Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt 8: Conceptualizing Socialist Society
Posted by Mike E on December 27, 2008
During debate at revolutionary conference in late 60s
Kasama would like to share “Evaluating the Cultural Revolution in China and its Legacy for the Future.” It was written by the by the MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the U.S. This comprehensive paper describes the course of the Cultural Revolution (CR) from 1966-1976, its achievements and shortcomings, and why future movements for revolution, socialism and communism must stand on its shoulders.”
This is the sixth of 8 articles composing a paper that was written by the MLM Revolutionary Study group. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are available on Kasama. The final parts will soon follow.
Evaluating the Cultural Revolution (8): Conceptualizing Socialist Society
This installment includes sections on the role of the party, mass organizations, dissent and mass debate, the Hundred Flowers campaign in 1956-57, and positions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on socialist society.
Conceptualizing Socialist Society
Continuing study of the Cultural Revolution has produced a number of thought-provoking proposals from Maoist parties and friends of socialist China about how socialist societies should be organized in the future. These proposals focus on the relationship between the party and the masses of people, and on democratic forms of organization.
We welcome efforts to look freshly at a variety of political and organizational mechanisms that may help resolve some of the complex and challenging problems that arise under socialism. However, it is important to understand that there are those who think it is necessary to discard the whole project of advancing along the socialist road to communism because, they say, it isn’t “democratic” enough. In contrast, there are many revolutionary and communist forces around the world that continue to embrace this project and are gathering forces for the next round of revolution and socialism. In the course of this, new understandings of socialism will be forged, making important additions to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist understanding of how to change the world.
(1) Some Important Understandings of the Nature of Socialism
A fundamental part of departure is the understanding that it is working class rule–the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie–that makes it possible for the vast majority of people to have real political rights, especially the power to continue to transform socialist society in their collective interest.
“As indicated by statements such as ‘Hitler was a dictator,’ in everyday language the word dictator is often used to refer to a person who has the power to rule over society.. For Marxists, however, the main characteristics of any society are shaped by relations among classes, not among individuals. All societies are dictatorships insofar as one class rules in its own interests.
“Within the ruling class there is democracy because there can be considerable debate among its members, who have meaningful opportunities to influence what the state does. But the capitalist state exercises dictatorship over members of other classes, who lack comparable opportunities to influence what the state does. More importantly, the capitalist state protects existing property relations and suppresses, frequently violently, serious challenges to these relations and to its rule.”
China's poor farmers organized for class struggle
Thus, a “democracy for all,” regardless of class, can have meaning only in a society which has evolved beyond classes and beyond exploitation of one class by another. States, which have evolved to promote, defend, and enforce class interests, will vanish, and other forms of organization will develop to manage and coordinate the workings of society.
Even among many political activists, there is a common misunderstanding that the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie is in reality not an unleashing of the heretofore pent-up capacity of the working masses, but is instead a dictatorship of a communist party over the masses of people, and that any form of dictatorship is incompatible with democratic forms of organization under socialism.
This view stands in contrast to a fundamental truth: The history of the modern state has shown that all states have a class character, which promotes the interests of a particular class against (in open or disguised form) other classes. Yet the prolonged struggle against bourgeois or capitalist dictatorship, in its more repressive or less repressive forms, has brought forth many political movements which aim to reform the bourgeois state until it becomes, without revolution, a truly democratic-for-all state which no longer expresses the interests of any particular class. This is an illusory pursuit, developed by the relatively privileged, which denies the necessity for revolutionary opposition to bourgeois rule.
Socialist states must have armed forces—and use them when necessary–in order to defend themselves against external enemies and prevent the overthrown bourgeoisie from making a comeback. However, the dictatorship of the proletariat is not simply the operation of the state apparatus. It is a dynamic process that continues throughout the socialist transition period, in which millions of working people develop higher levels of political consciousness, knowledge and organization that enable them to exercise ever-increasing and effective power over state affairs, the economy, education, culture and foreign policy. In this process all classes, from the peasantry to the privileged, will increasingly be drawn into the productive daily work of society and thereby proletarianized. Through this long period of socialism, mental and manual work will be increasingly shouldered by all.
Evaluating the history of socialism, especially the extensive experience of the Soviet Union and of the People’s Republic of China, is an essential precondition for weighing the new proposals now being made by various parties and individuals. In looking at how socialist society will be organized in the future, several related questions should be posed.
Do these proposals strengthen the ability of the leading communist party to constantly renew its revolutionary character? Do they raise the political consciousness of the masses and strengthen their ability to distinguish between the socialist and capitalist roads? Will they restrict to the maximum extent possible the class differences and inequalities in socialist society? Do they promote the ability of the masses to supervise and point out defects in the party’s work? Do they promote the understanding that socialism cannot advance in one or more countries without actively supporting the development of struggles to overthrow capitalism and imperialism around the world? On such questions the development of socialism today is often focused and debated.
In the history of the international communist movement, it must be remembered that two major and widespread assumptions of the Soviet period have proven untenable. The first is that the revolutionary seizure of working class state power ushers in the ending of class struggle. Instead, the class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie has been shown to be more intense and complex in the socialist period, which is best understood as a transitional period between capitalist rule and the dawning of a global classless society: communism.
The second assumption that has proven untenable is that history is progressive and irreversible. Once an essential part of Stalin’s formulation of dialectical and historical materialism, the reversals and capitalist restorations in the Soviet Union and in China have provided dramatic proof that a far more dynamic model involving wave upon wave of mass initiative is required. Hence, the need to understand that periods of intense class struggle such as the Cultural Revolution are indispensable, They propel and enrich these revolutionary transformations along the socialist road to communism.
(2) The Role of Mass Organizations
Red guard meeting among grade school students, Shanghai
The disbanding of many mass organizations in China in the fall of 1967, in order to put a halt to factional fighting, continues to be a controversial one. Some scholars and activists argue that independent workers organizations and unions were an essential means for the working class to exercise political supervision over the party during the Cultural Revolution, and this must be an important feature of socialist societies in the future.
In a paper presented at a China Study Group–and Monthly Review–sponsored conference in Hong Kong in June 2006 on the 40th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution titled “Rethinking the Legacy and Genealogy of the Cultural Revolution,” Fred Engst, a lifelong China scholar, stated that it was a mistake to dissolve the mass organizations. Another scholar and friend of revolutionary China, Professor Joel Andreas, argued that instead of calling for power seizures along the lines of the January Storm in Shanghai, Mao should have called on rebel workers to seize power in the unions, converting the unions into independent mass organizations that could undertake effective mass supervision of the party.[2]
We agree that mass organizations of workers, women, oppressed nationalities and other sectors have an important–indeed, essential–role to play in socialist society, particularly in allowing and ensuring broad and open debate to take place concerning party policies, and in bringing forward new revolutionary leaders from the masses and reinvigorating the party.
However two issues must be considered. First, while they should not be appendages of the party, if such mass organizations oppose the socialist system, any progressive role they might play will be undermined or short-circuited. Second, in order to play their role, mass organizations will be arenas of discussion and struggle between party members and non-party sections of the masses with different levels of political consciousness.
(3) The Role of Dissent and Mass Debate
In socialist society, people must have the right to criticize and supervise the party and its policies. A Communist Party does not hold a monopoly on truth; often minority ideas will be proven correct. Dissenting views should be brought out into the open, where the masses of people can challenge and defend party policies.
However, dissent is not just a question of individual rights in socialist society. It is one part of a fundamental change in class relations–the unleashing of debates, criticism and mass initiatives among the working people who were suppressed and oppressed in the old capitalist societies. Through this process, working people, whether proletarian or peasant, will learn and master the issues involved in remaking society and the world.
Walls were covered with sharp debate -- the dazibaos (big-character posters)
Another aspect of the role of dissent, which is usually the sole focus of critics, is the relationship of privileged classes and intellectuals to the new socialist society. Here the question is very contradictory. On the one hand, socialism needs to bring the skills and knowledge of the traditionally privileged into the process of developing the new society. It needs to enlist them and urge them forward as part of the new world being created. It also needs to struggle with them, so they join this process rather than keeping, as many do, to personal gain and power as their motive. In time, many of the privileged intelligentsia will join the working class, in both the productive labor of socialist economics, and in shaping the health, education, culture and media of socialism. Only in this process are new class relations brought into being. In this way, the centuries-old division between mental work and manual work is repeatedly challenged and finally put to rest.
Engaging these various forces means encouraging debate and dissent but also checking efforts to sabotage the socialist system. Experience has shown that, in the main, such checks are best made by the masses of working people who must learn to lead society. And while that process is led by a communist party, history also shows that bureaucratic attempts to suppress dissent not only prove futile in defending socialism in the long run, but they also prevent the masses from coming forward in the struggle and from thereby moving society forward. [3]
(4) The Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist Campaigns of 1956-57
The campaign to “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend” and the subsequent Anti-Rightist campaign were precursors to the Cultural Revolution in many respects. Mao had been advocating the Hundred Flowers idea since 1951, but it was not formally launched until 1956 when he further developed his thinking on how to handle contradictions among the people. The early stages of the Hundred Flowers campaign brought out criticism of party members’ bureaucratic practices, but later on it led to an escalation of political struggle between the CCP and an aggressively anti-socialist group of intellectuals.
As China’s socialist transformation was accelerating in the mid-1950s, the CCP was confronted by a vexing problem. There was a need to enlist China’s intellectuals, scientists and engineers in this process, but the vast majority of them had been trained in the old society. [4] According to Mao, only 10% out of China’s five million intellectuals firmly supported the party and socialism. Thus, there was a pressing need both to unite with the intelligentsia in practical work and to find the ways to develop their political outlook.
One problem was overly strict controls on intellectuals by party officials. Mao wrote in 1957:
“We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and science should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields…. Often, correct and good things were first regarded not as fragrant flowers but as poisonous weeds. Copernicus’ theory of the solar system and Darwin’s theory of evolution were once dismissed as erroneous and had to win out over bitter opposition. Chinese history offers many similar examples. In a socialist society, the conditions for the growth of the new are radically different from and far superior to those in the old society.” [5]
Mao recognized that bureaucratic and commandist tendencies were growing in the CCP, and he called for a rectification campaign within the party in 1957 to address this problem. He did not see scattered student agitation as well as a number of strikes and protests on agricultural cooperatives in 1956 and early 1957 as altogether negative. Many of these “disturbances” were the product of bureaucratic methods of work by party cadre and lack of political education: “When disturbances do occur as a result of poor work on our part, then we should guide those involved onto the correct path, use the disturbances as a special means for improving our work and educating the cadres and the masses, and find solutions to those problems which were previously left unsolved.“ This thrust was initially opposed by some in the CCP leadership, notably Liu Shaoqi and Peng Chen, the mayor of Beijing. [7]
In the spring of 1957, the Hundred Flowers campaign peaked. Some intellectuals attacked the work style and privileges of party leaders, the lack of preventive medicine for the masses, and the neglect of the countryside. Others criticized the “blind imitation” of Soviet theories and techniques in science and industry. Students started to criticize formalistic methods of teaching in dazibaos on the walls of universities and classrooms in Beijing. [8]
Mao argued that the party did not possess a monopoly on correct ideas and therefore was subject to criticism from outside its ranks. In a speech in 1957 to party cadre, Mao stated that Marxists are not afraid of criticism [9]:
“For a party as much as for an individual,” Mao wrote, “there is a great need to hear opinions different from its own.” [10] Correct ideas cannot be developed and sharpened without discussion and struggle against incorrect ideas. [11] This is illustrated by the following example. In 1957, Mao suggested that the circulation of the newspaper Reference News be expanded from 2,000 to 400,000 copies. Reference News was an uncensored compilation of articles with an overtly capitalist viewpoint from the overseas press. Most copies went not to individuals, but to work units, where they were passed around. Mao explained,
“The purpose of this is to put non-Marxist things and poisonous weeds in front of the comrades and the non-Party people so as to temper everyone. Otherwise they will know Marxism and nothing else, and that wouldn’t be good. It is like a smallpox vaccination which causes struggle inside the human body and produces immunity.” [12]
Mao was not saying that “anything goes”—that incorrect views that sprouted in the course of the Hundred Flowers campaign should not be criticized. In On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, Mao put forward six criteria to help the masses of people distinguish between “fragrant flowers” and “poisonous weeds”:
- Words and deeds should help to unite, and not divide, the people of all our nationalities.
- They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to socialist transformation and socialist construction.
- They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, the people’s democratic dictatorship.
- They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, democratic centralism.
- They should help to strengthen, and not shake off or weaken, the leadership of the Communist Party.
- They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to international socialist unity and the unity of the peace-loving people of the world.
“Of these six criteria, the most important are the two about the socialist path and the leadership of the Party. These criteria are put forward not to hinder but to foster the free discussion of questions among the people. Those who disapprove these criteria can still state their own views and argue their case. However, so long as the majority of the people have clear-cut criteria to go by, criticism and self-criticism can be conducted along proper lines, and these criteria can be applied to people’s words and deeds to determine whether they are right or wrong, whether they are fragrant flowers or poisonous weeds.
“These are political criteria. Naturally, to judge the validity of scientific theories or assess the aesthetic value of works of art, other relevant criteria are needed. But these six political criteria are applicable to all activities in the arts and sciences. In a socialist country like ours, can there possibly be any useful scientific or artistic activity which runs counter to these political criteria?”[13]
As the Hundred Flowers campaign gathered force, a small section of the intelligentsia, estimated at 50,000, was emboldened by the pro-Western Hungarian uprising in the fall of 1956, and by Khrushchev’s secret speech attacking Stalin and socialism in the Soviet Union, to publicly attack the leading role of the CCP. Two of the leaders of the democratic parties, Zhang Bojun and Luo Longji, advocated a Western-style parliamentary system and called for the separation of the party from the government. Some intellectuals formed groups like the Hungarian Petofi Club with the hope of stimulating a revolt to overthrow socialism in China. Moreover, by early June 1957, sections of the student movement were occupying university offices, attacking government and party offices, and taking school and party officials hostage. [14] Thus, rightists among the students and intellectuals were using the Hundred Flowers campaign to actively organize people to oppose the socialist state.
In July 1957, Mao and the party leadership responded with the Anti-Rightist campaign, which raged for several months. The party press, spearheaded by editorials in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) that are thought to have been written by Mao, focused its attack on Zhang, Luo and their supporters. Party-led students and factory workers denounced the anti-socialist views of the rightist forces.
This was an intense period of class struggle between the proletariat and the old bourgeoisie. While a relatively small number of people publicly attacked the party and socialism, they represented larger numbers of bourgeois intellectuals and students and some among the workers and peasants. Seven years after Liberation, Mao estimated that 10% of the population, or 60 million people, did not approve of the socialist system.
An important part of the Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist campaign was to bring this section of the population out into the open so they could be struggled with politically. As a direct result of these campaigns, millions of people, including more intellectuals and scientists were won over to support for socialism, and diehard rightists were isolated and silenced. At the same time, while Mao sought to differentiate between “well-intentioned criticisms on the part of the broad masses and the anti-socialist criticisms by a small group of rightists,” some critics of the party who were not anti-socialist rightists suffered during the course of the Anti-Rightist campaign.
These campaigns led to political innovations, many of which were later adopted and developed further in the Cultural Revolution. In 1957 and 1958, 800,000 party cadre and one million students were sent to the countryside for periods of time to integrate more closely with workers and peasants. In addition, a new Maoist policy was adopted that full-time cadre at the lower levels would participate in manual labor in their work units. Finally, struggle against rightist trends within the CCP opened the way to the call for the radical economic and social transformations of the Great Leap Forward.
Many critics of Mao claim that the 100 Flowers campaign was a cynical move by the CCP to first encourage the intellectuals to speak out, and then pounce on them and suppress any criticism of the party. In fact, the 100 Flowers campaign was launched to win over millions of intellectuals to socialism, which included mutual struggle and criticism between the party and the intellectuals. But in the course of this movement, a relatively small number of intellectuals who were seeking to sabotage progress towards socialism jumped out. At that point, different means of political struggle became necessary. But even here, Mao mobilized the masses to criticize and struggle against these rightists, instead of relying on administrative measures to crush dissent. In this way Mao was breaking with Stalin’s method of handling political differences between the people and the party. [16]
In these campaigns, Mao was trying to find the means to bring forward the political initiative of the masses of people to advance along the socialist road, to foster widespread debate in order to sort out incorrect from correct ideas, and to enable the masses to criticize bourgeois ideas and practices in the party. Over the next ten years, Mao’s understanding of the necessary means to conduct class struggle in socialist society would deepen, and would result in his call for the Cultural Revolution.
(5) The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) on Multi-Party Competition
These issues of dissent, how to handle contradictions among the people, and mass workers organizations independent of party control have some similarities to the proposal of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to organize political competition in socialist society, as well as in the new democratic stage of the revolution that precedes it in neo-colonial countries. A 2003 CPN(M) document explains that, in the “traditional view”:
“There is either no opportunity, or it is not prepared, or it is prohibited, for the masses to have a free democratic or socialist competition against [the Party]. As a result, since the ruling Party is not required to have a political competition with others amidst the masses, it gradually turns into a mechanistic bureaucratic Party with special privileges, and the state under its leadership, too, turns into a mechanistic and bureaucratic machinery….
“Only by institutionalizing the rights of the masses to install an alternative revolutionary Party or leadership on the state if the Party fails to continuously revolutionize itself, can counter-revolution be effectively checked. Among different anti-feudal and anti-imperialist political parties, organizations and institutions which accept the constitutional provisions of the democratic state, their mutual relations should not be confined to that of a mechanistic relation of cooperation with the Communist Party, but should be stressed to have dialectical relations of democratic political competition in the service of the people.” [18]
While we agree that other political parties may be able to play a positive role under new democracy (and perhaps, under socialism), there are two significant problems with this concept. First, we disagree with the CPN(M)’s claim that the capitalist restorations in the Soviet Union and China were the result of a lack of political competition with the Communist Party, and that other parties could have served as an alternative for the masses to rescue socialism. This is an idealist and institutional solution to deeper political problems concerning the role of bourgeois forces ensconced within the communist party and the forms of mass participation in socialist society.
Secondly, discussion of this issue is greatly complicated by the fact that the CPN(M) has simultaneously developed this position and unfolded its new political strategy, which envisions replacing the monarchy with a bourgeois democratic system of peaceful competition among itself and several parties which represent the interests of the feudal and bourgeois ruling classes in Nepal. After ten years of successfully waging protracted people’s war and building institutions for people’s power in liberated areas over 85% of Nepal, the leadership of the CPN(M) apparently blinked, and adopted a totally contrary strategy, promoting a Western-style bourgeois democracy.
This strategy reached a decisive turning point with the signing of a peace agreement in November 2006 between the CPN(M) and seven parliamentary parties which calls for elections to a Constituent Assembly in mid-2007. According to the CPN(M), this system will continue for an unspecified (but lengthy) period of time. Eventually, they argue, there may be a peaceful transition to new democracy and socialism. [19]
In fact, this new system of peaceful competition with reactionary parties will never reach the stage of new democracy in a country like Nepal, much less socialism. [20] While all revolutions require tactical compromises and tactical coalitions, successful revolutions have not abandoned their independence and the instruments of mass political and military initiative. To win socialist political power, historical experience indicates that it is necessary for the communist party to develop organizations of popular political power and to wage armed struggle to overthrow and uproot the old state apparatus, especially the reactionary army. In Nepal, such organs of people’s power, including the people’s liberation army, are being disbanded with the adoption of this new political strategy–and declared abandoned for the future, as well. [21]
(6) The Communist Party of India (Maoist) on Socialist Society
In mid-2006, the Communist Party of India (Maoist)–perhaps the largest Maoist party in the world today–released a statement in which it criticized the CPN(M)’s political strategy. [22] It also took issue with the conception of multi-party political competition under socialism:
“The crucial point lies not in ensuring the right of the masses to replace one Party by another through elections, which is anyway the norm in any bourgeois republic or bureaucratic-feudal republic, but ensuring their active and creative involvement in supervising the Party and the state, in checking the emergence of a new bureaucratic class, and themselves taking part in the administration of the state and society and in the entire process of revolutionary transformation. And it will be the foremost task of the Party to organize and lead the masses in checking counter-revolution and bringing about the revolutionary transformation in all spheres through continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. And this is the most important lesson handed down to us by the entire historical experience of the world revolution, particularly by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution….
“The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist understanding regarding the form of government that will be best suited for the proletariat is the Commune or the Soviet or the Revolutionary Council [Revolutionary Committee] as they act not as talking shops and mere legislative bodies but as both legislative and executive bodies. The representatives to these bodies are elected and are subject to recall any time the people feel they do not serve their interests…. If we look at the very process of the protracted people’s war, it entails setting up democratic power in the Base Areas of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal forces under the leadership of the proletariat elected democratically at gram sabhas with the right to remove them also by the gram sabha. Here there is a close interaction between the power structures and the will of the people and therefore truly democratic.” [23]
After the transition to socialism, the CPI (Maoist) states that “It is difficult to grasp how alternative revolutionary parties can exist—especially since the communist parties have always understood that different political lines represented either a proletarian outlook or a bourgeois outlook.” It also points to the danger of allowing the defeated classes to regain power peacefully or by a coup if they have an opportunity to “compete in a ‘democratic’ manner.” [24]
Harsh Thakor said
Implemenation of the Mass Line
“The Cultural Revolution sets in motion the inexhaustible participation of the masses, which accelerates and puts into concrete form the appearance of proletarian democracy of which the Chinese speak. How else are we to define the politicization of the masses, which I saw during the trip? The moment the masses no longer fear coercion from the state apparatus, proletarian democracy begins to establish itself. It is here on the level of consensus, that the mass line conceived by Mao more than 40 years ago undergoes it’s broadest development This unprecedented reliance on the masses might merely conceal a pedagogical and academic character were it not based on social practice, did not explode within the heart of the ideological apparatus.��?
Charles Bettelhiem stated; “The constant reliance on the masses, seems to be the most valid contribution of the Chinese Revolution. MaoTse Tung’s dictatorship of the proletariat in actual fact is the ‘broadest democracy for the masses of the people. The Chinese Revolution reminds us that the dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing other than proletarian democracy, democracy for the broadest masses of the people.��? Mao had said, “The essence of the revolution in the state bodies consists in securing the links of the masses.��? Mao always defended the fact that a class does not become truly dominant unless it has made its own ideology the dominant one.
One of Mao’s most important points was, ‘Grasp the revolution and promote production “Mao always insisted tat the contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production, and their contradictions with the superstructure will continue to exist in every human society as ling as production relations continue to exist. He also fought for revolutionary changes within the superstructure. In his essay ‘On contradiction’ Mao dealt with the question of the continuation of revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao dealt here with the ultimate goal of reducing the power of coercive and ideological apparatus of the state-until the state withered away. By carrying the revolution to the soul by the “Intervention of the masses in the Superstructure��?.. Three in one committees were formed consisting of the revolutionary Party Cadre, revolutionary representatives from the Army and representatives of the revolutionary masses and a continuous process of struggle, criticism-transformation was carried out. “In China the party is the dominant apparatus, under the dictatorship of the Proletariat, and that the ideological apparatus was carried out by the party. But at the same time the party is neither a metaphysical category nor a Thomist Credo. In China the struggle was raging within the party itself.The proletariat intervenes in the party,the ideological apparatus of the power system an elsewhere The dominant party of the proletarian revolution fulfills it’s task ,which is to re-enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat ,by accomplishing it’s own revolution as a ruling apparatus, and by opening it’s structure to the masses. Criticism of the party and electoral replacements of committees and orther party organizations is done in open, with the participation of workers who are not members. This is the confirmation of the mass line which opens the party the “the new blood of the Proletariat Maoist
2J Change in Thinking pattern
China went above Stalinist Russia as Mao wished to create an inner, spiritual change in man. Going above Stalin. Mao stressed on revolutionizing the superstructure and not just the base as Stalin did. The Red Guards did not physically attack the capitalist roaders but used the practice of moral persuasion or criticism .
Han Suyin states in her book, ‘China in the year 2001’, “ If there is no change in thinking patterns and habits,there is no material change and progress, for spirit and matter are interlinked, spirit is moulded by contact with the material world and in turn influences the material world. The masses should liberate themselves mentally, but this they must do,nobody can do it for them, least of all by order or by command. No longer slaves but master of their destiny they must ask themselves: How can I be a master? This is by aggrandizing the scope of the soul, deepening the grasp of historical knowledge and thinking faculties. The worker and peasant now realize that within the grasp of power to decide his own motivation, his own spiritual advancement as well as his material progress, and that these two are inseparable.��?��?There was another famous quote of a Chinese Soldier, “Give us a gun and a book as man’s spirit demands more than just material satisfaction.��?
There was a phenomenal transformation in the lives of woman.Women who were earlier bound on their feet could now serve in the army ,teach in Universties and conduct political Study classes!Women who were earlier Slaves had democratic rights to redress through courts and had crèches to take care of their children went to work.
3.CONTRIBUTION OF THE GANG OF 4
In the period of the late 1960’s the roots of the ‘Maoist gang of 4’ were sprouted who from the early 1970’s to the period of their overthrow in 1976 were the leaders in the struggle against the revisionists and were the chief representatives of Mao Tse Tung Thought. The 4 went head over heels to implement Mao’s line illuminating red torches all over China almost as if a Socialist festival was taking place. The 4 studied every facet of life in connection with Marxism-Leninism Mao TseTung Thought digging into the deepest roots of the ideology. like a scientist trying to put his theories into practice.
The fall of Lin Biao strengthened the right in China and helped the re-instatement of the arch capitalist-roader Deng Xiaoping into the party. There was chaos and a fresh movement was launched to combat Lin Biaos’ ideology.Lin was now classed with Liu Shao –Chi and Deng Xiaoping as a Capitalist roader.One of the most significant struggles o the gang was in Shanghai in the Commune. However Shortly after Comrade Mao’s death the Gang was arrested and the G.P.C.R virtually defeated.Tragically one of the greatest revolutionary advances in the history of mankind was defeated .
Lot of writers of the bourgeois mould distort history by stating that the masses revolted against the Gang of 4 and even certain ranks in the Maoist movement claimed that the Gang was counter –revolutionary. True ,there was great confusion in the masses after the loss of leaders like Chairman Mao,Premier Zho En Lai and Zhu De but the masses always revered the Gang standing up against the wrath of the revisionist and leading them to virtually re-writing history.I however do agree with Critiques who state that the Gang made serious errors and their line was often vitiated by left sectarianism. However remember that in so many revolutionary movements there have been mistakes in regard to mass line. and this was the first time in history where a struggle was actually carried out in a Socialist Society.
25 years ago a historic Court Trial took place of the ‘Gang of 4.’-the followers of Mao’s line. Heroically Comrades Chiang Ching and Chang Chun Chiao defended the Thought of Comrade Mao Tse Tung in a historic Court trial standing upto the capitalist rulers against Revisionism. Chiang Ching rose up defending Comrade Mao Tse Tung like a tigress while Chang Chung Chiao protested in silence but never buckled under pressure from the Chinese rulers..Wang Hongwen and Ya Wenyuan both confessed and surrendered under pressure. It is of no strange coincidence that Comrade Yao Wenyuan, One of the members of the Gang of 4 passed away just a week ago.We must particularly highlight the contribution of Comrade Chang Chun Chiao.Chiang Ching made an amazing contribution on the Cultural Front,developing proletarian culture to a considerable extent.Chiang Ching was fully engrossed as a political leader during the Cultural RevolutionOnly in the 9th Party Congress was her staus in the Communist Party made official.Chiang Ching addressed meetings of artists and writers in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution.She revolutionized the Peking Opera .A new model Opera was created and Chiang Ching presided over the 25th anniversary celebration of the Yenan Forum.where her model works were performed. Chiang Ching then became the adviser of the Peoples Liberation Army.She made a significant contribution to raising the Cultural level of the Army involving soldiers in political study and writing,producing and performing skits and operas and organizing festivals in local P.L A Units.
Later Chiang Ching carried out greater transformation in the economy, health care, the arts and culture. especially the old educational system, through building revolutionary committees. Now workers,peasants and soldiers enrolled in Universities, educated youth went to the countryside and Party Cadres participated in productive labour,.Chiang Ching asssed the need to launch a mass movement to carry out the process of struggle-criticism, repudiation and transformation in the various departments of work. In one of her speeches to a delegation from the faction-torn province of ANHWEI She struggled to unite and form a great alliance so that power could be seized.She defended the Revolutionary Commitees and opposed their dissolution.
The Shanghai Municipal party committee had become a breeding ground of capitalist roaders.The revolutionaries had a strong base there but did not overall hold power. The capitalist roaders apart from encouraging complacency among the workers encouraged bribery.In December 1966, in the mass upsurge There was an intense class Struggle amongst workers around giving workers bonuses encouraging economist tendencies and paying increased salaries to foster jealousies amongst workers. The Workers returned the money in protest. The capitalist roaders now tried to halt production and disrupt public services The Workers refused this. They applied the concept that politics had to be in command of economics, that the productive forces could be truly unleashed only by training the masses in the revolutionary line.This application led to astounding achievements in economic development –Shanghai Workers developed the means to build a 10,000 tonne ocean liner ondrey dock intended for a 3000 tonne ship.
In January 1967 millions of rebel workers joined by students and nearby peasants,overthrew theMunicipal Party Committee.They physically stormed and occupied key positions and took over vital Municipal Services. Then organizational form was created whereby power could be consolidated and wielded by the revolutionaries in ord4r to carry out further transformations.A revolutionary three- in -one Committee was formed which in equal numbers had representatives of the masses,party cadres, who were judged to be revolutuionaries following Mao’s line,alos selected by masses,representatives of the Army.Similar Struggles engulfed China nationwideChiang Ching had made a major contribution in the overthrowing .
of the Peking Municipal Committee in 1967 from the hands of the revisionist power-holders. Rebel workers took over the trade Union headquarters and sealed off the offices of the Union of Labour throughout the nation.Chiang Ching professed a document declaring that all contract and temporary labourers must be permitted to participate in the G.P.C.R. and that anyone dismissed because of this would be re-instated with pay. Chiang Ching supported the movement to seize local political power from the capitalist roaders and build new alternative organs of leadership. She helped initiate 3in one combinations uniting revolutionary party cadre, revolutionary representatives of the Army and representatives of the revolutionary masses to build revolutionary Commitees.
Chiang Ching struggled against an ultra-left tendency to attack the capitalist –roaders and their supporters physically.She advocated ideological and political struggle.��?Struggle by force can only touch the skin and Flesh.,while struggle by reasoning things out can touch the soul.’
Chiang Ching waged a struggle against ultra-left tendencies instigated by the Right openly advocating violence by distorting slogans or by inciting the masses to combat the small capitalist- roaders.She staunchly opposing the slogan,��? Drag out a handful in the Army.’which was literally obeyed in areas. The Right used this to seize weapons from regular troops. Chiang Ching refuted this in following that line they could not differentiate good from bad.The party, government and the army are all under the leadership of the Party.One could only talk of dragging out a handful of capitalist roaders I the authority and nothing else ,otherwise, it would be unscientfic and the wrong people would be attacked.
Chiang Ching thwarted an ultra-leftist line that came about within the Cultural Revolution group itself when elements like Chen Boda wished to create chaos, advocating the use of Force.A section of Red Guards revolted against the Cultural Revolution Group led by the rightIn the city of Wuhan in 1967 provocation and mutiny took place in military units supporting th right.
In the 1970’s Chiang Ching prominently exposed the revisionist line of Lin Biao and equated it with Confucian doctrine. She also continued making revolutionary transformations in the Cultural Field.The tenth anniversary of the Revolutionary Peking pera upheld models of New Socialist Culture New Works emerged glorifying Socialist Achievements. Feats I agricultural production, the model developments I Industry such as the Taiching Oilfields and socialist new innovations like barefoot doctors were highlighted.Chiang Ching never compromised between Politics and Art. She exposed a film called ‘The Song of the Gardener’ which upheld the virtues of wise teachers and likens them to refined Flower Cultivators. In contrast the Left made a film highlighting the revolutionary line’ Breaking With Old Ideas’. This film vividly portrays the class Struggle in Society over who gets to go to School and the difficulty of going up against both rigid traditional teachers and curriculum more suited to bourgeois education than the needs of masses transforming society.
Chiang Ching vehemently fought against copying Western Models in the name of becoming,’modern’Model ransformation.She thwarted an attempt by the right ton the Cultural Front as well as a political offensive between 1973 and 1975.She propogated a paper in which refuted the fact that there was ‘absolute music’and that music had no meaning or class content. The pamphlet argued that such a view disguised the bourgeois class character of thes untitled instrumental pieces although some techniques of classical music can be assimilated.Chiang Ching’s Cultural Troupe alos performed a paly on the docks performed for fishermen Qouting Chang Ching, “This opera cannot be presented as one which has as the centre of description ‘middle-of –the –raders.’It should depict the heroic images of the dockers who work on the wharf with their hearts for the motherland and their eyes on the world’.
In 1975 in October in the Tachai Agricultural brigade She refuted Hua Kuo-Feng’s project to mechanise agriculture taking the rightist road in terms of ‘modernisations’.This meant depending on Imperialism, restoring capitalism and re-establishing class differences.
Later a 2line struggle developed in education combating the theory that revolutionizing education held back production. With Comrade Mao the 4 carried out a mass debate and Comrade Chang Chun Chiao playing a major role.His famous quote was, ‘Bring up exploiters and intellectual aristocrats with bourgeois cosciousness and culture-which do you want?Infact Comrade Chang Chin Chiap played the role of a revolutionary Champion.He was the author of path-breaking theoretical Articles such as on the ‘On Exercising Dictatorship over the bougeoise’, ‘On the 10 major relationships’ and was instrumental in the Shanghai political Economy Study Group as a whole,which authored important works making a class analysis of the economic laws under Socialism.Chang Chun Chiao played the leading role in Shanghai in advancing the Cultural Revolution. And uniting the masss around the correct line.After Chou En Lai’s death on January 12,1976,the Gang of 4 proceeded to accelerate their campaign against Deng,However they were still not strong enough to get Chang Chun Chiao elected as Premier.
In April 1976 the Revisionists openly attacked Comrade Chiang Ching through the Tienanmen riots I order to attack Mao and his policies. In the name of defending Chou En Lai but the P LA thwarted this attempt Deng was removed from all posts for staging the riotsThere were now open confrontations between the rightist and Revolutionary Factions within the party.IN August arms and ammunition was distributed to the million –strong Shangai Militia that had been set up by the Municipal Revolutionary Committee in 1967.
What was significant was that there were Worker-peasant-soldier students with their worker theorists of the ‘factory school’ jointly beating back the revisionist verdicts of the Cultural Revolution.Similarly teachers and students put up big character posters to criticize the attempts to reverse the Cultural Revolution.In June 1976 Commune members and cadres in the Tachai brigade denounced Deng Xiaoping’s crimes.
After Mao’s death o September 9th 1976 the Gang of 4 was toppled by the Rightists who arrested them.They falsely branded the Gang of 4 as revisionists ,claiming that they were enemies of Comrade Mao. After the REvolutinary headquarters were sabotaged the Party carried out a series of attacks on the revolutionary Commitees Etc So popular were the Gang of 4 that plans were made to block out the harbours and airports,to shut down the press and radio, to launch work stoppages and demonstrations and mass rallies mobilizing the militia and men and women and the garrison command. There was armed combat in militia units a week after the 4 were arrested veteran Communist Leader Zhu Yongjia,a close Comrade of Chang Chun Chiao played a major role in the rebellion.
Whatever were their mistakes the Gang of 4 had made a great contribution to the Socialist Economy. It is worth here refuting the slandering of the Western Countries of China’s economy.The economy was growing at a rate of about 5 to 6% a tear in term sof the Gross National Product since 1966.There was steady improvement in the living standards of the people which was shown in the food consumption clothing allowances, improved education and health services, particularly in the countryside ,and consumer goods like bicycles and radios. Some sectors. like steel ,coal and transport showed erratic output and lower growth rates. However there were technical innovations had been made in thee sectors. It is unfair to compare Socialist China with the Western Countries or Japan. Remember China only had 13,750 miles of railroad track in 1949,a country that was producing 5.5 million tons of oli in 1960,and which in 1976 was stll overwhelmingly poor. China achieved agricultural sufficiency and greatly expanded it’s industrial capabilities. The 4 opposed mechanization of agriculture. They stressed on he principle of self-sufficiency. Vegetable production expanded in China. The 4 gave priority to grain .Not much land was given to forage crops for livestock. and agricultural technology and research was far more advanced with respect to grains than for vegetables .Chinese rice yields reached the highest in the world. The 4 made a goal to make as many provinces self-sufficient in grain as possible, both to reduce costs of transportation borne by the state and build up these strategic grain reserves in the event of war.
Commune leaderships set up ‘Socialist big fairs��? in which peasants who held private plots and engaged in side-line activities would buy and sell private goods through the collective commercial channels, the supply and marketing co-operatives. This on one hand put the brakes on the speculation that had gotten out of hand at the trade fairs, and on the other, continued to provide peasants with an outlet for private output still necessary and useful at that stage. This countered the principle of free trade.
There were great technical achievements in the City of Shanghai. Shangahai contributed enormously to the national economy with machinery and equipment, accumualtio of funds, and a pool of skilled workers for other parts of the country.A co-operative was created with enterprises that reduced the barriers between different trades and involved over 300 factories hospitals Etc.
The Ultimate climax came in the1981 Trial which started on November 20th 1980 till January 26th 1981.Wang Hong Wen and Yao Wen Yuan capitulated before the court admitting all their charges.Chang Chu Chia remained defiantly silent giving scant respect to the 35 judges .With great courage ComrdaeChiang Ching said, “Most of the members presnt,including your president Jiang Hua,competed wit each other in those adys to critoicize Liu-Shao –Chi.If Iam guilty how about all of you?
Chiang has prepared a 181 page statement stating, “If the left framed up veteran leaders what are you doing now/Whats wrong with the Cultural Revolution, overthrowing the Capitalist headquarters of Liu Shao Chi and Company? I’m not going to admit to any crimes, not because I want to cut myself off from people, but because I am innocent.If I have to admit to anything, I can only say I loat in this struggle for power. You have power now so you can easily fabricate false evidence to support your charges. But if you think you can fool the people of China and worldwide, you are completely mistaken. It is not I but your small gang who is on trial in the court of history.��?
Chiang Ching had displayed nerves of steel in the trial.What she showed was one of the greatest displays of courage ever seen in the Communist Movement by a Women. She wrote an epoch in Communist History by defending the great Comrade Mao Tse Tung’s ideology in the Trial as though she lit up the whole court with a red flame.
Comrade Chiang Ching’s courage in the trial reverberated like a red flame illuminating .Protest rallies were staged worldwide supporting her cause and slandering the Chinese Revisionists.
.
4.REASONS FOR DEFEAT OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION
We must understand what were factors led to the defeat of the Socialist Road in China.
1.The fact that it was this Cultural Revolution movement was the first revolutionary movement of it’s kind. Capitalism and feudalism already had a long history .For Centuries repressive bourgeoisie society Eg.The era of emperors, monarchs ,then parliamentary governments Etc.existed. The triumph of Socialist Revolution was very recent and thus there had to be errors in the course. It was an entirely new type of an experiment like a scientist using his latest theories in carrying out a new type of an experiment. hus errors were a natural phenomenon. Socialist Russia had never embarked on such a task and Stalinism sowed the seeds of revisionism. Many remnants of the feudal and bourgeois society were left behind in the minds of people after that thinking was perpetrated for thousands of years .It would perhaps take several revolutions to overcome what was created over generations. There was a deep-rooted Confucian tradition in China.
2.Sino Soviet Border conflict.-China had to combat their ideological problem with the then U.S.S R. They had a border disputes with Russia and that was the period where the Cold War was at it’s peak with the U.S –Vietnam War in full flow.To save their state China had to create relations with bourgeoisie states for tactical purposes.On one hand Socialist China had to combat U.S imperialismon the other hand they had to stand upto the Soviet Social Imperialism.This was a complex problem. China had to fight the ‘lion’ but be aware of the ‘bear.’
3.Creation of the Personality Cult
The revolutionaries had to unite with Lin Biao’s left sectarian approach. Lin immortalized Mao converting Mao’s Red Book into a bible. The phenomenan of a personality Cult is anti-marxist.This failed to consolidate the ranks in a broad –based movement. From the mid 1960’s Lin Biao’s left sectarian formulations and his ultimate path to the capitalist road caused havoc in the Chinese Communist Party. Although Comrade Lin played an effective role in the Socialist Education Movement as well as in the Army when he combated Peng Te Huai’s philosophy of having ranks in the army and advocating modernization in the army.In the 1966-69 period Lin eulogized Comrade Mao to the status of an emperor claming that the Red Book contained magic. He elevated Comrade Mao to a God to promote himself and wrongly even derived the formulation that the Chinese revolutionary path was the path for all countries. True protracted Peoples War was a major contribution of Comrade Mao Tse Tung but it had to be applied in the context of the situation with regards to a particular country.However after 1969 Lin went towards the right calling for the discontinuation of the G.P.C.R and for an alliance with revisionist Soviet Union. He opposed Mao and in 1971 attempted to assassinate Mao. However thankfully the coup was averted and Lin was brought down.(plane crashed) The Lin Biao phenomena has to be questioned and one could wonder how Mao ever could unite with Comrade Lin against the right .However this is a phenomena within a Socialist Society so we cannot discredit Comrade Mao.I do not agree that Lin Biaoism was a trend in the 1966-69 Cultural revolution period but he had a predominant influence particularly in the Army.It is difficult imagining that this historic figure was claimed as an outstanding proletarian revolutionary just a few years before his condemnation!
Later the Gang of 4 also made left sectarian errors, unable to unite with the broadest masses. Comrade Mao often rebuked them stating that “You are trying to make the Socialist Revolution but you do not know where the bourgeoisie is-they are right there in the Communist Party��?.Often the Gang gave left sectarian slogans unable to totally unite the broad masses. Often Comrade Mao rebuked them when he stated that they often failed to hit the main revisionist targets stating “You are trying to make the revolution but you do not know where the bourgeoisie is.They are right here in the Communist Party.��?Often the Gang was unable to implement the mass line and raised left sectarian slogans.
4.Persecution of writers , artist, musicians, and sectarian approach to bourgeois philosophers. Sportsmen Et Even not enough attention was given to psychology or Freudian ideas.
Several writers, poets and artists and sportsmen were wrongly attacked and sent to be reformed.True,there were bourgeois tendencies ,but such elements also had progressive aspects which the cultural revolution leaders often failed to understand.
5.Not enough avenue for democratic criticism or dissent
True,there were broad based revolutionary movements and debates as never seen before and Comrade Mao’s line represented the mass revolutionary democratic line of the broad masses there was lack of a sufficient base for individuals to express criticism of Socialist ideas or other ideas. Socialist Society has to create avenues whereby even people’s criticism of Socialism are taken into consideration and all ideas are expressed freely. Instead of weakening the dictatorship of the Proletariat, this would strengthen it. There was such a strong personality cult around Comrade Mao that such free expression of ideas of minorities was hardly encouraged.(Thee could have been a special cell to question Comrade Mao’s line Etc without opposing the dicatatorship of the proletariat)In this regard it is worth studying Bob Avakian’s contribution in “Phony Communism is dead, Long Live Real Communism!��?
Quoting Bob Avakian
��?Under socialism, the masses of people are unleashed to run and transform society towards the goal of communism. This is a society in which you want, and need, to unite and lead broad sections of people to take up the goal of creating a new world. In this regard, Avakian has called attention to the importance of the intellectual, artistic, and scientific spheres in socialist society, and the particular role that intellectuals can play in socialist society.
Intellectuals and intellectual ferment can contribute to the dynamism and wrangling spirit that must characterize socialist society. One of the very positive aspects of intellectual life is the tendency to look at things in new ways and from new angles, to challenge the status quo and hidebound thinking. This needs to be even more the case under socialism. Intellectual and scientific ferment are essential to the search for the truth—to people knowing the world more deeply, so it can be transformed more thoroughly.
The people on the bottom of society have historically been locked out of the realm of “working with ideas.��? Bourgeois society creates islands and pockets where a minority can engage in the realm of ideas, while the great majority of humanity is exploited and prevented from pursuing intellectual activity. Socialist society has to transform this situation. It has to put an end to exploitation and enable the masses of people to work with ideas and take up all kinds of questions and participate in society in an all-around way. This was something that the Cultural Revolution addressed very powerfully.
At the same time, Avakian has pointed out that socialist society needs to give scope and space to intellectuals, artists, and scientists. You don’t want to maintain and reproduce the ivory tower relations that exist in capitalist class societies. But you don’t want to stifle and straitjacket intellectuals, either. You want to unite with and lead them.
Here it must be said that there has been a problem in previous socialist societies. There has been a tendency to see intellectual activity that is not directly serving or linked to the agenda of the socialist state at any given time as not that important—or as disruptive of that agenda.
Now in bringing forward this understanding and pointing to these weaknesses, Avakian has been retracing the experience of proletarian revolution in the intellectual and scientific realms. In his reenvisioning of socialism, Bob Avakian has been emphasizing the role of dissent in socialist society. Avakian has said that dissent must not only be allowed but actively fostered, and this includes opposition to the government.
This is something quite new in the understanding of communists. Why is dissent so important? Because it reveals defects and problems in the new society…because it contributes to the critical spirit that must permeate socialist society and advances the search for truth…and because dissent can contribute to struggles to further transform society. You won’t get to communism without this kind of upheaval
Avakian has written that it would be a good thing to allow even reactionaries to publish some books and speak out in socialist society. This would contribute to the process through which the masses of people would come to know the world more fully and be able to sort out more thoroughly what does and does not correspond to reality, and what does and does not correspond to their fundamental interests in abolishing exploitation, oppression, and social inequalities. This is an important way in which the masses will be better able to take part in running society and transforming that society and the world as a whole toward the goal of communism.
5. WRONG TRENDS WITH REGARD TO LINE
5A. Importance of Vanguard Party
With all those weaknesses it must be stated that Mao and his comrades did their level best to achieve Socialism. We have to defend the vanguard role of the Leninist Party and have to combat Trotskyite and New Left trends that advocate a multi-party system or oppose the vanguard role of the Leninist Party. Certain intellectuals profess a multi-party system in a Socialist Society. A multi-party system would create chaos and defeat the very concept of proletarian dictatorship How can many parties differ in ideology and claim to be professing proletarian ideology? Only a tight unified, well Knit Party can lead the proletarian revolution and save the Socialist State.It is the equivalent of a Nazi Government seizing power in Germany in 1933 ,overthrowing Hindenburg’s parliamentary government. Remember how Allende was overthrown in Chile and Arbenz in Guetemala.Allowing bourgeois parties in a Socialist State contradicts Leninism. Lenin developed the concept of the Proletarian party governed by democratic-centralism Remember the Chinese Communist Parties had factions in the pre-revolutionary and post –revolutionary years and through application of mass line or 2 line struggle the party attempted to resolve the problem.(Even if the cultural revolution failed there was a powerful 2 line Struggle)Democratic Revolt must be encouraged but factionalism within a party can destroy the revolutionary interests. True there is validity in the point that there could have been many lines of struggle uniting against Liu Shao Chi and Deng Xiaoping that should have been given expression to and not only “Mao’s line’. However one must remember that Mao did everything to unite all types of people to confront the bourgeoisie line and it was the mass revolutionary movement or the broad masses who supported him against the revisionists. (Mao even relinquished his post as head of State to Liu Shao Chi)Mao even had factions within his party, which must be noted.Mao further developed Leninism by discovering that even in a Socialist State there are capitalist tendencies and that a revolution had to be carried out in a Socialist State to avert the restoration of Capitalism. Mao went o to say that only hundreds and thousands or revolutions were needed to create an ultimate Communist Society.
5B.Personality Cult versus the Mass line
There is also a tendency which claims that Mao used his personality Cult in place of implementing the mass line.(Mao Tse Tung has been more revered by any leader in any Country in the last Century his works becoming more popular than the Bible.) One Indian Intellectual Rangakayaama wrote a 6 page essay claiming that Mao created a personality cult deliberately I place of upholding the mass line This has to be refuted. Was not Mao Tse Tung Thought a product of the revolutionary mass movement of the broad masses? Was not Comrade Mao’s thought upheld not only by the majority in the party but by the broad masses of China. Remember, this was a Socialist Society and you cannot equate rallies in China supporting Mao with those of Hitler in Germany or Ayatolah Khomeini in Iran. it is Comrade Mao who discovered the fact that even in dictatorship of the Proletariat there are reactionary and Capitalist elements who wish to reinstate the rule of the bourgeoise.He discovered the theory of “Continuous revolution sunder the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. If Mao’s personality cult replaced the mass line then how can one explain the many victories in mass movements the broad masses of the Chinese won over the revisionsir elements and rulers I China in Schools, Universities factories and Villlages guided by Mao Tse Tung Thought.One can discredit those movements only if one advocates that Mao Tse Tung Thought was not a fundamental line for liberation of the Chinese People. Never in the history of mankind did such a revolutionary mass movement take place or such revolutionary democraticisation take place in the field of agriculture, industry and Education. Remember that Mao relinquished his position as head of the State to Liu Shao Chi in 1959.Infact Rangakayamma alleges that Mao replaced the mass line with the Personality Cult. True Mao’s posters and badges were dispayed all over. Slogans like “Chairman Mao will live for 10,000 years resounded, Eulogies were raised stating that Chairman Mao is like ‘ the sun giving light wherever it shines ‘and a ‘great prophet’,Kindergarden students were made4 to chant “Long Live Mao for 10,000 years and hailing Mao as great ‘helmsman,’ ‘teacher,’ ‘leader’ and ‘commander’ ,all took place. It is also true that the publication of the works of Marx,Engels,Lenin and Stalin Stopped and there was a policy to focus solely on Mao only. However the Chinese Communist Party rectified this and re-introduced the works of Marx Lenin,Stalin and Engel from the early 1970’s.Remember in the mass rallies the people carried portraits of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Another mistake was that the line in the Internationale saying, ‘There is no supreme saviour.Not God,not Caesar,not democratic leader. “This was eliminated to hail Mao as a saviour and a liberator. However again the Chinese Communist Party rectified this and re-instated the lines. It must be remembered that in a country where for 3,000 years the pride of worshipping was prominent and ignorant superstitious practices prevailed (Emperor-worshipping tradition) such a tendency would be existing. The Chinese People had a habit of worshipping emperors and this feudal mindset persisted. This fear and ignorance persisted for Centuries although of course there were major revolts, which took place against Emperors. No doubt it is incorrect but remember Mao did his level best to fight this.
It is worth here recounting a recent book by a bourgeois expert Lee Geigon on China praising the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In his book “Mao- A re-interpretation he states “The Cultural Revolution weakened the Chinese bureaucracy. It had a positive, long-lasting impact on the Chinese Economy it also created the basis of an anti-authoritarian Culture. Workers and peasants were taking on them selves the rights of self-governments and some Red Guard groups were attempting to build a democratic theory. The Cultural Revolution’s attacks on the party organization, and the viscous response of the party to these criticisms destroyed it’s legitimacy for many people. By breaking down organizational control and forcing people to criticize almost everything they had been told to take for granted especially the Communist Party, Mao helped foster the spirit of independent judgment and reliance.��?
Quoting Raymond Lotta in his defending Socialism Columns in ‘Revolution’One of the major distortions about the Cultural Revolution is that Mao masterminded and manipulated whatever happened. Mao is said to be responsible for every act and struggle that took place. Mao is held responsible for any and all cases of violence. There is a notion that everything issued from a single locus of power and decision-making—from Mao.
Different class and social forces were involved in the Cultural Revolution. There were the genuine Maoists in the party and mass organizations. There were anti-Mao groupings within the party who organized students, workers and peasants. And there were conservative military forces, ultra-left groupings, mass organizations that divided into rebel and conservatives camps, criminal elements, and others. Different social interests and motivations were in play. Some people used the Cultural Revolution to settle personal grievances. Often, the enemies of Mao within the Party who were coming under political attack would resort to the tactic of pretending to uphold Mao and incite factionalism and violence in the name of the Cultural Revolution. They would do this in order to deflect the struggle away from them and to discredit the revolutionary movement. The reality was that the Cultural Revolution was a complicated struggle over which class would rule society: the proletariat, which in alliance with its allies who make up the great majority of society continues the revolution to transform society, or a new bourgeois class.
Yet through the course of this struggle, Mao and the revolutionary leadership were able to lead it in a certain direction: focusing the political struggle against the top capitalist roaders, further revolutionizing society, and empowering the masses.
The Red Guards were catalysts. They emboldened people to lift their heads, to speak up, and to speak out. Listen to this account from one peasant:
“The Red Guards were very organized. They divided themselves up and visited every household in the village. They read quotations and told us about the Cultural Revolution in Beijing and Shanghai. Never before had we had so many strangers in the village. They asked us about our lives. They wanted to learn from us. They asked us how we are managing things here in the brigade. They entered into discussions with the leading cadres of the brigade and asked about work points [this was the system of payment in the communes]. I got the book of Mao’s quotations from them [this was the Red Book]. They distributed it to various households. In the end, we all had it. Those Red Guards meant a lot to us. And we went on reading the quotations after they’d gone. We read and compared those quotations to what was being done here, and came to the conclusion that a lot of things needed changing.” (Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, China: The Revolution Continued [New York: Vintage, 1972], pp. 106-107)
Quoting Raymond Lotta from ‘Revolution ‘ The bourgeoisie hates the Cultural Revolution that took place in China. They talk about it as “thought control.” They paint a picture of crazed Red Guards going on destructive rampages. We are swamped with high-profile studies and memoirs that talk about the Cultural Revolution as violence and retribution. But this was not the fundamental reality of the Cultural Revolution.
First of all, the Cultural Revolution was not a violent free-for-all. The Maoist leadership issued guidance for conducting the Cultural Revolution. One of the main documents, and people should read this, was called the “16- Point Decision.” Here are some excerpts from Mao’s instructions:
• “Let the masses educate themselves in the movement and learn to distinguish between right and wrong and between correct and incorrect ways of doing things.”
• “Concentrate all forces to strike at the handful of ultra-reactionary bourgeois rightists. The main target of the present movement is those within the party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road.”
• “A strict distinction must be made between the two different types of contradictions: those among the people and those between ourselves and the enemy. It is normal for the masses to hold different views. Where there is debate, it should be conducted by reasoning, not by coercion or force”1
This was the orientation. Was there disorder? Yes. Were there excesses and violence? Of course. This was a revolution. But the Maoist revolutionaries tried to keep this movement going in the right direction through all its turmoil: mass debate, mass criticism, and mass political mobilization.
One famous episode illustrates the point. At Tsinghua University, there was considerable factional fighting among students. Eventually it turned violent. In response, the Maoist leadership dispatched a team of unarmed workers to enter the university to help the students sort out and settle their differences.’
5C.Wrong stand of Revolutionary Communist Party U.S.A.
The last tendency to fight is that professed by the Revolutionary Communist Party, U.S.A where they claim that the Chinese State placed greater Emphasis on combating Soviet Social Imperialism over U.S.Imperialism.,claiming that U.S S R was the graeter danger and thus capitulating wit U.S.Imperialism.They also claim that China supported the overthrow of Allende in Chile, supported the Shah of Iran,supported Pakistan over the Bangladesh issue in 1971 Etc.This is false. Socialist Chin offered support to all revolutionary movements worldwide and never supported dictators or non –progressive people.What China followed was a tactical line of recognizing repressive states or bourgeois states by having political relations. This is different from supporting them ideologically or giving them moral support. Mao met Nixon for exactly this purpose and all kinds of Trotskyites or neo-revisionist claim this was a betrayal of Mao to the World Proletariat. In actual fact the R.C.P U.S.A by making this criticism of Socialist China is claiming China’s International line the time of Comrade Mao to be capitulationist and discrediting Socialist China. Socialist China gave moral support to Vietnam and the Maoist Parties in Columbia and Peru. True there were tendencies created in the Lin Biaoist era which advocated imitation of the Chinese line but remember China never exhibited big brother Chauvinism with other Communist parties and always told representatives of other countries that they should only interpret the Chinese line to their own conditions and not blindly copy it.
6. DEFENDING CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Whatever the weakness in the International Communist Movement it is a tribute to the Maoist Organizations that they are boldly defending Mao Tse Tung Thought and defending the Great Debate.Organisations in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement including Communist Parties from Peru,Nepal ,Turkey and India have vehemently campaigned in defence of the Cultural Revolution. In India the major contributions refuting Deng Xiaoping’s revisionist line came from the Central Re-organisation Centre of India of the C.P.I.M.L,(In 1987 there was a split between the K.Venu and K Ramchandran section which became the C.P.I.M.L Red Flag.The Red Flag section for some time in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s defended the Maoists .Later this group degenerated to revisionism) and the U.C.C.R.I.M.L(led by Harbahjan Sohi who split his organization. Later Organisations like the Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India and the C.PLR.C.I.M.L consolidated this aspect)) who exposed the fact that the 3 world theory was a creation of Deng Xiaoping and not of Comrade Mao. One must applaud the efforts of the C.PI. Maoist in India to defend Mao’s line through their regular publications and seminars in most difficult times when Imperialism is winning.2 seminars wee recently launched in Calcutta. Abroad the biggest contributions in defending the Cultural Revolution aspect came from the Revolutionary Communist Party U.S A and the Peruvian Communist Party who upheld Chiang Ching and the other followers.The R.C.P U.S.A carried out famous rallies in 1978 in San Fransisco and New York defending the Maoists. It is particularly praiseworthy that the R.C.P has so boldly defended Mao’s achievements and the Cultural Revolution through nationwide talks and seminars. There has been a series of talks by Comrade Raymond Lotta which is a must to be read by any cadre or sympathizer. The Revolutionary internationalist Movement too defended the G.P.C.R through International Campaigns. After their rectification campaign in the late 1980’s the Communist Party of Phillipines took a strong position defending the Cultural Revolution.
Mike E said
[moderator note:
Harsh: Just posting very very long position papers is not a particularly productive or respectful way to engage this discussion. We would like to make a few suggestions:
1) If you want to post long position papers please do so on our Kasama Threads bulletin board (where such posting is just fine)....
Do it in this forum: http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showforum=3
2) It would be better (here on Kasama Main) if you engaged others directly, and emeshed your comments within that discussion. In this context, the posting of long pieces can feel like spam — and very few people will read them in that form. Better to break down your ideas, and bring them up in a shorter form to initiate or engage ongoing discussion.
We welcome your participation. Clearly your writings have real value and interest here. This is not meant to discourage you from bringing out your views. But please respect the culture and integrity of this discussion. (This is the second time we have mentioned this to you.)