THE
KREMLIN SEES "TROTSKYISM" IN "CULTURAL REVOLUTION"
By George Saunders
The Soviet Communist party leadership has recently come out with a theoretical appraisal of the course of events in China. It is worth reviewing, not because it adds much to our knowledge or understanding of the Chinese situation, but because it indicates the kind of tactics the Soviet leaders are following in the new phase of the Sino-Soviet dispute accompanying the "cultural revolution."
The appraisal in question appears in the journal Kommunist, theoretical organ of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and is entitled "The Cultural Revolution in China and Petty Bourgeois Adventurisn." Written by one G. Shakhnazarov, it was printed in the third issue of the journal for 1967.
The article attempts to go beyond mere name calling or repetition of dogmatic assertions (although it's not free of these typical features of Stalinist polemics). It tries to grapple with some real issues, to poke some holes in the real weaknesses of Maoist policies. But the lack of fundamental objectivity can be judged from the bald equation Kommunist makes between Mao's ideas and policies and those of Leon Trotsky. No mention is made of the true parallel in Soviet history -- the policies and practices of Joseph Stalin, the previous "great genius" foisted onto the workingclass movement.
A central theme of the article in Kommunist is that the Chinese events are the fruit of a wrong political line against which Moscow warned from the start. If only the Chinese had adhered to CPSU policies, China's troubles could have been avoided. The opening paragraph states this clearly enough:
"When the first signs appeared of the deviation of the Chinese leaders fron the general line of the world Communist movement, the fraternal parties revealed the sources of these ideological errors and warned the Chinese leaders against entering upon a dangerous and unprofitable path. Unfortunately, no one in Peking wished to listen to these friendly warnings, but with growing fanaticism and blindness they pursued the course they had chosen."
This course, according to Shakhnazarov, led China into disaster economically, socially and politically, and in the realm of foreign policy. Careful analysis of the causes and lessons of this disastrous policy line is necessary, says the Kremlin spokesman, "because in the given instance the international Conmmunist movement has encountered not some isolated delusions and errors but rather a unique attempt to put into practice -on the scale of the most populous nation of the world -- the entire complex of techniques and methods of petty bourgeois adventurisn."
Thus Kommunist tries to give a theoretical explanation in pseudo-—Marxist terms for the Chinese developments. A whole complex of ideas and policies called "petty bourgeois adventurism" is allegedly involved. That is a "very dangerous" thing but don't ask our Kommunist theorists to explain it too precisely. It's just bad; that's the main thing to remember.
"Petty bourgeois adventurism is the most dangerous enemy of the revolutionary movement." Moreover, "such a danger grows a hundredfold when it comes into alliance with nationalism and when it is propagated in the name of a party that enjoys authority in the eyes of the popular masses. This is exactly the character taken on by the events in China.” (We will return to the Soviet theoretician's charges of nationalism and great power politics below.
The Kommunist contributor commends the Chinese party for its long years of orthodox struggle "under the banner of Marxism-Leninism" and its early years in power when "relying on the support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the Chinese people created an industrial base and made significant gains in econony and culture."
But trouble started in 1958 "when Mao Tse-tung imposed his erroneous policy course upon the party." Is there an attempt to explain how this was possible historically, socially, in class terms? Does Shakhnazarov give us a Marxist account of the origin and evolution of Mao's wrong course? Judge for yourself:
"Behind every action of the Mao ruling group, both within China and on the international arena, are hidden not only, and perhaps even not mainly, ideological considerations but political calculations as well. Thus the notorious ‘great leap forward,' which brought the economy to the brink of disaster, had a definite political aim along with its ideological roots: to bring the material base under the hegemonistic pretensions of Mao Tse-tung.
"However that may be, the great leap repeated the Trotskyist theses about 'skipping' over stages of social development; such features of petty bourgeois
thinking as adventurism, complete scorn for objective laws of development, and blind faith in the power of ‘revolutionary' phraseology all found expression.
"The same hegemonistic pretensions impelled the Chinese leadership to put forward its program of world revolution. And again, this program coincided almost to the last detail with the slogans of Trotsky and his followers, filled as it was with the spirit of petty bourgeois 'revolutionisn. '
"In other words, regardless of the concrete goals that may have motivated this or that political action of the Chinese leadership in recent years, almost all of them bore the mark of petty bourgeois thinking, having nothing in common with Marxist-Leninist teachings on socialism."[Emphasis added -- GS.]
Thus we learn from our Soviet "Marxist" that the roots of Mao's wrong course are, on the one hand, "hegemonism" and, on the other, "Trotskyism." That is, the Mao group is power hungry -- or to paraphrase the bourgeois original of this shoddy piece of explanation, "power mad." As for the charge of Trotskyism it is no more than an epithet. Shakhnazarov nowhere expands or tries to justify his assertion. He relies on his readers' lack of knowledge of the subject.
In its more serious attempts to deal with the cultural revolution, especially in its Part One, the Kommunist article hits at many of the actual weaknesses and illogicalities of Maoist policies. Kommunist's treatment of the subject is typical of the treatment currently found in the Soviet press in general. And it is interesting that many of the crit-— icisms coincide with those of revolutionary socialists, although of course they are made to prove different points.
The first point Kommunist makes is that the cultural revolution is anticultural. Schools have been closed, the scope of what is taught has been reduced, and the recitation of Mao's writings has been promoted to a semimagical status as a solution to all problems. The cultural heritage of past ages is scorned and trampled upon. Kommunist rightly deplores all this. Soviet intellectuals attack this aspect of Mao's policies with real feeling, experiencing the burden of such policies themselves to this day.
Shakhnazarov points out that of course, the main aim of Mao's campaign is not "cultural" at all. The brunt of his drive is against his opponents in the party, in the government, and in important mass organizations. Thus, the ideological content of the cultural revolution boils down to "a cult without culure. -615-
On the social content of the campaign, Kommunist asserts that it is not proletarian but petty bourgeois. Such is the class nature of the student Red Guards, at any rate, says the Kremlin theoretician. And he disputes a Peking theory that students always start workers movements and then draw the masses in.
The Soviet commentator points tellingly to Red Guard clashes with workers, to peasant disturbances and provincial uprisings. These testify to widespread opposition among the masses, he says, ridiculing Jenmin Jibao for declaring that if workers revolt against Mao, then they are necessarily bourgeois.
Shakhnazarov also effectively rebuts the charge of "economism" which the Maoists direct against workers seeking higher pay (or as the Peking propagandists put it, workers "taken in" by officials who give them more pay).
"The natural aspiration of people to ensure their livelihood is called ‘private property instinct,' ‘loss of revolutionary spirit,' "bourgeois and revisionist stock in trade,' etc. In this struggle against the just demands of the toilers the true essence of petty bourgeois adventurism shows itself most clearly. Having disrupted the process of planned economic development Lwith the "great leap"], Mao and his collaborators find nothing better than to preach asceticisn, to counterpose to real, vital needs, the ‘revolutionary spirit.' To them it's of no consequence that the main goal of socialist revolution is precisely to ensure the toilers the conditions of a truly human existence."
Kommunist gets into less solid territory when it takes up the political content of the cultural revolution, the antisocialist tendency of which allegedly shows most clearly in the matter of power. The fact that the party cadres are the basic object of attack, regardless of their records of service to the revolution, is seen as especially ominous. The revolution in power vitally needs a back~ bone of cadres, asserts the Kremlin organ, cadres hardened in proletarian ideology and practical experience. To try to remove them is to threaten the revolution itself. The question of whether they might have become even partly a privileged layer is not taken up in this "objective" review.
The counterrevolutionary thrust of Mao's campaign is stressed by quotes from several alleged leaflets that appeared in Peking. In one, workers of Foochow attribute to Red Guards the declared aim of "overthrowing the proletariat and its dictatorship." In another, workers of Szechwan are quoted protesting "the fascist actions of counterrevolutionaries," referring to Red Guards who, "like fas-
cists, beat up forty old revolutionaries."
Kommunist's China expert considers it most ominous that state as well as party organs are attacked; the Young Communist League and trade-union organizations have been dispersed; purges have been instituted in the army, police, and organs of state security. While the Maoists declare that "the old state machinery must be broken up" and "power seized by the revolutionary masses," what is actually involved, according to Kommunist, is the "conscious dismantling of the whole system of the dictatorship of the proletariat."
"If 17 years after the victory of the socialist revolution, attempts are made to overthrow the whole structure of political organization of the society, if the vast majority of leading cadres are declared a 'black band taking the capitalist road,' there can be no doubt that such a campaign is an attempt at counterrevolutionary overturn and is essentially directed against the socialist gains of the Chinese people."
From this passage it would seen that the Kremlin ideologists are toying with a "theory" of capitalist restoration in China. Thus they would answer the Maoist charge of a "fascist" Soviet Union in like coin. What is significant here is not the name calling but that neither side can admit the possibility of antiproletarian or bureaucratic political institutions existing in contradiction to an economic structure that is socialist in form. In short they can't admit the need for a political revolution to resolve this contradiction by instituting forms of proletarian democracy such as Lenin and Trotsky stood for.
x * *
Having analyzed the ideological, social and political character of the cultural revolution, Kommunist goes on in Part Two of the article to trace the historical development since 1958. Once the petty-bourgeois "revolutionistic" line of Mao was introduced, its economic expression, the "great leap," inevitably led to its political expression, the "cultural revolution." This followed because the economic disaster aroused such deep discontent that political repression was eventually necessary.
Kommunist asserts that the great leap created dissatisfaction among party and government leaders, managerial and technical personnel, military men and intellectuals, as well as the mass of workers and peasants. The serious character of this discontent remained unknown to the outside world because of the tight, -616-
"militarized" rule that Mao had imposed. But it was so strong it drove him to this new step.
According to Shakhnazarov's account, Mao decided to strike a blow at the growing disillusion with and opposition to his policies, especially among the youth. Youth disaffection was a special concern to the aging Mao, for it threatened his "immortality," his future reputation. (The Soviet theorist doesn't cite his bourgeois source here.) Thus, by mobilizing the Red Guards, Mao allegedly aimed at twin goals; to tie the youth to himself and to smash the party apparatus.
It is obvious that our Kremlin Sinologist has completely left out one causal factor. That is, the international situation -- an especially strong factor if you look at the timing of the "cultural" campaign. The dramatic failure of Mao's collaborationist line in Indonesia was the overture to China's internal convulsion. There have been strong hints that Mao's critics in the party were spurred on by that fiasco to raise their criticisms of the senile leader. Also the increasing senselessness of his sectarian policy in regard to united action by workers' states to stop imperialist aggression in Vietnam must have strengthened divisions in the Chinese party. The cultural revolution attempts to reimpose by force a unity of thinking that was shattered by events. But all of this escapes our stalwart "China expert."
One can also search in vain in the Kommunist article for any discussion of the question of bureaucratism in the Chinese party in relation to the current developments. Mao is called "power mad," but no social base for this personal aberration is indicated. A social sector of privileged officials who might find the seemingly mad policies of Mao to be within their narrow-minded interests? The possibility is not even incidentally considered. We are left with pure idealism -wrong ideas that have no social roots (except for a vague, unspecified petty bourgeoisie). A layer of students is surely not base enough for a policy to be imposed on an entire nation. And if the army is Mao's power base, wherein lies the petty-bourgeois nature of the People's Liberation Army? Shakhnazarov can not even raise such questions, let along answer then.
It is not surprising, then, that Shakhnazarov handles very clumsily the antibureaucratic phrasemongering to be found in the polemics of the protagonists of the cultural revolution. The Maoists have used this as a device to arouse youthful militants and clearly stirred up a hornets' nest. Shakhnazarov can see that, but he can't explain why it occurred, except that it's one more example of "petty
bourgeois adventurism and revolutionisn."
He deplores the antibureaucratic element as an especially dangerous feature that could open up the floodgates:
"The Red Guards are a blind instrument in the hands of Mao and his stooges. But such organizations, regardless of the wishes of their founders, have a tendency to take on their own motive force, to break out of control, a tendency to elaborate their own political program. There is reason to suppose that such a program would be shot through with a petty bourgeois spirit foreign to Marxism and the true interests of the cause of socialism in China.
"This may be corroborated by an analysis of the disparate demands raised at various times in the wall bulletins of the Red Guards. In them is found a total negation of the role of economic conditions in social life and a desire to leap over a series of necessary stages in social development. They ad- _ vocate wage levelling. pry"
Such an "“antisocialist" demand leads Shakhnazarov to the resounding conclusion: "a full complement of the elements of a petty bourgeois anarchist progran."
In the case of the Maoist "reorganization" of government on the model of the Paris commune, Shakhnazarov does not have to polemicize against an overly “anarchistic" idea. He simply points out that it hasn't happened. The Shanghai "commune" was not set up on the basis of universal suffrage; it consisted of army representatives and appointees from Maoist groups. The regime that Mao is trying to build, concludes our China expert, is "a terroristic military dictatorship with all the consequences that must flow from that."
The kind of terrible consequences could be graphically illustrated for the readers of Kommunist. All Shakhnazarov needed to do was mention the Soviet experience in the 1930's, the late 1940's and early 1950's. But our theoretician does not draw this parallel, so close to his readers.
* * *
Part Three of the Kommunist article deals with Mao's foreign policy. If in other areas the Soviet commentary was partly valid, here it loses all objectivity. The rigid demands of- "peaceful coexistence" dogma come into their own, and the Kremlin theorist takes on the role of agent provocateur.
Petty-bourgeois consciousness, -617-
Shakhnazarov tells us, is the ideal breeding ground for the firing of nationalist passions. Even in the great leap forward Mao was supposedly instilling a "great power" psychosis. Today the Red Guards, according to Kommunist, want to impose their values and the thoughts of Mao upon the whole world. In short, they are troublemakers and disturbers of the peace.
Kommunist's insinuation of aggressive and expansionistic aims on the part of the Chinese leaders or people flies in the face of the facts. The "nationalism" attributed to the Chinese must be measured in the light of the U.S. blockade of China, the escalating war in Vietnam and the clear threat of military attack. While it constitutes a deplorable departure from proletarian internationalism, it is not the same as the great-power chauvinism of expansionary imperialism. To equate the two is to play into the hands of imperialism. But let us taste the full provocative tone of this theoretical organ of the CPSU on this question.
Some excerpts from alleged quotes from Red Guard newspapers are offered. One editorial supposedly declared that "the combat task of Red Guards is to free mankind and remake the world with the help of Mao's thought." Shakhnazarov comments, "The paper leaves no doubt regarding what means the Red Guards are preparing to use to change the world. ‘Insofar as our Red Guards are soldiers,' the editorial explains, 'they will fight. We are the mighty reserve of the heroic People's Liberation Army. It is necessary to prepare for carrying on a world war.'" (The original Chinese context probably spoke of a world war that imperialism was threatening to unleash, as in Vietnam. But Kommunist spares us the contextual framework. )
The quote from the Red Guard paper continues: "The great proletarian cultural revolution is a great military training ground with the aim of preparing for carrying on a people's war." (A war of resistance, not one of aggression, is clearly meant, but again we are spared the context.
Kommunist continues: "The so-called ‘revolutionary rebels' are not at all interested in whether they have the right to interfere in the affairs of other peoples. They are simply sure of their historic Messianic role -- such is the result of educating the youth in an openly chauvinist, great-power spirit."
Accusations and insinuations of this kind coincide exactly with those of the U.S. imperialist government and its propaganda organs. Johnson and Oo. are busy justifying the Vietnam war by the very same Big Lie, that "Red China" wants to conquer the world and impose hunger and terror on Americans. Now they can add:
"Why even the Russian Communists admit it's so." Not only is this a total violation of internationalist and revolutionary traditions, it is utter blindness on the part of the Soviet ideologues. For the imperialists will not hesitate to use this same ammunition against the Soviet system when their interests warrant.
There are some additional minor points worth noting. For example, Kommunist explains Mao's extreme anti-Soviet policy by his need for a scapegoat to turn attention from his own errors and as a stick with which to beat opponents (by accusing them of Khrushchevisn). However, parts of Kommunist's own article lend credence to Mao's charges of Soviet collusion with American imperialism, the basis on which he is able to whip up so much frenzy.
There is another passing point of some validity. If normal democratic conditions existed in the Chinese Conmunist party, says Kommunist, the "mad" and egoistic notions of one person would not be put into practice. Hence Leninist norms and socialist democracy in the party and government are necessary for a socialist system. True enough, but how does Kommunist explain the absence of democracy in the Chinese Communist party in the first place? No better than it has in the past explained in relation to social and economic bases the Stalinist "deviation" in the Soviet Union from