p Chinese Party and government documents and the Chinese press have summed up Mao Tse-tung’s “contribution” to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of classes and the class struggle under these five heads:

p 1. The classes that exist under capitalism—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—disappear only after communist construction has been completed, so that the major antagonistic class contradiction under capitalism—that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—is not resolved under socialism, but remains until the building of communism is complete. It is an organic feature of socialist society and is its basic contradiction.

p 2. The class struggle under socialism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is continuous, at times becoming more bitter and violent. The struggle is objective and inevitable, and is that which determines the future of socialism. Depending on its progress, which is determined by the balance of forces and the proletariat’s skill in waging the struggle, it can have two possible outcomes. The socialist revolution can be successfully completed only provided the proletariat, relying on its dictatorship, wages a constant and tireless class struggle against the bourgeoisie: that is the only way to eliminate the bourgeoisie and build a classless society. The opposite outcome, however, is also possible: the proletariat can be defeated and the bourgeoisie can restore its lost political domination. This would not only mean that communism would not be built, but also that the capitalist 182 mode of production would be restored. Consequently, even after socialist society has been built there is a real danger of capitalism being restored.

p The authors of The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a booklet published in Peking, say this about Mao Tse-tung’s “doctrine” of classes and class struggle under socialism: “Comrade Mao Tse-tung points out that, as in the past, socialist society is based on opposite classes and that the whole socialist period is shot through with a struggle between the two classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie—and a struggle between the two ways—socialist and capitalist. The struggle between the two ways and the two classes is the main contradiction of socialist society and is its motive force.”

p 3. In the Soviet Union, Mao Tse-tung and his group maintain, the bourgeoisie has already gained the upper hand over the proletariat in their class struggle and has taken over power in the Party and the state. So, they say, the Soviet state has undergone a radical change: the dictatorship of the proletariat has turned into dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and capitalist relations of production have already been substituted for socialist relations of production. The main reason for these changes lies in a mistake made by J. V. Stalin, who “failed to recognise in theory that throughout the whole historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, classes and the class struggle still exist in society, that the problem of ’who beats whom’ in the revolution has yet to be finally settled, and that a wrong solution of the problem could make it possible for the bourgeoisie to restore its rule"^^1^^. Since upon Stalin’s death the Soviet proletariat was still influenced by his mistake and did not display enough vigilance or wage a resolute enough class struggle against the bourgeoisie, the latter took over state power, did away with socialism, and restored capitalist society. The same applied to all the other socialist countries which failed to adopt or be guided by “Mao Tse-tung thought”.

p 4. In contrast to the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, any restoration of capitalism in China has been prevented and the socialist system has been preserved and is heading towards communism, which will be free of any classes or class struggle. This is also said to apply to 183 Albania, whose government looks towards Maoism. China owes it to Mao Tse-tung that its socialism has been preserved, for he has been the only man able correctly to sum up the historical experience of the proletarian dictatorship in China, and also in the Soviet Union.

p By advancing the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes, the class struggle, socialist revolution and proletarian dictatorship and putting it into practice in China, Mao Tse-tung has done a great service not only to the Chinese but also to the world proletariat. He is the only one to have safeguarded, in an extremely complicated situation, socialist society in his vast country and ensured its advance towards communism.

p 5. “The great proletarian cultural revolution" was a major episode in the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie under the proletarian dictatorship in China.

p It was initiated by Mao Tse-tung and carried out under his personal leadership. It has ensured the proletariat’s victory over the bourgeoisie, which infiltrated the Party and taken over some of its leading posts.

Those are the basic principles of the Maoist “doctrine” of classes and class struggle in socialist society. These are bound up with the Maoist tenets concerning “permanent revolution" under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the four contradictions of the present-day world, which were set out in the report to the Ninth Congress of the CPC in 1969. This means that the “problem” of classes and class struggle in socialist society has an important or even central role in “Mao Tse-tung thought”.