documents are now emphasizing the necessity of intensifying work.
In this new phase, the use of the term "bodies of a Paris Commune type" to designate the leading bodies of Peking and Shanghai has been abandoned. The "Triple Alliance" was formed with the object of appointing the new leaderships at the various levels from above, which tends to suppress any direct expression of the mass movenent. The Tendencies in the leadership of the Chinese CP
While pro-Moscow elements and even a pro-Moscow tendency very probably exist within the Chinese CP, and while the Chinese leadership could have considered this tendency particularly dangerous because of the international support it might receive, it seems more and more clear that the crisis developed mainly . within a leadership which had been in basic agreement in past years on the line to be followed in the Sino-Soviet conflict, particularly when it took the acute form of an ideological clash between the two parties. The divergences within this leadership probably began to emerge over economic problems, on the attitude to take regarding the intellectuals; and they were probably more and more aggravated by the deterioration of the situation (in particular with the defeat in Indonesia) and by the problems posed by the American escalation in Vietnam (whether or not to engage in joint action with the Soviet Union in the defense of Vietnam).
The way the crisis developed indi-~ cates that the Mao group saw possible opposition only in certain specific strata in the army and the economic bureaucracy. As a result, it attacked some groups con~ trolling important positions (Peng Chen's group in Peking), and in addition broad layers of the intellectuals. From this standpoint, the Mao group attacked ina particularly violent way, in pure Zhdanovist style, journalists, intellectuals, a section of the oldest Communist intelligentsia, who in the past had expressed criticisms coming closest to a consistent antibureaucratic opposition in their works. Some were even accused of wanting to create an opposition by means of a Chinese version of the "Petofi circles."
Eventually, resistance to the Mao group appeared in a large part of the party and state apparatus and was reflected in the attitude of some of the most highly placed leaders like Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao Ping.
As indicated above, the group promoting the "Cultural Revolution" began to undergo differentiation in the period following the August 1966 Central Committee plenum and it underwent clear cleavages at the end of 1966 at the time when Mao launched his appeals to the workers and peasants and came out for intervention by the army.
From the documents themselves of the most hard-core Maoist faction, it seems clear that certain groups (certainly among the military) were against using the army, probably for fear of creating strained relations between the army and the masses and of weakening the army in a situation fraught with dangers for the country. Other groups, it seems, were opposed to extending a mass mobilization, citing the obstacles this would put in the way of production and fearing that things would get out of hand.
The divisions among the Maoists took their most spectacular forms at the time of the Shanghai events; and they occurred precisely in the local leadership and the editorial staff of the local news-— paper, which had been Mao's principal props at the end of 1965 and from which the first attacks heralding the launching of the "Cultural Revolution" had originated. A part of the Shanghai apparatus gave way to pressure from below, accepted some of the workers' demands, and made concessions. Another section resisted and in return got the support of the central Mao group.
In the most recent phase, at the time of the "conquest of power" by the "Triple Alliance," the Mao group denounced tendencies which, instead of subnitting to the bureaucratically constituted new leading bodies, wanted to carry the struggle against the apparatus and the old leaders to its conclusion.
Thus the overall developments of the crisis enable us to judge more concretely the nature of Mao's positions and his contradictions.
In his factional struggle he has not hesitated to appeal to certain sectors of the masses in order to gain their support against his adversaries. To this end, neither has he hesitated to put forward antibureaucratic, egalitarian slogans, to invoke the revolutionary democratic tradition of the Paris Commune, to broadly criticize the practices of the postrevolutionary period. However, as soon as the masses which were beginning to move went beyond the bounds of bureaucratic controls, advancing their own demands and introducing their own methods of struggle, the Mao group intervened harshly against them, resisting their demands, denying concessions, and even ains already granted to certain sectors Cror example, denying the Shanghai workers the means to travel to Peking which had been accorded to the Red Guards), ordering the army to intervene, sometimes only politically, but also in full-scale repressive actions, slandering the masses in the customary way by presenting them as pawns in diabolic plots. In other words, despite its appeals to certain sections of the masses, the Mao faction has continually demonstrated its profoundly bureaucratic character and has never ceased using a whole series of bureaucratic and Stalinist methods against its adversaries.
Tasks and Perspectives
Since the Chinese crisis is far from ended, there can be no question of drawing up a balance sheet as yet. Nevertheless, we can clarify some of its most important results and draw up. tasks and perspectives on this basis.
Internationally, the Chinese crisis has contributed, due among other things to the ultraleft policy of the Chinese CP leadership, to the degeneration of the Sino-Soviet conflict into a conflict between workers states, featured not only by some scandalous acts on both sides but, above all, by the lack of united-front action by the two large workers' states for the defense of the Vietnamese Revolution. The Fourth International reaffirms the necessity of establishing a united front of all the workers' states and all the workers' parties on a platform of consistent struggle against the American aggression in Vietnan. While the Fourth International has severely criticized the Soviet bureaucracy for its major responsibility for this situation and considers that the distrust on the part of China can be explained by a whole series of acts by Moscow, and while it believes that the Soviet leadership must reaffirm its solidarity toward China and solemnly declare that a war against China would be considered an aggression against the Soviet Union, at the same time, the Fourth International condemns the Mao group's rejection of a united front.
Although the Soviet leaders have striven their utmost to profit from the errors and excesses committed by the Chinese (rejection of a united front for Vietnam, the Mao cult, etc.), the Moscow leadership continues to encounter considerable difficulties in calling an international congress of Communist parties intended to condemn the Chinese CP. The developments of the crisis in China exert an influence on broad circles because of some of the ideological themes which they advance; because of the light cast on the problems posed by the existence of a bureaucracy in the workers’ states. The Fourth International underlines the fact that the Chinese crisis has, among other things, given new value to the Trotskyist definitions and political theories relating to the bureaucratic degeneration in the workers' states, to the specific nature of some of the forms of Stalinism in the degeneration of the first isolated workers' state, and to the necessary and possible political revolution against the bureaucracy.
On the other hand, while the events in China arouse strong interest and great sympathy for the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese leadership is incapable of rallying around itself political formations of even the slightest seriousness in the international workers' movement. Even the mass Communist parties of Asia, which packed Peking against Moscow in the preceding years, took their distance from the Chinese CP during the "Cultural Revolution." Here, too, there was no new edition of the grip of a state bureaucracy on the broad masses of the workers' movement of the world, even on the basis of a state as big as China.
In conclusion, the Fourth International restates the necessity for a critical examination of a whole series of experiences, in particular the tragic experience of Indonesia. The self-criticism of the Indonesian CP constitutes a step forward in this area, but this self-criticism has been carried out only halfway and leaves out the responsibility of the Chinese leadership in this tragic defeat.
At the national level, this situation takes the form of the disintegration of the leadership which assured the triumph
of the revolution, even if the turmoil in the apparatus and the interventions of the masses still play only a transient role as independent social forces. None of the groups which have issued from the leadership is able to offer a real solution to the current problems of the Chinese Revolution. Ideas have been put forward in the course of these events which cannot but leave an imprint on the most advanced sectors of the Chinese party members and the workers. Thus favorable conditions as a whole exist to build a new vanguard whose object would be to inpel the mass movements in the direction of an antibureaucratic political revolution.
In the light of the available information, it can be gathered that elements or groups exist in China which express positions bordering on revolutionary Marxism and that sectors of the mobilized masses are inspired by demands and aspirations shared by the Fourth International. But the information is not sufficiently clear to permit the International to identify itself with any of the tendencies or factions in the Chinese CP now contending with each other. The lack of information is largely due to the Stalinist methods employed by the Mao faction against its opponents, which we energetically condemn. As for Mao's opponents, such as Liu Shao-chi and TengHsiao Ping, who held and who still hold considerable means of making known their political line had they so desired, their silence on this subject compels us to be relatively cautious concerning the contents of their policies.
The Chinese revolutionary Marxists must support all mass movements, participating in all actions in which the masses can gain political understanding and act in the defense of their demands independent of any influence by bureaucratic groups. Such participation is mandatory even in cases in which some spontaneous demands are not entirely correct.
In order to develop the mass movements in the direction of an antibureaucratic political revolution, the revolutionary Marxists must strive to rally the most progressive elements in the various existing camps around a program based on the specific needs of the Chinese Revolution at the present stage and on the level of maturity attained by the masses or by their most advanced strata.
In addition to the international tasks mentioned above, such a program must include the following principal points in particular:
@ The struggle for the broadest measure of democracy for the masses and the limitation and abolition of the bureaucracy's advantages and privileges. Around this arise the problems of the democratic election of committees by the masses, organization of the state on the basis of such bodies, freedom of organization and the right of all proletarian tendencies to express themselves, the independence of the trade unions with respect to the state, the right of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom to demonstrate, the right to participate in elections, permanent control of elected representatives by the masses with the right to recall them at any time, along the lines of the Paris Commune. In the current crisis, this involves condemning slanderous methods and upholding the right of different factions and tendencies to express their positions themselves.
@ The organization of a democratic type of planning by bodies elected democratically from top to bottom by the masses. The basic economic choices must be determined in this framework, in particular the rate of investment and the level of consumption, i.e., in the final analysis, the workers' wage rates and living conditions, and not by the decision of the bureaucratic upper echelons. The revolutionary Marxists will make the vital distinctions between the demands of the workers and those of the bureaucrats. If the criticisms aimed at "economism" are legitimate when they are directed against the bureaucratic and technocratic layers or against measures assuring privileged conditions for some categories, they must be energetically rejected in instances where they are directed against workers as in the case of the Shanghai workers who protested against the working conditions and living conditions imposed on them by bureaucratic groups.
@ In the countryside, complete democratization of the life of the communes, which includes the right of the peasants to withdraw from them, should the occasion arise. Participation of the peasants in working out general economic policy.
@ In the field of culture, the elimination of all Zhdanovist practices, freedom of expression and criticism, rejection of any leadership cult, free con~ frontation of ideas and tendencies.
The struggle against the ideologies of the past cannot be effectively conducted by means of administrative measures or by the imposition of slogans and norms, but by the independent development of the poten~ tialities of the new society.
Only socialist democracy in all fields will enable the Chinese Revolution to evoke the enthusiasm and creative spirit of the masses, to improve the living conditions of the Chinese people, to aid in surmounting the backward conditions of the country, and to extend the prestige of the Chinese Revolution throughout the en~ tire world.