Antaeus: Why Did Post-Maoist China Restore Capitalism?
Posted by Mike E on April 27, 2009
This essay starts with one of the key theoretical questions of modern communism: Why did capitalist restoration happen in the socialist societies born in the twentieth century? Why did this happen without massive resistance arising from the people.
We have received the following essay for posting. We have previously posed a detailed exampination of these questions by the MLMRSG, and have several other analyses which we intend to post soon. Our posting of these position papers does not represent Kasama’s endorsement of the analyses contained — but is intended to open up a deepening and serious consideration of these questions.
Why China Went Capitalist
by Antaeus
Why did the Chinese Communist Party turn into a capitalist party so quickly once Mao died?
Why was it so easy for Deng and supporters to kick out the “Gang of Four”, Mao’s closest supporters and most “left” among the leadership?
Why was there no mass rebellion against this among the members of the Party?
Why did the “cadre” – full-time Party officials – go along with this swift move back to capitalist production, distribution, and property relations?
How was it that Deng himself had so much support among the Party cadre that he was able to control the Party behind the scenes and then, in a couple of years, openly take over? Along with Liu Shaoqi Deng had been one of the main targets of the GPCR.
The proximate roots of the overthrow of Chinese communism lie in the question of “cadres” that arose again and again during the Cultural Revolution.
One side – ultimately, it was Mao’s side – in the GPCR claimed that the vast majority of the Party cadres were either “good” or reformable. Here are some quotations:
The “Sixteen Points” of August 8 1966, one of the basic statements of the GPCR, stated that most cadre were good. Point Eight reads:
“8. THE QUESTION OF CADRES
The cadres fall roughly into the following four categories:
(1) good;
(2) comparatively good;
(3) those who have made serious mistakes but have not become anti-Party, anti-socialist rightists;
(4) the small number of anti-Party, anti-socialist rightists.
In ordinary situations, the first two categories ( good and comparatively good ) are the great majority.”
Badiou has noted, though superficially, incompletely, the problem with this statement.
“First of all, it is held, as if axiomatically, that in essence the party is good. Point 8 (“The Question of Cadres”) distinguishes four types of cadres, as put to the test of the Cultural Revolution (let us remember that in China, a “cadre” is anyone who dispenses authority, even if minimal): good, comparatively good, those who have made serious mistakes that can be fixed, and lastly “the small number of anti-Party and anti-socialist Rightists.” The thesis is then that “the two first categories (good and comparatively good) are the great majority.” That is, the state apparatus and its internal leadership (the party) are essentially in good hands, which renders paradoxical the recourse to such large-scale revolutionary methods.”
-Alain Badiou, “The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?” Positions 13:3 (2005), 492.
A common way of stating this in GPCR documents is that only a “handful” of cadres are bad and must be removed.
Lin Biao speech October 1, 1966
“Today, we are celebrating this great festival amid an upsurge of the great proletarian cultural revolution. This is a great revolution, an entirely new and creative revolution carried out after the seizure of political power by the proletariat. Its aim is to overthrow through struggle the small handful of persons within the Party who are in authority who have taken the capitalist road,…” -
“June 1, 1966, Chairman Mao decided to publish in the press the first Marxist-Leninist big-character poster in the country, posted first in Peking University. This kindled the raging flames of the great proletarian cultural revolution and set in motion the mass movement which has as its main target for attack the handful of persons within the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road….”
“It is a fact that in our army there are a handful of persons in authority taking the capitalist road and an extremely few diehards clinging to the bourgeois reactionary line …. ” (209)
“This great cultural revolution means precisely the arousing of hundreds of millions of people to liberate themselves and to seize power from the handful of people within the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road.” (212)
“The handful of representatives of the bourgeoisie are vicious and dare to bully people to such an extent precisely because they still have power!” (213 – Peking Review, January 27, 1967).
“is entirely wrong to adopt a policy of opposing everything, casting out everything and striking down everything. It should be noted that some of the leading cadres are on the side of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and are resolved to wage a struggle against the handful of persons in authority in the Party taking the capitalist road. We must have full confidence in these cadres and fight side by side with them. As for the leading cadres who have swerved or made errors in line, we should also unite with them to fight together, so long as they are willing to mend their errors and return to the Party’s correct line and to Chairman Mao’s line.” – People’s Daily Feb. 2 1967 (216)
“The firm implementation of the great alliance of the proletarian revolutionaries and the solidarity of the broad masses of people are the most important conditions for achieving victory in the struggle to seize power from the handful of persons in power in the Party who are taking the capitalist road. At a time when the great proletarian cultural revolution has entered a stage of launching a struggle to seize all power from the handful of persons in power in the Party who are taking the capitalist road,…” – Red Flag editorial (217)
“Only by doing so will it prove helpful to the greatest extent in isolating and attacking the handful of persons within the Party who are in power and taking the capitalist road,…” — ibid, 218.
“3) Sufficient importance must be attached to the role of revolutionary cadres in the struggle to seize power. The leading cadres who uphold the proletarian revolutionary line are the precious wealth of the Party. They can become the backbone of the struggle to seize power and become the leadership in the struggle to seize power. These leading cadres have, for considerable time in the past, waged a struggle against the handful of persons within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road. They are now appearing before the masses, openly indicating before the masses that they are on the side of the proletarian revolutionaries, integrating with the revolution- ary masses, and fighting together with them. Workers, peasants, revolutionary students and revolutionary intellectuals must believe in them.” ibid, 218
“The overwhelming majority of cadres in general in the Party and government institutions are good and want to make revolution. The proletarian revolutionary rebels among them are the main forces for seizing power within their respective units.” ibid, 219.
“…renegades, special agents, counter-revolutionaries and diehard capitalist-roaders who have managed to sneak into the revolutionary ranks are but a handful. This should be our basic estimate of the cadre ranks.
- People’s Daily May 13, 1967, CQ Jl-Sp ’68 p. 184.
Many more such quotations about “handfuls” can be found.
Many statement, like some of those quoted above, go far beyond merely stating that most cadre are good or reformable, to insist that cadre must be in the leadership of the GPCR.
“..the revolutionary leading cadres rise together with the masses in the struggle to seize power from the handful of those within the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road, the revolutionary mass organisations must support them. They must see that the revolutionary leading cadres have acquired comparatively richer experiences in struggle, are more matured politically and possess greater organisational strength. It is quite advantageous to the struggle for seizing and grasping power to have them participate in the core leadership. As for cadres who have committed errors, we must deal with them correctly and must not knock them down. Regarding those inexcusable anti-Party and anti-socialist elements and those who persistently refused to reform and failed to undergo reform after being educated repeatedly, we must allow them to repent and encourage them to redeem their crimes with meritorious deeds.” – ibid, 218.
If cadre are in the lead, then the masses are not in the lead. The masses are to follow the cadre.
The Left
Why was there so much insistence from the Party leadership that “most cadre are good”, even that “cadres should lead”, and that only a “handful” or an “extremely few diehards” were “persisting in the bourgeois reactionary line?”
The answer is: because there was a mass movement – a number of mass organizations – that were claiming the opposite of this: that most of the Party cadre were reactionary.
The statement “Whither China?” by the Shengwulien organization is the expression of the Left – derided as the “ultra-left” by the Party leadership and cadre and that often described itself as such, as “ultra-left” – is the best known statement that draws this conclusion.
“The rule of the new bureaucratic bourgeoisie must be overthrown by force in order to solve the problem of political power.
“Facts as revealed by the masses and their wrath told people initially that this class of “Red” capitalists had completely become a decaying class that hindered the progress of history, and that the relations between them and the people in general had changed from relations between the leaders and the led to those between the rulers and the ruled, the exploiters and the exploited, from the relations of revolutionaries of equal standing to those between the oppressors and the oppressed. The special privileges and high salaries of the class of “Red” capitalists was built on the basis of the oppression and exploitation of the broad masses of the people. In order to realize the “People’s Commune of China”, it was necessary to overthrow this class …
“We really believe that ninety per cent of the senior cadres should stand aside, that at most they can only be objects to be educated and united. This is because they have already constituted a decaying class with its own particular “interests”. Their relation with the people has changed from the relation between the leaders and the led in the past to that between exploiters and the exploited, the oppressors and the oppressed. Most of them consciously or unconsciously yearn for the capitalist road, and protect and develop capitalist things. The rule of their class has completely blocked the development of history … However they (the bureaucrats) hit back at and carry out counter-reckoning against the revolutionary people with increasing madness, pushing themselves nearer and nearer the guillotine. All this proves that no decaying class in history would voluntarily make an exit from the stage of history.
“In the new society of the Paris Commune type this class will be overthrown.”
We also know of this Left position by the attacks of its enemies.
“Recently, a sort of so-called ‘new trend of thought’ prevails in society. Its principal content is to distort the major contradiction of socialist society into one between the so-called ‘power-holders’, i.e., the ‘privileged persons’ who hold ‘property and power’ and the masses of the people. It demands an incessant ‘redistribution’ of the social property and political power under the proletarian dictatorship. The new trend of thought has equated the current GPCR with a conflict for wealth and power ‘within a reactionary ruling class’. It has equated the headquarters of Mao/Lin with that of Liu/Teng/Tao. It has branded all leading cadres as privileged persons and thrust them all into the position of objects of revolution.” (CNS, No. 188. Quoted at http://www.wengewang.org/read.php?tid=4420 )
Official statements make clear the fact that the official insistence that “most cadres are good” is in direct opposition to the Left position that most cadres needed to be overthrown.
“…[R]enegades, special agents, counter-revolutionaries and diehard capitalist-roaders who have managed to sneak into the revolutionary ranks are but a handful. This should be our basic estimate of the cadre ranks….The outstanding revolutionary cadres who have gone through the trials of the struggle of the classes and lines can then be placed in key positions where they will be able to give full play to their role of backbone in the revolutionary three-way alliance. . . .
Only by setting out from such a basic estimate will it be possible to avoid Right or extreme “Left” errors in handling the cadre question. …It will also prevent us from regarding the cadre ranks as thoroughly rotten — a view which suspects all and overthrows all, and ruthlessly smashes cadres down for any error committed, no matter how minor it may be (FE/2783).”
- People’s Daily May 13, 1967, China Quarterly Jl-Sp ’68, 184.
Jiang Qing, a member of the Cultural Revolutionary Group around Mao, attacked this “ultra-left” in a speech in Anhui on September 5 1967:
“It looks as if they come out in the guise of either extreme “leftists” or rightists who oppose the Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao. This is quite impermissible and they are doomed to failure. At present if you take Peking as an example you have this kind of thing. I call it a thing because it is a counter-revolutionary organisation. It is really called the “May 16th” group. They don’t have a very large membership. On the surface they are young people and these young people have been misled. They are a minority of bourgeois elements and are filled with hatred against us; but these are only individuals. The vast majority are young people and they are using the instability of young people’s ideology. The real manipulators behind the scenes are very bad people. This “May 16th” group appeared first of all under the guise of extreme “leftists.” They concentrated their aim against the Prime Minister [Zhou Enlai, attacked by the Left as the defender of the reactionary cadre] and in fact they collected material about us to send abroad. Naturally we are not scared. Why should we be frightened by this? You can go and sell it if you like. If you have had a good meal and feel like doing something and don’t want to do revolution, no matter what you do, we are not scared. From the point of view of the rightists, at the end of January and February there was an atmosphere of opposition to the proletarian cultural revolution. At present this atmosphere is one of “leftism.” They are opposing the Central Committee. This is the guise of extreme “leftists ” who are opposing the Prime Minister….
- CQ Oct-Dec 1967, 212.
The Shanghai Commune was perhaps the main high point of Left influence. Mao had praised the Paris Commune. In February 1967 editorials appeared in Red Flag praising it and the efforts to form a Chinese Commune. Like the Paris Commune, its leaders were to be subject to immediate recall. In fact Zhang Chunqiao took control of it with the support of the Beijing-based Cultural Revolution group.
Zhang made the founding speech of the Shanghai Commune on February 5 1967. A week later he and Yao Wen-yuan went to Beijing where Mao explained to them that the Commune was a bad idea. Other cities wanted to form Communes. As in Marx’s day, direct recall of officials proved to be a popular idea! Mao suggested that power be vested instead in “three-in-one” committees, or “three-way alliance” – the Army, Party cadre, and “revolutionary rebels” like Wang Hongwen.
This was spelled out in the pamphlet “On the Revolutionary Three-in-One Combination.” This document repeats over a dozen times the formula that “only a handful” of cadres were reactionary. The “three-in-one” committee idea was specifically intended to counter the Left.
“In some localities, a few persons have proposed that “all persons classified as leading cadres should stand aside”. This view is devoid of class analysis. It counterposes the masses to all cadres. It does not direct its spearhead against the handful of persons in authority taking the capitalist road but against the great number of cadres. It therefore runs counter to the basic spirit of the 16-point decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party concerning the great proletarian cultural revolution, to the general orientation of the struggle and to Mao Tse-tung’s thought. To act in this way is objectively helping the class enemy. Those comrades who committed such mistakes unconsciously should immediately correct them. It is dangerous for them to persist in their own view. All revolutionary cadres should welcome the comrades guilty of such mistakes, as soon as they correct them, and in no circumstances should retaliate against them.” - http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RTOC68.html
Before long the “hunt” was on for Leftists. Yang Xiguang, author of “Whither China?”, was singled out for special attack and went into hiding. According to Yang he was safe as long as he remained in his home province, but was turned into the police when he left it. He spent 10 years in prison. Dongping Han discusses the persecution of former “rebels” under Deng in the late ‘70s and ‘80s (“Negating the Cultural Revolution,” in The Unknown Cultural Revolution. MR Press, 2008).
Who Was Right? Who Was Wrong?
Were Mao and his high-level supporters correct when they insisted that the Party cadre were 90% good, “wanted to make revolution”, and those “on the capitalist road” were “a small handful”?
Or was the “ultra-Left” correct when they wrote, quoting Shengwulien,
“We really believe that ninety per cent of the senior cadres should stand aside, that at most they can only be objects to be educated and united. This is because they have already constituted a decaying class with its own particular “interests”. Their relation with the people has changed from the relation between the leaders and the led in the past to that between exploiters and the exploited, the oppressors and the oppressed. Most of them consciously or unconsciously yearn for the capitalist road, and protect and develop capitalist things. The rule of their class has completely blocked the development of history …”
In historical hindsight it is obvious. The “ultra-Left” were right. Mao was wrong.
The same Party cadre who, with Mao’s support, retained power in the Party supported the overthrow of the “Gang of Four” as soon as Mao died; then supported Deng’s swift reversion to open capitalism.
My point is not to say that the so-called “ultra-left” – really, the Left – were “correct” in all respects. But they were correct about the BIG issues.
A new Communist Party was needed. “Whiter China?” stated:
“The July 1st editorial of 1967 raised the question of Party building. During the violent class struggle in July and August, a very small number of “ultra-Leftists” put forward the demand that the “ultra-Left should have its own political party… To make revolution it is necessary to have a revolutionary party.”
“As a result of the practice of struggle having gained rich experience and entered a higher stage, the maturity of the political thinking of the revolutionary people of China has also entered a higher stage. A new trend of thought (called “ultra-Left trend of thought” by the enemy), including “overthrow of the new bureaucratic bourgeoisie”, “abolition of bureaucratic organs”, “thorough smashing of the state machine”, etc. wanders among the revolutionary people like a “spectre” in the eyes of the enemy.”
Yang Xiguang’s statement saw the future of China very accurately:
“The 9th National Congress of the Party about to be convened is not expected to be able to thoroughly settle the question of where the Chinese Communist Party is going. The political party that is produced in accordance with the provisions promulgated by the Centre for rehabilitation, regulation and rebuilding of the Party (if such a party can be formed) will necessarily be a party of bourgeois reformism that serves the bourgeois usurpers in the revolutionary committees.”
This is, in fact, precisely what happened.
“Whither China?” also pointed to the fact that the roots of this bourgeois restoration went back to the very foundation of the Chinese People’s Republic:
“To really overthrow the rule of the new aristocracy and thoroughly smash the old state machinery, it will be necessary to go into the question of assessment of the past 17 years…. The real revolution, the revolution to negate the past 17 years, has basically not yet begun, and that we should now enter the stage of tackling the fundamental questions of China’s revolution …”
The Cult of Mao Was the Achilles’ Heel of the Left
A glaring contradiction in “Whither China?” is the insistence of its authors that Mao was on their side, the side of the Left.
Yet Mao had come out against the Shanghai Commune. Mao had supported the “three-in-one” committees that the Left recognized as window-dressing, a form of rule in which the revolutionary forces – supposing they actually got representation at all – would be second in every way to the old cadre and the Army. And “political power flows from the barrel of a gun.” Ultimately it was the command of the Army that held state power under this system.
“Why did Comrade Mao Tse-tung, who energetically advocated the “commune”, suddenly oppose the establishment of “Shanghai People’s Commune” in January? That is something which the revolutionary people find it hard to understand.
“Chairman Mao, who foresaw the “commune” as a political structure which must be realised in the first cultural revolution, suddenly put forward “Revolutionary committees are fine!” (“Whither China?”)
In order to “explain” Mao’s actions “Whither China?” has recourse to a strained and very economic-determinist view of Mao’s actions. It suggested that Mao was choosing a “zig-zag path” because history must proceed that way.
“Revolution must progress along a zigzagging way. It must go through a prolonged course of “struggle-failure-struggle again-failure again-struggle again till final victory”.
“… the wise supreme commander Comrade Mao Tse-tung once more made a big retreat after September, in disregard of demands by impatient revolutionaries for victory. A political situation of bourgeois usurpation of power came about with the establishment of revolutionary committees or preparatory groups for revolutionary committees.
“Chairman Mao’s rousing call, “Arm the Left!” was an intensive concentration of the courage of the working class. But the September 5 order completely nullified the call to “arm the Left”. The working class was disarmed. The bureaucrats again came back to power …
Shengwulien suggests that somehow Mao did not openly support the Left because the people were not ready for it:
“Revolutions often take various reformist, unthorough roads. It is only when all panaceas are proved useless that the revolutionary people would resolve to follow the most painful and most destructive, but also the most thorough and revolutionary road. The struggle in the transition period of revolutionary committees will inevitably disillusion the masses about the panacea of bourgeois reformism which they love so much. Chairman Mao says: “Buddhist idols are set up by the peasants. When the time comes the peasants will throw away these idols with their own hands. There is no need for others to do it too soon.” In the not far distant future the revolutionary people will surely smash to pieces with their own iron hands the newborn red political power which they have secured with their own blood and lives …”
In reality Mao never supported the Left. Mao played a centrist role. He opposed the open reversion to capitalism, but never dismissed those who, like Deng, were its main proponents.
Understanding Mao’s centrism is key to understanding why the GPCR was basically decided by 1967. With the left in defeat and centrism, in the form of Mao and the “Gang”, in charge, China’s policies began to move to the right. This is most obviously seen in “ping-pong diplomacy” and then “Nixon in China”. Mao and Zhou warmed up to the USA when the US imperialists were still bombing the hell out of Vietnam and funding the South Vietnamese fascists to the hilt.
This isn’t the place to review all the contradictions in China’s political history between 1968 and Mao’s death. Certainly many left initiatives remained. Mao placated the right and smashed the “ultra-left” but never let the right seize power completely. His leadership, including the “Gang”, was centrist, meaning: right in essence but with a left cover.
During this time the pro-capitalist right was consolidated. There is no way Mao’s policies could have been so quickly reversed, capitalism so swiftly re-established and with so little opposition from within the Party, unless the Right became thoroughly consolidated while he was still alive. These were those Party cadres that Mao had insisted were “mainly good” and that the “ultra-left” had correctly viewed as the enemy.
The “ultra-left” could not see past the “cult of Mao.” They could not see Mao’s centrist role – that he actually opposed them and supported the cadre; that he opposed a Paris Commune kind of state in which Party cadre would have to win election from the working class or be deposed.
Something similar had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s lifetime. Khrushchev would not have been able to take over the Party and country so swiftly, and then Gorbachev able to restore capitalism in the name of “back to Lenin”, “back to ‘real socialism’”, if the roots of this reversal did not reach far back into the Stalin and even the Lenin years.
So the “cult” of Mao helped mislead and defeat the “ultra-left” and reinstall the Right. Maybe that is why Mao’s body still lies in state in Tienanmen Square, as Lenin’s does in Red Square.
Lesson: Criticize the “cult”, criticize Mao’s writings, criticize Maoism.
No truths are true forever. No leader is “always right.” Mao was a great leader. Under his leadership the Chinese Revolution was won and the Chinese People’s Republic established. He also initiated the GPCR, without which the mass “ultra-Left” movement would never have come into being.
At the same time Mao’s failure to support the Left and conciliation of the Right – of which Deng is just the most obvious example – guaranteed China’s reversion to capitalism once he had passed from the scene.
The “cult” of Mao facilitated that. It was a disgusting display of adulation, idolatry, lack of criticism, mass manipulation, cynicism. Even if Mao had represented the Left the “cult” would have been bad, like the “cult” around Stalin had been bad, because it disempowered the masses.
The “cult” of Mao stands in the way of the critical assimilation of the lessons of the Chinese Revolution. As long as Mao and his writings are regarded as “beyond criticism” any attempt to understand why the Chinese Revolution was reversed is condemned to go around in a circle. In that way it serves a similar purpose to the “cult” around Stalin. Khrushchev, who had risen to the leadership of the USSR by participating in this “cult” (along with lots of other Party cadre) then attacked it. Likewise Deng began the criticism of Mao’s legacy.
If “everything had come out all right”, if China had gone on to progress in a communist direction after Mao’s death, then we’d have to conclude that Mao’s judgment that “90% of the cadre being basically good” was basically correct. After all, “90% of the cadre” are more than enough to determine which direction the Party is going to take. Instead, China moved sharply towards capitalism immediately Mao died. This could not have happened without the support of “90% of the cadre”.
So Mao and the others were wrong. The “ultra-left” were correct. A new communist party was necessary. And it was necessary not in 1976, when Mao died, but long before Mao died. It was necessary, at the latest, when the “ultra-left” recognized the need for it.
I don’t fault the “ultra-left” like the Shengwulien, the May 16 group, and others we know little about. They achieved a lot. It would have been very hard to reject Mao during the GPCR, no matter how necessary we can now see that this was. The “ultra-Left” did not have the benefit of hindsight. They could not know what we now know, thanks in part to their experience.
But today, we ourselves have no such excuse.
David_D said
This is essentially correct. In basic terms, a new party was necessary in the post-1966 period. It was unclear what was going to happen until after the 9th congress and the demise of the “ultra-left” and Chen Boda and others. The “handful of persons” mantra was incorrect. The problem was in the very marrow of the party. The mantra of “great, glorious, and correct” was also wrong. The party has value only insofar as it serves a correct role, and past glories are not call for endless self-congratulation, particularly when this serves as a cover for bourgeois democrats on the capitalist road. There was NOT merely “handful of persons”; there was a cohesive, broad-based group within the party firmly wedded of capitalist ideology, and Zhou Enlai (or, as the left would obliquely and too late criticize him as during the anti-Lin campaign, the “Duke of Zhou”) was the cultivator, protector, and rallying point for these forces. He should have been bombarded, driven from his posts and party membership in 1967 – Wang Li was right in that regard, and were those revolutionaries agitating against Zhou and bombarding the foreign embassies.
This doesn’t mean that the “ultra-left” was without fault; indeed, there were anarchist tendencies and these forces did not uphold communism down the line but instead swung far to the right and degenerated into cynicism and bourgeois liberalism.
In the end, the GPCR was not a “revolution in the revolution” or a full-scale reckoning; rather, a limited means to stave off wholesale restoration.
Jaroslav O. said
Overall this is a great article, especially in its main point that ‘the great majority’ of the party wanted to make revolution & ‘only a small handful’ was bad is certainly a wrong position.
I was hoping however that the author would have discussed Mao’s criticism of Shanghai Commune in that he said it was not strong enough to suppress counterrevolution. Mao likely based that to a large degree on the historical experience that Paris Commune was crushed in short order; however in hindsight this argument of Mao’s is not so convincing given the historical experience that 3-in-1 committees didn’t suppress counterrevolution either.
nando said
I’d like to step in to defend Mao’s own analysis of these things — which means rather sharply disagreeing with the main arguments of Antaeus’s piece. This is a topic that requres more than a brief comment, but I’ll open the door in the form of bullet points.
1) it is important to see the allignment of classes in the cultural revolution in terms of the basic nature of china’s socialist society: First, this was a revolution under the conditions of an existing dictatorship of the proletariat, and second, under conditions of imperialist encirclement (first threats from the U.S. which was invading Vietnam in 1965-66, and then Soviet social imperialism which threatened war in 1969).
2) When Mao speaks of “90 percent of the cadre” (and of the masses) being good — he does not mean that 90& of them support the revolutionary line at any given point. He is speaking of potential. And he is making a challenge to the consciously revolutionary forces to have the orientation of “unite the many, oppose the few.”
Mao himself said at many points that the majority of the cadre and of the workplaces in china had been following “a revisionist line” — meaning that they had not been different enough from capitalism, and that the revolutionizaiton process had ground to a halt, and their political conditions contributed to an overall restoration of capitalism.
But he was speaking of two things: target and potential.
3) Mao also said that if things did not work, he would be willing to “go back to Yenan.”
What he was saying is this: We are launching a new revolution in a socialist country, and we believe this means the contitions are different from launching revolution in a capitalist country. The state is more contradictory, the ruling instutions (army, party, etc) are more contradictory. So we will wage struggle within the party, within the heights of leadership, propelled by the mass storms at the base. And then (the yenan remark means) that if we fail, and capitalism is restored, we will then move to organize a new revolution against a fully reactionary superstructure.
4) On the question of the party: It is not so simple as saying “they needed a new party.”
Mao also thought they needed a new party. He wasn’t going to create a new name, etc. But in essense he was going for a new party.
His strategy was a “grand alliance” of the revoutionary forces that emerged during the GPCR: the old cadre who stepped forward in the revolution, leaders of the new revolutionary mass formations, revolutionary forces in the army. And in my opinion, that was a good strategy — and might well have led to a revitalized and more revolutionary structure. A big shakeup, and influx of new forces (called “helicopters” by their opponents), and a process where everyone “goes through the gate” — i.e. the criticism of the masses, and the new storms of struggle.
In fact, this did not succeed. Part of it was that key sections of the Red Guards refused to adopt the strategy. (This is the point about Kai Dafu in the Mao essay posted). They were not willing to unite. The other problem seems to have been short comings in winning over enough of the old cadre.
When Mao told his followers “don’t be a gang of four” — he was saying that if you don’t (or can’t) win over the broad middle (in the leadership, in the party, and in society generally) you won’t win. this is a political assessment.
It may be comforting to say “well, the revolution did not succeed in winning over middle forces, so it should from the start have targeted those middle forces harder.” But that line (of “overthrow all”) is really a line that would have led to a defeat, and to the extent it was embraced it CONTRIBUTED to the defeat of Mao’s plan.
5) I think we shold appreciate Mao’s line of “unite the many, oppose the few.” this has application in the GPCR, but we can see it here to.
Who should we aim our struggle at? Everyone who doesn’t agree with us at the moment? What a sectarian approach that would be! And what an abdication of exactly the work that we are IN FACT responsible for carrying out.
No we should carefully target the few.
In the GPCR there was tremendous struggle over “who is the enemy?” And (not surprisingly) the masses in struggle often targeted their own immediate tormentors and each other. this is because it was both dangerous and complex to target the real “main enemy” — those in power taking the capitalist road.
Far better to target Professor Lin, than Liu Shaochi! Far easier and safer to target another red guard faction, than Lin Biao!
The Deng force accused the four (Mao’s close followers) of daring to write a new “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society” — i.e. they seem to have written a never-released document that analysed “who are friends and enemeies” in socialist chinese society. (Replacing but applying Mao’s early analysis of classes in semi-feudal china.)
6) This analysis (this Maoist analysis) of “who is the target” is fundamentally different (in everyway) from an analysis that sees the target as “the bureaucracy” (i.e. Trotskyism’s analysis of the agent of revolutionary “degeneration” and ultimate restoration) or (what ammounts to the same thing) a view that sees the communist party and its cadre as the target (which, i believe, is the logic of Badiou’s adherence to long-standing views among many French Maoists about the socalled “party-state”, including Charles Bettelheim. Views that I believe are mistaken.)
7) There is an idealism to the arguments of the “overthrow all” forces. It doesn’t actually look at politics and revolution as a process of winning over people. Identify the backward and beat their heads. Does that work? And what kind of a society do those methods produce? Does anyone think the Chinese people wanted these forces to win? does that matter?
8) Related, this approach doesn’t pay any attention to the international situation. The U.S. imperialists landed their forces on the mainland of Asia in 1965 (at Danang). Stepping back, one can understand the Vietnam War mainly as an encirclement of and threat to China. Certainly the Chinese viewed it (and the previous Korean war) that way. Meanwhile, the USSR moved a million troops to china’s northern border and triggered a series of military provocations (that were actually battles in which significant numbers of Chinese fighters died). They were building conditions to attack China’s nuclear facilities, and seek to take advantage of the “chaos” of the cultural revolution.
The forces of the May 16 Group have to be seen in that context. Their view of “overthrow all” would have broadened the semi-civil war conditions, and opened China to major threats. We shold also consider the charges (made by the Maoists) that this May 16th group staged major provocations: That they seized munitions trains crossing china heading for Vietnam, and sought to divert this aid (away from the liberation fighters of Indochina) for use in their armed actions within China. (their argument, supposedly, was that these were revisionist weapons coming from the East bloc to Vietnam — that in Vietnamese hands these weapons would have strengthened ties to revisionism, but in Red Guard hands they would have defeated revisionism.) That they seized embassies and the Chinese foreign ministry, in a way that paralyzed china’s foreign policy at a key moment.
Here was Maoist china trying to step onto the world stage, demanding entrance into the UN, seeking to counterbalance soviet threats by tricky overtures to the rightwing Nixon, seeking to provide an internationalist base area for Vietnam — how should we read the impact and motives of the May 16th group in THAT context?
9) Finally, I think that Mao provided a key anchor for the revolutionary process. If you are going to uproot the party, if you are going to unleash millions to learn from acute political struggle, if you are going to question old verites and ways of doing things, what will you use for an anchor? How will you prevent society from falling apart? How do you assert leadership if you are AT THE SAME TIME targetting and disassembling your own instrument of power (the party) — you need to make direct links to the people.
So when this article calls for abolishing “Mao’s cult of personality,” I wonder whether it is thought through why that promotion of mao was necessary, and what would take its place in this new schema.
We are not believers in “the noble savage” or in the inherent ability of people to congeal instutions that serve them. (I.e we don’t share the illusions and romantic naivite that are so central to many forms of anarchism.) Sometimes struggle can rage without resolution, without finding solutions, without forming a new quantum basis for pulling society back together. It can be ugly.
In china, the authority of Mao (and his personal judgement) was a major material force holding the whole process together. His opponents (like Lin Biao) sought to use the prestige of mao to promote themselves (and to promote religious slavishness, and ultimately a fascistic-militarist climate). But in fact, Mao personally and the respect he held among the people was a tremendous positive factor.
Make a materialist analysis: this interesting and thoughtful article (by brother Antaeus) wants to overthrow the party, start from scratch, rule out the old cadre AND it also wants to dump the use of Mao as an anchor. Well, do the math, folks, you are suggesting that the Chinese revolution rest on the likelihood of small groups of red guards very quickly “telescoping” their often narrow politics into a movement capable of transforming and stablizing the worlds largest country. It is unlikely.
10) FInally, I thiink we need to look at the dynamics of the “revolutionary people” in china. the weakness of the RCP’s analysis is that they say many perceptive and true things about the events at the heights of power — but there is very very little analytical weight given to the revolutionary mood, organization and initiative of the masses of people.
In fact, we need to analyse what it meant (for the cultural revolution and the whole revolutionary process in china) that mao was forced to rely on the Army to calm (and disperse) the mass revolutionary forces in 1969. that it proved impossible to unite the revolutionary mass organizations around common lines, and that the disorders unfolded in ways that threatened to lead to the break up of the society and state.
that process — the inability of the mass organizations to come together (despite Mao’s energetic efforts), the ultimate need to bring in the army, the dispersal of the red guards to the countryside, etc. had a huge effect on subsequent events.
When Mao needed to curtail the military forces that were staging a creeping coup (i.e. Lin biao’s rise) he ended up relying on the old cadre (who were regrouping around Zhou, and some of whom then gave rise to Deng’s second life).
the passivity and paralysis of revolutionary forces (by the time the coup actually happened in 1976) has to be found in the complexity of what went before, in the profound disorientation that emerged from (first) the dispersal of the red guards, and (then) the “knocking down” of Lin Biao (who was seen by millions as a symbol of both the cultural revolution and the continuity of mao’s politics). these body blows were very disorienting to the genuine left, i.e. disorienting to those forces who would have needed to form a militant fighting core in opposition to the determined “comeback” of the revisionist forces (led by Deng, and using Hua).
I think we should appreciate Ray Lotta’s excavation of the line struggles between 1966 and 1976 — there is much of value there. But I think we need to have a deeper appreciation of the rise and fall of consciously revolutinoary sections of the people — and their role in pressing forward revolutionary processes. The decisive struggles did take place “at the heights of power” (in the party and the state) — having to do with the nature of power under socialism. But in many ways, the disorientation and demoralizaiton of the revolutionary masses (after complex twists and turns) helped decide who won out in those decisive struggles.
There is more to say, historically and politically.
But I just wanted to fire an opening shot (on behalf of Mao, the Four and the Maoist analysis).
patient persuasion said
Nando, I can’t respond to all your points because I lack a developed historical understanding of the complexities of the chinese revolution.
However, I notice that nowhere in your post (that i caught) was there an analysis of the Shanghai Commune. What about the point in the article that to oppose the commune to the “three-in-one” committees meant in essence supporting a managerial class that had a basis to becoming an exploitative class?
Mao himself said that revolution is the overthrow of one class by another. If we agree to this, then certainly we must see class struggle as the means through which classes are overthrown and classes come to power. How did the proletariat and peasantry exercise power in China? How did the commune relate to the exercise of proletarian dictatorship? What does it mean to come out in opposition to these expressions of class power and in support of “three-in-one” management?
nando said
Patient Persuasion…
I think the January Storm and the controversy over the “Shanghai Commune” is worth exploring, and I propose that the site post Mao’s comment on the issue. [Moderator note: Mao's remarks on the january storm have now been posted.]
The short story is :After over a year of intensifying mass political struggle developing the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the moment came where revolutionary forces were able to start to overthrow old party committees and seize power — i.e. the actual moment of revolution had arrived. And this process of seizure of power started with the January storm in Shanghai (January 1967) — and this seizure led to a wave of power seizures across china…. it was the highpoint of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
This was a very important moment and important development. And one that the political center around Mao strongly supported. Several of his key supporters including Wang Hungwen and Zhang Chunqiao emerged as national leaders in the course of these complex struggles.
In Shanghai the seizure involved large numbers of different revolutionary and rebel organizations.
The controversies came when the proposal emerged to organize the new government on the model of the Paris Commune. Simple mass democracy, immediate recall, etc. Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao, and Wang Hongwen played leading roles in the uprising and organization of the Shanghai Commune — and these three (together with Mao’s wife Jiang Jing) were to emerge at the key Maoist leaders for the next (and final) decade of the revolution.
While Mao strongly supported the seizure of power, he made a number of arguments against the particular form being proposed:
He argued that this was too weak a form for suppressing counterrevolution. In other words, the revolutionary forces would be diffuse and dispersed in this form, while the actions of the counterrevolutinaries (meaning the overthrown committee, the old revisionists and others) would be able to better regroup, sabotage and undermine revoutionary power.
He argued that for revolutionary power you needed a center — you needed a party somewhere, whatever you called it. That mass democratic forms were important for seizing power, and continued to play and important role, but that you needed a headquarters, discipline, a structure that gathered a revolutionary pole. And when a new government structure was invisioned it needed a party somewhere within it.
Third, he argued that this was a revolution taking place within a socialist country encircled by enemies. And it was important not to give openings to external enemies intent on continuing to isolate china. He said the new government forms could maintain a continuity with the Peoples Republic of China, and not imply an “overthrow all” replacement of the old government itself. And he asked the revolutionaries to consider what would happen to China’s state-to-state relations if the Cultural Revolution literally produced a new state, a new state name, and the occasion for them to break relations.
In short, this controversy reproduces some of the issues we talked about above: the fact that there needed to be a rebuilt party, the fact that you can’t conduct revolution simply using mass democratic forms, the fact that there was class struggle within the old state structure of Shanghai and there were important elements (up and down that structure) to unite with (people who could play an indespensible role in making a new revolutionary government succeed.)
Just to take two Shanghai figures of the “Gang of Four” as examples:
Wang Hungwen was a leader of the new rebel forces, who had emerged within one of the factories of the city and become a leader in this great upsurge.
Zhang Chunqiao, by contrast, was one of those cadre who had been fighting for the revolutionary road within the party and the state from the days of liberation. He emerged as one of the great leaders of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and was one of the people imprisoned after the 1976 restoration of capitalism, and put on public show trial by the revisionists.
His history is that he had been part of the revolutionary administration of Shanghai after its liberation in 1949 (which is not actually “city government” in some “normal” way — but means that he played a leading role in the incredible process of revolutionizing such a city after the socialist revolution.)
He became the Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Minister of Propaganda. And he was involved in the city’s work with international visitors and connections.
But what stands out is the intense class struggle that took place in Shanghai with in the party and state leadership. As part of the consolidation of revisionist power in china after the Eighth Party Congress, Zhang was removed from power (when his mentor, the mayor of Shanghai died in 1965)
A large part of the struggle in the years before the Cultural Revolution took place over whether to uphold the “Yenan Way” (revolution, a high degree of equality between the leadership and the led, focus on the wellbeing of the people, close ties with the rank-and-file and the masses, etc.) or whether to establish the new revisionist norms (which were not that far removed from capitalist class society in many ways.)
In short, Zhang, his history, his struggle against restoration over the whole history of Shanghai, his wholehearted participation in the revolutionary storms of Shanghai — are (taken together) an important example of what is wrong with the “overthrow all” line. And the fact that such cadre threw themselves into the revolutionary storm was no small matter — because his experience, his knowledge of leading a city, his intimate knowledge of the political landscape (including within the party and state aparatus) were extremely important in the ability of the revolutionary forces to successfully seize (and then wield!) power, navigate complex political choices etc.
One final set of points brought out by Patient persuasion above:
1) the question of how the masses of people “exercise power” is an extremely important one for us to discuss (and debate) and deepen our common theoretical understanding of. I believe that politics is inherently representative — i.e. that classes and movements are led by political representatives (that rise and fall, that represent different shades of politics and program). classes do not, and cannot, directly exercise power.
And the idea that the oppressed will directly rule (through forms of mass democracy at the base or wherever) is an illusion — and represents a false and illusory solution to the problems of wielding power (and not losing it). This was (i believe) Mao’s point on “the commune is too weak a form.” The point of the GPCR was multilayers: one was to “make the masses fit to rule” (or as Mao called it “solving the problems of outlook” among the people, the transformation of the people’s thinking). The other was the exposure and defeat of those “in power taking the capitalist road.” another was the development of “socialist new things” — innovative new forms in society, production and state form that would represent advances toward communism. And as part of that was the emergence (and Mao’s attempt to consolidate) new political representatives of the people in this new stage of the revolutionary process. All of this (taken together) represents the kind of struggle through which “the proletariat and peasantry exercise power.”
2) PP writes: “What about the point in the article that to oppose the commune to the “three-in-one” committees meant in essence supporting a managerial class that had a basis to becoming an exploitative class?”
This goes to the heart of the issue and the analysis.
The Maoists said that the exploitative class was “those in power taking the capitalist road.” They sharply opposed the Trotskyist view that the enemy is a “bureaucracy” that is attempting to transform itself into a new capitalist class. the difference between these two analyses is rather profound — in its assessment of what was happening in China, in its assessment of the experience of socialism generally (including the experience of the USSR), in its assessment of where the restoration of capitalism comes from, in its assessment of the kind of struggle needed and the target of that struggle.
There is a tremendous (and rather spontaneous) belief that the problem in socialism is a “bureaucracy” — that those who make up the state, and those who lead the state (and let’s not confuse the two!) are simply becoming a “managerial class” divorced from the people. And so the next stage of revolution is a revolt of the people against the state created by the revolution (which, in this theory, has established itself as the “new boss.”)
This approach is sharply different than mao’s theory of “continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat” — and the whole theoretical set of insights developed and articulated in the course of the GPCR.
In closing, I would like to suggest that we study and discuss together the important popular article by Mao’s forces that lays out this theory.
It is “On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Clique” by Yao Wenyuan (one of Mao’s close supporters and writers imprisoned after the 1976 coup). There are other places where this theory is elaborated, but this is a good place to start.
This is (in words) aimed at the “Lin Biao clique” — but in that period 1975 as the final battle for power was heading for disaster, such attacks on Lin Biao were (in fact) discussions of powerful force regrouping around Deng Xiaoping who would (within a year) seize power and restore capitalism. This essay is (essentially) a discussion of who are the capitalist forces, where to they arise from, etc. And why it is (as mao said) that, “”. . . if people like Lin Piao come to power, it will be quite easy for them to rig up the capitalist system.”
The reason it would be “quite easy” is not just political — not just (as I pointed out) that the “revolutionary people” had been battered by events, and that the revolutionary forces (led by mao) had failed in their ability to bring together a “grand alliance.” There are also more fundamental reasons (in the very nature and contradictory character of socialism) — that mean that both the socialist road AND THE CAPITALIST ROAD continually emerge as viable and attractive alternatives within socialism (attractive to different class forces and different class outlooks).
It has to be said that the analysis of the Maoist forces was developing (and changing) rather rapidly over the last years of China’s socialist period. And they went from saying that the social basis of restoration was “the old overthrown classes” and the “new generating capitalist forces” of petty production — to understanding that the contradictory nature of socialism (and the continued existance of commodities and bourgeois right within the socialist ownership system) itself gave rise to state capitalist forces within the party and state leadership.
But to wrap this up: the enemy, the target in the socialist transition period is not a wide stratum of cadre (i.e. a bureaucracy). It is not the aparatus making up the party and the state. It is “those in power taking the capitalist road” who emerge as aspiring political representatives of a new state capitalist class (a new bureaucrat capitalist class) within the state and party at its highest levels. And this new capitalist class coexists (in the leading bodies, within the party at all levels) with revolutionary forces. Now, nothing is even — and so there were places in China where there were consolidated revisionist strongholds (what mao called “watertight kingdoms”). Society was a “checkerboard” of power centers (some pro-capitalist, some pro-socialist). And the class struggle has to be seen as a complex collision of these different lines (two different roads), between the political movements they generated, and in that class struggle, Mao sought to unleash the people, raise the consciousness of what was at stake and what was being fought out in order to tip the balance from the nearly ascendant revisionists back to the revolutinary forces.
This is, I repeat, a very very different analysis and assessment from the May 16 group, or the “overthrow all” line. It is very different from the starting assessment that Badiou makes of what the cultural revolution was about (which in his view was a revolt against an exhausted system of party-state).
I think we need to look at it critically in light of subsequent events. I think we need to have a critical assessment of the RCP’s presentation of Mao’s politics and these events (because I think there are some serious flaws in their approach to these things) — but overall I think (in contrast to antaeus) that mao’s analysis was a huge advance for the communist movement and a much more correct one than the idea of a mass democratic commune form of government, and the rather simplistic theories of “overthrow all” that came to the fore in some sections of the Red Guards.
At the risk of piling too much onto the discussion at once: I have to say I see a connect in our debates over Nepal and over the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Jaroslav O. said
I definitely find Mao’s argument as layed out by Nando convincing. And a literal ‘overthrow all’ without case-by-case consideration such that folks like Zhang Chunqiao would be overthrown is certainly a lame idea. However as I said before, the 3-in-1 committees proved in practise to also be not strong enough for suppressing counterrevolution. So maybe somewhere inbetween 3-in-1 & ‘overthrow all’ there is a better way. It is hard to tell though, since we have only the one historical example to look at. If the similar overall strategy had been tried in various socialist countries with differing local conditions then we could make a conclusion. But we only have the one so we can’t be sure how much the loss is due to failure (wrong stategy/tactics) & how much due to defeat (balance of forces, out of control of revolutionaries).
What is the connect you see to Nepal? One thing which occurs to me is the issue of democracy vs centralism, with Mao coming in on the side of centralism. It is not completely analogous situation since Shanghai Commune was about direct democracy whereas UCPN(M) plan is multiparty competition (I’m referring to their vision of socialism, in which these parties would all need to be antiimperialist & antifeudal). As you say in agreement with Mao, ‘when a new government structure was invisioned it needed a party somewhere within it’, since otherwise ‘the revolutionary forces would be diffuse and dispersed in this form, while the actions of the counterrevolutinaries (meaning the overthrown committee, the old revisionists and others) would be able to better regroup’.
The danger is that in complete direct democracy there should not be factions & parties, so if the communists are pushing for this system then they too cannot have their own faction or party; whereas the revisionists will go on having their factions anyway, in secret yet still powerful & influential. The Mao vision attempted to circumvent this danger by institutionalising the Party (which by some means is kept revolutionary) into the state structure permanently, but in combination with army & rebels so it’s not a total Party monopoly. The UCPN(M) vision on the other hand says that no party should be institutionalised, but that also rather than direct democracy there will still be factions & competing parties; however this will be distinguished from bourgeois democracy in that there are legal requirements of the parties’ politics (antiimperialist, antifeudal). In this way, according to UCPN(M) vision, basically there would be recall (not sure if immediate or not), but through the mechanism of competing parties; & the people would give mandate to a new party if for example UCPN(M) veered off the socialist road. That point actually reminds of the discussion in this thread around ‘overthrow all’ position for a whole new party being needed whereas Mao wanted to turn the existing CP into what would be a new party in essence — on this aspect UCPN(M) goes for ‘overthrow all’ version.
By the way I need to recommend everyone to read the books by Gao Mobo entitled Gao Village (a case study) & The Battle For China’s Past (about the whole country), which are just wonderful, full of infos & analysis. Although Gao is not entirely in line with my thinking (e.g. he does not think armed revolution is possible in the current conditions), he is upholding the Mao era overall but not romanticising it either. His books are critical of Mao & post-Mao era, but make qualitative distinction between the small number of problems within good situation under Mao as opposed to the small number of good things within problem situation after him. Also his books demonstrate that this type of outlook is typical in China today amongst the peasantry & workers.
Finally, I’d like to raise the question of ‘targets’ vs ‘bad ideas’. What I mean is e.g. Nando mentioning that ‘the target in the socialist transition period is not a wide stratum of cadre’. OK but just because they are not the ‘enemy’/'target’ — i.e. those individuals have good intentions & are honestly trying to work towards communism — this is not the same as saying that such a power structure in which they fill posts is the best way to do things. It reminds of infinite debates regarding progressive or revolutionary ideas for changing society. As in, whenever it’s proposed to protect forest some people object that ‘loggers are not the enemy’, or whenever it’s proposed to have universal health care some people object that ‘insurance company workers are not the enemy’, etc. This ignores that these people who are not enemies nonetheless have a job which by its nature is not helping society. But that’s why instead jail or lifelong unemployment they can be helped to do something which is beneficial. Now none of that proves correctness of the structural ideas of 3-in-1 or large-scale commune or multiparty competition, but I just want to focus the issue onto structural fitness rather than ‘targets’.
The only aspect I see here in which ‘target’ analysis is helpful is to note the strength of the class enemy. If for example 90% of cadres of party which holds state power were capitalist roaders, then it would have been a good idea to wage a new revolution including legal & illegal means of struggle. But just because 90% is not ‘targets’, as they have good intentions basically, does not have any effect on what the best structural idea is other than to involve them in it somehow.
patient persuasion said
Nando: “I believe that politics is inherently representative — i.e. that classes and movements are led by political representatives (that rise and fall, that represent different shades of politics and program). classes do not, and cannot, directly exercise power.”
This is key for me. The question as I see it is not one of leadership or representation or not, but of what is the quality of the leadership, the quality of the representation. What is its relationship to the masses? to the working class? How is that leadership engaging in class struggles?
Nando writes: “The Maoists said that the exploitative class was “those in power taking the capitalist road.” They sharply opposed the Trotskyist view that the enemy is a “bureaucracy” that is attempting to transform itself into a new capitalist class. the difference between these two analyses is rather profound — in its assessment of what was happening in China, in its assessment of the experience of socialism generally (including the experience of the USSR), in its assessment of where the restoration of capitalism comes from, in its assessment of the kind of struggle needed and the target of that struggle.”
How is this sharply opposed? A burearcracy fighting for its own interests as a class definitely seems to be taking the capitalist road, does it not?
Lenin writes in State and Revolution that one of the defining characteristics of the state is its separation from the masses of people. I think this is important to consider and not simply cast aside as insignificant.
Why is it important? Well, it helps us to understand the nature of leadership. What was the character of the relationship between the people and the “representatives” in relation to the control of suruplus value produced by the working and peasant classes? This is key because if the relationship is one mirroring or inching towards private appropriation of socialized production, then how much has really changed?
so it’s not exactly a question of “mass democratic forms,” or “representation,” but, to me, a question of how do mass democratic forms (aka Soviet style councils, communes, etc) intersect with leadership from political formations (parties, etc)?
It seems to me that what is needed is democratic structures to replace the bourgeois state structure, and within that you have political parties and formations contesting lines, programmes, and perspectives. So it’s not a question of “leadership and representation is bad, absolutely,” rather it’s a question, as I see it, of in what way is leadership being carried out.
nando said
Two quick notes on some of comments above, just some:
Jaroslav writes:
Jaroslav is sticking his finger in some of the problems of historical analysis. In historical events (not just human events, but geology, cosmology, biological evolution), you can’t test your theses in a laboratory experiment. You can’t run it over and over, testing different variables. Each time something happens (a star is born, a revolution is reversed, a species emerges or goes extinct) the conditions and variables are not controlled or identical.
I would be very careful before saying our experience has shown something has failed. And specifically Jaroslav’s quick verdict on 3-in-one committees is an example: “the 3-in-1 committees proved in practise to also be not strong enough for suppressing counterrevolution.” How is this true?
Defeat is not a proof of failure of policies or methods. Sometimes you are using excellent policies and methods and suffer defeat — for reasons beyond your control.
The example is sometimes given of a child trying to walk — they stand for a second on stubby wobbly little legs and fall over. Should we rush in and say “walking has obviously failed, you should try to move around some other way?” Obviously the failure of the walking attempt was not a failure of walking itself.
Similarly, a key question and key controversy of the earlier socialist experiments (of the twentieth century) is whether they were failures or defeats. (Or what mixture of failure and defeat we should ascribe.)
In regard to a particular forms of struggle (a Paris commune, a soviet, a one-party state, a system of 3-in-1 committees and so on…), well we have no socialist countries today — so we could (I assume) simply announce that all these forms were failures and had proven too weak to suppress counterrevolutionaries.
I think that the commune form IS to weak, and I think Mao’s analysis was probably a wise one.
On the other hand, i think the three-in-one committee is an attempt to have both democracy and centralism, both mass input and authority, both veteran experience and rebel shakeup, both the stability of a structure and the invigoration of going through the gate.
But the main point: I don’t think counterrevolution succeeded because the FORM of leadership was too weak. I don’t think that is where the restoration resides.
I think that, all along, Mao and his forces, and the masses of people were facing a very strong revisionist current, with powerful support within the party. And that victory over them was a long shot. It was an uphill battle — and there were objective factors leading to the strength of the rightist currents. Among them:
1) the fact that the Chinese revolution was an anti-feudal revolution going over to a socialist revolution. There was a major aspect of “bourgeois democrats becoming capitalist-roaders” — in other words, many of the communists who joined and emerged as leaders in the earlier stage of the revolution had a conception of the goals that were defined by the first stage of the revolution, and many of them opposed the socialist revolution.
2) The isolation of socialist China. There is an old dispute about whether it is possible to take the socialist road in one country. And (at least in the two huge countries of the USSR and China) it has been historically demonstrated that a revolutionary process can take that socialist road, and make progress along those lines — even while hastening and awaiting new upsurges of the world revolution. However there are tremendous pressures that come with being a solitary socialist state in a world dominated by imperialism — and these pressures (military, economic, cultural etc) impact back on the class struggle of that socialist country (and on its ability to unleash revolutionary storms and struggle things through).
On Patient Persuasion’s point
On of the points PP raises is this:
Nando writes: “The Maoists … sharply opposed the Trotskyist view that the enemy is a “bureaucracy” that is attempting to transform itself into a new capitalist class.”
PP asks: “How is this sharply opposed? A burearcracy fighting for its own interests as a class definitely seems to be taking the capitalist road, does it not?”
the Maoist view is that there is no such thing “a bureaucracy fighting for its own interests as a class.”
This is precisely the analysis made by Trotskyism — that “the bureaucracy” after the revolution has common interests (as a caste, or a layer, or a class or whatever) opposed to the interests of the people, and those common interests are what give rise to the “degeneration” of the revolution, and potentially to the rise of a capitalist strata. (The trotskyists differ on the relationship of the bureaucracy and the capitalist class that emerges…. but that is not as relevant here).
But Maoists do not view the cadre of the socialist government as if they constitute a single bureaucracy with common interests. And does not see the class struggle of socialism as defined by the opposition of the people to that emerging ‘bureaucracy.”
There are several reasons for this:
First the cadre of a socialist state are a very mixed force: Many of the cadre of that state are revolutionaries who emerged from the revolutionary struggle and are dedicated to serving the people — this is especially true at its leading levels. Other sections of the state aparatus are staffed by people who emerge from the technical intelligensia (or even from the old state) and are functioning in the new state (as planners, or project managers, or administrators, or investigators, military officers, or whatever). They do not have some common interest or politics or problems.
In fact, the class struggle under socialism divides the state aparatus (rather than uniting that apparatus against the people). this was certainly true in stalin’s time (where his main blows fell on the cadre — contradicting the theory that he was somehow characterized as a representative of the bureaucracy).
There are sharp policy differences over road that emerge within the state and the party. And Mao sought to fine the ways to ‘expose our dark aspects from below” — how to bring the people more powerfully and consciously into the sharp struggles over socialist advance vs. capitalist restoration, so that they could play a decisive role on the side of socialism.
And in some ways, looking back over this history and at the coming revolutions, these questions still face us.
Jaroslav O. said
Um so I don’t want to be like Bob & quote myself but I also said ‘we can’t be sure how much the loss is due to failure (wrong stategy/tactics) & how much due to defeat (balance of forces, out of control of revolutionaries)’ — clearly I am aware that a loss does not automatically mean a failure due to wrong strategy, but could also be a defeat which does not mean the strategy was wrong. So we are agreeing about that which is nice I suppose, & the child learning to walk metaphor is great too, but you are implying it is a response to what I raised or it is an aspect I missed, neither of which is true. I suppose I could have been more clear to say they failed in practise in one instance, though this one instance does not necessarily invalidate its ability to succeed in practise in other instances.
You said ‘Defeat is not a proof of failure of policies or methods. Sometimes you are using excellent policies and methods and suffer defeat — for reasons beyond your control.’ As if I didn’t know that! I had even used the phrase ‘out of control of revolutionaries’ in my comment.
And the committees did not prevent counterrevolution. That is true & nobody can disagree, since the counterrevolution did occur. Neither did they cause counterrevolution (in my opinion), but was it a help or hindrance to revolution, & to what degree? It occurred under specific conditions, & I for one am not sure which condition or combination of conditions is the main cause. Was 3-in-1 inherently weak? Was it weak because it was too new for strong roots to grow so fast? Was it implemented in a weak way? Was it completely good, & the loss of revolutionary power is due to something other aspect of society besides 3-in-1?
As for not being able to do experiments with controlled variables, yes of course that is true. Then what course is left? We must do models. Maybe not mathematical models with graphs & all that, but using logic & basing on what data we do have, we can talk about what might be good or bad ideas to try the next time we get the chance. And I would imagine that having well thought-out & backed-up ideas would help us get this chance, in that people would lend more support to an organisation that seems to know what it’s doing. As opposed to just stating that there is a possibility that an unsuccessful trial simply means we should give it another shot (with undetermined (im)probability as to truth of that statement or the opposite opinion). I’m not saying 3-in-1 is a bad idea, I’m saying that just because it could be a good idea does not convince me that it actually is.
Well I gotta go now. BTW I am being somewhat sharp, especially since I feel that you are not carefully reading my words, but I do actually find your contributions helpful & thought-provoking overall.
nando said
I did read your words carefully, but I thought the point about defeat versus failure was worth bringing out — because it is not obvious.
Far too often it is assumed that “socialism was a failure” in the twentieth century (and here I am thinking of comments by Badiou on the BBC) in a way that I think is very one-sided.
I also think that there is a great deal of focus on “finding the forms” that can solve the problems. And i think that (on one hand) we do need in each revolutionary process to “find the forms” that best advance what we are trying to accomplish (and this goes for us, now, in working to develop forms of revolutionary organization appropriate for us and for the period ahead.) But fundamentally, the solution is not in the form.
The Soviets did not “solve” the question of some universal form of proletarian democracy (which lenin seems to imply in the opening pages of Leftwing Communism). In fact, if you flash forward a few years, those Soviets were quickly outdated as the form central to the new “Soviet” power exercised by the Bolsheviks.
Mao remarks that any form can be usurped by the bourgeoisie (he quips that there could be a bourgeois Commune, just as there emerged bourgeois Soviets in Russia after the restoration of capitalism.)
I think we can reach a general agreement that a key part of the solution to capitalist restoration involves bringing more and more of the people themselves actively into the administration and political struggle within the society — in ways that Mao pioneered, and that we can develop in the future.
This is one of the ways this is tied to the question of Nepal — since the Nepali Maoists are convinced that the initial victory needs to rest on as broad a basis of support as possible, and that the party must find ways to put itself before a popular test (including elections) in ways that force the revolutionaries to “stay in touch” with the people and the political situation. Avakian (in his own way) is trying to solve this problem of more “elasticity” — insisting that the revolution cannot put its fate into an electoral process after victory, but that the revolutionaries need to find other ways to permit, encourage and engage criticism from below, other ways to continue learning from the people and so on. And Avakian also discusses forms (constitutional rights, contested elections at some levels, relative independence of the judiciary, rule of law contraining the revolutionaries themselves etc.)
All of this represents moves away from faking the post-lenin Soviet state as a kind of universal model. And (imho) it is a very small accomplishment given the fact that it is over fifty years since the death of Stalin, and the rest of the world has long ago made its verdict on that kind of a one-party state. (I think it is past time where it is cute or impressive to hear communists make yet another timid “break” with this or that legacy of the Stalin years — it’s about time we finally moved past that history and developed some very different standards what we consider daring and new. The fact that it was shocking to some that the Nepali Maoists could mention Rosa Luxemburg or Che favorably just suggests that some people should get out more.
So, part of what i’m saying is that we should assume the need to have new forms emerge from future struggles (rather than assume there is some past form that we can apply — commune, soviet, one-party state with a particular kind of central planning and so on.) What we will draw from the past is (imho) not a matter of “models” in some narrow sense, but a sense of how living contradictions posed themselves… and how they played out.
the question of the 3-in-one committees is the question of whether the “grand alliance” was correct — whether a new revolutionary core (or party) could have been formed out of an alliance of newly emerging revolutionary leaders and tested cadre from within the existing state apparatus. it is an insistence of people from the plant floor being DIRECTLY involved in the management of the workplaces — without going over to simplistic notions of direct democracy as a permanent form.
In the case of our revolutionary movement, now, i think there is value to this kind of 3-in-1 combinations: how should we form our committees of various kinds? Editorial committees? Leading committees? and so on? I think we need (for example) to consciously combine generations (for example) because of the synergy that brings to it. And also using the process of leadership to train new forces in leadership, and keep the older forces alertly connected to changing realities.
As a negative example, the RCP have for a very long time a defacto structure of “posts for life” in many areas of work — where all the seats in leadership had been distributed decades ago, and there was very little way that the experiences and sensibilities of new generations could really penetrate the inner circles of graying heads (who were suspicious of email and gay relations and so on).
It is hard for me to understand (for example) the party’s positions on gay people and sexuality staying fixed for so long — except for the fact that the 1980s generation within that party really couldn’t get heard, let alone have any real ability to directly shape policy and leadership debate. This changed somewhat in the course of the post-2003 purges — though that was a very late crack in a very very ossified leadership structure.
n3wday said
I really wish I could jump in and make a substantive contribution to this discussion, but at the moment my time is constrained.
Just to harp on one comment…
Nando says,
“I think that the commune form IS too weak, and I think Mao’s analysis was probably a wise one.”
Do you mean the Commune for was too weak? In other words, the question of revolutionary structure is on that is based on the level of consciousness of revolutionary people at a given point (and of course there are other questions, like the balance of forces and international situation), and that the specific form appropriate to a particular juncture within a revolutionary struggle is dependent on the level of transformation that has occurred among the people.
Am I understanding your view correctly?
nando said
Newday asks about mao’s thinking about the commune form.
I think that part of the issue here is that mass democratic forms emerge at high tides of struggle — and can be a powerful means of consolidating new power. But as high tides ebb, it turns out that it is hard to maintain mass demcratic forms (and the necessary intensity of mass participation) in the aftermath of the upsurge (even in a socialist country). Dealing with the wavelike nature of popular involvement and intensity is something that needs to be understood — and incorporated into the revolutionary tactics.
This is one of the reasons that it has proven difficult to maintain genuinely mass democratic forms of power under socialism (whether in the commune form or soviet form). and it is also a reason why Lenin’s assumptions about abolishing a standing army (and relying solely on popular militia — an armed and conscious people) has proved to be impossible under socialism so far. (Another reason is the intensity of imperialist encirclement).
But i also think that the commune form (without an organized core of communist leadership, a “party” formation) is too weak in dealing with counterrevolution — this has to do with the weakness in taking the initiative, developing the degree of unified action needed etc.
* * * * * *
There is another issue here not previously raised:
It is that the “overthrow all” line did not appreciate the importance of production under socialism. Once they were convinced that they were making revolution against a hostile system and a hostile state — they took no responsibility for continuing socialist production.
By contrast the maoists urged “grasp revolution, promote production.” It put revolution central… but it also promoted a sense of responsibility for the production of society. And it also took seriously making revolution IN THE PROCESS OF PRODUCTION.
This concept “grasp revolution, promote production” was one of the sharp difference between the line of the Maoists and the line of the “overthrow all” groups.