confucius" campaign
CHINA in criticize The article below originally appeared in a Chinese-language youth journal in Hong Kong and was translated for INPRECOR by Greg Benton, It deals with a feature of Maoist rule in China that is often overlooked in analyses of political developments in the People's Republic of China. In the Soviet Union, the basis of the materiai privileges of the bureaucracy lies in the managoment of the large enterprises, especially the industrial enterprises. The wide range of wage differences, the complicated system of bonuses, the right of free disposition of "management funds" or "Funds of the enterprise, * the considerable advantages atlached to the "commanding posts" of the economy (automobiles, houses in the countryside, vacation villas, permission to travel abroad, etc.) all give the Soviet bureaucrat a standard of living completely detached from that of the broad masses. In the People's Republic of China, still an essentially agricultural country, the industrial bases of bureaucratic privilege are much narrower. Further, the breadth of wage differences was reduced during the "Cultural Revolution. " Under these conditions, it is above all the abuse of political and administrative power -- that is, corruption - which provides the basis of the material privileges of the bureaucracy. There is no lack of testimony in this regard. Let us cite just two pieces of evidence that would be accepted as authoritafive even by the most obdurate Maoists in the capitalist contries: The late Edgar Snow, a personal friend of Moo Tse-tung, had the following to report in his book Red China Today -- The Other Side of the River, first published in 1961 and re-issued with many additions in 1970;
"After land distribution, many cares were found to have become rich peasants, exploited hired labor 'under the pretext of mutual aid, ' refused to join mutual aid or cooperative groups themselves, worked solely for personal goin, used their position to seize control of cooperatives and make maney, and even engaged in usury. " (p. 32 of the
Pelicon edition.)
behind the "criticize lin, In his "speoch on philosophic questions, " delivered on August 18, 1964, during the Cultural Revolution, Moo Tse-tung himself affirmed:
We have been going for fifteen years and we now control two-thirds of the realm. At present, you can buy a (party)
branch secretary for a few packs of cigarettes, not to mention marrying a daughter to him. " (Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed -- Talks and Letters 1956-1971, edited and introduced by Stuart Schramm, Penguin Books, 1974.) Last year Red Flag, the theoretical review of the Chinese Communist party, published an article enfitled "Stop corruption; Don't let it contaminate you. " This article blamed the expropriated "remnants" of the bourgeoisic for trying to spread corruption in China. Nevertheless, the article odmitted that some of the cadres in power were guilty of the same proctices. The September 6, 1974, issue of the For Eastern Economic Review reported many examples of corruption that have been revealed during the "anti-Lin, anti-Confucius" campaign, particularly buying and selling of clothes on the black market, falsification of food ration coupons, trafficking in construction materials, falsification of harvest statistics, abuses of power and extortion by functionaries, and so on. Nevertheless, the extent of the phenomenon should be viewed in light of the enormous historical advance that the third Chinese revolution, which has just celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, represents. The creation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in China was bureaucratically deformed from the beginning, with the absence of the direct exercise of power by the working masses in this immense country. The gains have not been definitively consolidated, and the road toward socialist construction has not been definitively taken -- that is what is confirmed by the Cultural Revolution and the "campaign against Lin Piao and Confucius"; for that power must be exercised by the workers and poor peasants through organs of power of the soviet type (workers councils and democratically elected and managed peoples communes).
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CHINA Why have the movements to "criticize Lin" and "criticize Confucius" been linked together? Let us deal with this quesfion first. Lin Piao was a "simple soldier. " According to the most recent Moist description of this one-time "close comrade-in-arms" of Mao, we are informed that "he didn't read books or newspapers, was completely ignorant of Marxism-Leninism and of China's ancient culture. " In our opinion this criticism is a fairly sound one. But then why suddenly dress up a military man like Lin in the garb of a Confucian scholar? How come Lin suddenly not only reveres Confucious, but wants to oppose Moo's thought with the teachings of Confucius and Mencius as part of a plot to "restore capitalism"? It is obvious from the self-controdictory statements of the Maoists themselves that the reason Lin and Confucius have been linked together is clearly not because Lin was a "disciple of Confucius and Mencius. " So what is the explanation? The real explanation is to be found in the Lin Pico faction's anti-Moist program, the so-called "571 Outline Project. "(T) The second part of this document contains the following pasje: "He (i.e. Mao) is at present abusing the trust and stotus iven him by the Chinese people to go against the tide of history. In fact he has already become a modern Chin Shih-
7. He is not a genuine Marxist. He is the biggest tyrant in Chinese history. He follows the teachings of Mencius and Confucius and uses the methods of Ch'in ShihIt is quite obvious after reading this pessage why the Maoists wanted to turn the Lin clique into followers of Confucius, why they "Followed the Legalists and opposed Confucianism" (3) and why they re-opened the "question of Ch'in Shih-huangTheir campaign to link Lin and Confucius was simply a modern adaptation of the old Chinese trick of hanging a man with his own rope. Or, to put it more crudely, A tells B: "You're a whore!" and B replies: "No I't. not, you are!" The "Chinawatchers, "however, have managed once again to get the wrong end of the stick. As soon as they heard "Confucius" Mao, Lin Piao : Before the Fall.
22 they started thinking of Duke Chou.(4) From Duke Chou they moved on to Chou En-Lai, who is supposed to be a descendant of the Chou dynasty. They therefore concluded that the "criticize Confucius" campaign was really aimed at Chou Enlai, a really far-fetched explanation. In reality it is not at all difficult to see which of the two men -- Mao or Lin Piao -- is best suited for the apithet "a follower of Mancius and Confucius. From whatever point of view we consider the question (whether from the depth of their acquaintance with Confucionist teachings or from the point of view of their practical adoption of these teachings) there is absolutely no comparison between the two. We have already pointed out in a study of Mao's thought and his activities after he became a revolutionary(5) that one of the three main components in Macist ideology is in fact "Confucianism. " This is not simply an attempt to disparage Mao. If is a fact and a strikingly obvious one at that. As for Lin Piao, he might well have quated one or two well-known phrases from Confucius to show off what a learned fellow he was, but this was just foolish parroting -- in point of foct, he was a complete ignoramus. The criticism of Mao contained in the Lin faction's anti-Maoist program was an extraordinarily good summing up of Mao's character and behavior. It is very unlikely that it wos the work of Lin Piao. It was probably drawn up by Ch'en Po-ta, who was for many decades Mao's private secretary. The attack was certainly effective and, not surprisingly, left Moo quivering. He immediately counter-attacked on three fronts. First, he declared that Lin Piao, and not Mao, was the real Confucianist. Second, he insisted that his Marxism was deep-rooted and not skin deep. And third, he declared that Chin Shih-huang-ti's activities, including his burning of the books and his burying alive of Confucian scholars were nor only not reactionary, but were positively progressive. This is the starting point for the "criticize Lin, criticize Confucius" campaign and the "overthrow Confucius, support Chin Shih-huang-ti" slogan.
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The campaign in a broader context Is this, then, the whole story behind the "criticize Lin, criticize Confucius" campaign? Does this exhaust is significance? Certainly not. To say that this was all the campaign amounted to would be a very superficial judgment and a very mistaken one. What we outlined above was simply the immediate cause of the linking together of Lin and Confucius. Now, however, the Mooists have seized on the campaign to have another crock at the so-called Confucian family shop (I say "another" crack because it was already aftacked once during the May 4th Movement in 1919). The reasons for this move are much more profound and are rooted in the social and political contradictions that characterize present-day China. These contradictions -- international and domestic -- are extremely complex, and we do not intend analyzing them in detail in the course of this orticle. We will simply concentrate on one aspect: the contradiction between the new system and the old ideologyChine is a backward country, even though the revolution has been victorious for twenty-five years and even though the new political system has ochieved considerable progress on the road to modernization. Despite all this, from a political, economic, social, and cultural point of view, China is still backward. And, what is more, all the manifestations of backwardness are withou exception linked directly or indirectly to China's traditional Confucian ideology. In short, the tendency to "put self before the common interest, " to "put relatives before strangers, "the whole question of blood relations, relations through marriage, local connections, and so on, and on the favoritism and corruption they give rise lo -- all these defects, at least insofar as their ideological source is concerned, can be traced back to the Confucian clan theory. Any revolutionary government that intends to carry out fundamental changes in the social or economic spheres must therefore simultaneously struggle to "overthrow the Confucian family shop. " Otherwise it will not only meet mossive difficulties in the various fields of socialist construcfion, but its efforts to begin the modernization of the state will encounter grave obstacles and probably get completely bogged down. The most serious of China's numerous ailments is corruption. As a result of the protracted stagnation of the productive forces in China, corruption long ago had become a deadly tumor on the Chinese body politic. To take a recent example: One important reason for the astonishingly ropid collapse of the Kuomintang after the victorious conclusion of the anti-Japanese war was, among other things, the fact that it was riddled with corruption from head to foot. And one of the major problems confronting the Chinese Communist party in the course of achieving victory was how to prevent the emergence of corruption in the new administration. Although the various movements launched since the establishment of the new China -- from the San Fan, the Wu Fan, and the Si Qing(6) down to the Cultural Revolution itself -were not exclusively concerned with the war on corruption, it was nevertheless a theme common to them all. The objecfive roots of Moo Tse-tung's theory of "uninterrupted revolufion" and "permanent revolution" and his insistence on the need for a new cultural revolution every few years are to be found in China's chronic and troditional disease of corruption. Even if Mao is only acting in his own interests and those of a small clique in the party rather than in the interests of the Chinese revolution, he is still forced to fight continuously against corruption in the party and the administrative apparatus. Otherwise, looking at the precedent of the Kuomintang, Communist rule could collapse within a decade. As for the struggle against corruption and the cultural revolution, we do not intend to add up the pluses and minuses or draw up a balance-sheet of its successes and failures in the space of this article. We would simply point out the followIng: During the course of this powerful campaign, some blatantly corrupt elements were forced to retreat a little and certain glaring bureaucratic privileges took a fumble, with reductions in wage differentials, etc. But since then, the genuine moss movements that arose during the Cultural Revolution have been suppressed and so-called ultraleft and anarchist elements subjected to a severe witch-hunt. A gradual "normalization" has taken place in domestic and foreign policy and there have been two or three years of "peace." As a result, the disease of corruption, which was temporarily brought under control but not radically cured, has once again taken a general turn for the worse. Obviously we have no exact means of telling just how quickly the phenomenon of corruption has succeeded in re-establishing is presence, how generally the old slip-shod and corrupt psychology has reasserted itself or to what extent the disease of bureaucratism has wonened in the party and state organs in China. The Chinese Communist party does not provide authentic dato on this sort of theme. But even in reports collated from official confidential investigations it is possible to find the following sort of development: the large-scale reinstatement of old bureaucrats in party and state organs; the return to activity in government and other circles of "enlightened" bourgeois elements; numerous examples of "going in through the back door" in educational institutions (though obviously not confined to these); the widening of differentials in the mining industry, the re-appearance of old habits and customs (especially with regard to marriage) in the villages, etc. All these symptoms inevitably point to the fact that the traditional menace of Chinese society - - corruption -- is once again busy at work. If only from an instinct for self-preservation, Mao and his clique were forced to bring into being another movement to oppose these tendencies. This objective need tied in rather neatly with Mao Tse-tung's own eagerness to slap the "Confucian hat" firmly back on the heads of Lin Pico and friends. The "criticize Confucius" tag was therefore odded on to the "Oppose the Four Olds"(7) movement which developed out of the "criticize Lin" campaign. A half-genuine and half-phoney campaign Does all this mean that the "criticize Confucius" movement is entirely phoney? Not at all. To be precise, it is halfgenuine and half-phoney. The genuine half stems from the fact that Mao is forced to recognize the gloring controdiction between Confucian ideology and Chine's modern needs, not to mention the needs of a Communist revolution. As a revolutionary, Mao is obviously a sincere anti-Confucianist. The phoney half of the campaign hos its source in the following two facts: (a) Mao's ideological "first love" was Confucianism. This particular "ism" slipped into his subconscious, os it were, and sunk firm roots. As we have pointed out in our book on the subject, although Moo's carly Confucianism was consciously negated and rejected, it still maintains a firm and pervasive grip on his thought and continues to play an important role in it. (b) Moo's grasp of Marxism is not only shallow, but bears the hallmark of Stalinist revisicnism, If hos
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CHINA rejected the revolutionary spirit of Marxism and the substance of workers democracy and replaced them with a totalitarian and bureaucratic-hierarchical content, which is in some senses even counterrevolutionary: For these two reasons Mao's anti-Confucianism will end up in a completely phoney campaign. Because Mao has constantly proposed and enforced such a despotic and bureaucratic system, his sham Marxist words and actions correspond in reality to the reactionary hierarchical theories of Confucius, in reality they preserve and give free scope to one of the most reoctionary aspects of Confucian theoryThe fact that Mao extols the "Legalist School" and Ch'in Shihhuang-fi at the same time as "criticizing Confucius" indicates that he is really a supporter of Confucianism. It is not possible to discuss the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism in this article, or to discuss our differences with the Maoists on the question of the evolution of Chinese history. For the sake of argument let us concede that the Maoists are correct in their assumption that Confucian and Legalist schools once played a reactionary and progressive role respectively. (8) But the whole of Chinese history shows that in reality the distinct origins of the two schools have been of absolutely no significance. It is common knowledge that ever since the reign of Han Wu-ti (140-86 BC), the formula whereby each dynasty has "shepherded the people" was, os a fomous Ching dynasty thinker (Wang Ching) pointed out, "Confucianism on the oulside, Legalism on the inside." On the surface they paraded their Confucian "humanity in government. " In reality they rigorously enforced the despotic methods of Ch'in Shihhuang-ti. The two schools gravitated towards each other and no longer stood at opposite poles. From the paint of view of the people underneath, the only difference between Confucianism and Legolism was that one claimed to be benevolent and the other did not. In reality they were equally despotic. Admittedly, one was open about its nature and the other hypocritical, but it is still impossible to divide them into a "progressive" and a "reactionary" school, The more Mao "criticizes Confucius" in this way the more credible Lin Pics's charge of "Confucianism" becomes. Climbing trees to catch fish? If Mao hopes to destroy the "Four Olds" and prevent the total bureaucratic degeneration and corruption of the party and state organs by this type of "criticize Confucius" campaign, then he will be sorely disappointed. Because this is rather like climbing trees to catch fish. Not only will such a campaign not destroy the "Four Olds, " but it will almost certainly tend to become counter-productive. In present-day China all shades of popular opinion, at all levels of society, are for the most part fed up with the continuous churning out of campaign after campaign in the course of Mao's so-called "permanent revolution. " It is not only
"bod elements" or the right wing who blanch when they hear the word "campaign" or begin to palpitate os soon as they see a "struggle" on the way. Even the toiling masses of workers and peasants, who are thoroughly dissatisfied with bureaucratic rule in all its forms, live in fear of campaigns of this sort. Twenty or more years of experience has taught them that campaigns should never be taken at face value, and that they always turn out differently in practice from what they are proclaimed to be. They might well swat dead a few house flies, or even overthrow one or two small tigers, but the end result is that the swatters end up in the same fix os the flies and sometimes in an even worse one! As for beating the small
24 tigers, this invariably turns out to be in the interests of the biggest tigers. The campaigns are not entirely without advantage for the worker and peasant masses. But after it is all over, nothing has really changed -- they still suffer the same hardships. The "Great Proletarion Cultural Revolution" was especially disappointing. It aroused the hopes of the masses; only to dash them to the ground ogain. It ended up in the persecution of the true revolutionaries, From now on the masses have every reason to look upon Mao's movaments and campaigns as potential man-traps. In itself, of course, the "Oppose the Four Olds" campaign is very necessary. Any corrupt ideology or out-of-date habits that use Confucius as a screen to hide behind should be purged and eliminated. But in order to do just that and to do it effectively, Moo should of the very least follow his own precepts and be "apen and above board" instead of "plotting and scheming behind closed doors. " He should certainly stop treating the workers and peasants as "idiots" or as "simple tools" in the hands of an "omniscient and omnipotent supreme leader, as pawns to be used in power struggles inside the walls of the Forbidden City in Peking. Therefore, if Mao and the CP leaders were sincere in their desire to cure the traditional ailments of Chinese society, the first step they would take would be to transfer polifical power downwards to the worker and peasant masses. They would set up a broadly-based system of socialist democracy, under the genuine political control and supervision of the masses in the towns and villages. In other words, they would establish a system of workers, peasants, and soldiers soviets of the sort to be found in the USSR during Lenin's era. They would allow the masses to exercise leadership from the bottom up. This would be the best way to sweep aside old thinking and old institutions in every sphere via the conscious and collective efforts of the mosses and in the process to establish new ways of thinking and new institutions. Thus, a true victory in the "Criticize Lin, criticize Confucius" campaign would be inseparable from the struggle to oppose Mao's un-Marxist tendency towards Confucianism and Legalism and from the struggle of the Chinese workers and peasants against bureaucratism.
POSTSCRIPT The new datziboo (big well-posters) campaign, which started in Peking on June 13, 1974, after comrode W.F.H. had written this article, fully confirms his analysis. This compaign had started earlier in the provinces, e g. in Kunming (Yunnan province) where British correspondents accompanying the Tory leader Heath during his visit to China found many inscriptions denouncing local bureaucrats (see The Economist, June 22, 1974). It seems that a directive issued by the Central Committee of the Chinese CP on May 18 again authorized public criticism of burgoucrats, which had been stopped after Moo's abrupt halting of the Cultural Revolution.
Significantly enough, one of the points raised in many datzibao was precisely the abrupt repression of radical representatives of the Red Guard movement at the end of the "cultural revolution." The wall-posters charge not Mao himself or Chou
En-lai, but the late Lin Piao with responsibility for the repression. Datzibao appearing in Peking on June 13 accused members of the "municipal revolutionary committee" of having purged all but one of its twenty-four working-closs represen-
tatives, and of having torn down eighty-nine earlier poster protests that had been pasted inside buildings. According to the London Times correspondent in Peking (The Times, June 20, 1974), most of the Peking posters appearing during succeeding days took up the same point of the supression and austing of the "working class activists" of the Cultural Revolution from all posts of responsibility. Another point raised by the datzibao was the increcse in material privileges for leading bureaucrats, sometimes in the form of excessive standard of living, as attempts to circumvent directives supposedly applying to all Chinese citizens. High party officials were accused of having had their sons and daughters exempted from the general rule to leave the towns and go to the countryside for several years. These accusations made by the wall-poster campaign confirms what revolutionary Marxists have been saying for years: that many of the more radical demands raised by the Red Guards (radicalized youth) and "revolutionary rebels" (radicalized workers) during the Cultural Revolution and partially granted by the Mao faction under the pressure of the mosses had been revoked of the end of the Cultural Revolution. This was followed by a new increase in the weight and power of the bureaucrocy. The new political strife in China reflects both rising dissatisfaction among the masses with that state of affairs and new factional maneuvers and alignments within the One of the main targets of the anti-Lin, anti-Confucius campaign is obviously the former chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army, Huang Yong-sheng, who is alleged to have been Lin Pico's main ally in his 1971 plot. In Canton, the anti-Lin, anti-Confucius campaign has taken the form of an anti-Huang campaign. (Le Monde, August 16, 1974.) Some commentators have concluded, rather hastily, that the whole compaign is actually directed agairst "hidden" Lin Piao supporters (or other opponents of Moo) within the army who may want to take their revenge for the radical reduction of the army command's influence since 1971 and the general reshuffling of regional military commanders at the beginning However, such an interpretation is controcicted by the sensational reappearance of many old army commanders in the center of the political scene, among them Yang Cheng-wu, Former acting chief of staff of the PLA, who was sacked in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. During the 1974 anniversary celebration of the PLA, according to the August 12 Newsweek, nineteen generals purged during the Cultural Revolution made their first public appearances in Peking in years. This move could be interpreted in a double sense: first, as on extension of the rehabilitation of former "rightist cadres," which has gained momentum since Teng Hsiao-ping, former secretary general of the CP and main "lieutenant" of arch-enemy Liu Shao-shi, was elevated to the post of vice-premier and main architect of Chinese foreign policy; and second, as a reminder to the rodicalized elements that this time, contrary to 1966-68, Mao and the top strata of the Chinese bureaucracy have firmly decided not to allow any mass mobilization to get out of hand. Indeed, report that important clashes among demorstrators and between demonstrators and the repressive forces had taken place in Kiang-si province, in Hongn province, in the town of Wu-han (one of the main centers of the Cultural Revolution) and in the Manchurian city of Harbin (200 cople were killed in Kiangsi, according to wall posters reported in The Guardian of June 25, 1974) were followed almost immediately by a stern editorial in People's Daily on July 1 reminding all those concerned that criticism should be confined to meetings organized by party committees and should remain under control of the party. The workers were also reminded of the need to leave production undisturbed by such criticism. Reminders of that sort had appeared during the Cultural Revolution after years of mass mobilizations. They now appear hardly six months after the start of the anti-Lin, anti-Confucius campaign, and hardly two weeks after the beginning of a new datzibao campaign. All this indicates that the Mao faction's margin for maneuver has narrowed considerably. But the controdictory needs with which Mao is confronted remain those indicated by comrade W.F.H. and reflect themselves in the shifts in emphosis of the CP's "general line" during the last weeks and months. It remains to be seen whether these shifts also reflect new deep rifts in the top leadership of the CP. Besides top provincial bureaucrats, at least one Political Bureau member, Hua Kuofeng, has so far come under public attack. (But the datzibao attacking Hua was almost immediately removed.) And in East European CP circles, the version that what is behind the antiLin, anti-Confucius campaign is a struggle for supremacy between the Peking group and the Shanghai group inside the top leadership continues to be generally accepted.
INPRECOR Footnotes: 1. Read with different tones, the Chinese word for 571 can be taken to mean "armed uprising." 2. Emperor of Chin (255-209 BC) who unified China. His short reign was marked by extreme ruthlessness 3. Legalists represented an anti-Confucianist school of thought which accepted no authority except that of the leader. 4. One of Confucius's "morally superior men" and founder of the Chou dynasty5. An Analysis of Mas Tse-tung's Thought, Hong Kong, 1973. 6. San Fan: Campaign against corruption, waste, and bureducracy. Wu Fan: Campaign against bribery, tax-evasion, theft of state property, skimping on work and cheating on materials, and theft of state economic information. Si Quing: "Four Cleans" campaign in which masses and lowlevel cadres were asked to give clean accounts on political and ideological stands, family background, and financial situation. 7. Old thought, old culture, old customs, and old habits. 8. The present theory of "support Legalism, oppose Confucianism" is based entirely on two presuppositions: (1) That the passage from the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BC) to the Warring States period (403-221 BC) represents the passage in Chinese history from a slaveowning to a feudal system. (2) That the Confucianists represented the old slaveowners, while the Legalists represented the newly emerging feudal landowners. But both these presuppositions would be very difficult to argue and are, at the very least, debatable. First, it is not Marxist to force Chinese history into the same stages of development as Western European history. Marx recognized that Asion states had their own historical peculiarities. What is more, to consider the autocratic, centralized, and unificatory system of the Ch'in dynasty as a model Feudel state (like the Middle Ages in Western Europe) is obviously both factually incorrect and un-Marxist. But this question is too complex to discuss in the short space of this article. We hope to devote a spocial study to it at some future date.
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