Jim Washington belittles the differences which developed within the Communist Party of China on the general line for the transition to socialism. From his presentation, one would be led to believe that there were some tactical differences between Mao and the Rightists, but no fundamental disagreements on the transition period.[1] This view does not conform to the facts. As we noted earlier, while the two different approaches were not always precisely formulated, important differences arose right after liberation, and by 1960 had evolved into two clearly distinct lines. In 1953 Mao targeted the Right deviation as follows:
The general line or the general task of the Party for the transition period is basically to accomplish the industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce in ten to fifteen years, or a little longer. This general line is a beacon illuminating our work in all fields. Do not depart from this general line, otherwise “Left” or Right mistakes will occur.
The Right deviation manifests itself in three remarks:
“Firmly establish the new-democratic social order.” That’s a harmful formulation. In the transition period changes are taking place all the time and socialist factors are emerging every day. How can this “new-democratic social order” be “firmly established”? It would be very difficult indeed to “establish” it “firmly”! For instance, private industry and commerce are being transformed, and if an order is “established” in the second half of the year, it will no longer hold “firm” next year. And changes are taking place in mutual aid and co-operation in agriculture from year to year too. The period of transition is full of contradictions and struggles. Our present revolutionary struggle is even more profound than the revolutionary armed struggle of the past. It is a revolution that will bury the capitalist system and all other systems of exploitation once and for all. The idea, “Firmly establish the new-democratic social order”, goes against the realities of our struggle and hinders the progress of the socialist cause.[2]
A number of specific struggles arose which reflected this struggle against this rightist tendency.
1) In agriculture Liu and others (notably Kao Kang) argued that the rich peasant economy must be preserved to foster agricultural development. In 1950 Liu put forward his famous “four freedoms” which would have expanded the role of private production and commerce in the countryside. After ’51, Liu and the Right opposed Mao’s efforts to organize and mobilize the lower and middle peasants into co-operatives and, in a step by step way, achieve collectivization. According to Liu, collectivization must wait until mechanization was possible through the creation of heavy industry. He stated that this “technical factor” and not the political education and mobilization of the peasantry was decisive in transforming agriculture. By 1955 the Right was openly opposing collectivization and attempting to sabotage the co-operative movement.[3] Opposing collectivization under these conditions would have led to the consolidation of a rich peasant stratum in the countryside and the strengthening of capitalist relations in agriculture.
2) There is evidence that Liu and the rightist elements within the Communist Party of China were prepared to give a much greater and less restricted role to private production by the national bourgeoisie.[4] Liu tended to emphasize the “unity” of the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie in reconstructing the economy. Mao, on the other nana, emphasized the aspect of “struggle” to restrict the national capitalists and transform their class stand and world outlook. Liu emphasized “economic unity” as the main form of “class struggle” during the new democratic stage. In contrast Mao stressed restriction vs. opposition to restriction as the main form of struggle. Compare the following
Liu:
...we both unite and struggle with the bourgeoisie. But which is the point of emphasis? Confining ourselves to the present, the point of emphasis should be unity. Will this change in the future? Probably. But the period when the point of emphasis is unity is going to be rather long. Today, the point of emphasis is unity especially economic unity ... Concerning the question of workers, political questions, and theoretically and ideologically, we have disputes with them. It must be made clear as to where we may cooperate with them and where we should restrict such cooperation.
Comrades in Tientsin seem unwittingly to regard the free bourgeoisie as the object of struggle This is wrong – the objects of our struggle are imperialists, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, and the feudal class, Comrades have raised their fists of struggle. But they don’t seem to see imperialists, the bureaucrateic bourgeoisie, and the feudal class. They regard friends as enemies, and fail to strike at those they should strike at.[5]
Mao:
The policy of restricting private capitalism is bound to meet with resistance in varying degrees and forms from the bourgeoisie, especially from the big owners of private enterprises, that is, from the big capitalists. Restriction versus opposition to restriction will be the main form of class struggle in the new-democratic state.
It is entirely wrong to think that at present we need not restrict capitalism and can discard the slogan of “regulation of capital”; that is a Right opportunist view. But the opposite view, which advocates too much or too rigid restriction of private capital or holds that we can simply eliminate private capital very quickly, is also entirely wrong; this is a “Left” opportunist or adventurist view.[6]
Liu further claimed at the 8th Party Congress in 1956 that managers, former capitalists, and higher technical personnel had acquired “a proletarian outlook through working for socialism.”[7] He elaborated further that the question of “who will win out” had already been decided and drew the implicit conclusion that classes and class struggle no longer existed – thus there was no need for continued struggle to restrict the bourgeoisie.[8] According to Liu, the principal contradiction in Chinese society was now between the “advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces.”
Mao, on the other hand; by 1957 took a stand in opposition to the Liuist thesis of the dying out of class struggle. As we noted earlier, he was self-critical for his tacit approval of Liu’s remarks at the 8th Congress. In 1957 he outlined his own views in a work entitled On the Ten Great Relationships. Here Mao pointed to the continued existence of class struggle in socialist society and stated that the question of “who will win out”, capitalism or socialism had not yet been resolved. In particular he noted the protracted character of the ideological and political struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat and targeted the intelligentsia and national bourgeoisie (particularly within the state apparatus) as an important source of bourgeois ideology within Chinese society. Mao pointed out that only the “minority of intellectuals” were Marxists and emphasized the need to remould the world outlook of the intelligentsia/national bourgeoisie.
Compare the different views of Liu and Mao on class struggle and the basic contradiction in socialist society.
Liu:
A decisive victory has already been won in this socialist transformation. This means that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in our country has been basically resolved, that the history ot the system of class exploitation, which lasted for several thousand years in our country, has on the whole been brought to an end, and that the social system of socialism has, in the main, been established in China. ...
However, the major contradiction in our country is already that between the people’s demand for the building of an advanced industrial country and the realities of a backward agricultural country, between the people’s need for rapid economic and cultural development and the inability of our present economy and culture to meet that need. In view of the fact that a socialist system has already been established in our country, this contradiction, in essence, is between the advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces of society.” The chief task now facing the Party and the people is to concentrate all efforts on resolving this contradiction and transforming China as quickly as possible from a backward agricultural country into an advanced industrial one.[9]
Mao:
In socialist society the basic contradictions are still those between the relations of production and the productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base.
In China, although socialist transformation has in the main been completed as regards the system of ownership, and although the large-scale, turbulent class struggles of the masses characteristic of times of revolution have in the main come to an end, there are still remnants of the overthrown landlord and comprador classes, there is still a bourgeoisie, and the remoulding of the petty bourgeoisie has only just started. Class struggle is by no means over. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the ideological field will still be protracted and tortuous and at times even very sharp. The proletariat seeks to transform the world according to its own world outlook, and so does the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is not really settled yet.[10]
The Textbook of Political Economy (Shanghai, 1974) states that Liu “opposed the socialist transformation of industry and commerce in an attempt to preserve capitalist influence.”[11] We cited earlier other sources which supported this claim.[12] There is also evidence, which we do not have the space to go into here, that Rightist resistance in the party toward the proletarian line appeared outside the economic sphere in this period. For example, during the Hundred Flowers campaign there was definite resistance to opening up the party to outside criticism. Liu and the Right opposed the innovative methods that Mao and those close to him were implementing to attack bureaucracy and other ills of the party. The Rightists were unable to sabotage this campaign, as evidenced by the fact that the CPC soon after Hundred Flowers launched the Anti-Rightist campaign and then the Great Leap Forward. However, Rightist influence in the superstructure had to be combatted regularly through such campaigns in order to (as it was later put) increase production and make revolution. Liu and the Rightists’ theoretical differences with Mao were an attempt to justify a retrograde attitude towards the ideological, political, and economic restriction of the bourgeoisie and to negate the necessity to continue class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
3)Finally, during the period of 1949-60 important differences arose within the Communist Party of China on the relationship between the different sectors of the economy: heavy industry, light industry, and agriculture. The Soviet model, which the Chinese adhered to faithfully during the first Five Year Plan, stressed investment in heavy industry and the production of the means of production. Emphasis was placed on the development of large-scale, integrated plants, many of which were built by the USSR with Soviet technology and expertise. By 1957 in his speech on The Ten Great Relationships, Mao had come to reject this feature of the Soviet mode1, arguing that the stagnation of agriculture and slow growth rates throughout the economy were the result. He stated:
The emphasis in our country’s construction is on heavy industry. The production of the means of production must be given priority, that’s settled. But it definitely does not follow that the production of the means of subsistence, especially grain, can be neglected. Without enough food and other daily necessities, it would be impossible to provide for the workers in the first place, and then what sense would it make to talk about developing heavy industry? Therefore, the relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and light industry and agriculture on the other must be properly handled.
In dealing with this relationship we have not made mistakes of principle. We have done better than the Soviet Union and a number of East European countries. The prolonged failure of the Soviet Union to reach the highest pre-October Revolution level in grain output, the grave problems arising form the glaring disequilibrium between the development of heavy industry and that of light industry in some East European countries – such problems do not exist in our country. Their lop-sided stress on heavy industry to the neglect of agriculture and light industry results in a shortage of goods on the market and an unstable currency. We, on the other hand, attach more importance to agriculture and light industry. We have all along attended to and developed agriculture and have to a considerable degree ensured the supply of grain and raw materials necessary for the development of industry. Our daily necessities are in fairly good supply and our prices and currency are stable.[13]
The Textbook of Political Economy claims Liu Shao-chi opposed this shift away from the Soviet model.
In opposition to Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, there was the revisionist line advocated by the Liu Shao-ch’i and Lin Piao clique which had fewer, slower, and poorer results at higher costs, namely, developing heavy industry at the expense of agriculture and light industry. Because it neglects the development of agriculture and light industry, this line of lopsidedly developing heavy industry does not meet the requirements of the peasants to strengthen the collective economy; it does not take care of the livelihood of the broad masses and will certainly result in discontent among the people and the improper development of heavy industry.[14]
We could not find evidence of Liu’s open opposition to Mao’s line but clearly there was a section of the Communist Party of China which wanted to continue with the Soviet model.[15] In our view, Liu’s opposition to Mao’s views on this question would be consistent with his Rightist views on other questions. To mechanically apply the Soviet model in the concrete conditions of China would have led to serious errors (weakening the worker-peasant alliance, holding back the revolutionizing of the production relations) which would strengthen those forces seeking to halt the revolution at the democratic stage.[16]
Mao contended that in a peasant-majority country like China, where accumulation must come primarily from the country-side, a one-sided stress on heavy industry would place too much of the costs of industrialization on the peasantry. Agriculture would remain relatively backward and slower growth rates in both industry and agriculture would result. In addition the emphasis on heavy industry meant large “bribes” were necessary to buy the services of the technicians and administrators essential in capital-intensive heavy industry.
Mao argued that emphasis should continue on heavy industry – no country could be independent without an industrial base of metals, machinery, fuel, and transport, and it is only through the creation of heavy industry that material abundance is possible. Mao, however, put forward that light industry and agriculture should develop simultaneously. Further, small and medium-sized industry should develop alongside large-scale industry, particularly in the countryside.
According to Mao, this would result in:
1) Faster accumulation in the countryside. Through price supports for agricultural products, lower taxes, and favorable exchange rates from the state sector, a greater surplus would be available for investment in industry.
2) In light industry a greater supply of industrial crops (i.e. cotton) would be available for consumption as raw materials by industry.
3) The burden on agriculture as the motor of accumulation would be lessened by accumulation from light industry, which requires less capital and has a faster rate of return than heavy industry.
4) An expanded market for industrial goods in the countryside and in general a narrowing of the “scissors” between town and country.
5) The simultaneous development of all three sectors would lessen the dependency on the politically unreliable intelligentsia and result in the transfer and diffusion of technical skills to the countryside.
6) The development of small and medium-sized industry in the countryside utilizing local labor and resources would be not only an important source of capital accumulation, but also provide an environment which would facilitate the recently proletarianized peasant in mastering and controlling the production process.[17]
These differences on the general line arose on numerous occasions between 1949-60. The class struggle was most visible in the struggle within the party over the question of the collectivization of agriculture. In 1955 Mao was to state:
An upsurge in the new, socialist mass movement is imminent throughout the countryside. But some of our comrades, tottering along like a woman with bound feet, are complaining all the time, “You re going too fast, much too fast.” Too much carping, unwarranted complaints, boundless anxiety and countless taboos – all this they take as the right policy to guide the socialist mass movement in the rural areas.
No, this is not the right policy, it is the wrong one.
The high tide of social transformation in the countryside, the high tide of co-operation, has already swept a number of places and will soon sweep the whole country. It is a vast socialist revolutionary movement involving a rural population of more than 500 million, and it has tremendous, world-wide, significance. We should give this movement active, enthusiastic and systematic leadership, we should not drag it back by whatever means.[18]
Jim Washington is correct to note that the right wing of the Communist Party of China attained dominance of the party at the Eighth Congress – however, he conveniently neglects to inform us that the rightist hegemony was only temporary. In September-October of 1957 at the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, most of the major decisions of the Eighth Congress were reversed,[19] and the principles for China’s economic development which Mao had elaborated in On the Ten Great Relationships became party policy. The outcome of this struggle was the party’s decision to launch The Great Leap Forward.
What characterized the Leap? First, the “high tide” of collectivization and the formation of the People’s Communes in the countryside.[20] Second, a shift away from the Soviet model and greater emphasis on agriculture/light industry relative to heavy industry; and, in the countryside, the development of small and medium-sized industry, utilizing local labor and resources.[21] Third, many forms of worker control such as the “triple combinations”, management participation in labor, and the part-time technical colleges for workers, were institutionalized in most of China’s modern industrial sector.[22]
Our question to Jim Washington (and his friends in the Party of Labor of Albania) is: how could any of these measures have been implemented if the national bourgeoisie had usurped state power at the Eighth Congress (or held it all along)? Moreover, the tall or P’eng Te-Huai, the Minister of Defense in 1958, who opposed key facets of the Great Leap Forward, is further substantiation of the Left’s hegemony.[23]
We do believe that the Right was able to gain a dominant position and implement certain economic “reforms” during the period of 1960-62, which we will discuss shortly. Nevertheless, we think our documentation proves that a proletarian line characterized the party and state policy until 1960. This line was to regain its dominance in 1963.
Great victories were achieved by the Chinese people in the construction of socialism during the period of 1949-60 and later in the Cultural Revolution (which goes beyond the scope of this paper). No hollow declarations by the likes of Jim Washington and the Albanians can wipe out these monumental achievements. Facts indeed, are stubborn things.
[1] Jim Washington, pp. 9-10.
[2] Mao, Selected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 93-94.
[3] Schram, Authority, Participation, and Cultural Change in China, pp. 37-38, 128, 142., Prybyla, pp. 40, 152, 154, 163.
[4] Prybyla, pp. 65, 179. Barnett, pp. 490-91.
[5] Barnett, p. 491.
[6] Mao, SW 4.368.
[7] Quoted in Han Suyin, p. 50. This line had already been taken by Chou En-lai in January, 1956.
[8] FLP, Eighth National Congress of the CPC, p. 115.
[9] Liu, quoted in MacFarquhar, p. 119.
[10] Mao, SW 5.393, 409.
[11] Textbook, p. 258.
[12] Richard Solomon, Mao’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture, pp. 268-329^ Barnett, pp. 536-37. Schram, pp. 48-49.
[13] Mao, SW 5.285.
[14] Textbook, p. 384.
[15] MacFarquhar, Origins of the Cultural Revolution, pp. 61-63.
[16] See Bettelheim, Class Struggles in the USSR on the question of the social consequences of the bribery of the technical and administrative personnel in the USSR. See also Maurice Dobb, Soviet Economic Development Since 1917, pp. 258-59. Bettelheim, in addition, gives a good account of the failure to revolutionize the Soviet educational system. As a consequence, when a new generation of Bolshevik cadre were trained by the early 30’s, they were greatly influenced by the doctrine of ”technique decides everything” and had little understanding of the need to transform the social relations. In Mao’s terms, these Soviet cadre were “expert” but not “red”, and fertile soil for revisionism.
[17] Wheelwright and McFarlane, pp. 162-63. Two other good comparative sketches on Chinese and Soviet economic development: Harry Magdoff, “China: Contrasts with the USSR”, Monthly Review, July-August, 1975. Jack Gray, “The Two Roads: Alternative Strategies of Social Change and Economic Growth in China”, in Schram, pp. 109-59. On the question of the role of light industry in the countryside, see Jon Sigurdson, “Rural Industry and Internal Transfer of Technology” in Schram, pp. 199-232. Bettelheim’s study Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China is a good beginning in analyzing the transformation of the relations of production in Chinese industry in addition to the Andors work previously cited.
[18] Mao, SW 5.184.
[19] Prybyla, pp. 226, 260. Suyin, p. 106.
[20] Prybyla, pp. 257-340.
[20] Ibid.
[20] Andors, pp. 69-96.
[20] Guillermaz, pp. 243-44. Schram, p. 136.