crisis of and development of agriculture. Chinese Stalinism dustry and agriculture. Before the crackdown: mass rallies of students spread to the largest city, Shanghai what its consequences have heen. To sary to attempt an understanding of Ged state, with a single currency was begun. The Mao Zedong leadership. on the development of heavy industry. Chinese leaders adopted this road, and the drift af the Chinese economy, su- cial struggles and politics since the The victory of the revolution in 1949 created the basis to begin the created; large industry was bit-by-bit cuts to the former capitalist owners) and the collectivisation of agriculture Stalin's Russia, put the main emphasis Between 1949 and 1951/2 a single un- get in grips with this it is really neces- process of industrialisation in China. taken over (although with huge pay- copying the pattem of development in at the expense nf resources to light in 'Cultural Revolution' From the 'Great Leap Forward' to the paved the way for the dramatic events in Beijing. 19.50k. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 16, June 1989 The extraordinary anti- bureaucratic movement of the and injustices created by the Chinese students and workers has arisen from the inequalities home-grown version of market socialism', a precursor of 'perestroika' in the Soviet tahlishment of a strong private sector in industry ‹partially in collaboration toration of the profit motive as the guiding force in the cconomy, In has also meant huge attacks on the basic gone much further than in the Soviet Union: what we want to attempt to answer here in the question why the tivisation of agriculture, the re-es- with international capital and the res- equality enjoyed by the Chinese working class (the so-called iron rice 'Market socialism" in China has riglits of employment and wage- This has involved the de-collec Union. howl). PHOTO:J. Greening/Reflex
meant more concessions to which existed in the Soviet "conservative" form of rule Union, In practice this and *stable! more
peasanis, a slower raie of move away from China's rhetoric Iowards a more open embracing of peace- industrialisation and a intemational revolutionary the rich and middle
youth against the leadership majority. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 16, June 1989 sonality, the sayings of Mao's Little tion of "bourgcois culture thrust In effect Man Zedong represented a minority in the leadership of tie party and went outside its formal structures to mobilise millions of Far from being a democratic mass was a reign of terror and philistinisma in which thousands were murdered. tortured and humiliated by Mao's youthful zealots. Liu Shaoqi died in him. Peng Dehuai eventually died in jail in 1974 after being tortured more than 130 times and kept in harbanc conditions. The cult of Mao's per- Red Book" and the fanatical destruc- ponents. Millions of high school and university youth were mobilised as loyal to Mao and the army to defcal top party people in authority taking movement the Cultural Revolution prison in 1968 after being brutally tor- tines. Widely acclairned by the left in bureaucratism and the continuation of the class struggle under socialism, it was in fact a struggle by Mao and the left-bureacratic faction in the leader- ship, to defeat their factional op- 'Red Guards! by sections of the party The Cultural Revolution was one of the most momentous - and most misunderstood - events of modem the West as a fight against an any coup (with over one million dead). Many Chinese After the Indonesian defeat Mao left: Beijing and went to Shanghai for six months, leaving participation in the leadership bodies of the party and state, In faci Mao had gone in Shan- ghai where the party leadership was loyal to him in order to prepare his counter-attack. Out of it came the China into checurantisan and chaos. struggle. In August of that Communist Party, which co-ordinated its strategy closely with Beijing, was massacred by Icaders blamed Mao for the fiasco: ful co-existence with im- 1965 was a key tuming point in this factional year the pro-Chinese In- tured in struggle sessions" Prolctarian the capitalist road'. Bureaucratic voluntarism: building a canal near Beijing during the 'Great Leap Forward" Shaoqi (Lau Shao-chi) and ... Deng Xiaoping. The debate het ween tlie twn form of bureaucratic rule. Deng and Liu opposed the left policy of hureaucratic mass mohilisation and voluntaristic lurches, and looked to the But out of the events leading up to the Lushan conference, two distinct factions bad emerged in the leadership - that led hy Mao and including as a moderating influence Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), and the other led by Liu was essentially a dehate about the old time CP leader /hang Wentian, proceedings of the Lushan conference have never heen published, but in its wake the Great Leap was abandoned. the communes were scaled down or yard steel production was ahandoned. On the other hand, Mao's political leadership emerged strengthened. to a head at the "Lushan conference" (so named after the city in which the in August 1959. Ranged against the Mao leadership was Peng Dehani, and The debate over the Great Leap. and forcign and military policy came Central Committee plenum was held) tacitly supported by the mayor of Bei ing Peng Zhen (Peng Chen) The warfare, "peoples war'. The link of this debate with foreign policy was of Pong Dehuai tended towards an alliance with the Soviet Union, while Sino-Soviet relations disbanded and the experiment in hack course that the only realistic source of Chinese troops during the Korean war, perialism. Mao on the other hand stressed the importance of guerrilla the most up-to-date weapons was the (Peng Teh-huai), commander of the side the international communist movement. Army leader Peng Dehuai stressed the need for a modem conven- tional weapons and a modern conven- tional army to meet the threat of im- were coming under heavy strain. Peng Dehuai was purged. Soviet Union. to a huge fight inside the upper ranks The debate over the Great Leap began to intersect with a struggle over and industry was distocated by tens of thousands of ad hoc experiments in stocl production. A huge drought in 1959 further added to the carastrophe. It is now known that millions of peasants died of starvation as a direct result of the crisis. The Great Leap led military policy and the debates in The whole exercise can be described cal of Mao Zedong'sthought Its result was disastrous all round. The whole economy went into anarchy and crisis, as agriculture became less productive sessions were confiscated A semi- The Great Leap was hailed. by idealistic foreign observers as one of the great breakthrughs in developing countries of the century. In fact it had some parallels with the forcible collec. livisation of the peasantry in Russin. as left-hureaucratic voluntarism, typi- Communes' cach of thousands of Everywherc ad-hoc iron and steel yards, both in the towns and in the countryside. The peasants were cocreed into the Communes. All private property of the peasants, in- cluding land plots and personal pos Mao decided to attempt to hreak out of peasantry — the 'Great Leap Forward' Maoist leadership, as we shall show. In the Greal Leap millions of peasants were organised into giant Pcoples people. The Communes were to be giant centres of agricultural produc tion and at the same time rural-in- producing units were set up in back hundred flowers bloom' campaign) the vicious circle by an extmordinary voluntarist mobilisation of the The Great Leap Forward is seminal in understanding the character of the of the bureaucratic apparatus, military discipline prevailed production anarchy and bureaucratic Leap can be voluntarism, thought. Its "The Great disastrous result was The whole described all round. typical of Zedong's economy went into crisis" as left- Page 12 Mao
E The Red Guards were used as the shock troops to smash regional and local party organisations op- posed la Mao. Key to his allian- the Icadership of the CCA WAS
рет- Peoples Libera- sonified by army leader Lin Biao Army (PLA). lion
(Lin Piao). His text *Long Live the of (1965) is the People's War" Victory famous
do menial countryside. tural Pace 13 Guards; after they factional op- "Mao closed Red were demobilised thousands work in the But the Cul- Revolution had achieved its aim: Mao had defeated his ponents" down the were sent to had been named as Mao's successor, take revenge on political opponents, committee in Shanghai. At the outsel of the Cultural Revolution Lin Biao and this was even written into the con- stitution. But in 1970-71 the struggle between the two groups intensitied, come notorious as the "Gang of Four' - gained the upperhand. Lin Biaodied in 1971, allegedly in a plane crash near the Mongolian border, attempting to 1976, Deng Xiaoping, who had en- joyed Zhou's protection, was dis- missed and fled to Canton. In Septem- her Mao himself died and a throe-way struggle for power hroke out Jiang Qing's Gang of Four represented the politics of extreme 'third periodist" ultra-left burescrative commandism. Jiang, who had used her position to and had run her own torture chambers during the Cultural Revolution. wanted a return to the more extreme policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution itself. Deng, in hiding, now formed an al- liance with Zhoa Ziyang and con- stituted a 'night' opposition. A centre group was led by Hua Guofeng, who, it emerged, had been nominated by gle developed between the Gang of Four and the Hua Guofeng group. The Gang plotted to carry out a military with the support of the revolutionary Afler Zhou Enlai's death in January With Deng in hiding the real strug and Jiang Qing's group -later to be The heyday of the Cultural Revolution: a huge parade in Kweichow province escape to the Soviet Union' Mao as his successor. revolutionary cadres' and the PLA. In tion tumed tens of thousands of party During the Cultural Revolution a cially on the PLA commanders, and became the building of "three in one" fact this meant demohilising the Red do menial work in the countryside. But The victory of the Mao faction was however pyhhric. Mao and his allies had won the factional baitle, but the tions to transform social relations mation. The basis was thereby crealed for a future clash among the different factions of the hureaucracy after the other by Mao's wife Jiang Oing, Guard committees under the tutelage withour having first created the The new line of the Macist faction revolutionary committees. The com- mittees were to consist of Red Guards, of the army and the party, Mao closed down the Red Guards; after their demobilisation thousands were sent to the Cultural Revolution had achieved its aim: Mao had defcated his faction- havne wrought hy the cultural revolu cadresagainst the leftist bureaucratic commandisni of Mao, with its ambi- material conditions forsuch a transfor- battle had broken out betwen dif- Ferent cliques in the pro-Mao faction. One was led hy Lin Biao, based espe From the Cultural revolution to the death of Mao Mao's death in 1976. al opponents: paratus. SOCILIST OUTLOOK no 16. June 1989 conflict. Mao instructed the PLA to despite the huge effort at organising them by the PLA. In industrial centres workers fought back against the Red Guard thugs. Different factions workers fighting over what was the correct interpretation of Mao Zedong ties using firearms and even annoured cars were foueht berween different factions of the Red Guards: more and more local workers organisations and the army were drawn into the military support the left" in these struggles, profusion of Red Guard and revolt- tionary rehel groups fighting one When Mao had declued bombard the headquarters' he had in mind of course the headquarters of Liu Shaogi and Deng Xiaoping Too many Red quarters they could find, including some Red Guards who started to ex- press, in a tentative way, opposition to all bureaucracy. In carly 1968 Mao. especially under precsure from Zhou Enlai, decided to put an end to the movement. A key tuming pout was committee in Shanghai to create a •Paris Commune'-type administration of the city, afler months of bloody military battles bad given the commit- lee victory over the Tocal party ap- emerged amongst the youth and thought. In many towns, pitched bat- but it became impossible, in the another to decide who the left war. The country was brought to the brink Guards started to homhand any hear- the decision by the revnlutionary of economic and political collapse. classic statement mass movement the of Mao's line on military policy the 'rightist" views Inevitably. goncrated by the Red Guards got out of control, of Peng Zehuai. however. against
AL UP P coup, hut on the night of Sth October 1976 Hua, Bejing garrison to arrest the Gang al a meeting of preemptory strike. Hua became the new leader. promising 'continuity" with Mao's policies. But the defeat of the Gang of Four repre- sented something cru- cial in the battle over China's future: since the end of the Cultural Revolution the Com- supported by Wang Dongxing and Ye Jianying, axed the the Politburo in a written three by the Gang documents (described poisonous of Four as weeds') in outlined a Deng had the three which he "In 1975
bureaucratic errors appeared on a mont was tolerated by the Dengists who saw it as useful in their battle official journads debating every aspect el democracy and the conomic way broad sections of the mansos as the more enlightened, anti burenucratic leader. Suddenly posters claiming that stretch of wall opposite the Man museum and around Tienanmen Square. Thin democracy wall" move- against Hua: Almost immediately un- No sign of socialism: hard abour in a basket workshop in a Man Zedong: adopled along the lines of the four and the recreation of private peasant farming - although without abolishing ques, bonuses for high production. The essence of the four modemisa- a) de-collectivisation of agriculture b) the modernisation of industry utilising Western management techni- profit and loss accounting, and a tions is as follows: all co-operatives: modemisations!, style People's Commune critical tuming poit because it was The defeat of the 'gang' represented sion to power of Hua Gunfeng. The party apparatus began to prepare the The period 1976-80 represents a the posthumous revenge of the party apparatus on Mao, despite the acces Modernisations' The Four end of all Mao's policies. munist Party itself, vir- tually destroyed by the Red Guards, had been rebuilt. Purged cadres ses had gradually got back their positions. and regional party bos 'new course' for China's develop- ment"
The Tienanmen Square incident of close to Trotskyism and anti-Stalinist pressed. A National Association of April 1976, and the Democracy come of the current developtients in China. In both these movements and literary jourals appeared, by a real dissidents movement developed with hundreds of journalsnation wide. Un- like the Soviet dissidents at that time, xism and the correct form of proletarian dictatorship. Views very forward appeared. Many purely the Chinese dissidents nearly all ex- pressed themselves in terms of Mar- revolutionary socialism were ex Movement of 1978-80 are the precur Unofficial Puhlications was set up. enterprise zones and in jout projects By mid-1978 = bitter battle was ranging inside the leadership between the Deng faction and the Hua faction The latter wanted to identify with Man tance itself from the extreme policies c) an altempt to introduce a much. more widespread utilisation of Western technology through the intro- duction of Westem capital in special Below we outline the successes and failures of this poliey, and its social consequences. But twoclements of the political development must be men- and the Cultural Revolution, but dis- with Western transnational corpora "shake nut of suplus labour': prescot Chinese crisis crystallised. In Square "incident took place, when a demanding democracy and a better life, The demonstration was ing of the "Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping, who had strong links with certain sections of the Hua leadership (especially Marshall Ye Jianying), was officially rchabilitated. A troika took the leadership (Hua, Yc and Deng), with Hua Guofeng in the offi- cial leadership position. But it was during this period that the policy chan- ges and the leadership team hehind the April 1976 the famous Tienanmen demonstrated in memory of 7hou brutally put down by troops. Follow- ing the death of Man, and the smash- "The Tienan- men Square incident of April 1976, and the
and repression ensued. In some cases know, no section of the moment has bureaucracy but evidentiy not against By April 1981 Deng had had ment. His power had been con- malidated and the anti-bureaucratic character of many of the unofficial puhlications was beginning to alarm the authorities. A general clampdown SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 16, June 1989 in the current events, as far as we called for re-establishing capitalisni. The "Internationale" is the universal song of protest - against the enough of the Beijing Spring move Hun resigned as premierto be replaced tween the Deng and Hua factions, in November 1978, Deng was seen by of the Gang of Four. Hua's group was dubhed the whateverist' faction - whatever Man said was right - while the Deng faction became more and more critical of Mao's politics in command line. The final victory of the Deng Zhao Ziyang group was achieved at the 1980 congress, where ul anti-Mao 'economics has pnority over polities line was adopted, and At the height of the conflict be- modern industrial nation by the year probahly discussed with Zhou Enlai nology and defence, to make China a Deng who started to make the pace in documents (described by the Gang of Four as the 'three poisonous weeds") in which he outlined a wide-ranging ment. The ideas in these documents, before his death, became known as the 'Four Moderisations" The four 2000. In 1978 a ten year plan was In 1975 Deng had written three "new course for China's develop- modemisations are the updating of in- dustry, agriculture, science and tech- the debates on policy which ensued. •Democracy Movement' precursors of the cur- of 1978-80 develop- ments in China" are the Page 14 rent
M m un
The demand for democracy has reemerged, echoing the student struggles of 1986 and the Beijing Spring of 1980-81 cially encouraged to invest in China). A new class of Chinese capitalists has arisen an owners of private ventures; hut despite this the largest and most dynamic sector of Chinese industry remains in state hands. peasants have arisen, and hig dis- of different regions according to the the re-emergence of sharp class dit- crentrations among the peasantry. New layers of rich and middle parities have grown up in the wealth the repression was vicious, with leaders of the movement heing sen- tencedto upto 15 years imprisonment Contradictions of the New Economic Policy PHOTO:
"Differen- been in- creased. Tens of thousands wages have tials in of workers have been The effect of the ecosmic reforms bonaires ruh shoulders with tens of tegration with the world market has been the opening ap of China to tourism and intonation from abroad, with thousands of Chinese students in the urban industrial arcas has paral- Icled those in the contryside. Economic Inequality and a black market have grown up. Chinese mil thousands of urban unemployed. There is no doubting that the balance sheet of the conomic reforms is growth - but at the expense of impor- One effect of China's closer in- The demand for 'democracy' tant sectors of the workers. hon among rural farmers, rural in- party Central Committee in 1978. This peasants. Others have left the land in what is effectively private control, or In addition to the class differontia- dustrial enterprises and even social services like schools have come under proach was made hy the Thirty Point Decision on Industry adopted by the management structure, replacing the proletarianised, lurned into rural has had the effect of introducing a new Some peasants with unsustainable labourers in the employ of rich natural productivity of agriculture. In industry, the basic tum in ap look for work in the cities. at least private financing- have hecome of collectives and the introduction of by-household, Although in theory the land remains owned by the state, in practice Liere have been many coses of the land being sold to establish larger The eftects of this plan have been The mass student movement of December 1986 and the present mas- Hive mobilisation directly stem from the effects of the New Economic Policy' initiated hy the Ten Year Plan In agriculture the new cconomic thinking has provided for a run down This envisaged the eyual distribution of land to peasants to farm bousehold- the 'household responsibility systen. twofold First - and there is no deny twofold. First
with" Security of been dis- employ- ment and egalitarian pensed Pace 15 fired ... the ethos have going to advanced capitalist countries dent movement for democracy in ment of the French students in that month, and also to the announcement in Taiwan that the ruling Kuomintang tion of an opposition political parly. The Decemher 1986 movement dents. They demanded an indepepen- dent student union and the introduc- to study. The emergence of a mass stu- December 1986 - the direct descen- dant of the Beijing Spring' move- ment - was directly linked the move- regime was going to allow the forma- spread rapidly to all the main univer- sities of China, but at that time reamined mainly limited to the stu- 6Г workers bave been fired in an with foreign capitalist concems, and party and workers' committees by a hierarchical management structure. delicit financing in the ten year plan in Miny projects have been started Chinese enterprises encouraged to economic rationalisation - Security ethus have been dispensed with. State industry has impelled inflation, Jead- ing to recurrent price rises of basic Differentials in wages have been sharply increased. Tens of thousands of employment and the egalitarian deal directly with forcign capital (eth- nic Chinese abroad have been espe SOCALIST OUTLOOK no 16. June 1989 creased dramatically. The break with coned hy many peasants who took the opportunily of de-regulation lo produce more to cani more by selling their produce privately in the city and Iccs of forced collectivisation, and peasant resistance to this This effect closcly parallels was happened for decades in the Soviet Union after the However, the obvious social effect of the "NEP in agriculture has been bureancratic commandism was wel- town markets. Undoubtedly, belore the de-collectivisation Chinese agriculture was suffering from the ef ang it - agricultural production has in forced collectivisation of 1929.31.
Indeed, the regime as a wiole.- "hardliners" and "liberals' - is a bru- tally repressive one. Last year up to dication of the savage hrutality which The Chinese students and the mil Hons who have mobilised to defend 30,000 prisoners, many of them charged with pelly offences, were ex- ecuted by the authoritics, a clear in- the regime is capable of. 'hardliners" EME - D un
them have sounded the death knell and Li Peng insist on repression and refonns political unrest and bound in for the present system of rule. If Deng refuse to institute "glasnost'-type re-emerge. Out of the present move- currents and Behind the red flag and singing the masses of China are on the march This article is dedicated to the memory of Lin Zhao, a student at for opposing Mao's anti-rightist movements are bound to develop. the revolutionary Beijing's Beida university, ar- rested by the secret police in 1957 campaign'. After 18 years of im- prisonment she was shot in 1975. The following analysis of the policies of the Deng faction of the Chinese Communist Party is abridged from an extensive document on the situation in China and the ing in opposition to and in contention economy, causing the latter's weight bureaucratism and corruption and its perspectives for revolutionaries, published in English in the Trotskyist magazine creasing. and the clements of the with the state-owned sector of the in the national coonomy to diminish. The danger of capitalist restoration The Deng faction did not relax the bureaucracy's monopoly on political power. Its campaigos against ned out against only a very small number of party cadres, offering an Opportunity to purge aen clements not supporting the ruling faction: When it came under preksure fion demands for democracy, especially when the Polish working class secured some gains in 1980 and stimulated the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 16, June 1989 private capilalist cconomy are grow programme of redundancies were car: