A NEW PHASE IN CHINESE
POLITICAL STRUGGLE
The death of Mao has provoked reactions that would have seemed parodoxical in other periods. The chieftain of American capitalism spoke of a "tragic loss" and his collaborators made no secret of their concern for the future. In Moscow there were open and indecent expressions of satisfaction and hope. Obviously, these reactions are linked to the international policy Mao had imposed during the last years of his life. After accusing the Kremlin bureaucrats of having capitulated to American imperialism since the end of the 1950%, Mao changed his battle cry, first taking a position of equal distance from the two "superpowers" and then adopting the thesis that "social- imperialism" is the main enemy, with all the corsequences, from criticizing the western capitalists for not arming themselves sufficiently and for being too accommodating toward Moscow to red carpet welcomes in Peking for the likes of Fanfani and Strauss. Nevertheless, in a more general sense Mao was a contradictory figure, and any historical evaluation of his work must emphasize this essential characteristic. A contradictory historical figure From 1927, drawing the balance-sheet of the defeat of the Chinese revolution of 1925-27 in his own way, Mao adopted a critical position in regard to the line after the death of Mao by LIVIO MAITAN_ imposed in China by the Stalinized Comintern and sketched out positions that differed from those of the leadership of the Chinese Communist party. Nonetheless, he refrained from openly contesting Stalinist orthodoxy, adopting Stalinist conceptions and utilizing substantially bureaucratic methods of organization and leadership. While continuing to proclaim more or less classical ideas about the leading role of the working class, of the right moment he perceived the fundamental importance of the peasantry in the specific Chinese context of that period, in particular within the perspective of o protracted war. On various occasions after the Comintern's turn to the policy of popular fronts, he assumed positions even further to the right than those of the other Communist parties. He not only advocated but also implemented a policy of collaboration with the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek, and during the second world war and immediately after he tenaciously sought a compromise with the old dictator. U.S. documents published during the 1950 confirm that if no agreement was reached it was because of Chiang Kai-shek's refusal. But in spite of his desire for collaboration and compromise, in practice Mao never yielded on one essential point: he refused to give up the independence of his army, which at no time dissolved into the army of the Kuomintang, not even when there was a convergence of struggle against the armed forces of
CHINA. Japanese imperialism. At the decisive moment in the new revolutionary upsurge of the masses, when faced with an ineluctable choice, Mao placed himself at the head of the peasant insurrection, disregarding Stalin's advice, which was to seek on agreement with Chiang at any cost, and led the red army to the conquest of power. Ten years later he assumed the role of spokesman for left criticism of the policy of the Kremlin leaden and various Communist parties. For forty years Mao stood at the head of a party that led a socialist revolution, one of the milestones of our century. But after introducing bureaucratic conceptions and methods of odministration even in the liberated zones and after carrying through a Stalinization of the structures of the party, once in power he presided over a relatively rapid process of bureaucratization of the new workers state. Given his leading role and prestige, any attempt to absolve Mao of any responsibility and to lay the blame for the phenomena of degeneration on leaders other than Mao amounts to nothing but apologetics. Nevertheless, it is true that at a certain point Mao began to become alarmed at the consequences of what he himself defined as a "process of alienation" with respect to the masses. In a period in which many profound tensions had ripened, he took the initiative of the so-called cultural revolution, appealing to the masses even more than on other occassions, first the students and later, although with greater caution, the workers and peasants as well, He proclaimed that the masses would decide everything, but in reality he corstructed (and in the final phase of the cultural revolution reconstructed) a centralized and fundamentally monolithic apparatus based on an authoritarian paternalism of which the cult of the personality represented the crowning touch. He upheld the necessity of an intransigent struggle against imperialism and for some years severely criticized Moscow's policy toward the bourgeoisies of various colonial and neocolonial countries. But he unreservedly supported the collaboration with the bourgeoisie that led to the tragic 4 defeat of the Indonesian Communist party and the paralysis of his followers in Pakistan and East Bengal, not to mention the positions of later years, which saw him side with the government of Sri Lanka in carrying out a ferocious repression, avoid any condemnation of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and assume a hypocritical position of neutrality during the war in Angola. He tried to put himself forward as the inspirer of a battle against bureaucratization, which he presented as capitalist restoration, but despite the criticisms and differences in practice, to the very end he considered Stalin a great revolutionary and one of the leading theoreticians of Marxism. Thus, in a concentrated and symbolic form, the figure of Mao more than any other reflected the contradictions of a historical epoch, the contradictions that have so far emerged in the phase of transition from capitalism to socialism. Lenin died only a few years after the October Revolution and thus passed into history primarily as the leader of the first socialist revolution. Trotsky, defeated because of the relationship of forces during the period in which he launched his struggle against the bureaucracy, became the symbol of intransigent defense of the conquests of the revolution. Stalin, an obscure figure before October, assumed historic stature as the protagonist of the bureaucratic counterrevolution. Mao, as we have seen, was simultaneously the top leader of a revolution and the major person responsible for the bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state that emerged from that revolution. As the leader of a victorious revolution he contributed to inflicting a historic defeat on the world imperialist system. But at the same time, he did not at all abandon the Stalinist conception of socialism in one country and of subordinating the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the world to the interests of the state. The disappearance of a man who had played such a great part in the contemporary history of China incontestably represents an element of rupture which will trigger rather profound shakeups.
At the time of the death of Stalin revolutionary Marxists stressed the essential role his personality had played in assuring the cohesion of the bureaucratic caste and in the functioning of the mechanisms of leadership of the state and the party. In various respects, the role of Mao has been even more decisive. Like Stalin, Mao held the ruling bureaucratic layer together and appeared as the only person who had the authority to have the last word during times of conflict. But Mao's "Bongpartism" operated not only within the bureaucracy but also within society as a whole. Here we must recall certain peculiar features of the Maoist method of leadership and exercise of power, palpably different from those Stal in imposed in the USSR during the 1930s and 1940s. This method may be summed up as the effort to maintain more direct and living links with the masses and to resort to the more or less controlled and canalized intervention of the masses themselves during periods of special difficulty. In order to survive and win victory in a long and bitter protrocted revolutionary war, Mao had to rely not only on the support but also on the active participation of the masses. Similarly, he had to seek a certain mobilization of the masses when it came time for the gigantic work of building a new society beginning from a materTal base that was even more backward than that of Russia in 1917 while having to contend with imperialist sabotage. This explains why the relations between the leaders and the masses in China have always been more direct than those between the masses and the Stalinist leading group in the USSR, which were virtually nonexistent. It further explains why in spite of the bureaucratic degeneration, a sort of "horizontal democracy" (the term used by S.S. Wu - see INPRECOR, No.55, July 8, 1976, and No.56, July 22, 1976) has existed in China, especially during certain periods. In other words, there is a certain degree of independence of decision-making on the local level in choosing the forms in which the general orientation decided at the top will be applied. This also explains why at various times
Mao and other leaders have turned to the masses to extract themselves from situations of conflict or paralysis within the party leadership. Naturaily, these leaders were always careful to establish a precise framework for the mobilizations they stimulated and, in the final analysis, to channel them. The experiences of the last months of 1966 and the first months of 1967 demonstrated, contrary to any apologetic interpretation, that barely as sectors of the masses began to act according to their own dynamic, pursuing objectives different from those set by the Maoist leadership, the latter did not hesitate to resort not only to a variety of massive ideological terrorism, but even, in the last instance, to repression. (Let us recall that it was precisely the emergence of such explosive situations of tension that induced Mao to rely on the army, which for a certain period took on a prime function). But all this does not change the fact that Mao's "system" assigns the masses a different role, one of more active participation, than was the case in the USSR during the Stalin and post-Stalin periods. On the other hand, the very raising of revolutionary-democratic and egalitarian themes on various occasions, despite all the tactical machinations and attempts at instrumentalization, inevitably hod various consequences, objectively stimulating the tendency of the masses or the most mature layers of the masses to bring their weight to bear more forcefully, to fill the "horizontal democracy" permitted by the leading group with a real content. The existence of a charismatic leader having sufficient prestige to call upon the masses at decisive moments but also capable of suddenly imposing discipline and a return to "normality" was essential for such a practice of the exercise of power and such a method of leadership - even more essential, let us repeat, than the personality of Stalin in the system of rule imposed in the USSR. In this sense above all, there can be no substitute whatever for Mao. His death thus introduces what may be called an element of "structural" imbalance into the Chinese political system,
CHINA • In order to examine some hypotheses on possible developments in post-Mao China it is first of all necessary to briefly recall some of the tensions that subsist structurally and politically, which were not overcome by the cultural revolution and the subsequent period. According to official statistics, during the past several years the Chinese economy has registered successes which are not contested even by experts of the most diverse orientations. Overall, however, taking a longer period into account, the pace of development remains relatively restricted. This means not only that the absolute levels achieved remain modest, but also that the gap between China, the USSR, and some capitalist countries has not narrowed or even threatens to widen, especially in some sectors. It is significant that in many discussions with foreign guests, according to the undenied accounts of the latter, both Mao and Chou En-lai continued to stress the persistent backwardness and poverty of China. It must be recalled that after violently polemicizing against the USSR during the 1950, because of Moscow's policy of increasing economic relations with the capitalist countries, China has done the same thing even more systematically, not only seeking to broaden commercial trade, but also acquiring machinery and even entire industrial complexes from the western countries and Japan. After a certain point, however, this policy began to conflict with a requirement set down as a norm by the Chinese leaders: that the country not build up a foreign debt. If this option were rigorously confirmed, the inevitable consequence would be a slowdown, not an acceleration, of the pace of industrial development, at least in some sectors. A policy of self-sufficiency and even basic autarky can be obligatory under exceptional circumstances (let us not forget that for years China had to contend with both the persistent imperialist blockade or partial blockade and the open sabotage of the Moscow bureaucrats), but in the long run it inevitably entails extremely negative consequences. To judge from allusions mode in certain polemics, this problem has already been a source of conflict within the leading group. It is quite probable that it will be posed again more acutely in the future, even though the development of oil exports might lessen this contraLet us look at some quick considerations on agriculture. Not even Maoist China has been able to escape the dilemma facing bureaucratized transitional societies that have arisen on the basis of a low level of producfive forces (a factor which must never be forgotten, with the permission of certain neo-utopians). This dilemma may be stated as follows: either to accept, after the rodical reforms of the initial phase, the subsistence for an indefinite period of relations that are not collectivist but instead intermediary between private-plot or cooperative peasant agriculture on the one hand and collectivized agriculture on the other, with all the economic consequences and social risks that logically follow, or else to force the pace of collectivization, to a large extent ignoring the real possibilities of mechanization and leaving open the threats of dramatic breaks with vast peasant masses and repercussions that in the final analysis are negative for production itself. This problem, which was at the root of the regime's crucial choices in the countryside, from the massive launching of the cooperative movement in the middle of the 1950s to the largely voluntaristic attempts to form people's communes in 1958 to the subsequent rectifications, has still not been solved. On the one hand, the rates of development of production, again according to official figures, continue to be limited (which is especially serious since China continues to register consistent increases in population). On the other hand, the peasants tend to devote more care to their individual plots than to collective production. The consequences inevitably make themselves felt, first on the general economic level and second on the social level, since under such conditions it is inevitable that differentiations among various layers of the peasantry will persist and even deepen.* In connection with the problems posed by the difficulties of economic development and the problems of agriculture in particular, a series of social tensions continue to arise and even to intensify, judging by certain signs. To give just one example, difficulties and contradicfions have come up regarding the integration of new generations into the economic fabric. Imbalances arose on the one hand because of the still limited specific weight of the industrial and urban economy and on the other hand as a result of massive access to education (which, there is scarcely any need to recall, constitutes one of the major gains of the revolution). The existence of such problems has become clear, for example, in the polemics on the so-called educated youth sent to work in the countryside. For the time being at least, this involves relatively limited sectors, but the absolute number of youth involved, according to figures cited in the above-mentioned article of S.S. Wu, approaches 12,000,000. These youth do not always freely accept being transferred to the countryside, where living conditions are generally more arduous, and quite often they were not greeted with great enthusiasm by the peasants. *On this and other problems, it would be useful for readers to refer to the articles that have previously appeared in INPRECOR, particularly those of S.S. Wu in Nos.55 and 56. For more general observations and an analysis of developments in postrevolutionary China, permit me to mention my own book, Party, Army, and Masses in China, New Left Books, London, 1976.
Hence, there has been a back and forth movement between the cities and the countryside, with some youth returing to the cities unauthorized. This threatens to result in the development of layers of youth who are uprooted in a certain sense, deprived of any stable place in society and thus tempted to operate on its fringes.
According to some interpretations whose veracity we are not in position to check, such situations may have been at the root of the criminal incidents that have recently occurred in some cities, to which the official press has referred.
A series of problems and tensions are also posed on the purely political level. The critical analysis of revolufionary Marxists has demonstrated that from the very beginning the Chinese workers state has been characterized by the absence of a network of organs of proletarian democracy of the soviet type and even by a certain survival of the previously existing administrative apparatuses. (The negative influence of this latter element was denounced by the Mooists themselves during the 1966 and 1967 polemics). The Chinese constitution calls for the election on the basis of local organs of a National People's Assembly which is supposed to be the real repository of power. In practice, the Assembly, when it has met, has had no function except to formally ratify decisions that have already been made elsewhere, in the leoding bodies of the party. (Let us not forget that Maoist conceptions assign the party a function of absolute preeminence and rigorous control, similar to the conceptions that held sway in the USSR both under and after Stalin). Since it is practically impossible for the restricted leading bodies (even considered in the brood sense, that is, including all their various subcommittees and branches) to actually make decisions on all the problems that arise in a country as large as China, there is some margin for the exercise of "horizontal democracy" on the one hand and there is a tendency to create relatively independent regional or local power bodies on the other hand. The result is o precarious situation laden with conflict, In fact, on various occasions - and not only at the most dramatic point of the 1966-67 crisis - the masses have sought to lend a more substantial content to this "horizontal democracy" and centrifugal forces have thus developed within the bureaucracy (the recurrent polemics against people accused of having created independent kingdoms" reflect these types of centrifugal tendencies). International policy also holds a potential for tensions within the bureaucracy itself and even more so between the bureaucracy and the masses. The death of Mao may provide an additional stimulus toward drawing a balancesheet for which the leading group itself must have already felt the need. For a whole period, and even now, the assertion of complete independence of the USSR has paid off for the Chinese bureaucracy both internally and in important sectors of the communist movement. Even the polemic against the "two superpowers" bore some diplomatic and political fruit, for it was able to correspond somewhat both with the interests of some "national" bourgeoisies and states and with the sentiments of some movements in colonial countries which were impelled by the necessities of the struggle against imperialist powers to seek the "friendship" of the USSR and thus had occasion to undergo bitter experiences of "collaboration" with the Kremlin leaders: But now, after nearly two decades, a general balance-sheet is needed, and so is a balance-sheet of the line of the past several years, which has been based on the supposition that "social imperialism" is the main enemy. Now, while there is no doubt that the existence of the Washington- Moscow-Peking triangle has enabled one or another of the three to win conjunctural tactical advantages from time to time, the major benefit overall has been reaped by American imperialism. To mention only the central episode of the past ten years, while it is true that the Sino-Soviet conflict did not spare the imperialists their defeat in Vietnam, it must not be forgotten that the very sharpness of that conflict considerably broadened the maneuvering room of the White House and the Pentagon. It has since been shown by various documents that among the elements that induced Johnson to plunge into the Indochina adventure in 1965 one of the most important was the conviction that the United States would not have to face a united front of the major workers states. And there is no doubt that this division, like the limits of the military aid to the Vietnamese fighters for a whole period, contributed to significantly delaying the final outcome. Second, the policy of the Peking leading group, which has sacrificed the needs of the struggle of the working class and the anti-imperialist movements of various coun tries on the altar of diplomatic advantages (of dubious value in any event), has not only resulted in a loss of prestige for this leadership, which for many years had appeared as the protagonist of a great victorious revolution, but has also facilitated both reactionary regression in various countries and maneuvers of the so-called national bourgeoisie, in the final analysis in contradiction with the legitimate requirements of defense of the Chinese workers state. As far as the Communist parties are concerned, the balance-sheet of Maoist policy also leaves no room for doubt. Since a few successes of the early phases of the Sino-Soviet conflict, the attractive power of the Chinese Communist party has been constantly on the wane and the CCP's sphere of influence
7
is now smaller than ever. Even among the far-left groups, which the cultural revolution and the Chinese criticisms of the Kremlin had contributed to creating, sometimes decisively, the hard-line defenders of Peking's positions increasingly fall into the category of political paranoia, while more critical and sophisticated tendencies prevail. (This is reflected in the dreary delegations of Maoist Communist parties received in Peking; the existence of these groups is often unknown in their countries of origin.) But beyond the balance-sheet of the past fifteen years and beyond the conjunctural difficulties, sooner or later one fundamental contradiction must inevitably come to the surface in a more or less acute form. Regardless of Maoist theoretical deviations or propagandistic mystifications, the social character of the USSR is analogous to that of China and qualitatively different from that of the United States and the other capitalist countries. This hard fact is in contradiction to the thesis of "social imperialism" as the main enemy and even more in controdiction to its practical implications. This will be a source of inevitable conflict. The fact that on various occasions oppositionists who have fallen into disgrace have been accused (with how much justification it is difficult to say in most cases) of desiring a compromise with the "social imperialists" and of acting as their agents demonstrates that this is not a matter of speculation about the future but of understanding the significance of clashes that have already occurred within the leading group on various occasions. Mass mobilizations and tendencies in the bureaucracy All these potential conflicts may become that much more operative in the new phase now opening since changes have occurred or are occurring on an ever greater scale on two levels. First, the generation that was born or grew up offer 1949 is now becoming predominant. For the older generations, the essential reference point tended to be the 8 conditions of prere volutionary society. As difficult as the post-1949 situation may have been as a result of the mistakes or crimes of the bureaucracy, the contradictions of the new society seemed insignificant when compared to the oppression of the old China. For the new generations, the conquests of the revolution represent an already achieved starting point. Their attitude will be and already has been determined by the extent to which the transitional society is capable of responding to their needs and by whether or not constant progress is made in all fields. Second, a replacement process has occurred or is occurring with ever increasing rapidity not only in the central leadership but also at all the various levels of the party. The "historic" leaders and cadres are disappearing and being replaced by leaders and codres who will not be able to avail themselves of the prestige of the leaders of the revolution and will be judged on the basis of their present behavior, their present successes and failures. Finally, Mao has disappeared from the scene at a time which, far from being one of stagnation or demoralization of the masses, is marked by a new rise of political sensitivity and combativity and a reemergence of critical cadres capable of taking courageous initiatives. The first signs of new ferment occurred as long ago as 1973, in Canton for example, where material presenting an antibureaucratic critique was circulated. But especially during the past two years, various events have shown even more clearly that the situation is in motion once again. Again in Canton there have been demonstrations of soldiers whose terms were running out, as well as various spontaneous strikes. In Hangchow the strikes reached such proportions that it was decided to order the army to intervene. The demonstration in Peking's Tien An Men Square last April 5 may have been, as claimed by official sources, the scene of maneuvers by the Teng Hsiao-ping tendency and thus may have originated in intrabureaucratic conflicts. But in the final analysis its size (tens of thousands of participants) and dynamic expressed a spontaneous explosion of criticism of the group that leads the party and the state. What will happen in the coming period? It is not easy to reply, at least on the basis of the meager information
we now possess. The battle within the bureaucracy will be extremely bitter. The very problem of succession is posed in dramatic terms, It is not only a question of appointing a successor to Mao, but also of filling all the voids left by deaths or political liquidations in various levels of the leadership (the case of the standing committee of the Political Bureau, now reduced to two or three members, is symbolic of a more generalized instability). The fact that in the very communiqué announcing the death of Moo (it would be interesting to know what body actually approved this communique) there were violent and repeated attacks not only on past "deviationists, " but also on the most recent victim, Teng
Hsiao-ping, is a sure sign of a situation of persistent tension and fear among the group that emerged victorious from the conflicts of the first months of this year. It is probable that the first round will end with some compromise solution. In fact, the very selection of Hua Kuo-feng was already a choice of this type.
More generally, there is no doubt that the tendency which more directly represents the apparatus, the tendency which appeared as the most conservative one as long ago as during the cultural revolution, the most prominent representatives of which were Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping, which on various occasions has been able to recover after defeats, has been objectively strengthened by the disappearance of Mao, the only figure who had been able to oppose this tendency successfully. Nor can another Mao be constructed artificially. The strengthening of such a tendency would probably be viewed favorably by all those who aspire to defend, consolidate, or increase positions of privilege, primarily the upper levels of the bureaucracy. But layers of intermediary cadres might also lean toward such a tendency, those who have greater links with the masses but exactly because of that have often had to pay the price of sharp tums, have been more directly targeted by the great "rectification campaigns, * or have even been deliberately cast in the unenviable role of scapegoat. Thus, they may feel a genuine need to get out of the line of continuous fire and enjoy a period of greater tranquility. Finally, a tendency of this type could seek to assure itself a base in the countryside, probably not without some temporary success, by proposing a series of Khrushchevist-type concessions to some sectors of the peasantry. (The reference to Khrushchev is purely indicative, since the conditions in the Soviet countryside when Stalin died were significantly different from those that now prevail in China.) Most commentators have raised the question of whether the post-Mao period will be marked by a turn in the orientation of Chinese international policy. We have already indicated the problems posed in this sphere, the tendencies that have already taken shape in the past within the leading group itself, and the controdictions-that will eventually come to the surface. Without engaging in abject speculation, we can advance the hypothesis that changes will surely occur sooner or later.
There is already pressure in this direction. Among other things, Moscow would have an interest in a détente, even in the near future, as was confirmed by the reactions to the death of Mao. A whole series of Communist parties, among them those with the greatest weight and international prestige, surely advocate not only a détente but even a rapprochement and recomposition of the front of "fraternal parties. " From the Vietnamese
Communist party to the most authoritative representatives of the so-called Eurocommunists to the Cuban CP, without exception and regardless of their present persuasions, all of them are convinced that an evolution in a positive direction could in no way lead to a return to the monolithism of the time of the Stalinized Comintern and Cominform but on the contrary would deprive Moscow of any possibility of once again imposing its control and hegemony and in general would increase the prestige and attractive power of all the Communist parties. In conclusion, the death of Mao will certainly open a new chapter, although it would be idle speculation to try to predict which tendencies will prevail in the coming phases and what specific forms the crisis of the bureaucratic system will take. The Chinese masses have entered a new period of activity and critical reflection. The most probable objectives of the coming battles will be the improvement of living standards, reduction of inequality, actual exercise of workers democracy. These battles will be integrated into a more general perspecfive of antibureaucratic struggle. The cadres who have been trained during the past several years will be able to make their weight felt in these battles. Let us not forget that the sharpest phase of the 1966-67 crisis saw the maturation of tens of thousands of cadres who, beyond the mystifications of the leading group, committed themselves to struggles of an antibureaucratic dynamic and provided themselves with various sorts of instruments of organization. In some cases - the literature on this has been extensively reproduced - extremely interesting efforts toward comprehensive criticism and theoretical generalization were mode. The protagonists of these events lost out in the last phase of the cultural revolution; on occasion they were hard hit, in general they were marginalized. There were inevitable phenomena of demoralization. But now conditions have been recreated for new developments, for a reactivation of these cadres. They will now be able to make an especially important contribution, for the disappearance of Mao will tend to eliminate the major obstacle to their understanding of the nature of the regime and the leadership, rendering inoperative the myth of a Mao as the standard-bearer of the antibureaucratic struggle, a myth to which they had continued to cling. In other words, they will be able to avoid objectively becoming instruments in a struggle of one faction of the bureaucracy against another. And, linking themselves more directly to the masses, they will be able to assume a leading role in the struggle against the bureaucracy as a whole. September 14, 1976