Mao's successors are continuing his policy of subordinating the struggles of the workers and oppressed peoples throughout the world to the defense of the privileges of the bureaucratic caste that rules China.
The theory of the division of the world into three parts that Mao came out with in 1974 was reiterated in 1977 in a series of Chinese documents.
The titles were as follows: "Soviet Social-Imperialism-Most Dangerous Source of World War," "Chairman Mao's Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds Is a Major Contribution to Marxism Leninism," and "Soviet Social- Colonialism Stands Exposed." The first and third of these articles appeared in Red Flag. The second was written by the editors of People's Daily. (For the texts of all three articles, see issues no. 29, 45, and 49 of Peking Review, respectively.)
Mao's 'Theoretical' Heritage
The article "Chairman Mao's Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds ..." is the most systematic effort thus far to provide a theoretical basis and political explanation for this Maoist conception. It says, for example:
Chairman Mao's theory of the three worlds scientifically epitomizes the objective realities of class struggle on the world arena today. ...
The international bourgeoisie has never been a monolithic whole, nor can it ever be. The international working-class movement has also experienced one split after another, subject as it is to the influence of alien classes. In waging the struggle on the international arena, the proletariat must unite with all those who can be united in the light of what is imperative and feasible in different historical periods, so as to "develop the progressive forces, win over the middle forces and isolate the diehards.
As the Chinese leadership sees it, following the degeneration of the USSR, it is no longer possible to use the category of "the socialist camp." According to this document, a new reality has to be recognized that is the emergence of three worlds: (1) that of the "two imperialist superpowers, the USSR and the USA; (2) that of the developed countries; and (3) that of the socialist countries and oppressed nations, who are the victims of imperialist exploitation.
Analyzing these three worlds separately, the document cites the reasons for which the USSR has also to be considered an imperialist country:
(a) It exacts profits abroad, although these are less than those exacted by the USA. It does this by means of "economic aid" and "military assistance," and by "buying cheap and selling dear" in its dealings with the countries receiving its aid.
(b) It carries on through Comecon "activities" similar to those carried on by the American imperialists through the multinational companies and other instruments of aggression.
(c) It has more military bases and forces abroad than the United States (e.g., in Czechoslovakia and Angola).
What is more, the USSR is "the most rapacious imperialism" and "constitutes the most dangerous source of world war." The reasons for this are as follows:
(1) It arose as a great imperialist power later than the United States.
(2) ". . . because comparatively speaking Soviet social-imperialism is inferior in economic strength, it must rely chiefly on its military power and recourse to threats of war in order to expand."
(3) It has "a state-monopoly capitalist economy without its equal in any other imperialist country.
(4) ". . . it can exploit Lenin's prestige and flaunt the banner of 'socialism' to bluff and deceive people everywhere."
Thus, it would be an error to "undiscriminately put the two superpowers on a par."
In the struggle against the two superpowers, the main role belongs to the peoples of the third world. They represent "the overwhelming majority of the world's population." Because they have been most cruelly exploited, they have fought back the hardest.
Revolution Not on Agenda in Europe
Since the end of the Second World War, the struggle for national liberation has become general through the third world and will have a decisive weight "for a fairly long historical period." Support for the struggles waged by the peoples of the third world is the primary task of the workers movement in "the first and second worlds," which in the present stage is unable to play a decisive role.
The document says:
. . . generally speaking and for the time being, as a result of the Soviet ruling clique's betrayal, the spread of revisionist ideology and the splits in the ranks of the working class, the workers' revolutionary movement in the developed capitalist countries cannot but remain at the stage of regrouping and accumulating strength. In these countries there is as yet no revolutionary situation for the immediate seizure of state power.
The second world itself is "a force which can be united with in the struggle against hegemonism." In fact: ". . . today Soviet social-imperialism obviously represents the gravest danger to the West European countries." So, while not forgetting the "deep-rooted exploitation of and control over many third world countries," by the "second world countries," it is necessary to make a distinction. This involves among other things the need "to put forward the slogan of defending national independence" in the countries of the second world as well.
War is inevitable, the document says, and will remain so until there is a socialist revolution in the Soviet Union and in the United States. But it is possible to put off such a conflict by upsetting the timetable of the superpowers. China can benefit from such a delay since "we... urgently need a long period of peace."
War would bring widespread disaster. It would also bring great changes. "It is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will completely collapse."
The fight against war has to be based on a united front in which the socialist coun tries and the international proletariat fight alongside the countries of the third and second worlds, rejecting any policy of appeasement or détente with socialimperialism, which is the main danger of war.
Quotation Hunting in Marx and Engels
The editors of People's Daily resorted to a series of quotations from the classics in the attempt to demonstrate the legitimacy of their theory. Their claim that they based themselves on Marx, Engels, and Lenin lacks the slightest foundation.
Most of the quotations from Marx and Engels prove only one simple fact-that they clearly understood the full importance of the struggle for national liberation, notably in the well-known cases of Poland and Ireland. The only quotation that has any relevance for the question raised is a passage from Engels discussing the possibility of a Tsarist war of aggression against Germany:
We can inform the government that we are prepared to support it in a struggle against the external enemy, if we are given the chance, if we are treated decently. We are ready to do this if the government wages a war without quarter, using every means, including revolutionary ones... The very existence of the nation would be at stake in that case, and for us the important thing would be to maintain our positions and the possibilities for the future that we have won for ourselves. [Letter to Bebel, Marx-Engels Werke, vol. 38, pp. 159-163.]
In this passage, Engels raised the possibility of a war in which Germany would not have imperialist aims and in which its very existence would be in danger, a war that would also threaten to halt the advance of "the socialist movement in Europe for twenty years."
Such a possibility did not come to pass. (In general, it is hardly likely that in such a war, bourgeois Germany would not already at this time have had imperialist aims.) When war did break out in fact between Russia and Germany some decades later, both belligerents were motivated by their imperialist nature. And the genuine followers of Marx and Engels denounced the imperialism of their own countries, waging an intransigent struggle against it.
It was the reformists that Lenin fought against who thought, to use the words of People's Daily, that their countries were faced "with the question of safeguarding their national independence and the working class in Europe ... faced with the question of maintaining the positions and prospective opportunities already gained."
Lenin did not exclude a priori the possibility of national wars in the epoch of imperialism, and he even wrote that if the 1914 war had been limited to a conflict between Serbia and Austria, or Belgium and Germany, that the workers movement would have had to take a position in support of the small states attacked by empires. But once again, this was an extremely hypothetical possibility, and it did not come to pass.
The editors of People's Daily repeatedly quote the documents of the second congress of the Communist International. But they forget that the theses on the national and colonial question adopted by this congress said, among other things, that "the whole policy of the Communist International on the national and colonial question must be based mainly on the union of the workers and toiling masses of all nations and countries in the common revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the landlords and the bourgeoisie." (Thesis 4.)
As for the passage, also in the second congress documents, in which Lenin included in the same category oppressed colonies and dismembered countries such as Iran, Turkey, and China, as well as defeated countries, including Germany, it is clear that this was a purely empirical and conjunctural classification. Subsequent events, both after the first and second world wars, showed that Germany could quite rapidly resume its role as an imperialist power.
Strike Gold in Stalin
But more important, while Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders took advantage of this new room for maneuver to carry out diplomatic operations such as the Rapallo pact, they never tried to form a united front between the USSR and defeated Germany. They never kept quiet about the revolutionary tasks of the German proletariat, which were constantly on the agenda of the congresses of the Communist International.
Continuing their culling of quotations, the authors cite two passages from Stalin. One is from 1939 and concerns characterizing Germany, Italy, and Japan as aggressor countries; and Great Britain, France, and the United States as nonaggressor countries. The other, from 1942, draws a distinction between the Italian-German coalition and the Anglo-Soviet-American one. Obviously our eager quotation hunters neglected the period 1939-1941, the period of the German-Soviet pact.
But in any case, this counterposing of aggressor and nonaggressor countries covered up the class nature of the two coalitions, prettified it, and thus opened the door for the Tehran, Potsdam, and Yalta conferences and the division of the world into spheres of influence.
Moreover, the article brings up the thesis of Stalin's last book that "the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force." This is, to say the least, a dubious thesis, inasmuch as the existence of a series of countries where capitalism has been abolished represents an obstacle to the explansion of such conflicts much greater than existed before the Second World War. The implication of such a thesis, that is, that a war among capitalist countries is more likely than a war between capitalist and collectivist countries, is obviously still more dubious.
Is the USSR Imperialist?
The first and main argument used to demonstrate that the USSR is an imperialist country is totally false. Contrary to the United States and the second world countries that Peking is waltzing around with, it does not exact profits abroad by exporting capital. The document itself speaks of specific forms of exploitation. But these do not involve creating Soviet-owned operations. The plants and facilities that the USSR has built in India, for instance, are Indian property.
It is true that after the war, especially in certain East European countries, joint companies were formed in which the Soviet state had a share. In some cases, concerns of this type still exist. In the postwar period, the Yugoslav Communists in particular raised some sharp arguments against such operations. But they were a passing thing, and in any case of limited scope. No one could claim that they represented an inherent necessity of the Soviet economy, and in fact, it was possible to abolish the joint companies without the slightest repercussions.
It is also true that in its relations with other countries, the USSR has been able to profit from the unequal exchange that is a result of the fact that the capitalist world market is still, in the last analysis, the decisive regulatory mechanism. But even in its dealings with the countries in its sphere of influence, the USSR exports raw materials and imports industrial goods, and thus, in general, it pays the price of unequal exchange.
Moreover, the USSR has concluded longterm accords with some countries that have had the effect of stabilizing raw materials prices over relatively long and even extended periods at levels advantageous for the exporter countries. (The Cuban sugar agreement is an example.)
All these facts indicate how arbitrary is the analogy between the activities of the "Socialist Commonwealth" and those of the multinational companies. This does not mean that Moscow does not use Comecon and other "instruments," such as military bases and military occupation to safeguard its hegemony over its "sister" countries.
But what the Chinese theoreticians have never succeeded in demonstrating is that the analogy they make between the hegemonic "superpowers" reflects a fundamental identity between the socioeconomic structures in the USSR and in the USA.
If capitalism had been restored in the USSR, it would be possible to describe this process of restoration in very precise terms. But no Chinese document has so far succeeded in doing this. Peking's theoreticians have been unable to avoid falling into two major contradictions:
They date the degeneration of the USSR from 1956, or the death of Stalin, and at the same time, as proof of this degeneration, they point to phenomena that had already emerged under Stalin. While insisting that the workers can only achieve power through revolutionary violence, they maintain, even in the document under consideration here, a gradualist and "reformist" conception of the way capitalism can be restored.
Praise for France's 'Civilizing Mission'
To counter "Soviet hegemony," Peking calls for greater unity between the second and third worlds. The Chinese leadership has not hesitated to follow the logic of this position to the end, openly hailing the direct military intervention of an imperialist power, in this case France, in support of the reactionary Mobutu regime in Zaire. It took this attitude at the time of the attack of the so-called Katangan gendarmes.
In its June 6, 1977, issue Pékin Information said:
When, at the instigation of the Soviet Union, mercenaries invaded Zaire, France and certain West European countries provided military and logistical aid [to Zaire]. Thus, the tendency for West Europe and Africa to unite to oppose hegemonism is becoming stronger."
Arguments, based once again, on abstract analogies, that the USSR is the most aggressive power and "the most dangerous source of world war," can be countered simply by raising some very elementary questions. Who has been at the origin of all the more important military conflicts in recent years, from the Korean war to the one in Vietnam? Who staged an overt aggression against the Cuban workers state? Who backs what is really the most dangerous source of war in the Middle East, that is, the Zionist state of Israel?
How can it be explained, on the basis of the Maoists' present "theories," that in all the major confrontations in recent years, such as the ones in Korea and Vietnam, the USSR was on the side of what the Maoists themselves consider "socialist countries""? (This includes Cuba, at least at the time of the Yankee aggressions.) And how, on the basis of these theories, can it be explained that the Cubans and the Vietnamese have continually stressed how vital Soviet aid has been for them?
A Medal for Mobutu?
Can such gigantic facts be countered with references to the events in Angola, or, still worse, those in Zaire? Can anyone be unaware of the fact that in Angola it was not the USSR that provoked the war but that it only militarily aided one of the contending sides? More precisely, it aided the side against which were arrayed all the most reactionary forces, with the South African racists in the forefront. How is it possible to see in the Zaïre conflict a Soviet plot and to present Mobutu as a hero of his country's struggle for independence?
The Maoists' entire theoretical-political construction is based on the idea that "judging from their deeds and general orientation in international political struggles over the last 30 years or so, the oppressed nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America are revolutionary and progressive as far as their essence and main aspect are concerned...
Thus, our theoreticians exclude any concrete analysis of the way in which the colonial countries have achieved independence. They are all revolutionary, those that won independence by a prolonged struggle and by very broad mass mobilizations, as well as those that benefitted from colonialist maneuvers from above. Bokassa equals Boumédienne; Samora Machel, Houphouët-Boigny. The existence of native ruling classes is mentioned only in passing, as if it were an entirely secondary factor.
Such important developments as the changes brought about by partial industrialization of countries like Mexico and Brazil and the relative strengthening of national bourgeois strata more closely linked to imperialist enterprises are totally ignored. As a result, the political and military implications that flow from these developments are ignored as well.
Hangman of Tehran Not All Bad
For example, nothing is said about the ties between American imperialism and the Brazilian and Iranian ruling classes, or about the policeman's role that Brazil and Iran play in their respective zones of influence. Obviously it would be difficult to denounce this, while singing the praises of the hangman Reza Pahlevi and presenting some of the moves of the Geisel government in a favorable light!
As I mentioned, China is included in the third world. The essential criterion for this classification is not the class nature of the state but the backwardness of China's economic development as compared with that of the "rich countries." Moreover, the document does not specify who the other socialist countries are. The Chinese leaders include-for the moment-the three countries of Indochina in this category, as well as North Korea.
With respect to East Europe, the situation is more fluid. Albania remains a socialist country, but risks being demoted if its relations with Peking deteriorate further. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, might make a formally endorsed comeback. Romania was presented a few years ago as socialist. Such fluidity is the result of the regime's interest in including or excluding one or another country depending on its needs of the moment.
The problem with the analysis that the "second world," including countries involved in all sorts of neocolonialist operations such as Great Britain, France and the Federal Republic of Germany, can be won over to the united front against "hegemonism" is that it glosses over the class nature and real role of the countries concerned. Only an aberrant application of the simplistic notion of focusing on the "main enemy" could lead to forgetting that Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and other such powers are pillars of the world imperialist system.
A workers state can, of course, try to take advantage of interimperialist contradictions. But it is quite a different thing to present enemies as allies; to cover over the class divisions; and to make overtures to the worst kind of reactionaries such as Nixon, Strauss, Fanfani, and Sá Carneiro. It is quite a different thing to promote a stronger Common Market, which reflects the trend toward capital concentration, and a stronger Atlantic military alliance, which is designed to preserve the "free world," that is, the world capitalist system.
However, the most negative result of these wrong analyses about the second world and of the Chinese conception of a "united front against hegemonism" is the clear underestimation of the role and potential of the workers movement in the first and second worlds. The document is unambiguous about this. The article from People's Daily cavalierly glosses over everything that has happened in West Europe since 1968! A long time ago, the Chinese press forgot what it itself wrote about May 1968 in France.
The Chinese press has not analyzed in their full scope the great political and social struggles that have rocked Italy for a decade. It has maintained an extreme discretion as regards Spain. It minimized the events in Portugal, showing an interest only in pointing to alleged maneuvers by "Soviet social-imperialism."
In the document under analysis here, which is intended to be an overall synthesis, the working-class rise in Western Europe is simply ignored, and the authors strive rather to show that there is no perspective there of a revolutionary situation.
When the polemics began between the Chinese CP and the Soviet CP, Peking accused Moscow of following a policy of appeasing American imperialism. Today, it accuses not only the "second world," but also the United States of taking too soft an attitude toward the USSR. For example, in an interview in the October 23-24 issue of Le Monde, Teng Hsiao-P'ing said:
I hope that the entire world, the third world, the second world, and even the first, the United States, will join in the effort (to smash the general war plan of the USSR).
This quotation is sufficient to show what a change has occurred not only in the analyses but also in the criteria of the Chinese leaders and their representatives.
In this regard, there is a flagrant inconsistency in the Chinese analyses. If it were true that the USSR had gone over to the imperialist camp, as a result of a degeneration the Chinese themselves have described as a "historic tragedy," and if, moreover, the workers movement in the capitalist countries had not shown any rise in thirty years, it would be hard to see what the basis could be for the unfailing optimism expressed in Hua's report to the Eleventh Congress of the Chinese CP. He said, for example, that the international situation was "quite good, quite good, not just good or rather good."
All these incongruities and contradictions in the Chinese analyses, however, should not lead us to lose sight of the ideological continuity and the real basis of the Maoist theoretical innovations. The elements of continuity are reflected by the numerous quotations from Mao concerning different periods, as well as those from Stalin. They consist of an application, mechanical in form and opportunist in content, of the concept of the "main enemy," along with the Stalinist-originated method of making up theories to justify an empirical course.
When, in replying to their critics and first of all the Albanian defenders of Stalinist orthodoxy, the Chinese leaders recall Stalin's alliances with capitalist powers, they are on solid ground. The continuity between them and Stalin is not limited simply to ideological formulas or methodological procedures.
The essential fact remains that, just like the Stalinist and post-Stalinist USSR, Maoist and post-Maoist China subordinates the interests of the workers movement and the exploited masses of the entire world to its state interests, to the needs of maintaining the dominant position and privileges of the ruling bureaucratic caste. That is why, for instance, that it remains faithful to the theory of socialism in one country.
What Nixon's Visit Showed
The changes in orientation in China's international policy, which in certain respects led to the resumption of positions held in other periods, although then in a less systematic and sustained way, are in the last analysis the result of the turn American imperialism made in 1970. Washington resigned itself to accepting the reality of the new China, abandoning the strategy it had followed in the preceding twenty years. It opened the door to economic and political accords, seeking to establish a more or less stable modus vivendi.
The Maoist leadership responded favorably to this opening, among other things extending a spectacular invitation to Nixon to visit Peking at the time when the imperialist attack on Vietnam was at its fiercest. All the subsequent ideological rectifications, leading up to the adoption of the theory of the division into three worlds, fit into this new orientation, in which Peking aims not only to appeasement but at compromise on a rather broad scale. In this way also, the Chinese leaders hope, if not to prevent, at least to delay the outbreak of a war, and thus to be able to gain time they need to strengthen the country's economic underpinnings.
Cost of Mistaken Course
If this is true, some might think, the Chinese policy is not so disastrous, regardless of the pseudotheories designed to justify it. Such a conclusion would be wrong.
First of all, the Sino-Soviet conflict (the responsibility for which, it must not be forgotten, for a long period fell on the bureaucrats in Moscow) has in the past offered imperialism considerable room for maneuver, and continues to do so today.
Secondly, China's concentrating its fire on the USSR automatically means weakening the struggle against American imperialism.
Thirdly, the orientation involving substantial political compromises with the capitalist countries of the "second world" inevitably has negative implications for the struggle of the working class in an entire decisive region. Likewise, the compromises with the Mobutus and the Nimeirys and the scandalously ambiguous attitude taken toward Pinochet are not without grave consequences.
Insofar as the orientation and the conceptions adopted by Peking are put into practice, the job of the worst enemies of the working class and the oppressed peoples will be made easier, and the struggle against imperialism and for the overthrow of capitalism will be undermined or seriously obstructed. That is the reality that cannot be changed by any obfuscations.
Support for NATO Against 'Soviet Threat'
In its February 3, 1978, issue, Peking Review reprinted an article from People's Daily of January 18, entitled "Defense of National Independence And Second World Countries." In its conclusion, this article summarized the task that Maoist analysts think faces the masses in Europe today—to prepare the way for national unity with their bourgeoisies. The USSR was portrayed as the main threat:
"Hence it is absolutely necessary and correct for the people of the second world countries, faced as they are today with the threat of bullying, oppression and aggression by Soviet socialimperialism, to expose thoroughly the Kremlin's war machinations, oppose appeasement and be well prepared against a war of aggression. Should the war break out, the proletarians of these countries should come to the forefront of a national war, and fight for the survival and independence of their nations."
So, it is not surprising that in one of its rare international notes, Peking Review featured the summit meetings of NATO, the Atlantic military organization of the imperialists. These conferences, the magazine noted, "called for beefing up defences in face of the increasing Soviet military threat." (Peking Review, December 26, 1977) The general staff of the European counterrevolution could not hope for more ideological support.
Hail Meeting of Asian Dictators
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is made up of five dictatorial regimes, the ones in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Today, the Chinese leadership no longer hides its support for ASEAN, which it so long denounced as an instrument of neocolonialism. The Peking Review hailed the second summit conference of ASEAN held in Kuala Lumpur last August, saying:
"In 1977, the Association of Southeast Asian nations... made continual progress in safeguarding independence and national sovereignty....
The economic negotiations carried on during the conference, the ensuing discussions with "leaders" of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and the commitments entered into with the Common Market and Canada, deserved support, according to Peking Review.
Indeed, the magazine said:
"These talks achieved some results in promoting ASEAN economic relations with second world countries under relatively favorable conditions." (Peking Review, January 13.)
These talks also tended to strengthen imperialist domination in the region and shore up the stability of military and police-state regimes that are bulwarks of counterrevolution.