p Mao Tse-tung and his group have turned the edge of their attacks against those who wanted China’s economic development to proceed in accordance with the economic laws of socialism, in close co-operation with the world socialist system and with the objective of raising the people’s living standard and cultural level. The Maoists have rejected this line, qualifying it as “revisionist”.

p The "cultural revolution" brought with it further attempts to make China adopt a voluntaristic policy designed to subordinate the economy entirely to Great-Power, hegemonistic aims. The "three red banners"—"general line”, "big leap" and "people’s communes"—were again brought into the limelight by the llth plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CPC in August 1966. Moreover, this meeting adopted a series of "basic directives" and "new instructions" of Mao Tse-tung.

p The development of industries directly linked with the military-technological complex is receiving priority, and all the resources available to the state are channelled to them. In this connection any effort to raise the people’s living standard and cultural level is branded “revisionist” and “reactionary”. The Maoists have rejected the use of commodity-money relations and economic levers. They pin all their hopes on what they term as the "revolutionisation of people’s way of thinking”.

p It will be recalled that the "three red banners" economic policy had sparked a crisis in China, destroyed part of the productive forces, caused glaring disproportions in the national economy and led to a steep decline of the living standard. In 1958 the "big leap" and the “revolutionisation” resulted in a longer working day, the conversion of factories into barracks, egalitarian distribution on the level of the 144 lowest wage, reduction of the number of days off to two a month, and so on. What does this "new programme" hold out ior the working class?

p First, its removal from the direction of the economy and then the militarisation of labour. The army has been given the premier role in economic management. In fact, it has been put in control of all the principal management organs in the national economy and directly at industrial enterprises, the rural people’s communes, and financial and trade organisations and offices. The Maoists expect that by instilling the "army spirit" in the minds of the people they will strengthen discipline and achieve an intensification of labour. The workers are urged to "study the experience of labour organisation on the pattern of military units" and set up "industrial detachments modelled on the army" which would be an "army in civilian clothes”.  [144•*  Essentially speaking, this is a Trotskyite approach to the working class.

p The numerical growth of the working class is being obstructed. It will be recalled that the Chinese working class was seriously hit by the shrinkage of industrial output and the paring down of capital construction as a result of the failure of the "big leap”. The number of industrial workers, including apprentices, dropped from 14,500,000 in 1960 to about 10 million in 1964, i.e., to approximately the 1957 level. In subsequent years, the number of industrial and office workers did not show any marked increase.”  [144•**  China is one of the few countries in the world where the working class has not grown in recent years.

p The Maoists demand that workers should "pay no attention to the poor living conditions" and "spare no effort where labour is needed”. Any action on the part of workers to secure a better standard of living is regarded as a crime, branded as "counter-revolutionary economism" and summarily punished. Workers demanding the reinstitution of bonuses and the settlement of vital questions relating to labour protection and social insurance are denounced as counterrevolutionaries. Jenmin Jihpao called for a "cessation of action directed towards raising wages, improving living standards and conditions, and securing additional payments and various additional assistance”.

p The material condition of the workers took a further plunge as a result of difficulties in the supply of staple foods. More commodities (matches, salt, coal, footwear, tobacco) were put on the ration list, which already included grain and sweet potatoes (12-15 kilos a month), vegetable oil (125- 150 grams a month), sugar (150 grams a month) and cotton fabric and articles made from it (from 3 to 7 metres per year per person). Due to the very meagre food rations the workers are compelled to buy food in the black market.

Chinese propaganda uses the example of the Taching oilfields to panegyrise the "new programme" of economic development. At the oilfields production and labour are organised along the principle of "combining industry and agriculture" by setting up an "industrial-agricultural village”. In practice, this means the formation of closed, “ selfsufficing” economic units. State funds are used for purely production purposes, the wage fund is reduced to a minimum and no allocations whatever are made for social and everyday requirements. A certain growth of production is achieved by intensifying labour. Material incentives have been abolished. Labour is organised "after the model of army units" and the “worker-and-peasant” pattern. The workers’ families are also included in the "labour army" and used for work in the fields. Dwellings are built by the workers and their families. An indication of the workers’ response to the "Taching experiment" is that there were a series of strikes at the oilfields during the "cultural revolution”. Ten thousand workers left the oilfields and part of the equipment was destroyed.