page 37

THE GREAT LEAP
BACKWARD
by Charles Bettelheim

March 3, 1978 

"The history of all hitherto 
existing society is the history of 
class struggles" 
-- Karl Marx and 
Friedrich Engels, 
Manifesto of the 
Communist Party 

Dear Neil Burton,

    I read your letter of October 1, 1977, with great interest, and if I have not replied to it sooner this is because I was unable to do so owing to previous commitments. This is also the reason (together with health considerations) why I was unable to agree to go to China last year.

    In your letter you say that if I had visited China again in 1977, I would not have come to the conclusions which I set out in my letter resigning the presidency of the Franco-Chinese Friendship Association. I do not agree at all. First, because the documents which are now being published in China give expression to a certain political line, and it is the existence of this line which has led me to the conclusions I have drawn. Secondly, because, both before and since I wrote that letter, I have met many travelers just back from China -- friends of China, sinologists, former students or teachers from abroad who were working in China, journalists, and so on -- and what they have told me about their experiences (even when they themselves approve of the current political line) has confirmed me in my conclusions. In the following pages I take into

page 38

account, of course, both recently published documents and the conversations I have had, since I resigned, with travelers who have since returned. These different elements have enabled me, I believe, to grasp better the significance of what has happened in China. My letter thus seeks to be more than a mere reply to yours: it is a first attempt at systematic thinking about the political changes which have taken place in China since October 1976 and about the conditions which prepared the way for them.

    Instead of going over again, point by point, the arguments in my letter of last year, or answering, point by point, what you wrote to me on October 1, 1977, I prefer to explain how I analyze the present situation and the events that have produced it, for matters have now become clearer than they were: in particular, it is more obvious what policy has triumphed as a result of the elimination of the Four, namely, a bourgeois policy and not a proletarian one.

    In the following pages I shall try, also, to explain the reasons why, in my opinion, the situation has evolved in the way it has. I think that by proceeding in this way I shall be able to reply to the best of my ability to the letter you wrote me.

The End of the Cultural Revolution

    The first question that needs to be examined is that of the relation between the present situation and the Cultural Revolution. On this point we must note straightaway that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has now proclaimed that the Cultural Revolution is ended. This statement is certainly correct. It amounts to a recognition that a change has taken place in the relation between social and political forces, resulting in the extreme restriction of the activity of the masses, and of the freedom of initiative and expression that the Cultural Revolution was to have enabled them to conquer.

    In fact, when we look back and analyze what has happened since 1965-66, we can say that this change in the relation of forces was already apparent in the first months of 1967 (when the political form of the Shanghai Commune was created and

page 39

then abandoned),[1] and that thereafter it continued, with zigzags in the same direction. The announcement of the end of the Cultural Revolution was thus the culmination of a historical process that lasted for several years, a process of class struggle requiring protracted analysis. The way in which this announcement took place calls for two observations.

    It is to be noted, first, that the announcement was not accompanied by any systematic striking of the balance of the Cultural Revolution as a whole. The failure to do this means that no distinction has been made by the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party between changes of a positive kind, from the standpoint of the working people, which have taken place thanks to the Cultural Revolution, and those changes or practices that may have had negative consequences. The door is thus left open for a de facto challenge to everything contributed by the Cultural Revolution. This is so even though homage is paid, in words, to the Cultural Revolution, and it is said that there will be other such revolutions. Without a clear analysis of the past, as thoroughgoing as possible, it is very difficult to find one's way correctly in the future.

    Secondly, alongside the announcement that the Cultural Revolution is over, the measures which have been taken since more than a year ago, and the themes expounded in official speeches and in the press, constitute a de facto negation of the Cultural Revolution. There has been a veritable leap backward. These two aspects of the present situation are obviously not accidental. They are the product of profound tendencies, the result of a certain relation of forces between classes and also of a political line which forms part of this relation of forces and reacts upon it.

    I expect that you disagree with the formulations I have just set forth, so I shall develop my line of argument. This argument can, of course, only be partial; for it to be otherwise one would need to do what the Chinese Communist Party has not done, namely, to undertake the striking of a systematic balance of the Cultural Revolution as a whole, recalling the aims that were proclaimed at the outset, estimating the extent to which there were advances and retreats, and analyzing why they oc-

page 40

curred. Such a task could be accomplished only by a political organization linked with the masses. It would also require a number of documents and items of information which I do not possess -- and which a stay in China would not, of course, enable me to collect, because, where many points are concerned, what is involved is documents and information that it is considered need to be kept "secret."

    This being so, what I propose to do is to reveal certain aspects of the leap backward effected in recent months, and then to consider the reasons for it. Before doing that, however, it is necessary to recall some of the proclaimed intentions of the Cultural Revolution, especially those which constituted a sharp turn away from previous practices -- intentions which, at certain periods, became more or less realized in Chinese life, and which are now being challenged.

The Problem of Mass Democracy

    When we study the "Sixteen-Point Decision" adopted on August 8, 1966, by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, we see that one of the fundamental aims it proclaimed was to promote the development of a political line that would enable the masses to express themselves freely, without being subjected to constraint when expressing minority views, "even if the minority is wrong" (point 6 of the "Sixteen-Point Decision"). The activity of the masses was to be allowed to assume many different organizational forms and to lead to the formation of organs of power in the factories, mines, and enterprises, in the various quarters of the cities and in the villages, in the state organizations, and in educational establishments. All this activity was to culminate in "a system of general elections like that of the Paris Commune." The elected members were to be continuously criticized by those who had elected them, and could be replaced or recalled by the masses (point 9). This aim was not seen as being merely provisional in character, for its "great historic importance" was emphasized. An essential principle was also recalled (since it had not been honored in the preceding period), namely, that "the only

page 41

method is for the masses to liberate themselves, and any method of doing things on their behalf must not be used"; the masses must educate themselves in the movement" (point 4). In accordance with this principle, the party can play its role only by not hesitating to promote the activity of the masses. The party leaders at every level must therefore encourage the masses to criticize the shortcomings and mistakes in their own work (point 3).

    At the same time, it was said that criticisms ought to be made in a spirit of unity and with a view to rectifying mistakes rather than eliminating those who had committed them. Finally, what was to be aimed at was "to achieve the unity of more than 95 percent of the cadres and more than 95 percent of the masses" (point 5).

    One of the purposes proclaimed was the transformation of the superstructure, in which bourgeois ideology continued to bulk large, so that, in particular, it was necessary to "transform education, literature, art, etc." (points 1 and 10).

    The link between the struggle for revolution and the struggle for production was also mentioned, and it was stressed that priority should be given to the former.

    From 1966 onward, a movement developed that underwent ebbs and flows which need to be analyzed if one is fully to comprehend the present situation, but, as I have said already, such an analysis cannot be made in any detail at present. This movement also had its ideological and theoretical aspects. It led Mao Tse-tung and those who are today being vilified by the present leadership of the party to recognize in practice the difference between changing the juridical ownership of enterprises and changing the relations of production and distribution, so that a series of statements appeared which pointed out that it was possible for capitalist enterprises to exist "behind a socialist signboard," that the wage system prevailing in China was not very different from capitalism, that the bourgeoisie was present in the party, and so on.

    One has only to read the Chinese press today to see that, since Mao's death, the intentions of the Cultural Revolution and the theoretical developments which accompanied it are

page 42

being more and more openly abandoned. The so-called criticism of the Four serves as a pretext for this abandonment.[2]

The Leap Backward Effected Since the End of 1976

    As I have said, the retreat from the proclaimed objectives of the Cultural Revolution did not begin at the end of 1976. It had begun much earlier, in connection with the ebb and flow of the class struggle. Nevertheless, the period which opened with the death of Mao Tse-tung and the elimination of the Four has been marked by the extent to which the leap backward has been accomplished and by the open abandonment of a series of analyses developed since 1966. This abandonment means a repudiation of the gains made for Marxism by the Chinese Revolution -- in other words, a repudiation of Marxism itself.

    As regards the ebbs that occurred before Mao's death, I shall confine myself to recalling a few facts. I have already mentioned the dropping of the political form of the Shanghai Commune, which was replaced by the revolutionary committees, set up after 1967. But these committees themselves gradually withered. This withering proceeded in several ways: the principle of revocability of the committee members by the masses, and their periodic re-election, was respected less and less, the authority of the committees was gradually encroached upon by that of the corresponding party committees, and the frequent confusion of functions by those who belonged to both committees tended to deprive the revolutionary committees of their role of democratically expressing the aspirations and initiatives of the masses they were supposed to represent.

    The same process of withering affected other organs that issued from the first years of the Cultural Revolution. Thus, the workers' management groups I wrote about in Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China went to sleep. When I returned to China in the autumn of 1975, there was only one factory where I heard anything about these groups (after I had insisted on knowing whether such groups existed as I did in all the factories I visited), and what I was

page 43

told left me with the impression that they were there only as ghosts, while everywhere else they seemed to have vanished completely.

    This withering signified a step back in relation to the requirements for progress toward socialism, for that presupposes that the working people themselves become to an increasing extent masters, collectively, of their own conditions of life and labor. This step back did not happen "by itself." It resulted from class struggle, from the resurgent influence of the bourgeoisie, and above all of the bourgeoisie present in the machinery of the state and of the party, who were tending to strengthen their authority, to "free themselves" from the authority of the masses, and so to be able to dispose of the means of production which, in a formal sense, belong to the state.

    In 1976, however, this retreat could still be seen as the effect of a momentary ebb, for the Cultural Revolution was still the order of the day and a number of analyses were still being made which clarified (even if not always thoroughly) the prerequisites for a revolutionary change in production relations and class relations. Today the situation is different, and we see a bourgeois and revisionist counteroffensive proceeding on all fronts: on the front of practical measures and concrete decisions, and on the front of ideological positions.

The Revolutionary Committees in the Production Units
and the Strengthening of One-Man Management

    This counteroffensive is aimed especially at what remains of the revolutionary committees at the level of the production units. It also seeks to strengthen one-man management and the exclusive role of the party committee, the different forms of "three-in-one combination" groups, and the tightening of labor regulations and labor discipline.

    One of the first overt manifestations of the counteroffensive was the speech delivered on January 31, 1977, by Pai Ju-ping, first secretary of the Shantung Party Committee (broadcast by Radio Tsinan on February 1, 1977). Among the themes ex-

page 44

pounded in this speech (and which have reappeared since in numberless speeches by the highest authorities), we find that of the need to strengthen the role of the party committees in the economic sphere, with nothing said about the tasks of the revolutionary committees. In this speech, as in many others, not a word was said about the free expression of criticism by the workers. On the contrary, the speaker denounced criticisms which had been sent to the party committees, and placed one-sided emphasis on obedience. If he declared that "we must rely on the working class," this was not because of that class's spirit of initiative but because "it is strictest in observing discipline and obeying orders."

    As I have said, these ideas are now being put forward more and more frequently. Thus, on April 6, 1977, Radio Peking stated: "In a socialist enterprise the relation between the party and other organizations is that between a guide and his disciples." Here, too, it is no longer a question of the initiative of the masses, or of learning from the masses. The sole wielder of authority is the party committee. The workers have only to let themselves be guided.

    Anything that favors initiative on the part of the masses and of whatever is left of their organizations is denounced as corresponding to the "road of economism, syndicalism, anarchism, and radical individualism." Control exercized over the leaders is treated as breach of discipline, and the Four are criticized specifically for developing the idea of a contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie inside the factories, and speaking of antagonism between management and masses (New China News Agency [NCNA], May 21, 1977).

    We thus see the revival of a doctrine that Mao Tse-tung rightly condemned, namely, that of the primacy of unity over contradiction, a doctrine characteristic of the ideology of the Soviet Communist Party in Stalin's time.

    The ideology now being developed tends to place the cadres and technicians above the workers and to subject the latter to the authority of regulations composed by the former.

page 45

Factory "Despotism"

    What we are watching is, in fact, a massive counteroffensive aimed at sweeping away everything that was said and done against the existence of oppressive regulations in the factories (what were called "unreasonable regulations").

    It is now declared that these regulations (which it is indeed recognized, though only in passing, are determined by production relations) "reflect the objective laws governing the complex processes of modern large-scale production." The working class must therefore accept these regulations, since they reflect "objective laws." And Engels is brought in for support, by quoting a formulation which he put forward in a polemic against anarchism. In this work, written in 1873 and entitled On Authority, Engels wrote: "If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, insofar as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organization. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel."[3]

    As Harry Braverman rightly points out, where Engels speaks of a "despotism independent of all social organization" and uses the concept of "authority" in a suprahistorical way, he allows himself to be carried away by his polemic. He thus loses sight of everything Marx wrote about the socially determined character of "factory despotism."[4] The use being made of this passage from Engels shows that what is being carried out in China today is, precisely, the strengthening of despotism in the factory -- in the name of transhistorical "laws."

    What we see here is not just a "theoretical consideration," but an attempt to justify the strengthening of repressive practices employed in relation to the workers. From now on, increasingly, growth in production, in the output and quality of goods, is expected to result, in the main, not from development

page 46

of worker's initiative, organization, and consciousness, but from the enforcement of strict regulations. Thus, on August 14, 1977, Radio Peking said: "Rules and regulations ought never to be eliminated. Moreover, with the development of production and technology, rules and regulations must become stricter, and people must follow them precisely." Commenting on that last sentence, the speaker added: "This is a law of nature [!]. As production develops, so must we establish rules and regulations that are stricter and more rational." A prospect to inspire enthusiasm!

    Criticism of the Four serves, among other things, as a pretext for advocating stricter regulations. Already in 1976 Yao Wen-yuan had criticized the idea of increasingly severe regulations. He wrote: "How far are we to go in this severity? Are we to introduce the capitalist mode of production, which even keeps check on the time the workers spend when they go to the toilet?"

    From then on there was to be no more hesitation in praising "certain bourgeois rules and regulations" and "certain aspects of the way capitalist enterprises are managed," even to the point of saying that "these result from the workers' experience, and are therefore scientific"![5]

    The pretext for strengthening what Marx called "factory despotism" is, on the one hand, the allegedly bad situation of the Chinese economy "in consequence of the activity of the Four," and, on the other, the "requirements" of the "four modernizations" (industrial, agricultural, military, and scientific-and-technological). I shall come back to these questions and their significance later. For the moment I want to emphasize particularly that it is in the name of these "requirements" that "emulation campaigns" are being set afoot -- a development about which something needs to be said.

The Emulation Campaigns

    I want, first of all, to make the point that the Soviet experience of the 1930s, and China's experience of the period preceding the Cultural Revolution, showed that as soon as

page 47

emulation ceases to result from a genuine movement of the masses and becomes a "campaign" organized from above, it ceases to be in any way "socialist." It becomes a means whereby the cadres and technicians exert pressure on the workers in order to increase the intensity and productivity of labor. Such a campaign strips the workers even further of any control they may have over their conditions of labor, and so expropriates and exploits them even more than before. During the Cultural Revolution campaigns of this sort were not launched, but this did not prevent various forms of emulation from being developed in certain workshops, factories, mines, etc.

    It was apparently in March 1977 that "emulation campaigns" had started in China. This happened after the national conference on the railways when it was announced that: "The experience of establishing great order and rapidly improving work on the railways is valid for all other departments and fronts" (NCNA, March 12, 1977). Jen-min Jih-pao of March 10 also issued a call for emulation campaigns. On March 22 that paper explained that emulation campaigns serve to establish "great order" and obtain "rapid results," raising productivity and output as quickly as possible by increasing labor discipline.

    The character of these campaigns as movements which are centralized and organized from above is clearly apparent in a dispatch from NCNA dated January 7, 1978, which states that, with a view to "accelerated expansion of coal production, the Ministry of Coal Mining . . . has recently organized 125 of the country's mines in an emulation movement to last one hundred days, starting on January 1."

    This dispatch explains that the ministry requires that the mines participating in the campaign "go all out to mobilize the masses and set up a strong command network as a measure aimed at accomplishing within one hundred consecutive days their tasks of coal-getting, in respect of quantity, quality, consumption, cost of production, and other production norms." The mines are invited to beat the record for all corresponding periods.

    It could not be put more plainly that this "emulation campaign" is destined to subject the workers to a "command net-

page 48

work" and compel them not merely to fulfill the norms (fixed by the authorities) but also to beat production "records."

    Campaigns like these have nothing in common with real socialist emulation. They fit in, moreover, with a whole political line which "restores the commanding role" to the economy, to production and profit. In relation to the principles of the Cultural Revolution period this represents a 180-degree turn. At the level of formulations, nothing gives better expression to this turn than a phrase used in a Radio Peking broadcast: "Politics must serve economics" (November 27, 1977).

Profit, Accumulation, and Concentration of Managerial
Power Within the Enterprises

    What a formulation like this implies has been made clear by a series of documents and declarations that have appeared since the end of 1976, all of them stressing the role of profit. Thus, issue no. 8 of 1977 of Hung Chi emphasizes above all the idea that enterprises must increase their profits and accumulate more funds for the state. It even says: "Asking whether one should run a factory for profit or for the revolution is a strange question." As if that could not be the actual source of contradictions, and as if it was not necessary to define the principal aspect of this contradiction!

    Again, this article in Hung Chi states: "The more profit that a socialist enterprise makes in this way [i.e., by increasing production, practicing strict economy, raising the productivity of labor, and reducing costs], the more wealth it creates for socialism." It is thus assumed that the use made of the accumulated funds is automatically advantageous to socialism. And, above all, it is not even conceived that, in the struggle to increase profit (in which workers' initiative, the role of workers' management, and mass innovations are practically no longer mentioned), the leading role of the working class may eventually be repudiated. Yet when this leading role ceases, the doctrine that "making more profit means creating more wealth for socialism" becomes meaningless -- and becomes, moreover,

page 49

the same thesis that the Soviet revisionists have been repeating for years.

    The editorial in Jen-min Jih-pao of August 27, 1977, tries, without being explicit about it, to "get rid" of this problem. This it does in a confused way -- but how could it do otherwise? It speaks of the socialist "essence" of China's enterprises and of the profit that they make, writing, for example: "It is a glorious responsibility for the socialist enterprises to work hard in order to increase accumulation for the state and make bigger profits. Under socialist conditions what an enterprise gains is, in essence, different from capitalist profit. The gains made by a socialist enterprise are a manifestation of the workers' conscious effort to create material wealth, provide funds for consumption, and accumulate capital for the building of socialism. This differs entirely from capitalist exploitation of the workers' surplus value . . . Improving the management of enterprises and increasing their gains, on the one hand, and the [revisionist] idea of putting profit in command, on the other, are two completely different concepts."

    This sort of statement is exactly equivalent to what the Soviet economists say when they, too, speak of "socialist profit" and the "socialist wage"; but it is not enough to stick the adjective "socialist" on an economic category to determine the social nature of the reality it refers to. That depends on the social conditions under which the production process takes place. Numerous documents of the Cultural Revolution period dealt with this question (even though not always very clearly) and pointed out that one cannot equate state ownership of enterprises with their having a socialist character -- the enterprises in question do not possess any socialist "essence" independent of the production relations, the forms of division of labor and of management that prevail in them.

    Today, however, the official ideology seeks to deny precisely that which was emphasized during the Cultural Revolution. It is concerned with glorifying profit in order to call on the workers to "work hard," to be disciplined, and to "obey orders and regulations" -- that is, to cut down the scope of political intervention by the workers. Thus, the editorial of November 9,

page 50

1977, in Jen-min Jih-pao speaks of the "losses of a political nature" suffered by the enterprises, which must, it says, "be reduced to the minimum."

    This fully corresponds to the line which withdraws technological initiative and management from the workers, the revolutionary committees, and the workers' management groups (and also from the various "three-in-one combination" organizations, of which hardly anything is said anymore), in order to concentrate these powers in the hands of the "two chief leaders" in each enterprise. It is clear that this is the current line, as can be seen, for example, in the speech made by Yu Chiu-li at Taching, and in a Radio Peking broadcast of October 18, 1977, which dwelt on the principle by which the "two chief leaders of an enterprise must personally take charge of matters concerned with accumulation and profit."

    Whatever phrases may be inserted in order to recall, in ritual fashion, that in the management of enterprises the "class struggle must still be taken as our axis," it is clear that profit is now to be the central preoccupation.

    This has a number of implications. On the one hand, the stress laid on profit is used to strengthen hierarchical authority, to toughen regulations, and to get rid of intervention by the workers in management matters. On the other hand, the insistence with which the profits to be made by the enterprises is spoken of accompanies an ideological turn. Today practically no mention is made of the distinction between "enterprise profit" (meaning financial profit, the local manifestation of the valorization of capital) and "social profit," the importance of which was stressed at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Henceforth, therefore, enterprises which do not make a (financial) profit can no longer be singled out as "enterprises of the Taching type," which means that they can no longer be put forward as examples.[6]

    The role ascribed to profit is obviously also linked with the type of industrialization that is coming to prevail in the name of the "modernization" of industry. (I shall come back to this question.) In any case, historical experience and theory alike teach us that putting the accent on enterprise profit in this way

page 51

can only aggravate inequalities between regions and hinder the development of local industry and of small- and medium-sized industry. Yet it was this last-mentioned form of development that was characteristic of the mode of industrialization in China (especially after 1958), and it achieved some remarkable successes.

    I am not, of course, one of those who think that the line which is dominant in this sphere today is due essentially to "mistakes." More precisely, even if one can speak of "mistakes," it must be seen that these are the result of a class point of view, of the tendency to consolidate capitalist relations, capitalist forms of the division of labor, of the organization of production, and of management -- and therefore of the tendency to put the role played by the cadres, technicians, and intelligentsia first.

The Struggle Against "Egalitarianism" in the Sphere of Wages

    We find the same class line at work in what is being said and done in the sphere of wages. Here the dominant aspect of the present line is the struggle against so-called egalitarianism, and for differentiation in wages.

    Thus, an article in Guan-min Jih-pao of November 1977 goes so far as to say that "egalitarianism is still the biggest problem in China" -- this being the actual title of the article. Such an affirmation runs counter to what Mao Tse-tung said in February 1975: "Before Liberation it was more or less like capitalism. Even now we practice an eight-grade wage system, distribution to each in accordance with work done and exchange by means of money, and all this scarcely differs from the old society."

    One of the reasons why the accent is now put on the fight against "egalitarianism" is that it is once again a question of resorting to "material incentives" -- though, for the moment, this is done with some caution, as the Chinese working class is aware of what that line implies. In practice this takes the form, in a certain number of cases, of going back to piece-wages (whereas, during the Cultural Revolution, piece-wages were

page 52

replaced by time-wages), and in other, less numerous, cases, the form of more or less generous bonus payments. All this is done in the name of accelerating the growth of the productive forces and increasing the productivity of labor -- that is, in the name of arguments of an economistic and productivist character.

    One article is especially significant in this connection -- the article by Chao Lu-kuan (NCNA, November 22,1977) which, starting from the principle, "To each according to his work," strives (still with great caution) to make a case for piece-wages (Chao does not mention, of course, Marx's observation that "the piece-wage is the form of wage most appropriate to the capitalist mode of production"[7]) and for "the utilization of the necessary material rewards as a supplementary form."

    This article and many like it that have appeared since 1977 increasingly make individual interest the driving-force of the struggle for production. This interest is substituted for the role played by a consciousness that one is working to satisfy the people's needs and to build socialism, the role which was put in the forefront during the Cultural Revolution.

    Such a substitution corresponds to the interests of the bourgeoisie in the party. It can only divide the working class by fostering the growing inequalities among the workers. Going back to piece-wages and material incentives after practicing for years the payment of time-wages, and after having long since renounced material incentives, means taking an immense step backward. This step backward favors the managers of enterprises and the technicians: it tends to strengthen the state bourgeoisie, those who occupy leading posts in the economic and administrative machinery and in the party. This is the class content of the new line, whatever may be the pretexts invoked by its supporters.

The New Orientations in Agricultural Policy

    Since the end of 1976 a new orientation in agricultural matters has become apparent. Basically, this reduces the initiative of the peasant masses and increasingly subordinates them to a

page 53

highly centralized leadership over which the working people exercise no real control. It tends to impose on the people's communes work norms that are decided externally, and to promote technological changes that are also mainly inspired by organs situated far away from the immediate producers.

    The class content of this new orientation is clear. On the one hand, it is a matter of favoring the development of a production process that subordinates the peasant masses, to the utmost degree possible, to domination by the cadres, local and central, and so to a bourgeoisie of a new type. On the other hand (but the two aspects are interconnected), it is a matter of creating conditions enabling the maximum amount of surplus labor to be extracted from the peasantry, so that they may pay the highest possible amount of tribute to finance the "four modernizations" which are indispensable if the power of the state bourgeoisie is to be consolidated.

    While the class content of the new orientation in agricultural policy is clear, it is nevertheless true that it takes as its pretext certain real problems whose importance was previously under estimated. These problems are, in the first place, problems of production: after progressing in a remarkable way for about ten years, agricultural production seems to have reached a threshold which it is essential to rise above in order to cope with the food needs of an increasing population.[8] These problems are also problems of consolidating the existing production relations and of changing the process of labor and production, which includes technological change.[9] They are problems, likewise, of the superstructure, of ideology and politics. There can be no question of reviewing all of them here, and even less of claiming that they can be solved in a simple way. It is only possible to examine some of the "solutions" that are being put forward today, and to consider what they imply and what their class meaning is.

    Two forms of the tendency for the structures of collective production to break down have been frequently mentioned since the end of 1976, though it is clear that the same phenomena existed earlier, having been mentioned in a number of "big-character posters," especially in South China.

page 54

One of these forms is the increase in size of individual plots and in the extent of family activities associated with them. As far back as December 1976, the existence of these problems was mentioned, for example in a broadcast from Radio Nanking on December 13.

    Another form of the tendency for collective labor to break down (and one which seems to present a sufficient threat to collective agricultural production for it to have been mentioned often) is the increasing involvement of rural labor in extra-agricultural activities, along with an uncontrolled movement of the work force. These phenomena were condemned for instance, in a report entitled "Strengthen the Front Line of Agricultural Production," which was circulated by the NCNA on September 2, 1977. This document mentions that certain collective or state production units recruit labor from other communes or brigades. It also mentions that, in some communes and brigades, workers engage in other activities besides agricultural production, and that these communes or brigades include too many unproductive members.

    Following the publication of this report, the provincial radio stations mentioned that investigation groups were being formed by the party committees. One of the tasks of these groups is to ensure that temporary or contract workers who are no longer with their communes go back to the countryside.

    Here we are certainly faced with serious phenomena which contribute to threatening the continuity and, a fortiori, the growth of agricultural production. I know of no fundamental analysis directed at accounting for these phenomena and drawing conclusions from them. On the other hand, we know that since the end of 1976 concrete measures of every kind have been taken, about which I now want to say something, because, as I mentioned earlier, these measures seem to me to have a clear class meaning, even though they are, or may appear, to be, to some extent in contradiction one with another.

    A first series of measures aims at reducing the size of individual plots, where these exceed the percentage laid down in the regulations. These measures are aimed at consolidating the economy of the people's communes, which is indispensable for

page 55

increased collective production, but they may correspond either to a revolutionary or to a revisionist orientation; in present conditions the revisionists must also rely upon collective agricultural production adequate to sustain their program of "modernization."

    Other measures, mentioned by Radio Peking on December 20, 1976, aim at restricting certain collective "additional productive activities." This seems to imply a threat to rural industrialization, which has developed on a large scale since the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. It is essential that it be continued, especially in order to reduce the contradiction between town and country, to ensure a socialist development of the productive forces, and to satisfy the immediate needs of the masses.

    To be sure, the restriction on collective "additional productive activities" may seem to be dictated by "problems of labor supply," but this restriction corresponds basically to a revisionist conception -- to the desire of the leaders of centralized industry to control all industrial production. It is therefore not possible to suppose that its sole or even its main purpose is to ensure that more labor power is available for agricultural production.

    This is all the less possible because family or individual subsidiary activities are being encouraged, and rural markets have been made respectable again. I find it hard to estimate whether this is some sort of "concession" granted to the peasants (so as to enable them to increase their incomes), or whether the purpose is to obtain certain additional products which it seems impossible at present to obtain in any other way. In any case, the line of favoring family and individual subsidiary production is very clear. It was confirmed by a national conference held in the autumn of 1977 at which it was declared that wide scope should be allowed to these productive activities, which, it was said, constitute "an essential complement to the socialist economy." It was added that these ought not to be criticized as representing a "form of capitalism," for such criticism would be characteristic of a "revisionist line" (NCNA, October 13, 1977).

page 56

    More significant still, in my opinion, is the way in which the present political line tries to solve the problems created by the "shortage of labor power" from which Chinese agriculture suffers. The dominant aspect of this line is the resort to authoritarian measures imposed upon the peasantry from above. This is done under the slogan of "rational use of rural labor power." Thus, on November 23, 1976, Radio Haikow (Hainan) said that it is necessary "to learn to organize labor power" and called for the production team to be subjected to the "unified command of the brigade and the commune." It was also said that labor power must be sent wherever production can most effectively be increased and wherever it is possible to get the best results.

    I do not doubt that the "economic objective" aimed at is desirable. But I very gravely doubt whether the methods advocated are either "socialist" or "effective." Actually, the proposed measures lead to the peasants being treated as a work force which a unified command sends wherever it considers their intervention will be most useful. This is a capitalist, not a socialist, way of organizing labor, a form of organization which the peasants cannot but resist. It is a long time since things were "organized" in this way in the collective farms of the USSR, and everyone knows the result of that!

    We know, too, the setbacks which have resulted from attempts to treat the struggle for increasing agricultural production as so many "battles" to be directed, more or less centrally, by "general staffs." Yet a number of recent declarations show that such pseudo-military measures are viewed with favor by the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Adoption of measures of this kind means a lack of confidence in the peasants.

    This lack of confidence cannot but be reinforced by the way the peasants inevitably, and rightly, react to measures which tend to transform them into a work force required to "maneuver" under the orders of a "unified command. " As though the Chinese peasants do not themselves know how to produce and how to organize so as to increase production!

    The tendency to organize the peasants' work from above and

page 57

in an authoritarian way entails unavoidable consequences. The new leadership prepares to confront these consequences with a series of measures announced in a report circulated by NCNA on September 2, 1977. So far as the immediate future is concerned, these measures consist of tightening up labor discipline, laying down a system of work norms, and fixing rates of payment related to these norms. The report states explicitly that it is necessary to strengthen labor discipline, record attendance at work, strengthen the system of responsibility, improve the organization of work, establish "simple" methods of payment (related to work done), organize emulation, and undertake regular evaluation of the work done by individuals and production units.

    The summer of 1977 already saw some districts taking this road. On June 16,1977, Radio Lanchow quoted as an example the district of Hoshui, in Kansu province, which had introduced "a good system of recording attendance at work" and was applying a system of work norms combined with a system of inspection. This signifies a complete reversal of the line followed since the Cultural Revolution, during which fixed norms were exceptional and a system of self- evaluation prevailed.

    The Soviet experience has shown fully that these systems of fixing work norms and checking on the peasants' work only bring mediocre or even derisory results.

"Accelerated" Mechanization of Agriculture

    The way in which the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has decided to speed up the mechanization of agriculture shows clearly that this leadership is far from supposing that the methods of work organization which it advocates (but which it is obliged to resort to since it lacks confidence in the peasants) will solve the problems of agricultural production. Indeed, it is one thing to take the correct and necessary decision to follow the road of mechanizing agriculture, and quite another to rush hastily along this road as the Chinese Communist Party is doing now, as when it says that mechanization is to be realized "in

page 58

the main" by 1980. Such haste leads inevitably to disappointment, but it is doubtless dictated by social contradictions, since "technological requirements" would, in fact, dictate a step-by step, methodical advance.[10]

    This haste, and the social contradictions of which it is the product, together with the striving to subject the peasantry to a unified command, seems to be leading to an abandonment of the correct policy, hitherto accepted, of carrying out mechanization principally on the basis of each brigade and each commune, with these units relying mainly on their own resources.

    Numerous statements make it plain that agricultural equipment is to be centralized in workshops dealing with several brigades and communes (which reminds one of the machine and-tractor stations in the USSR, which were set up in haste in similar circumstances and for the same reasons, and which have produced disappointing and well-known results). These central workshops are controlled by the party's regional committees. Clearly, the direction taken (which is logical, given the current policy) points toward "great agricultural battles" led by the provincial authorities, who have machinery centers at their disposal and act through the prefectures and municipalities. Everything is to be placed under the command of the party. The party committees are called upon, accordingly, to form "leading groups for agricultural mechanization."

    The centralization thus advocated tends to take away from the people's communes and brigades the role they used to play in producing small-scale mechanical equipment appropriate to their needs. This centralization, and the haste with which an operation as serious and difficult as agricultural mechanization is being conducted, are now causing a number of difficulties. The difficulty most talked about is one that is well known in the Soviet Union, namely, the problem of supplying the agricultural sector with spare parts.

    In this connection, let us dwell for a moment upon three readers' letters published by Jen-min Jih-pao on January 6, 1978 (and circulated by NCNA on the same day). One of these

page 59

letters was sent by a cadre from the people's commune of Hsiehtun (Chouhsien district, Anhwei province) to the Red East Tractor Factory in Loyang. The letter criticizes the factory for not having solved correctly the problem of spare parts. The commune was unable to find the spare parts that it needed anywhere (this was during the winter of 1976). After having written unsuccessfully to the tractor factory, the commune decided to send a delegation, but the delegation was not received. Only after a letter had been sent to the factory through Jen-min Jih-pao did the factory "reconsider its attitude" and make a "self-criticism" to the effect that its short-comings were "principally due to the frenzied sabotage of agricultural mechanization by the 'Gang of Four.'"[11] The management of the factory said that it was determined to "clean up the labor regulations."

    The letter from the Hsiehtun people's commune to Jen-min Jih pao then says that after this "self-criticism," the factory sent several technicians to the commune; they examined the tractor and took two of the commune's tractor drivers back with them to the factory to buy the spare parts they needed.[12]

    If I have given so much space to an affair that might seem to be no more than an anecdote, it is because it seems to me highly significant in a number of ways:

    (1)  It shows that already in the winter of 1976, when agricultural mechanization had not gone far, it was very hard for a people's commune to get spare parts for its tractors.

    (2)  It reveals a situation quite similar to the one that the Soviet Union has known for over forty years.

    (3)  It allows us to predict the grave risks that China's agriculture will run after mechanization if the factories continue to "deal with" problems of supplying spare parts in this way.

    (4)  It shows that the basic cause of these problems was not even touched upon, since the management of the factory got out of its awkward spot by blaming its shortcomings on the influence of the "Gang of Four" and took the opportunity to "clean up the labor regulations," that is, to tighten labor dis-

page 60

cipline, whereas what was needed was to solve a problem of priorities in production, the management of stock, and distribution.

    To anyone with any experience of the problems presented by the mechanization of agriculture, it is obvious that the current "acceleration" signifies a flight forward caused by the aggravation of social contradictions.[13] These are bound up with the way in which an attempt is being made to command the peasantry -- that is, with the development of bourgeois relations and practices. In its turn, this development bears witness to the changes that have taken place in the relations of strength between classes. These changes are increasingly leading to a situation in which a massive introduction of modern technology is seen as the way to solve all difficulties. The haste with which the Chinese Communist Party is trying to carry out the "four modernizations" is typical of the present situation.

    The acceleration of the mechanization of agriculture and the emphasis on the "four modernizations" reflect a bourgeois conception of technological progress.[14] In this way, a process is beginning that inevitably must result in raising, substantially and rapidly, the rate of accumulation, which must tell heavily upon the standard of living and working conditions of the workers and peasants.

    It is also important that the priority assigned to mechanization over other technological changes in agriculture testifies to the class nature of the present political line. Actually, it is not mechanization alone that will make it possible to solve the problem of increasing agricultural production (which does not mean that mechanization is not one element in the solution to this problem). The problem can be solved only through differentiated methods -- by developing the use of selected seeds, by diversifying the fertilizers used[15] -- which presupposes mass experimentation and initiative. But the current line does not point that way. It points toward the increased subordination of the peasants to a central authority which will be in a position to extort the maximum of surplus labor from them. Mechanization is seen mainly as a means of more effectively ensuring this

page 61

subordination, by favoring the predominance of dead labor (centrally controlled) over living labor.

The Purging of the Leading Organs in Agriculture

    It is in this context that the way in which the task of "carrying through the revolution in the superstructure" is now interpreted acquires its full meaning. Thus, in Hung Chi (no. 6, 1977), Wang Chien defines this task as one of "strengthening the revolutionization of the leading organs" by ensuring that the leadership is in the hands of "Marxists," and of "educating the peasants in Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Tse-tung Thought."

    To those who can read, this means purging the organs of leadership, removing all who do not share the present views on discipline, command, "modernization," and so on. It also means "educating the peasants" by inculcating in them these present views, but no longer learning from them.

Foreign Trade Policy

    The current orientation of economic policy includes many other aspects which reveal its revisionist character. They can not all be examined here, but something must be said about certain problems of foreign trade and about the way it is proposed that these be "solved." A particularly significant document in this connection was presented at one of the conferences held in early 1977 on Mao's work On the Ten Major Relationships, namely, the sixteenth in the series, which was devoted to foreign trade.

    This document (broadcast on February 15, 1977, by Radio Peking) sets forth the concept of "normal foreign trade" (which has nothing in common with Marxism, and which is, more precisely, anti-Marxist). This concept aims at "justifying" the priority given to increased exports of coal and oil in exchange for imports of new technology and equipment, thus seeking to find "arguments" in support of a policy which would give

page 62

China's foreign trade a structure similar, as Chang Chun-chiao correctly observed, to that of a "colonial economy."

    I do not, of course, mean that this is the "aim" pursued by the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. They certainly want to modernize China and make it independent of the big imperialist powers. What I do mean is that, by utilizing the bourgeois notion of "normal foreign trade" and giving priority to exports of raw materials, this leadership is incapable of attaining the goal it does aim at. The Soviet Union, which took the same road nearly fifty years ago, is still, in its relations with the industrial countries, mainly an exporter of raw materials. It has not succeeded in developing technologies that would put it on the same footing as the industrialized countries, and so continues to import technology and equipment on a mass scale.

    The situation in which the Soviet Union finds itself is not of course, due mainly to a particular "conception" of foreign trade, but this "conception" forms part of a whole, of a political line which has led to this result. I think, too, for the reasons I have set out above and for others which I shall set out later, that it is fundamentally the same political line that is triumphant in China today. This is a revisionist line -- a line which, with certain special features, was applied in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.[16]

    Incidentally, I note that the empty notion of "normal foreign trade" is not an isolated case. Official documents in China increasingly use such expressions, which are quite alien to Marxism.

The Destruction of the Reform of Education

    But let us return to other concrete manifestations of the offensive now being conducted against the Cultural Revolution. One of the most important of these concerns the system of education. When it is said (as in the circular of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on holding a national science conference, September 18, 1977; see Peking Review, no. 40, 1977) that "we must do a really good job in the

page 63

educational revolution," while at the same time the end of the Cultural Revolution has been proclaimed, this can only be interpreted to mean that it is intended to carry through to completion the counter-revolution in education, that is, to reject most of the changes accomplished since 1966. A study of recent decisions and documents proves that this is what is happening and that, here too, we observe a "leap backward."

    The recruitment of students is once more being effected on an elitist basis. Examinations have been restored to a place of honor (see Cahiers de la Chine Nouvelle, no. 2748, 1977), and give an advantage to those with academic and book knowledge. Thus, Jen-min Jih-pao of October 21, 1977, while acknowledging that some manual workers with practical experience may be admitted to the universities, stresses that it is necessary "to take those who are the best on the intellectual plane" and that "the students must be selected, in a given proportion, from among the new graduates of the second-cycle secondary school." This means a partial return to the system that existed before the Cultural Revolution, beginning with the abolition of the two-to-three-year probationary periods that future intellectuals and cadres have to spend in the country. It means also abandoning the designation of those who are to go to university by their fellow-workers. In fact, in October 1977 between 20 and 30 percent of the students were recruited directly from among the "best" pupils of the secondary schools. The information available to me shows that, as was to be expected, these are largely the children of cadres, who have in many cases been specially prepared for these examinations by means of cramming. The privileges possessed by those who have money, and, above all, by the sons and daughters of cadres, are thus reinforced.

    The lengthy eulogy to the situation before the Cultural Revolution which we find in the circular of September 18, 1977, shows clearly that the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party wishes to return to a similar situation.

    Equally characteristic is the reconstitution of a dual network of educational institutions, which was severely condemned during the Cultural Revolution. As Jen-min Jih-pao of October

page 64

26,1977, explains: "Admission to colleges is still limited. The young people who fail their examinations are the majority. So long as they continue to study diligently and strive to master scientific and cultural knowledge, they will have a second chance to take the examination in the future, or else they will be able to pursue advanced studies in the July 21 Worker Colleges and other part-time universities." Thus the "best" will go directly into higher education while the rest will swell the ranks of the skilled manual workers.

    I do not claim that everything that was done in the sphere of education during the Cultural Revolution was "perfect" or not in need of serious discussion. On the contrary -- and this seems to me inevitable -- I think, based on what has been said by students and teachers who have been to China during recent years, that certain aspects of the reforms introduced left something to be desired, and that substantial improvements were called for. But it seems clear to me that it is not by going back to the situation before the Cultural Revolution that improvements can be made. Instead, there should be an extensive public assessment of the lessons to be drawn from the experience of the Cultural Revolution in the sphere of education, and this requires a broad debate. But this is not what is done when a return is made to 1965, while declaring that "we must do a really good job in the educational revolution."

    This way of behaving is, moreover, in line with the hastiness characteristic of the whole of the current campaign for the "four modernizations." Above all, though, it is aimed at reestablishing the power of the academic authorities, at strengthening the power of the intellectuals and the cadres. In this respect, the importance being given to mathematics is quite symptomatic, for the same tendency is also developing in Western Europe and in the United States. This importance emerges from numerous articles -- for instance, the formulation used by Wu Wen-chiu in Jen-min Jih-pao of August 11, 1977: "The degree of a country's industrialization is mainly in direct proportion to the development of mathematics in that country."

    This is a baseless assertion aimed at increasing the "prestige"

page 65

of mathematical knowledge and of those who "possess" it. It forms part of an ideology which emphasizes the role of the intellectuals. It goes far beyond what needs to be said and done in order to restore professional and theoretical knowledge to its proper place, a place which had, without doubt, been lost to some extent during the previous years.

    Altogether, the orientation adopted regarding labor discipline and labor regulations, the revolutionary committees in the factories, wage differentials, the organization of agricultural production, the acceleration of agricultural mechanization, the reform of teaching, etc., all form part of the rejection of the "socialist innovations" contributed by the Cultural Revolution, that is, of the conquests of that revolution.

    We are thus not watching a movement to rectify the mistakes made in the course of the Cultural Revolution -- the most important revolutionary movement of the second half of the twentieth century. What we see is an attempt at the theoretical and practical liquidation of this revolutionary movement.

The Attempt to Liquidate the Cultural Revolution
"Theoretically"

    On the theoretical plane, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party does not dare to launch a frontal attack on the Cultural Revolution, because this would mean openly attacking the line of Mao Tse-tung. It claims to be faithful to this line, because it needs such a claim in order to appear "legitimate." Nevertheless, the present leadership is developing camouflaged attacks which are attempts at theoretical "liquidation." The forms assumed by these attacks are many. I shall mention only a few.

    One of the most significant consists in denying the line of demarcation which the Cultural Revolution represented in the practice and theory of the Chinese Communist Party. We know that Mao Tse-tung regarded this line of demarcation as fundamental. Towards the end of his life, he declared that he had devoted himself to two purposes: "Driving Japanese im-

page 66

perialism out of China and overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek, on the one hand, and, on the other, carrying through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." Mao thus put the Cultural Revolution and the liberation of the country on the same footing.

    The present leadership, however, is trying to wipe out the line of demarcation traced by the Cultural Revolution. It is trying to do this not only practically, by its concrete policy and by returning Rightists to posts of command they were removed from between 1966 and 1976, but also "theoretically." It is doing this by gradually ceasing to speak of the "socialist innovations" which came out of the Cultural Revolution. It is doing it by putting formally "on the same level" that which was accomplished between 1949 and 1965 and that which was accomplished between 1966 and 1976, and giving preference, de facto, to the conceptions and practices of the earlier period. It thereby denies that, down to 1966, the political line included elements which hindered the march toward socialism, and that, after 1966, the political line included new revolutionary orientations which implied a radical qualitative change, the transition to a new stage of the revolution.

    This wiping-out of a fundamental line of demarcation is effected by means of a one-sided glorification of what was accomplished between 1949 and 1966. It is effected also by attacking the Four and blaming them for having stressed the quite different political significance of the changes which were made then and the changes made in subsequent years. In this connection, the Four are attacked in these terms: "The Gang of Four drew a somber picture of new China during the first seventeen years after its foundation. The Gang did not merely deny that there were any socialist innovations before the Cultural Revolution; they also demanded action against what had been done in the years before the Cultural Revolution in terms of developing socialist innovations, thereby totally repudiating what was realized during the seventeen years following the foundation of the People's Republic of China."

    The same document, which was broadcast by Radio Peking on April 8, 1977, stated: "In the seventeen years after the foun-

page 67

dation of the People's Republic of China, despite the interference and sabotage constituted by the revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi, the revolutionary line of Chairman Mao always remained in the leading position."

    The aim of this statement is not merely to attack the Four. It is also an underestimation of the "interference" from the revisionist line during the years 1949-65. It is vital for the present leadership to do this, because it is returning to a revisionist line itself.[17] It means, further, denying the fundamental difference between the revolutionary line of before and after 1966. This difference relates to the movement of the revolution into a new stage -- a stage that the present leadership wishes to hear no more about.

    We find the same desire to wipe out this fundamental line of demarcation in the circular, already quoted, of September 18, 1977, which blames the Four for having "negated the fact that Chairman Mao's revolutionary line has occupied the dominant position in this field [i.e., science and technology] since the foundation of New China" (Peking Review, no. 40, 1977). Yet a formulation like this obscures the situation which existed between 1949 and 1965, the situation that made the Cultural Revolution necessary.

    As I mentioned earlier, the attempt to liquidate the Cultural Revolution "theoretically" takes many forms and gives rise to varied formulations. Here are some that are especially significant.

    For example, whereas during the Cultural Revolution it was said that every enterprise was a place where the class struggle went on and that production itself was pursued amid definite class relations and class contradictions, it is now said that an enterprise is above all a place of production, interpreting in a one-sided way and isolating from its context a phrase of Mao Tse-tung's. This same theme was taken up in April 1977 by Sung Chen-ming, secretary of the party committee at Taching, who went so far as to say: "Throughout the world, production is the principal concern of every factory, every country, and every nation." This is a formula which all the capitalists of the world repeat ad nauseam.

page 68

    In a different form, the same theme was expounded by the Chinese press in November 1977, when a series of documents were published which separated in mechanical fashion the class struggle from the struggle for production, thereby denying that these struggles are interconnected, and that the former basically dominates the latter. Thus, it was stated that "Revolution is the struggle of one class against another and aims at altering social relations between men; production is the struggle of man against nature. The laws governing production differ from the laws governing the class struggle" (document broadcast by Radio Peking on November 27, 1977).

    This formulation is completely silent about the fact that the "struggle against nature" always develops under definite social conditions, within definite class relations, and that the way it is carried on also involves class consequences. Marx explained all that long ago, and the Cultural Revolution drew the political deductions from it. Today, however, the leaders are trying to make people forget it so that they can practice the most vulgar "economism."

    This economism can be seen in Wang Chien's article in Hung Chi (no. 6, 1977), in which he defends the idea that a change in the production relations and in the superstructure in present-day China must be governed by the requirements of the "development of the productive forces," so as to "strengthen the material basis for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat." Here we find ourselves back with the theme of the primacy of the development of the productive forces, a theme rightly denounced during the Cultural Revolution and one which served the Soviet state bourgeoisie as an ideological weapon for extending and consolidating its power.

    In reality, this theme dominates the whole series of sixteen conferences held on the pretext of discussing On the Ten Major Relationships. This becomes apparent when we examine Hung Chi (no. 1, 1977). There is nothing here about the necessity for revolutionary transformation of production relations, though this transformation is the fundamental objective of the uninterrupted revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. All that is discussed is "adjusting those parts of

page 69

production relations" that hinder the development of the productive forces, because, we are told, the "aim of the socialist revolution is to emancipate the productive forces."

    We come back, here as well, to an economism which makes the productive forces, and not the class struggle, the fundamental revolutionary factor, so that this sort of statement can appear: "In the last analysis, the economic basis is the decisive factor in social progress, and the productive forces are the most active and revolutionary factor in the economic basis. Thus, in the last analysis, it is the productive forces that determine production relations" (NCNA, September 21, 1977).

    Thus the theses maintained by Liu Shao-chi at the Eighth Party Congress in 1956 reappear -- theses which, though still condemned in words, are now being reiterated without acknowledgment .

Back to the Theme
That a "Socialist System" Exists

    In order to provide a theoretical "foundation" for its economism and productivism, and to oppose any radical change in production relations (and so in the division of labor, in the privileges of the cadres and technicians, etc.), the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party returns to other old themes which the Cultural Revolution had made it possible to criticize. One of these was that of the "socialist system," a concept which tended to replace the concept of the transition to socialism and which fulfills the same function as that of the "socialist mode of production" in the ideology of the Stalin period and in Soviet revisionism.

    The commentaries devoted to the sixteen conferences that discussed On the Ten Major Relationships speak of the "socialist system" which was allegedly "established" in 1956 and which has now to be consolidated by developing the productive forces.

    At the heart of the concept of the "socialist system" we find the concept of "socialist ownership," which is itself identified with state ownership. These identifications signify that

page 70

recognition is no longer given to the existence of a series of contradictions, although this is in fact one of the main contributions of On the Ten Major Relationships, and that, even in the event that this is recognized, primacy is accorded to unity over contradiction.

    The seventh of the conferences declared: "Since the factories are owned by the state, the relation between the factories and the workers has, to some extent, been embodied in the relation between the state and the workers." The purpose of this "theoretical" rubbish is to claim that, since the workers are "masters of the state" and the state is "master of the factories," the workers are therefore "masters of the factories."

    In this way the contradictions of the transition to socialism (including those which were pointed out by Lenin in 1921) are simply denied. The workers have only to obey the orders they are given, for these orders are given them by themselves! A splendid dialectic, aimed at defending the interests of a state bourgeoisie!

    The same fundamental role attributed to "socialist ownership," or "public ownership," is proclaimed in many other writings. For example, when the emulation campaigns were launched, Jen-min Jih- pao of March 10, 1977, stated calmly that "under socialism the working people are the masters of society, and the relations within this society are relations of cooperation between comrades."

    The existence of the bourgeoisie is ignored and, of course, there is no question of recognizing its presence in the party and at the head of many enterprises. Thus some basic themes of the Cultural Revolution are repudiated.

    The typically revisionist refusal to recognize the existence of the fundamental contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat also enables Chi Chen to write in Hung Chi (no. 3, 1977): "In the socialist enterprises the working class is master. The basic interests of the workers, the cadres, and the technicians are identical. Their relations are relations of mutual aid and cooperation between comrades. At the same time, owing to the division of labor, differences continue to exist between manual work and mental work, and some contradictions sur-

page 71

vive. These are contradictions among the people." In this way the class struggle is denied, together with the decisive importance of the struggle to overcome the contradiction between manual and mental work.

    But it is not so easy to wipe out the teachings of the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. In particular, it is not easy to make people forget what was said during those years, especially by Chang Chun-chiao, who made a frontal attack (even if not always with sufficient clarity) on some of the problems presented by so-called socialist ownership. Certain "theoreticians" cannot avoid, therefore, recalling (while distorting so as to make criticism easier) some of Chang's statements. An example is provided by the article in Hung Chi (no. 5, 1977) in which Lin Chin-jan attacks the observations made by Chang Chun-chiao in a piece published in 1975 under the title: "Complete Dictatorship over the Bourgeoisie." We know that in this piece Chang sought to determine the nature of the limits to the socialist transformation of ownership in China, limits indicated by the current formulation stating that this transformation has been accomplished "in the main." By analyzing this problem Chang took an important step forward, for he stressed the juridical and formal aspects of this transformation. He showed the need for a revolutionary change in production relations, thereby epitomizing one of the central aims of the Cultural Revolution.[18]

    It is precisely this central aim of the Cultural Revolution, together with the theoretical formulations corresponding to it, that Lin Chin-jan attacks in his article. In order to make his attack convincing, Lin Chin-jan speaks of the "fundamental" completion of the socialist transformation of ownership and declares that, as a result of this "fundamental" completion, the class struggle has to develop mainly on the ideological and political fronts. Lin Chin-jan thus deletes that which is decisive, namely, the struggle waged by the workers themselves with a view to transforming the labor process and production and, thereby, production relations. He advocates substituting for the class struggle as this developed during the Cultural Revolution (a struggle concerned with the different forms of

page 72

the social division of labor) a "struggle of ideas," a struggle between "modern ideology" and the vestiges of "old" ideas. This abandonment of the class struggle implies the transformation of Marxism into its opposite. It enables the state bourgeoisie to attack demands which workers may advance, on the grounds that these are "incompatible with the development of the productive forces," and are due to the fact that these workers are still subject to the influence of "bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas."

    Lin Chin-jan's article continues as might be expected from the economistic nature of this thesis. From his conception of a "fundamental" socialist change of ownership, he concludes that the principal aspect of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat consists in developing a "powerful material basis." All this amounts to is substituting the struggle for production for the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and calling for the struggle for production to be led by experts and technicians. By following this road one can only strengthen the capitalist division of labor and those capitalist production relations which have not yet been destroyed.

    It seems that many Chinese workers and party cadres are not letting themselves be misled by these revisionist and economistic conceptions. The ideologists in the service of the present leadership therefore keep on returning to the problems raised by Chang Chun-chiao's article. An example is the article by Wang Hui-teh (Peking Review, no. 1, 1978) entitled: "Why Did Chang Chun-chiao Kick Up a Fuss over the Question of Ownership?" In this article Wang Hui-teh blames Chang Chun-chiao for repeating in 1975 a phrase uttered by Mao in April 1969, when he said: "It seems that it won't do not to carry out the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, for our foundation is not solid. Judging from my observations, I am afraid that in a fairly large majority of factories -- I don't mean all or the overwhelming majority of them -- leadership was not in the hands of genuine Marxists and the masses of workers."

    According to Wang there is no longer any need for concern with the problem of management of the enterprises, for,

page 73

thanks to the Cultural Revolution, "only the leadership in a very small number of factories was not in the hands of the proletariat," so that, since power is also held by the working class, the problem of socialist ownership has been "resolved."

    Wang's argument raises a series of questions. First, the question of the managerial personnel of the state enterprises. This question is explicitly mentioned by Wang, who declares that, thanks to the Cultural Revolution, it has been definitively settled in favor of socialism. But whence does Wang derive this "certainty"? Between 1969 and 1975, and, a fortiori, between 1976 and 1978, have not many things happened, in particular the return en masse of the right-wingers who had been eliminated by the Cultural Revolution? Do we not have grounds for supposing that the situation today is worse than in 1969?

    Finally, the problem of socialist ownership is also that of the class nature of state power. Chang Chun-chiao tried to deal with this problem dialectically (I do not claim that he entirely succeeded) by showing that the class nature of power is not fixed once and for all, that it is determined by the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle which goes on within the party, so that power is never "purely proletarian" but can pass into the hands of the state bourgeoisie (something that Mao also said when he declared that the Chinese Communist Party could, in certain circumstances, develop into a "fascist party"). But Wang declines, and with reason, to discuss these problems in that way. For him the questions of power and of ownership have been "solved," and he claims to "prove" this by resorting, tautologically, to quotations, which, moreover, he interprets in his own fashion. This method produces the following "reasoning": "First, 'China is a socialist country.' That is to say, our society is socialist in nature, not capitalist. Secondly, as for the economic base of our society, the system of ownership has already been changed from feudal, capitalist, and small-production private ownership into socialist public ownership. Thirdly, we must see to it that the supreme leadership of the party and state will not fall into the hands of bourgeois conspirators and careerists like Lin Piao.

page 74

Ours is a state under the dictatorship of the proletariat. . . ."

    What we have here is a series of assertions, not a demonstration. The first two assertions assume that the question has been settled. The last leaves absolutely open the "socialist ownership" question of what elements of bourgeois domination existed in 1975, and in what way the dictatorship of the proletariat was combined with its opposite, and the question of whether or not the class nature of the state was changed after the events of October 1976 and the installation in power of the group led by Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping.

    The problem of the nature of property relations and forms of appropriation cannot be solved except by concrete analyses of all the matters mentioned above. This is what Chang Chun-chiao was trying to do in his article, and what the ideologists of the present leadership cannot accept. For them there is no problem -- state ownership is "socialist" and the workers have only to "work hard" and "obey orders" in order to strengthen and extend this ownership. It is a thesis which negates the teachings of the Cultural Revolution and which serves the interests of the state bourgeoisie.

    One thing more about this question, so as to emphasize how dominant is a purely juridical (which means anti-Marxist ) conception of "socialist ownership." An example of this dominance is provided by the series of articles by Hsueh Mu-chiao published in Peking Review (nos. 49-52, 1977), in which he goes so far as to say that in 1953 it was enough for the state to transform some private capitalist enterprises into mixed enterprises, by investing capital in them, taking charge of supplying them with raw materials and marketing their products and sending in someone to manage them, for these enterprises to become" 'three-fourths' socialist" (Peking Review, no. 52, 1977). This is an absolute caricature of Marxism, and illustrates very well the nature of the "Marxism" practiced by the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Relations Between Agriculture and Industry, and
Between Heavy and Light Industry

    The same abandonment of Marxism in favor of a caricature

page 75

of Marxism is shown in connection with the relations between agriculture and industry, and between heavy and light industry. It proceeds in an extremely confused way owing to the formal "fidelity" proclaimed by the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party to the political line of Mao Tse tung, a "fidelity" which contradicts its actual practice.

    The result is more or less as follows (shown, for instance, by the report of the third conference devoted to On the Ten Major Relationships, which was broadcast by Radio Shanghai on February 10, 1977). On the one hand, the priorities accepted by the Chinese Communist Party under Mao's leadership are reaffirmed, in this order: agriculture, light industry, heavy industry. On the other hand, emphasis is placed on the "objective economic law of priority growth of the means of production" (which is, in fact, a law of capitalist development), whereas the development of agriculture is seen mainly from the standpoint of its contribution to the accumulation of capital. These points were repeated and accentuated in the report of the fourth conference (Radio Peking, February 3, 1977), devoted to the Soviet path of industrialization. This path is praised, with criticism confined to the "one-sided" character of the priority given to heavy industry at the expense of agriculture. Completely neglected is the problem of equilibrium in exchange between agricultural and industrial products.

    In short, here too we come back to an economistic and productivistic conception which is the "theoretical" expression of the present line. In this domain there is a return not merely to what prevailed before the Cultural Revolution, but even to conceptions that prevailed in China as far back as 1956.

The "Pace" of Development

    On the plane of class relations this backsliding is linked with the strengthening of the positions of the intelligentsia, the cadres, and the specialists, that is, of the state bourgeoisie (I shall endeavor later on to inquire into the conditions which have made this strengthening possible). This strengthening is reflected in the ever greater importance accorded to the "pace" of development.

page 76

    This question is at the heart of the preoccupations of the present leadership. Significantly, the central organs of the Chinese press made it the principal theme of their joint editorial published on New Year's Day 1978. Here were phrases such as the following which had disappeared from the Chinese press after the Cultural Revolution: "The speed of construction is not just an economic question, it is a serious political question. Why do we say the socialist system is superior? In the final analysis, it is because the socialist system can create higher labor productivity and make the national economy develop faster than capitalism. . . . The question at present is that we must advance at high speed instead of resting content with what we have achieved. . . . In a word, quickening the pace of economic construction is dictated by the development of international and domestic class struggles" (Peking Review, no. 1, 1978).

    Thus, acceleration of the "pace of development" is supposed to be "deduced" from the requirements of the class struggle, whereas, in fact, it is a matter of trying to substitute the struggle for production for the workers' class struggle, that is, to subject the workers to the "requirements" of rates of production, to demand of them more and more work and discipline.

    The stress thus laid upon the pace of production has a dual meaning on the plane of class relations. On the one hand, as I have said, it reflects the strengthening of the position of the intelligentsia, the cadres, and the specialists. On the other, it is a means of contributing to a further strengthening of these positions -- not only by subjecting the workers and peasants to increasingly severe labor discipline and work norms, but also by making the leading role assumed by the intelligentsia and the specialists seem a necessity. In this respect the editorial quoted is very significant, for it accords central importance to the intellectuals, to education, and to the acquisition of scientific knowledge. In this way the stress laid upon speeding up the pace of development also serves as an argument for attacking the reform of education carried out during the Cultural Revolution.

    On the plane of production relations, the stress laid on

page 77

speeding up the pace implies, since it is linked not with revolutionizing the production relations but with the increased role of "science" concentrated in the hands of "specialists," an increasing dominance of capitalist expanded reproduction, and so a growth in the rate of accumulation and in the demands of self-valorization of capital. It therefore implies submission of the workers to the demands of profit. Along the capitalist road which is thus being followed one necessarily comes up against the actual limits of capitalist accumulation, and this leads inevitably to economic crises which have grave repercussions on the standard of living of the masses and on the subsequent scope of the development of the productive forces.

    Soviet experience shows that, though these crises develop under specific conditions, they are nonetheless real. I have no room here to deal fundamentally with this problem, which I shall examine in detail in the third volume of Class Struggles in the USSR. The stress on speeding-up the pace calls for some further observations. In the first place, it is of the same order as the productivist slogan issued by Stalin in the 1930s: "Tempos decide everything." The application of this slogan led to the grave crises of 1932-33 and 1936-37, which were accompanied by unprecedented political convulsions and, after 1938, by a fundamental change in recruitment to the party, which became very largely a recruitment from the intelligentsia, a recruitment of cadres, technicians, and specialists.

    In the second place, the present leadership justifies its productivist line not only by invoking the alleged requirement that the "socialist order" must realize "rates of development higher than those of capitalism," but also the alleged necessity to "put an end to the protracted stagnation and even regression in the country's economy," said to be due to the doings of the Four. This "argument" is a flagrant falsehood. There has been no protacted stagnation or regression in the country's economy. Between 1965, the last year before the Cultural Revolution, and the most recent years for which we have estimates, there was no stagnation. Production of electric power increased from 42 to 108 billion kwh (in 1974), production of steel from 12.5 to 32.8 million tons (in 1974), of coal from 220 to 389 million

page 78

tons (in 1974), and of oil from 10.8 to between 75 and 80 million tons (in 1975).[19] To speak of a protracted period of stagnation, and even of regression, is in complete conflict with reality, and is aimed merely at slandering the Cultural Revolution itself.

    The increase in production has been even greater where production of machinery is concerned. The overall index for this branch of production, taking 100 = 1957 as the base year, rose from 257 in 1965 to 1,156 in 1975. These figures are taken from a source so unfriendly as the CIA's handbook![20]

    In 1975-76, to be sure, difficulties arose, but these were in the main political difficulties, connected with the acute struggle between the revolutionary line and the revisionist line of Teng Hsiao-ping. In the second half of 1976 there were also difficulties arising from the Tangshan earthquake. Thus attributing the problems which appeared then to "interference and sabotage by the Gang of Four" completely distorts the facts. Actually, the Four never "controlled" the economy, and if there was "sabotage" it may be suspected that responsibility for this lies with those who were in charge of production -- either because they wanted to be able to blame the Four for their own misdeeds, or because their treatment of the workers provoked various manifestations of discontent, including strikes which the Four may well have supported. In any case, it is a typically bourgeois line of thought to declare that, when strikes occur, responsibility for them lies with "agitators."

    Even with the difficulties mentioned above, the available information for 1976 does not show any signs of "protracted stagnation" or "regression." Thus in 1975, production of coal was estimated at 430 million tons, while in 1976 production of oil increased by 13 percent, and production of natural gas increased by 11 percent. During the first quarter of 1976 overall industrial production was 13.4 percent more than in the same period of 1975, and during the first half of 1976 it was 7 per cent more than in the same period in 1975.[21] So far as I know there are no figures available for the second half of 1976.

    It may be that, because of the events of 1976, some branches

page 79

of production may momentarily have declined, but that does not signify a protracted period of stagnation or regression.

    The foregoing remarks do not in the least imply that a certain acceleration of pace is not desirable and possible, but this acceleration will not be lasting if the basic lines of the Cultural Revolution are abandoned and the class struggle reduced completely to the struggle for production.

    Actually, this reduction amounts to the enslavement of the working people for the purposes of a bourgeoisie striving to increase profit. It implies a renunciation of the workers' class struggle for the revolutionary change of production relations and of social relations as a whole.

The Revisionist Ideology of the Neutrality of Science and
Technology

    The effects of turning Marxism into its opposite, which is characteristic of the ideology of the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, can of course, be observed in all spheres. There is one sphere, though, that I must specially mention -- that of science and technology. Here the ideology of the opponents of the Cultural Revolution is marked by its presentation of science and technology as socially "neutral." They thus deny that the way in which science and technology develop depends on the predominant class relations, and that the application of different techniques involves definite class effects. This is obviously the case with the forms of technology developed in the imperialist countries. As a rule, they cannot be purely and simply "taken over" in order to serve development along the socialist road: they, too, need to be transformed. This point of view was widely present during the Cultural Revolution. Today it is being forgotten.

    The extreme point in this denial of the class determination of techniques occurs where "management techniques" are concerned. For example, Jen-min Jih-pao of March 22, 1977, criticized the formulation according to which, in management, one needs to pay attention to three aspects -- "the line, the

page 80

leadership, and mutual relations." It criticized this formulation because it makes no mention of "the most important question, that of developing the productive forces." The question of developing the productive forces is indeed important, but to say that it is the most important means giving it precedence over class relations, and so taking up a productivist position.

    It must be noted, moreover, that the yardstick of "scientificness" occupies a central place in the attempt being made by the present ideologists to eliminate the essential question of class relations. Thus, this same article in Jen-min Jih-pao emphasizes that "it is necessary to have a scientific attitude in the managing of modern enterprises. . . . In the managing of modern enterprises it is necessary to employ a number of scientific methods."

    The statement reporting the fifteenth conference devoted to On the Ten Major Relationships (Radio Peking, February 14, 1977) goes so far as to declare that it is necessary to keep that which is "scientific" in the "advanced techniques of the capitalist countries" in the matter of the "management of enterprises." This formulation presupposes that capitalist management belongs to the sphere of "universal" science and that the working class can manage production units in the same way as capitalist enterprises are managed.

    Let it be noted that the Jen-min Jih-pao document refers to a "quotation" from On the Ten Major Relationships which is more than dubious, being obviously falsified and adapted to "current taste." In the version of On the Ten Major Relationships which is now officially circulated, we read the following sentences, which in a number of ways fails to correspond either to Mao's style or to the manner in which he deals with problems: "We must firmly reject and criticize all the decadent bourgeois systems, ideologies, and ways of life of foreign countries. But this should in no way prevent us from learning the advance sciences and technologies of capitalist countries and whatever is scientific in the management of their enterprises."

    In the version of On the Ten Major Relationships which was circulated by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, Mao said nothing like this. This version contained no

page 81

stereotyped formula about "decadent bourgeois ideologies," and said nothing about the "scientific" character of the management of enterprises in the capitalist countries. Mao Tse-tung spoke much more simply.[22] Clearly, Mao Tse-tung's words have been tampered with so as to "justify" the resort to capitalist methods of management by covering this with his authority. The present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is here taking the same road as those Soviet revisionists who are "learning management" in business schools in the United States.

    This "modification" of one of Mao Tse-tung's writings is not an isolated case; this is a regular practice of the new leadership. As another example, in the current version of On the Ten Major Relationships a phrase has been introduced which did not appear in previous versions, a phrase which emphasizes the need for strong centralism, running counter to Mao's emphasis upon decentralization. The phrase in question runs as follows: "To build a powerful socialist country it is imperative to have a strong and unified central leadership . . . " (Peking Review, no. 1, 1977).

    In general, what is characteristic of the ideology accepted to day by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and in conflict with the theses of Mao Tse-tung developed during the Cultural Revolution, is its tendency to present science and technology as "neutral," like the productive forces. The idea that there is both a socialist and a capitalist development of the productive forces, and that only the former promotes control by the workers over the means of production, has completely disappeared. Now there is only general talk about "development of the productive forces." This is closely linked with the thesis according to which, as soon as the "socialist system" exists, everything that develops its "material basis" must strengthen "socialism . "

Dogmatism and Revisionism

    One might go on examining the ideological themes which the present leadership uses to justify its resort to revisionist

page 82

practices, practices which no longer have anything in common with the Cultural Revolution. However, I do not think this is necessary, since what has been said is conclusive enough. I wish therefore to end this section of my letter by simply saying that what characterizes present-day Chinese revisionism is its combination of narrowly empiricist practices and an ideology dominated by dogmatism.

    This dogmatism is shown by the fact that instead of carrying out a concrete analysis of social and political realities, the revisionists proceed by means of assertions and by using quotations from the "classics" of Marxism and from Mao Tse-tung, isolated from their context (and even, as we have seen, sometimes distorted or invented). Moreover, no account is taken of the development of the theoretical conceptions of the thinkers quoted. Thus passages from Mao Tse-tung dating from before the Cultural Revolution are put on the same footing as passages from the Cultural Revolution period. Or, more precisely, the older quotations are given precedence over the more recent ones. This does not happen by accident, of course: the more recent passages are rich with an entire experience of struggle against the bourgeoisie in the party, an experience which is highly embarrassing for the present leadership.

    Finally, the dogmatism of the period which opened at the end of 1976 is marked by a desire to present fundamental theoretical problems as having been "solved," with a view to preventing further progress in analyses along the line opened up since the Cultural Revolution. In this connection it is highly significant that it has been stated that Mao "created the complete and masterly theory of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" (Wu Kiang, Jen-min Jih-pao, September 17, 1977). Saying that the theory is "complete" means no longer permitting anything but commentaries on it, and thus means putting forward a metaphysical proposition which forbids any elaboration or further research. It means trying to sterilize theory and cause it to wither, for if theory fails to advance it must retreat. In fact, what we see is an attempt to use Mao Tse-tung's theory against Mao Tse-tung. There is little difference between Wu Kiang's "complete

page 83

theory" and Lin Piao's "absolute authority of Mao Tse-tung Thought."

    Thus, at all levels we observe a "leap backward." This can not be denied, unless one is unwilling to face reality because one feels, without being ready to admit it, that this reality compels us to examine problems we thought had been "solved," or would prefer not to believe exist (and I think that this is your attitude, my dear Neil Burton). Or else one denies that there has been a "leap backward" because one has always thought, or now thinks, that the Cultural Revolution was "harmful." This is, I believe, the view of most of the present leaders, who glorify in a one-sided way the achievements of the first seventeen years of the People's Republic of China (1949-66), while saying practically nothing about the revolutionary phase which opened in 1966. True, they do not venture to repudiate expressly and openly these last ten years of the Chinese Revolution, but their very silence on the revolutionary implications of those years confirms that they take up the position of the bourgeoisie.

    The present situation being as I have described, it now remains to understand how matters have got to this state. This question is vital, for the answers involve lessons for the present and the future.

    Actually, this question has several aspects. The first is essentially concerned with the course taken by events. It relates to the political conditions most immediately surrounding the de feat of the "revolutionary line," a defeat which became obvious after the death of Mao Tse-tung. Knowledge of these events, which in any case can at present be only fragmentary, informs us only partially as to the underlying causes of the defeat. It is nonetheless necessary for understanding the characteristic features of the present situation.

Remarks on the Meaning of the Expression
"Revolutionary Line"

    Before proceeding to examine the conditions attending the defeat of the "revolutionary line," I think something needs to

page 84

be said on the meaning of the expression I have put between quotation marks. This is necessary because the expression can be misleading, all the more so when the line is "personalized" by being called "Mao Tse-tung's political line."

    In reality, an actual political line never "materializes" the orientations laid down by the highest levels of a party, even a centralized party, or by the leader who stands at the head of this party. The actual political line always depends on the social forces (classes, or social strata, or elements drawn from these classes and strata) which give it life.

    It corresponds only partly to the orientations of principle to which it appeals, for it is heavily marked by the special aspirations and interests of these social forces. Their aspirations depend, inter alia, on the conception they have of the "interests of the community" -- a conception which is inevitably affected by the position they occupy in the system of social relations. This implies that there can be a more or less considerable gap between the political line of principle proclaimed by the leading bodies of a party and the actual political line.[23] The latter depends fundamentally on the social forces which give it its real content, and whose interests, aspirations, and conceptions it materializes.

    It is therefore wrong to identify a party's actual political line with the orientations of a particular leader or leading body. This line is not the form assumed by their "directives." It is the result of an ideological and political intervention in an objective process. It may modify the course taken by this process, but only within limits imposed by the relations of strength between classes, relations on which it exercises an influence which is far from being "sovereign."

    The identification, in political practice, of an actual line with the guidance given by a leading political body or individual leader (even when this line diverges more or less profoundly from the guidance in question) is not necessarily due to "stratagems" or systematic "deception." It arises from the conditions under which political struggles take place when the only policy officially "legitimized" is that which is laid down by a supreme authority.

page 85

    Thus the Chinese Communist Party accepts that the political line applied in China since the founding of the People's Republic is the line "defined by the party and by Chairman Mao," that is, the "basic line" of the party. This line is therefore considered to have been "applied" in the periods when Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao wielded substantial power. Even in these periods, it is said, the "basic line" was being applied "in the main," despite "interferences" by an "enemy line," or "sabotage" of the official line.

    Consequently, the divergences between the official orientations and the actual line are both admitted and denied. The resulting confusions are due to the very procedure (which is in fact an idealist method) whereby the actual political line is related, first and foremost, to a "system of ideas" and decisions taken "in the name of" these ideas, instead of being related explicitly to the social forces which embody the actual political line. It is true that, in dealing with current history, this procedure is often unavoidable, because exposure of the social forces which embody a given political line is not always possible.

    These observations do not apply only to the political history of the People's Republic of China. They apply to all social formations in which the actual political line is regarded as being defined and fixed by the highest instances of a ruling party, and in which it appears as having been so fixed. This appearance, connected with the existence of certain political relations, may engender a myth of "united leadership" and "monolithism," or, as its counterpart, a myth of "totalitarianism."

    The Soviet Communist Party has also constantly encountered the problem, at once false and real, of "divergences" between the proclaimed political line and the actual political line, these usually being spoken of as examples of "violation" of the line. In some periods this "violation" was attributed to "shortcomings in organizational work," as, for example, at the Seventeenth Congress of the CPSU in 1934, when it was said that "organization decides everything' (see the Russian report of this congress, published in Moscow in 1934, especially pp. 33 and 619). Later this "violation" was blamed on the activity of

page 86

"enemies," on "sabotage," on "survivals from the past," and so forth. In any case, what matters is that there is both explicit admission of the conflict between the line of principle and the actual line (this being described as "violation") and an inability to "think" this conflict in terms of real social forces.

    If we turn back to the political line which actually prevailed during the Cultural Revolution, we therefore would need to stress that this line -- which, as a whole, was not repudiated by Mao, even though he may have criticized several aspects of it -- was not simply the "materialization" of political orientations given in the resolutions of the Chinese Communist Party and the writings of its chairman. In order to understand the real and complex social nature of this line, one would need to undertake a differentiated analysis, and this is not at present feasible. Only such an analysis would show what the social forces (classes and sections of classes ) were which actually "intervened," socially or ideologically, in the political scene. These social forces were the "agents" of what appeared as the political line of Mao Tse-tung, and which to a large extent determined the content of this line.

    It is therefore only with many reservations that we can use the expression "Mao Tse-tung's political line" to describe the line which was dominant between 1966 and 1976.

    We must not lose sight of the fact that using the name of a particular leader to describe a certain political line involves a number of negative consequences. Indeed, when the leader in question is held in high esteem, such use of his name can have a very intimidating effect. It tends to discourage critical analysis of the political line, to create a situation in which "argument from authority" takes the place of a thorough examination of the facts and principles. This substitution may entail profoundly harmful consequences. It contributes to engendering an atmosphere in which what certain leaders say is regarded as being "necessarily correct," and discourages the masses and the party members from putting forward their own opinions.

    The use of the term "revolutionary line" also calls for reservations. Actually, any and every political line is marked by the social and political forces (which are not all revolutionary in

page 87

character) that participate, directly or indirectly, in its application, and even in its elaboration. Despite these reservations, I use these expressions here because, in the given conditions, the principal aspect of the line which prevailed between 1966 and 1976 was such that we can say that this line was the most revolutionary and also the closest (in spite of enormous divergences) to Mao Tse-tung's conceptions of principle, which was why, in the main, he gave it his support.

    Having said this, let us return to considering the conditions in which this line suffered defeat.

The Immediate Political Conditions of the Defeat of
"Mao Tse-tung's Political Line" Following His Death

    I shall say only a few words about these conditions. First, Hua Kuo-feng's accession to power resulted from a coup d'état. This coup d'état began a political turn leading to the substitution of a revisionist and bourgeois line for the previous revolutionary and proletarian line. The order of the most important events is well known. There were other events on which our information is scanty or inadequate. I shall confine myself to the following points.

    Immediately after Mao's death on September 9, 1976, the unity of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party around the political line followed until that time did not seem to be openly broken. All the leaders took part in the ceremonies in memory of Chairman Mao held between September 11 and 18, and Wang Hung-wen was a member of the Funeral Committee (Peking Review, no. 38, 1976).

    On September 18, Hua Kuo-feng made a speech reaffirming the fundamental themes of the revolutionary line. He noted that classes and class contradictions persist throughout the transition to socialism. He reaffirmed the thesis of the special features of the class struggle during the transition. He quoted Mao's formulation concerning Teng Hsiao-ping and his supporters; "You are making the socialist revolution, and yet do not know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party -- those in power taking the capitalist road. The

page 88

capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road" (Peking Review, no. 39, 1976).

    In this same speech Hua Kuo-feng stated that the Cultural Revolution had "smashed the schemes of Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao, and Teng Hsiao-ping for restoration, and criticized their counter-revolutionary revisionist line" (ibid.). He added that it was necessary to "deepen the struggle to criticize Teng Hsiao-ping and repulse the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts" (ibid.).

    The days that followed saw the appearance of signs of tension among the leaders. It seems that on September 19, Hua took possession of Mao Tse-tung's personal papers and on September 29 there was a stormy session (of the Political Bureau?) at which Hua accused the Four of having altered some of Mao's statements. However, on the evening of September 30 the entire leadership was present at a "forum" held in the hall on top of Tien An-men Gate.[24]

    During the very first days of October one could observe, if one read the press attentively, the appearance of divergent formulations. Then on October 6 Hua Kuo-feng, relying on the security forces and on the military leaders of North China, carried out his coup d'état, arresting the Four (it is said that they are still alive). During these operations Mao Yuan-hsin, a nephew of Mao Tse-tung's, was killed, as was Ma Hsiao-liu, head of the Peking workers' militia.[25] On October 8, in the most dubious of circumstances, some members of established leading bodies having been deprived of their liberty and others having been threatened with arrest, Hua Kuo-feng had himself "appointed" chairman of the Central Committee and chairman of the Central Committee's Military Affairs Commission, while retaining the post of prime minister. At the same time, he had himself assigned the monopoly on publishing and interpreting the works of Mao Tse-tung. All these decisions were announced in the name of the "Central Committee," which in fact had not met.[26] From October 10 on, a campaign was launched against the Four, who were accused of "revisionism" and of "weaving plots and intrigues." At the same time, an appeal for discipline was issued.

page 89

    For the moment, Hua's "appointment" to the chairmanship was reported discreetly in the newspapers.[27] Only on October 21 were great demonstrations announced, to "acclaim" the "appointment" of Hua and to "celebrate the crushing of the Gang of Four." Thereupon, in complete conflict with historical truth, it was declared that Mao had been against the Four. On October 28 Chang, Yao, and Wang were stripped of all their functions in Shanghai; criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping, however, remained officially on the agenda.[28]

    The joint editorial in Jen-min Jih-pao and Chiehfangchun Pao on October 25 strove to "show" that the "Central Committee decision" appointing Hua Kuo-feng chairman of the party had been taken in conformity with a decision made on April 30, 1976, by Chairman Mao. This allegation testifies to the existence in the Chinese party of some doubts regarding the regularity of this appointment, so that it was necessary to endow Hua with a different form of "legitimacy," namely, designation by Chairman Mao himself. Actually, such "legitimacy" could not apply in a Communist Party that was operating in accordance with its own rules. Besides, there was nothing to base it on, for the phrase of Mao's that was now constantly quoted -- "With you in charge, I'm at ease" -- does not indicate to whom it was addressed, nor what this person was "in charge" of.

    In any case, from the end of October on, Hua put himself forward as Mao's sole legitimate successor, and set in motion a sort of "cult" of his personality. Thereafter his photograph appeared increasingly frequently, side by side with Mao's and in the same format.[29]

    Starting in November, calls for discipline became more frequent, and a decision was announced to reestablish "rational rules and regulations in the factories." At the same time a campaign of calumny was launched against the Four -- a campaign so clearly mendacious that there is no need for any reply; it merely discredits those who are responsible for it.[30]

    Criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping stopped at the end of November.[31] In December productivist slogans became increasingly more frequent.

page 90

    In January 1977 various demonstrations calling for Teng's return were reported. In February the minister of foreign af fairs, Huang Hua, said that Teng would return "at the opportune moment." In March Hua Kuo-feng proposed, at a working meeting of the Central Committee, that Teng again be given responsibilities. It was then that the campaigns of "socialist emulation" began, with the announcement of accelerated mechanization of agriculture. At that moment Teng seems to have returned to political activity in practice.

    At the end of June 1977 Jen-min Jih-pao praised Teng's ideas, which had previously been criticized, and endorsed his criticisms of the revolutionary line (henceforth presented as the line of the Four).

    The situation at the top had evolved in such a way that Teng now returned openly to political activity. At the third session of the Central Committee (July 16-21, 1977) Hua was officially appointed chairman and Teng recovered all his previous powers. At the Eleventh Party Congress (August 2-18, 1977) Teng made the closing speech.

    Thus, sixteen months after having been removed from all his duties, Teng got them all back. The Chinese people did not receive any real explanation of what had happened. They were simply told that two mutually contradictory decisions had been adopted unanimously by the party's central bodies. The first decision was announced like this: the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party "unanimously agrees to dismiss Teng Hsiao-ping from all posts both inside and outside the party" (Peking Review, no. 15, 1976). The second was formulated as follows: the third plenary session of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party "unanimously adopted the 'Resolution on Restoring Comrade Teng Hsiao-ping to his posts'" (Peking Review, no. 31, 1977).

    But this about-face did not take place "peacefully." It was the culmination of an acute class struggle in which the security organs played a big part. Although official information regarding their role and the various forms of repression used is scarce, when we put together such information as we have, including information provided by foreigners who were in China

page 91

until recently, it becomes apparent that repression was (and still is), being carried out on a large scale. In all the provinces for which we possess information there have been not only arrests but also executions, and the latter seem to have been exceptionally numerous.[32] The press, too, has emphasized the role played by the security organs, especially toward the end of 1977 (e.g., in Jen-min Jih- pao, November 27 and 28).

    Throughout 1977 repression was accompanied by a mass "purge" of the party. Information is scarce here too, so that we cannot gauge the magnitude of the operation, but according to some travelers who have come back from China and who were able to talk with officials of a certain rank, it would appear that one-third of the cadres were "purged." These were mainly those cadres who had come up from the ranks during the Cultural Revolution. This purge is being accompanied by a mass return of those cadres who had been purged previously. Consequently, the Chinese Communist Party at the end of 1977 was much closer in the composition of its cadres to what it was in 1965 than to what it was in October 1976.

    Parallel with the return of the Rightists we note that Teng Hsiao-ping's position is being strengthened: his close collaborators are taking over more and more key posts, notably in the Central Committee's department of organization (which decides appointments, transfers, promotions, and dismissals in all the party's bodies),[33] in other central departments, and in a number of provinces.

    At the same time, stress is increasingly being laid on production, which "takes precedence over the class struggle" (Jen-min Jih-pao, December 12, 1977). This process is also accompanied by the creation of new targets for criticism. These targets have not yet been clearly designated, but it is possible to discern them amidst various changes of formulation. Thus the formulation calling for criticism of "Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao, and the Gang of Four" is now often replaced by one which omits the name of Liu Shao-chi. It is now from time to time noted that "we need to counterattack not only against the Right but also against the 'Left'" -- the last word being put between quotation marks to show that what is meant is not really Left. This

page 92

declaration seems aimed at opening the way for a new campaign of criticism, as Jen-min Jih-pao of December 12, 1977, which carried it, added: "Not a few persons have proved incapable of distinguishing the real Left from the fake Left." At the beginning of 1978 this campaign continues, especially in the army paper, which attacks (without naming anyone) "those who change direction with the wind," are experts in the "180-degree turn,"[34] and try to escape from their own responsibilities by joining in the criticism of the Four. Should this orientation be confirmed, it seems certain to lead to fresh purges which would strike at those who were active in criticizing Teng and then showed the same zeal against the Four.[35]

    This review of the "events" which accompanied and followed the coup d'état of October 1976 is necessary if we are to ap