The Road to Tiananmen Square The Road to Tiananmen Square claims to be 'not yet another history of China in the twentieth century but rather a socialist explanation of that history'- a difficult task in less than 150 pages.
Nonetheless, the strength of this book lies in its excellent and accessible accounts of working class struggles from 1925-27, and since 1979. Especially good is the highlighting of the autonomous workers' movement's role in the 1989 uprising, so absent in the mainstream press.
However, the book fails to look at what was distinctive about Maoism, as a variant of Stalinism, and why it still holds sway among many third world revolutionaries. Indeed, the book argues that all socialist illusions in Maoism have been shattered - a very Wester-centric view.
Distinctive
What was distinctive about Maoism? It was contradictory. Firstly, it was born out of the worker's defeat in the second 1925-1927 revolution, due largely due to the disastrous role of the Stalinist Cominter. However, it also represented the theorising of a reaction to Stalin's ultra-left posturings after that defeat.
Maoism promoted the peasantry to fundamental importance in the Page 12 Sept. 28, 1991 No. 8 revolution. Mao's strategy was that of protracted peasant-backed guerit la war, culminating in the countryside encircling the cities. Alongside this though, he continued to use Stalinist bureaucratic methods of organisa tion and leadership.
Against this, Charlie Hore claims 'the civil war was not fought as a guerilla war, but as a set piece battle against two regular armies, with the mass of the population as mere spectators'. I find little evidence for such a claim.
While the Red Army was built on a few fragments of the working class, it was mainly a peasant army. It won the peasants' active support through assisting in the redistribution of land and through being the only force fighting against the Japanese invasion. These struggles were a vital component in the success of the CCP.
Again Hore exaggerates when he deals with Mao's theory of the United Front. This too had contradictions.
In one sense it operated like a typical popular front so that during the war against Japan even the landowning classes and the proBritish/US comprador bourgeoisie were included in it.
However, because Mao's strategy subordinated other forces to the revolutionary party, Hore overstates the moderation the front imposed on CCP policies in North China. Indeed in many places once the land reform had begun it was difficult to put the brakes on.
Also, it is equally wrong to say, as Hore does that because Mao prioritised the revolutionary party this classes, acting in their own interest as a future ruling class.! Hore - a member of the Socialist Workers Party and echoing its 'state capitalist' analysis - claims the CCP became a ruling class after the 1949 revolution dissolves. Yet, as we have already seen, what marked out Maoism was its linkage to peasant struggles. He says nothing about the change in property relations that the revolution brought about. Still less is said about the poverty of the CCP cadre.
Indeed one wonders whether Hore sees the revolution in a positive light. He states the elimination of the landlords, moneylenders, warlords and all the other parasites of the old order made possible the more efficient exploitation of the workers and peasants' by the CCP!
What can be said is that the Chinese revolution inflicted a world historic defeat on the imperialist system.
Stalinist
However, it underwent rapid bureaucratisation. China followed the stalinist conception of socialism in one country and subordinated the interests of world revolutionary struggle to the interests of its own bureaucracy.
This can be most clearly seen in its foreign policy. For example it sup ported unreservedly the collaboration with the bourgeoisie that led to the tragic defeat of the Indonesian CP. It refused to criticise Pinochet and gave only limited aid to the Vietnamese Communist Party. Also, it violently suppressed Tibetan action Charlie Hore for self-determination.
Power struggle
Moving on, Hore correctly characterises the cultural revolution as 'a vicious and and bloody power struggle' in which millions were jailed and thousands died. But this again shows the Maoist method of leadership had more links with the masses than other models of Stalinism.
China, a backward country which had survived a civil war, needed the active support of the masses, espe cially the peasants. Yet mass mobilisations were used in the interests of the interal factions of the Chinese bureaucracy. Once such mobilisations got out of control, for example when youth began acting on their own in the cultural revolution, severe repression followed.
Hore gives good coverage of more recent economic reforms from 1979. He makes the important point that women's liberation in the countryside has taken a step backwards, with the family once again becoming the unit Equally, many have argued that Tiananmen Square occurred because China had undergone Perestroika without Glasnost. Hore, rightly, points out that democracy is not a re quirement for a successful market. As for the opposition to the regime since 1979, the account is generally excellent. However. it is rather too much to equate Chris Harman's analysis of western students 'thrown into intellectual turmoil' in the 1960s, with the Chinese students opposing bureaucracy and corruption in the Workers Nonetheless, Hore's book is a valuable account of the action of workers in this period, and the need for the independent organisation of workers federations. Students sought workers' support but mainly to swell numbers on the streets - not to use collective industrial power.
Despite this, all across China, workers marched and went on strike. Railway workers allowed students to travel free of charge in Beijing. Clearly the authorities were more worried by the action of the workers, as can be seen in the far longer sentences given to those organising strike action.
Also, it is here that hope for political revolution remains. The workers' independent organisations have survived in some form even in the face of severe repression. Indeed, this summer has seen a new wave of strike action.
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