown cautious in their attitude to the USA and take every opportunity to stress their dissociation from the adversaries of international imperialism.

Their hypocrisy comes to the surface also when one examines other aspects of the question of proletarian internationalism.

In the minds of genuine Marxists-Leninists, who analyse the balance of strength in the world scientifically and keenly understand the actual historical role of the different contingents of the international revolutionary movement, there is no doubt that the USSR has been and remains the most powerful political, economic and military force of socialism, that it is the citadel of the world revolutionary movement. "It is an indisputable fact," the Hungarian newspaper Nepszabadsdg wrote on July 30, 1969, "that in the foreseeable future no socialist country will be in a position to undertake this historic role even partially, much less to fulfil it." Any attack on the Soviet Union, which is the core of the world socialist system, is an attack on that system as a whole. Therefore, the touchstone of proletarian internationalism has been and remains the attitude to the Soviet Union. This is fully in line with the task of strengthening the unity of the world socialist system and with the proposition that the defence of socialism is the internationalist duty of every Communist.

* 24th Congress of the CPSU, p. 16.

Early in the 1960s the Maoists declared that they stood for the ``real'' unity of the socialist community and the international communist movement. They were verbose in their discourses about the meaning of proletarian internationalism under present-day conditions. In the Proposals for the General Line of the International Communist Movement it was stated that the USSR was not the only socialist state in the world, that "in the world today there is a socialist camp-----Under these conditions the touchstone of proletarian internationalism for every Communist Party is whether it defends the entire socialist camp with determination, upholds its unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and safeguards the Marxist-Leninist line and policy that must be pursued by socialist countries".*

The Maoists juggled with Marxist terms in order to give the impression that their formula expresses a creative approach to the changed historical situation. However, in mid1963, when this document was published, it was quite evident that this formula was designed to protect their ideological platform and their openly anti-Soviet policy against criticism. In fact they hinted that such criticism would lead to a split in the socialist community.

As time has irrefutably shown, the object of the Maoist claptrap about the "new touchstone" of proletarian internationalism was to belittle the Soviet Union's decisive role in ensuring the real might of the world socialist system and to give rein to various centrifugal tendencies in the socialist community in order to use them for the Maoists' own GreatPower hegemonistic plans. Their efforts to have the Communist parties accept their notion about abstract equality (not equal rights but equivalence) in the socialist community and their deliberate disregard of the distinctions in the role played by each socialist country in the formation and consolidation of world socialism and in the development of the world liberation process were nothing but an attempt to play on national-egoistic feelings. By their arguments about the "new touchstone" they propagated the petty-bourgeois views that had been emphatically censured by Lenin. " Pettybourgeois nationalism," Lenin wrote, "proclaims as interna-

tionalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact."""

The Maoists have time and again demonstrated their national-egoistic attitude to internationalism and to the interests of the proletariat. During the bitter early phase of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) Mao Tse-tung and his immediate associates in effect refused to uphold the world's first and then only socialist country. When he was asked by Soviet representatives whether large-scale operations would be undertaken by the CPC against the Japanese forces in the event Japan attacked the USSR, Mao gave virtually no reply. At the most crucial moments of the Great Patriotic War the USSR was thus unable to transfer troops from its Far Eastern frontiers.

The hypocrisy of the Maoist brand of ``internationalism'' was revealed even more clearly by their attitude to the defence and unity of the socialist community. It turned put that by "real unity of the socialist countries" the Maoists meant implicit subordination to Peking and the unconditional acceptance of Mao's ideological and political programme. Their Great-Power hegemonistic ambitions have driven a wedge between China and the socialist community. However, in the interests of socialism in China the socialist countries have tried every means at their disposal to avert China's breakaway from the socialist system, stop the slide of the Chinese leadership to reactionary positions and prevent the ideological differences with the CPC leadership from adversely affecting the anti-imperialist struggle. Even after Peking had in November 1965 categorically rejected the proposal that China should act jointly with all other socialist countries in organising resistance to the US aggression in Vietnam, the Soviet Union declared on several occasions that it was willing to co-operate with China on a large range of problems of the anti-imperialist struggle. However, this willingness evoked no response in Peking.

Today when the world socialist system is decisively influencing the entire course of social development every Marxist-Leninist is aware of the need to secure the utmost

* Proposals for the General Line of the International Communist Movement, pp. 10-11,

V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148,

strengthening of the socialist community. People with any political experience at all can hardly be expected to believe that the repudiation of this need is "genuine proletarian internationalism" and "Marxism-Leninism of the highest level''.

The Maoists can argue all they want about the USSR "not really fighting imperialism", but in face of incontestable facts these arguments can delude nobody. The facts show that the Soviet Union plays an outstanding role in the unremitting struggle against imperialism and in defending the gains of world socialism and of the national liberation movement. Its contribution has been highly assessed and reaffirmed at the international meeting of Communists in Moscow in June 1969. This high assessment is based on universally known facts. When the revolutionary gains of the Cuban people were threatened in 1962, the Soviet Union stayed the hand of the US aggressors while the Maoists only raised a clamour, alleging that the USSR was "not really defending Cuba". Yet years have passed and the first socialist country in the Americas is successfully building a new life.

When the United States attacked the Vietnamese people, the Soviet Union went to their assistance, sending them armaments and supplies that enabled them to fight the heavily armed invaders. The Maoists, however, directly and indirectly obstructed the formation of a united front in support of Vietnam and placed all sorts of obstacles to the transportation of Soviet armaments across Chinese territory in an effort to discredit the Soviet Union's internationalist policy. Day after day their propaganda trumpeted that the Soviet Union was not seriously helping Vietnam. Yet with the support of the USSR and other anti-imperialist forces Vietnam held out and forced the aggressor to sit down to negotiations.

Support for the progressive regimes in the Arab countries in their struggle against Israeli aggression and the defence of Czechoslovakia's socialist achievements against the joint assault of external and internal reactionary forces were further testimony of the consistently class proletarian policy of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and of their preparedness to give any aggressor a determined rebuff. During these developments Peking adopted an unseemly stand.

In every clash over the past ten years between the forces of socialism and national liberation, on the one hand, and imperialism, on the other, the Maoists adopted a stand in opposition to the Soviet Union, the socialist community and the international communist movement. "Peking's practical activity on the international scene," L. I. Brezhnev said at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties on June 7, 1969, "convinces us increasingly that China's foreign policy has, in effect, departed from proletarian internationalism and lost the socialist class content.''

The Maoists Flout the Chinese People's Interests

The fundamental coincidence between the international tasks of the working class and the national interests of the bulk of the population of every country has long ago been substantiated theoretically by Marxist-Leninist science and borne out by the practice of the world communist movement and the experience of the socialist countries, who adhere to Marxism-Leninism firmly and consistently. Internationalism and patriotism combine organically in their policies. Nothing would remain of socialist patriotism if the slogan "my country above all else" were to underlie the policy of a socialist country. Whether dictated by narrow nationalism or springing from Great-Power chauvinism, such a slogan clashes with the genuine national interests of the working people, with interests demanding social emancipation, successful socialist construction within the national framework and the strengthening of the world socialist system as a whole. One need only examine the Maoist stand from this angle to see its total incompatibility with the national interests of the Chinese people.

Only people who have broken with Marxism-Leninism and been blinded by nationalistic ambitions can oppose the objectively inevitable and progressive trend towards the internationalisation of the economies of the socialist countries and towards the expansion of economic co-operation between them. This trend is a powerful factor promoting material production, helping to carry out national tasks in the broadest meaning of the word and expediting socialist construction in individual countries and the economic progress

of the entire socialist community. It is by no means accidental that the imperialists are doing everything in their power to undermine socialism chiefly as a close-knit world political and economic system. This is also being done by the Maoists.

In opposition to the Marxist-Leninist line of close cooperation among fraternal countries in the most vital sphere---the sphere of material production---the Maoists have put forward a policy of "reliance on one's own resources", which they interpret in a frankly nationalistic spirit. This is one of the reasons of China's economic stagnation during the past decade. With the scientific and technological revolution developing swiftly throughout the world, this long economic paralysis aggravated by numerous complex unresolved economic problems can only retard interminably China's conversion into a modern industrialised state. In other words, this policy hinders the attainment of one of the Chinese people's key national objectives.

By attacking the Soviet Union and other socialist countries the present Chinese leadership has come into conflict with the anti-imperialist aims of their own people, aims which form part of China's national tasks. Imperialism has always been and remains a relentless enemy of the national and social interests of the Chinese working people, especially as part of China's territory is still under the heels of the imperialists.

Essentially speaking, Peking's anti-popular policies have seriously damaged not only the socialist gains in China but also the positions won by the Chinese people in the antiimperialist struggle. Whereas until 1949 imperialism had treated China as a semi-colony, used her in its worldwide political intrigues and piled up wealth by pillaging and exploiting the Chinese working people, today, on account of Peking's policies, China has again become a weapon of world imperialism in its global strategy against the socialist system, the international communist movement and the national liberation forces.

Unquestionably, the patriotic forces of China are confronted with the crucial task of raising their country's prestige in the world and ensuring her right to take part in the settlement of world problems as a Great Power. But for Marxists-Leninists such a task is in no way an end in

itself. They carry it out as a result and on the basis of successful socialist construction, the rapid surmounting of the country's backwardness and the creation of a strong material and cultural foundation enabling the socialist state to exercise increasing influence on international relations. This was the road followed by the People's Republic of China during the first decade of its existence. Relying on the material basis of socialism that it was steadily building up and on the support and prestige of the socialist community as a whole, the PRC won rapidly soaring international prestige as a modern progressive force. Many countries regarded People's China as a powerful factor of peace and therefore strove to promote all-round friendly relations with her. This unquestionably conformed to the national aspirations of the Chinese people.

However, possessed by Great-Power chauvinism, the Maoists have cast friendly and equal co-operation overboard in favour of a bid for supremacy over other countries. They therefore regard the build-up of the country's military power as the cornerstone of their economic policy. The productive forces released by the revolution have been geared mainly to the attainment of this objective. As a result, China has been steadily losing the international prestige that she had won in the 1950s. In fact, it has never fallen so low as during the past decade. The undisguised chauvinistic ambitions of the Maoists have evoked suspicion, distrust and protests among progressive forces throughout the world.

Attacks on the international communist movement, the socialist community and the Soviet Union have never won anybody fame, respect and recognition among his own people or among progressives throughout the world. At one time this was evidently appreciated by Mao Tse-tung as well. At the Jubilee Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in November 1957 he said: "The government of any country only damages the real interests of its people if it refuses to live in friendship with the Soviet Union."* These words are an indictment of Peking's present anti-socialist and antinational policies, for Mao and his associates in the PRC leadership have irrefutably shown their hostility not only for

hvestia, November 7, 1957,

the socialist forces of the world but also for the Chinese people.

The fact that a stand alien to the internationalist spirit of Marxism-Leninism has been adopted by the Maoist group and by revisionist nationalistic elements in some socialist countries is interpreted by the ideologists of anti-communism as self-evident proof of an irreconcilable contradiction between the internationalist aims of the world proletariat and the interests of world socialism, on the one hand, and the interests of individual socialist countries, on the other. In particular, bourgeois propaganda claims that the "global interests of Soviet communism", i.e., the internationalist class policy of the Soviet Union, are incompatible with the national aims of the Chinese people. But is this really the case if we have in mind China's genuinely national interests and not the Great-Hanist ambitions of the Maoists?

The Soviet Union's Leninist internationalist policy has never come into conflict with the national aspirations of the Chinese people. How indeed could the Soviet Union's all-out support for the revolutionary and patriotic forces of China in the struggle for their country's independence and social reorganisation clash with the aims of that struggle? In what way had the massive Soviet economic and technological assistance in building up China's industry prevented the Chinese people from achieving their national aim of creating a powerful socialist China with a modern economy, science and culture? Had the Soviet Union not desired to see a flourishing socialist China, would it have steadily increased its economic assistance to the PRC and helped it build new branches of industry, including a defence industry? The crux of the matter is therefore not in far-fetched contradictions between the USSR's state interests and China's national aims, but solely in the fact that the Great-Power aspirations of the Maoists are hostile to the interests of world socialism, to the interests which the Soviet Union unchangeably and consistently champions.

military attack and continuing to blaze the trail for mankind's social progress, the Soviet Union, by virtue of these objective reasons, remains in the van of the worldwide struggle for socialism and communism. Without the USSR, none of the socialist countries would have been able to defend its existence as a socialist state. That is why antiSovietism has always been identified with anti-communism, and it is not without reason that imperialist reaction throughout the world has given and continues to give its approval to all anti-Soviet sentiments regardless of their political source. Imperialism has a special affection for ``Left'' antiSovietism, for anti-Sovietism that comes from within the revolutionary movement or from near-revolutionary trends. "It is a mark of our times," Gus Hall wrote, "that antiSovietism packaged in Left-radical wrappings now brings a higher price than those in Right-wing wrappings. There is a greater demand for it in the imperialist market-place.''^^51^^'

Looking upon the socialist system as the decisive factor of the anti-imperialist struggle, and upon the Soviet Union as the principal force of world socialism, genuine MarxistsLeninists regard anti-Sovietism as the most reactionary phenomenon of our times. This was vividly expressed at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow.

By coming forward as the most active ``Left'' propounders of anti-Sovietism, the Maoists have joined hands with the most reactionary forces in the world today. Their rupture with scientific communism, their renunciation of proletarian socialist internationalism, and their adoption of pseudo-socialist petty-bourgeois ideals and nationalist aims have turned the present Chinese leadership into a counterrevolutionary factor. The exposure of the Maoists has logically become a demand of life, an indispensable condition for the triumph of socialism in China and an important factor of the successful development of the world revolutionary process.

This hostility has received its concentrated expression in the anti-Sovietism of the PRC leadership. As the most powerful state in the socialist world ensuring its security against

World Marxist Review, No. 5, Vol. 11, 1968, p. 18.

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