p History knows of many regressive trends, movements and upheavals triggered by class treachery. Nonetheless what has, and still is, happening in China hardly has a historical precedent either for its nature or scale. It is not so much the depth of the political degradation of individuals as the socio-political consequences stemming from the present situation in China. This is a case of a perverted anti-socialist line underlying the domestic and foreign policy of a country that is one of the world’s great powers, a country that had been building socialism. In the given case, the scale of the ideological and political betrayal is multiplied, as it were, by the size of the country in which it is committed.

p The almost 20-year-old history of the People’s Republic of China may be divided into two periods, with the end of the 1950s as the line between them.

p The first period witnessed far-reaching socio-economic and political reforms aimed at creating the foundation of socialist society in China. It was clear that in a country with the productive forces at a low level of development and with deep-rooted elements of pre-capitalist relations of production widely prevalent, there would be enormous difficulties in putting socialist reforms into effect.

p After the people’s revolution of 1949 these difficulties came to the fore. But the Communist Party of China had the possibility of drawing up a programme of socialist construction on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles and of creatively utilising the Soviet people’s vast experience of building socialism. In a CPC document it was stressed that "the road traversed by the Soviet Union is the example that we have to follow today”.  [180•* 

p The Communist Party of China charted a programme of socialist construction with emphasis on industrialisation and 181 the gradual socialist reorganisation of agriculture. This policy received legislative embodiment in the Constitution of the PRC (1954) and was recorded in the decisions adopted by the 8th Congress of the CPC (1956). Other steps were taken to consolidate and improve the people’s democratic system. The building of the economic basis of socialism and the corresponding political superstructure was started under the leadership of the Communist Party. It was only correct leadership by the Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism that could guarantee the successful fulfilment of this extremely complex task ( particularly in the conditions obtaining in China).

p However, with the development of socialist construction and the growing scale of the tasks confronting the country, the influence of petty-bourgeois, nationalistic elements became increasingly felt in the CPC itself and, above all, among its leaders. This trend was propounded by Mao Tsetung, who had long ago formed a group that was loyal to himself personally. Utilising his position as Chairman of the Central Committee of the CPC and encountering little resistance, he forced upon the Party a series of political propositions undermining and revising the general line adopted by the CPC Congress, the highest Party authority.

p In 1958 industrialisation and the gradual cooperation of agriculture were supplanted by the "big leap" and the "people’s communes" policy, underlying which were pettybourgeois adventurism and hegemonistic ambitions. Everybody knows the sad outcome of this Mao Tse-tung inspired course. When speaking of this people usually draw attention to the direct economic damage suffered by China. For our part, we should like to draw attention to another, similarly important aspect of this question.

p At the time the "big leap" and "people’s communes" policy was proclaimed, the socialist system of production relations (the economic basis of socialism) has not taken final shape in China. The first telling blow was struck at the socialist relations of production emerging in the countryside in 1955 when, ignoring the real situation in the villages, the Mao group sharply accelerated the formation of agricultural cooperatives. Then followed the "big leap" and the organisation, on orders from above, of "people’s communes" throughout the country. This was a crushing blow at the 182 nascent economic basis of socialism in both town and countryside.

p As from that period the basic principles of socialist economic management, the forms and methods of managing the economy were flouted. The task of "securing the maximum satisfaction of the material and cultural requirements of the people”,  [182•*  proclaimed at the 8th Congress of the CPC as the Party’s main objective, was shelved. This could not but have far-reaching socio-economic consequences.

p The undermining of the foundations of the socialist system of production relations most adversely affected the state’s political superstructure, which was also in the process of formation. It is hardly necessary to accentuate the fact that in a country like China the economic, social, political and ideological influence of the old society was still very much in evidence, and the petty-bourgeois element, patriarchal survivals and so on constantly made themselves felt even after popular rule was established.

p Moreover, one must not discount the negative influence of the traditions inherited by new China from the former exploiting systems. Stressing that these factors had to be taken into account, Marx wrote: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”.  [182•**  The justice of these words is particularly self-evident in the case of China, where the traditions formed centuries ago and generated by the specific feudal way of life, by the features of "Asian despotism" mentioned by the classics of Marxism, complicated the task of reorganising life along socialist lines.

p The entire political structure of the PRC was seriously weakened by the influence of all these factors. This was expressed, above all, by the measures that were taken to undermine the leading role of the Communist Party and to replace the principles of democratic centralism in the work of Government and Party bodies and public organisations 183 with coercion and dictatorial methods. Blind obedience and unthinking subordination were demanded at all levels in the Government and the Party. Any manifestation of discontent with the ruinous adventurist policy of the Maoists was ruthlessly crushed.

Lastly, from 1958 onward, the cult of Mao Tse-tung was spread on a steadily mounting scale. On the political level the cardinal objective of this campaign was to create conditions that would exclude all opposition to Mao Tse-tung and enable him to rule the Party arbitrarily.