p Like all other working people in China the proletariat, as a whole, does not accept the Maoist policies, regarding them as an attack on the aims for which it had fought during the revolution.

p At the initial phase of their assault on the working class and on the Party and people’s committees, the Maoists used the hungweipings, whom they called the "backbone of the dictatorship of the proletariat" and "pathfinders of the revolution" (decisions of the llth plenary meeting of the Central 146 Committee of the CPC). There are nearly 30 million hungweipings and tsaofans—this is treble the number of industrial workers. In Peking the hungweipings threatened the workers with "revolutionary action" if they did not desist from pressing for their rights. Extremist elements went so far as to declare that the workers were the enemies of the revolution. In Foochow the hungweipings openly proclaimed their intention of "overthrowing the proletariat and its dictatorship”.

p However, the hungweipings encountered growing resistance from the working class. At a number of factories in Shanghai, China’s major industrial centre, the workers sent the Central Committee of the CPC a strongly worded protest after the hungweipings had attacked the Shanghai City Committee of the CPC. They wrote that "such action could only have been conceived by class enemies" and assessed it as an attempt "to depose the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism”. In Kwangchow, one of China’s largest ports, the workers declared that the actions against the Party committees and the constitutional organs of power were a manifestation of "deadly class hatred for the Party and socialism”.

p A wave of massive strikes swept across the country, powerfully affecting the largest industrial regions. According to the foreign press, these strikes involved over 7 million workers in 60 towns. In most cases the workers demanded higher wages and better working and living conditions. In effect, they were actions directed against the policies of Mao Tse-tung and his group. Troops were sent to the factories to pacify the workers. "This was a very important measure designed to ensure order in industry and continue the cultural revolution,” Chou En-lai said. The newspaper Jenmin Jihpao admitted that "the army took over or assumed control of all the main industrial enterprises and railway junctions”.

p The offensive on the vital rights and interests of the workers, the attacks on so-called economism, and the political disorders strongly affected discipline and labour productivity at the factories.

p In the course of the "cultural revolution" the working class found itself split organisationally and politically: misled by Maoist propaganda, the least conscious sections of the workers and part of the apprentices were drawn into the 147 tsaofan (rebel) political organisation. In Peking, Shanghai, Tientsin and other cities the workers formed Chihweitui (Red Guard) detachments in opposition to the tsaofans. Moreover, at some factories the workers began setting up narrow professional organisations (for instance, drivers, porters) in order somehow to protect their economic interests, and also various “societies” and “circles” of workers from the same province or town, which were a typical feature of semi-feudal China. At many factories there are up to a dozen different "revolutionary organisations" fighting each other. This makes it extremely difficult for the healthy forces in the working class to uphold Marxism-Leninism and the gains of socialism in China.

p In order to break the resistance of the working class the Maoists have lately had somewhat to change their tactics. They are manoeuvring and using more extensive means of influencing the working people.

p In August 1968 Jenmin Jihpao published Mao Tse-tung’s "new instructions”, which stated that the "proletariat is the leading class" and called for every effort to be made "to promote the leading role of the working class in the great cultural revolution and in all other spheres”. But these are empty words.

p This talk about the leading role of the working class is now needed mainly to veil somehow the military-bureaucratic dictatorship, the personal power regime and the special role being played by the army. The Maoists need an obedient working class indoctrinated in the spirit of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung" to consolidate the results of the "cultural revolution”, and they use the name of the proletariat to cover the glaring lawlessness in dealing with their adversaries. However, the Peking leaders have most certainly noted the proletariat’s pent-up hostility to the "cultural revolution" and the excesses of the hungweipings. They are afraid that the opposition might utilise this unrest. That is why they are trying to give the impression that in the "new order" being set up by them the working class is ensured with the corresponding rights and the leading role. Moreover, they hope this would give an outlet to the proletariat’s dissatisfaction and thereby curb the hungweipings, who have discredited themselves in the eyes of the people and started fighting among themselves.

p Isolated by the international working-class movement’s condemnation of their anti-labour policies, the Maoists are trying to soften criticism by the Marxist-Leninist parties and, at the same time, continuing their subversive activities behind a screen of flowery words about the working class.

p Efforts have lately been launched to unite the various groups of workers on a Maoist foundation, on the basis of recognition of the "absolute authority of the thought of Mao Tse-tung”. Mao Tse-tung has declared that "there must be no place for a split in the working class”. One of the means of achieving this “unity” is the massive purge among the workers which the Maoists currently regard as their " principal strategic task”.  [148•* 

p As before, the ultimate objective of the Maoists is to prevent the working class from uniting, tear it away from the influence of healthy forces, discredit and weed out its finest representatives and break its resistance. Direct suppression is also practised. The Maoists continue to provoke contradictions between the different sections and groups of the working class in order to undermine its strength. But whatever measures the Chinese revisionists try to enforce they will never succeed in turning the working class away from the true road of revolution.

p Chinese propaganda calls Mao Tse-tung the "greatest leader of the proletariat”. These absurd claims are exploded by facts, which clearly show that the Maoists are pursuing an anti-Marxist, anti-labour policy. The splitters are afraid of the working class because the workers are blocking the road to their objectives. The "cultural revolution" has forcefully demonstrated that any underestimation of the proletariat’s revolutionary potentialities leads to a betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and to policies crippling the liberation struggle of the working people. Lenin always emphasised that only the proletariat can lead the majority of the working people "if it is sufficiently numerous, class-conscious and disciplined”.  [148•**  These conditions are being undermined by the Mao group. For the Chinese working class the situation is extremely difficult. Through a reign of terror, direct suppression, intimidation, refined social demagogy and various 149 subterfuges the Maoists want to prevent the working class from perceiving the true nature of their political campaign and consolidating its ranks.

p The Chinese working class and all other healthy forces in the country are continuing their uphill struggle to protect their basic political and economic interests and rights, uphold the gains of socialism and secure China’s progress towards socialism in fraternity and friendship with the socialist countries and the revolutionary forces throughout the world. In this they have the fraternal support of the working class of all countries.

Politicheskoye samoobrazovaniye, No. 11, 1968,
pp. 22-30