p Although Mao Tse-tung and his group have been making loud noises about Mao Tse-tung’s “doctrine” of classes and the class struggle in socialist society being a “great development of the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes and the class struggle in the modern epoch”, this doctrine does not in effect develop but revises Marxism-Leninism. The defects of the Maoist doctrine are embodied in these three principal features:

p The first is that Mao Tse-tung’s followers never miss the opportunity of stressing that their teacher has fully mastered materialist dialectics and is skilled in developing and applying it correctly to the modern epoch, socialist society in particular. They always stress, as a major scientific merit of Maoism, that in considering individual problems account is always taken of the specific features of historical epochs, periods and stages. Indeed, in some instances Mao Tse-tung does try to apply this general tenet of dialectical materialism, but in his elaboration of various aspects of classes and the class struggle in socialist society no account is taken at all of the specific features of the historical epoch. On this question his stand is completely metaphysical.

p This is the chief methodological flaw at the basis of the Maoist conception of classes and the class struggle in socialist society and it is expressed above all in two fundamental mistakes. First, Mao Tse-tung ignores the distinction which in effect exists between the period of transition from capitalism to socialism and the period of the victory of socialism. Mao Tse-tung incorrectly ascribes to socialist society what relates only to the transition period. Second, Mao Tse-tung fails to reckon with the difference between the stages of two qualitatively distinct periods in the construction of the new, communist society. Thus, both the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, and the period of triumphant socialism have their stages, with their own specific qualitative features, which for their part also exert an influence on classes and the class struggle. Once the impact of all these qualitative features of the two periods and their different stages on classes and the class struggle is ignored, a number of interconnected and incorrect propositions arise, constituting in the aggregate the defective Maoist conception of classes and the class struggle in socialist society.

p On these two propositions, for instance, are based the parts of the report at the Ninth Congress of the CPC and the article, “Great Historical Document" (written about the “Announcement of the CPC Central Committee" in May 1966), setting out and substantiating Mao Tse-tung’s doctrine of classes and the class struggle in socialist society. They contain quotations from Marx, and especially Lenin, who said in some of their works that once the proletariat has taken 185 power and established its dictatorship, the class struggle does not cease but even tends to become more acute, assuming the most extreme forms, even developing to the point of fierce civil war. The above-mentioned article, for instance, said: “V. I. Lenin sees that even after the proletariat has taken power, the bourgeoisie remains stronger than the proletariat and constantly strives for restoration. At the same time, petty-commodity production constantly generates new capitalism and a new bourgeoisie, posing a threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat."^^2^^

p “Quotations" of this kind from the writings of Marx and Lenin are to be found in considerable number in some works by Mao Tse-tung and his followers. This is the Maoists’ way of seeking to “prove” the correctness of the Maoist “doctrine" of classes and the class struggle in socialist society. In themselves these statements are correct and do, indeed, occur in the writings of the founders of Marxism-Leninism. The Maoists’ mistake is that they have taken these statements out of context and period. Thus, they have mechanically transferred what Marx and Lenin had connected with the period of transition from capitalism to socialism to another fundamentally different period, which is socialist society. Lenin had, indeed, spoken on many occasions about the constant emergence of a new bourgeoisie from petty-commodity production, but this also applied to the transition period and not to socialism, because in socialist society there is no petty-commodity production, and if some remnants remain (small-scale handicraft enterprises and the personal houseand-garden farms of collective farmers) they have a small part to play in the economy and cannot generate new capitalist elements.

p Besides, it should be noted that the strength of the resistance put up by the politically overthrown class of capitalists and its struggle against the proletariat and the proletarian dictatorship differ from stage to stage in the transition period. In the early years of the socialist revolution, the bourgeoisie is still very strong and the class struggle is more intense. But gradually, as the socialist sector is enlarged and the capitalist and petty-commodity sector is narrowed down, the strength of the bourgeoisie weakens and the class struggle begins to die down. This 186 general rule does not exclude the possibility of class struggle breaking out again under definite conditions towards the end of the transition period and even in socialist society. Hungary and Czechoslovakia offer two historical examples.

p Second, Mao Tse-tung and his group do not nominally deny the objective character of classes in socialist society.^^3^^ Indeed, they even seek to show, with reference to various objective features inherent in classes, that classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, locked in a life-and-death class struggle—continue to exist throughout the whole period of socialism. But as will be shown later, these attempts have no scientific basis and clash with the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of classes. This will be seen from the fact that membership of this or that class—the proletariat or the bourgeoisie—is ultimately connected by the Maoists with a person’s attitude to Mao Tse-tung’s “thoughts”. Those who do not accept them are declared to be a part of the bourgeoisie, and who do—of the proletariat. This subjectivist approach is being used by the Maoists in an attempt to “substantiate” their conception of classes in socialist society. The leaders of socialist countries refusing to accept Maoism are branded as revisionists, renegades and spokesmen for the bourgeoisie, and the countries themselves as capitalist. In China, leaders who share Mao Tse-tung’s “thought” are regarded as spokesmen for the proletarian line, while those who do not are included in the bourgeoisie.

p The third feature of the Maoist “doctrine” of classes and the class struggle in socialist society is an expression of the first two. Differences in the Party and in socialist society are declared to be differences between two opposite classes, and the struggle between advocates of different views to be a class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Let us recall that soon after the victory of the revolution in China differences appeared in the CPC on the basic questions of socialist construction. Mao Tse-tung and his group formulated and in 1957 imposed on the Party an erroneous, adventurist, Left-sectarian, nationalistic and anti-Soviet line in China’s domestic and foreign policy. When it became clear that the attempt to carry out the “great leap forward" was a complete fiasco, with the economy in complete disarray, opposition to Mao Tse-tung 187 in the Party, headed by Liu Shao-chi, began to grow. The struggle between these two trends in the CPC was declared, in accordance with the Maoist view of classes and the class struggle, to be “the main antagonistic contradiction. The struggle to resolve this contradiction is a concentrated expression of the struggle between two classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between two ways—the socialist and the capitalist".^^4^^

This peculiarity of the Maoist “doctrine” of the class struggle in socialist society is directly connected with the personality cult, for any critical remark about a superior, Mao Tse-tung himself in the first place, is instantly branded as a statement by the class enemy, while the gross and roughshod methods used in putting down Party democracy are declared to be an expression of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.