Discussion Regarding the Peoples Republic of China
Hartmut Dicke
40 years ago, in May 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began in China, which was to become a cornerstone in the development of the entire 20th century. It was preceded by a ten-year dispute, since the CPSU had made a number of fundamental changes in its policy and China under Mao Zedong increasingly voiced unequivocal criticism of the Soviet Union and the CPSU. In fact, this period was also preceded by a lengthy debate, which began in the 1930s with the Long March [1].and the assertion of the CCP's independence from the CPSU and the avoidance of certain mistakes that would otherwise have been imposed on it by the Comintern. In the summer of 1966 and into August, the Cultural Revolution experienced its first highlights.
Many of the subsequent events in the late 20th century were correctly foreseen in the Cultural Revolution in China. It was posited that the US would suffer a severe defeat in its claim to hegemony, which was true at times, and it was argued that unless the CPSU abandoned its revisionist policies and brought about fundamental changes in the Soviet Union, the collapse of that formerly communist country would become inevitable. The capitalist and bureaucratic-capitalist degeneration of the Soviet Union had already begun in full in the 1960s. In the Cultural Revolution, the mask was torn off this process unvarnished and unequivocally, which led to a worldwide echo of the Cultural Revolution.
Most fundamentally, however, the Cultural Revolution aimed to prevent the degeneration and regeneration of exploiters in China who were even more shameless than conventional capital. It was known that if this line of the Cultural Revolution, which had been worked out over a long period of time, did not succeed or was overthrown in a kind of military coup, then China would take the capitalist path, which in turn contained various possibilities. On the one hand, there was the possibility of a complete collapse with renewed dependence on the great powers, or, on the other hand, one had to face the emergence of a new ambitious capitalism from China, which the Chinese bourgeoisie had previously not managed on its own. The possibility was therefore seen[2]could occur and could even take its place. Chinese capitalism was previously incapable of comprehensive independent development, for it socialism was a vehicle at a certain stage, but for this the capitalist forces later needed an overthrow of the social order, the destruction of all essential socialist foundations and the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat . On the other hand, in the years before the end of 1976, these revolutionary principles were explicitly pursued, and the danger of an overthrow, which had become particularly apparent since 1956, was faced with. Completely different goals were set: China must make the greatest possible contribution to human history, a contribution to the revolution, the development of the productive forces and science, as for social development, but China should not strive to become a superpower, these were the principles at the time. The danger assumed at the time that China could also develop into a great power that commands others is now a reality.
The Cultural Revolution attempted to enforce communist principles and goals. If one summarizes the essence of the Cultural Revolution, then it was about realizing the dictatorship of the proletariat in concrete terms and advancing the social goals of communism by fundamental steps, above all in the minds of the people. Despite the political circumstance of a cultural revolution that has been right on many counts, it is nevertheless painted in the blackest of colors by almost every bourgeois force in the world. It is, so to speak, the most unspeakable event that ever happened in the 20th century, if you follow the bourgeois press, if you follow the Chinese party. She speaks of "ten bad years", namely from 1966-1976, and so far has completely condemned the Cultural Revolution.
One of the protagonists of the Cultural Revolution in the early days, Chang Chun-chiao [3] , gave a major speech officially for the CCP in 1967, in which he spoke of a world-shaking movement of Red Guards who rose up in the Cultural Revolution was. This characterization, however, was true for the entire Cultural Revolution, which for the first time allowed China and the Chinese Revolution to spread throughout the world. Whether friend or foe, there was no one who could deny this. It led to inspiration, the formation of communist parties and the adoption of CCP principles and teachings around the world. [4]
It was a political earthquake of the greatest importance. And if today it is painted in the blackest of colors by almost all forces, then we must remember that the French Revolution was also portrayed as a politically monstrous event some 30 to 40 years later, and yet its principles prevailed. The October Revolution is also referred to as a “coup” and as the worst event of the 20th century and the like, and yet there is no question that, despite all the shortcomings and mistakes, the proletariat made a fundamental breakthrough here.
II.
The “turnaround in political development”, which is mostly talked about today, supposedly refers to the year 1989. It is said that capitalism triumphed there. Well, whether this is really a victory remains to be seen. In fact, however, this overthrow began in 1976, and above all after 1979, ten years earlier. In the 1980s, China opened up its labor force to the world's capitalists, and China's industrialization began, through a certain combination of new Chinese and old Western capitalists, which is producing its corresponding results today. Even if the Cultural Revolution was condemned, the radical capitalist transformation was pursued with a “cultural revolutionary” panache. Mao Zedong saw this possibility of development, because he pointed out that Deng Xiaoping was not only a person with revisionist mistakes, but also someone with great revolutionary abilities. We are all affected by this, we know that today's worldwide relocations of production have their most important base in the new industrialization of China on this political basis.
The Cultural Revolution is therefore the cornerstone of our development, and not only we, but many organizations all over the world took their starting point from this political earthquake, which in the mid-1960s was unmistakably political and seismologically spread all over the world.
It is therefore all the more important that the character and nature of the Cultural Revolution be corrected in public and that it be treated objectively.
It is the typical method of slander to focus on details, fringe episodes and certain exaggerations and exaggerations in an event such as the Cultural Revolution, which at the time encompassed 800-900 million people in China and was the largest mass movement ever to exist essential revolutionary effects on the people but sweeps under the table. There were Red Guards fighting, sometimes bitterly fighting each other within the individual cities, there was chaos in certain cities, as there is in every revolution, there were people who casually flung accusations at certain people , fashion revolutionism that stands out one-sidedly. There was finally a completely exuberant personality cult,[5] was operated, there was a putsch within this cultural revolution, which failed miserably, although it had united the highest cadres in its ranks.
Another accusation intended to stir up prejudice is that the Cultural Revolution squandered the forces of the intelligentsia by sending them to the countryside and having to contact peasant labor. This overlooks the fact that keeping intellectuals connected to hard physical labor and knowing what it means is quite an important educational effect. But it is a different matter when there is a contempt for intensive scientific activity, which certainly has been the case at certain points.
Finally, one must also state that during the Cultural Revolution itself there were only a few forces worldwide that condemned the Cultural Revolution, such as the revisionist Soviet Union, such as the rule of Chiang Kai-Chek behind US warships on the small remainder of China, on Taiwan, where he had fled, some forces in the US and some incorrigible far right forces in European countries. At that time, many, including bourgeois forces, especially those who were visiting China, recognized the extraordinary vitality and change in China. The realization of communist principles on the basis of real mass mobilization and mass persuasion actually attracted interested open-hearted and progressive people all over the world. Also, right away, in the middle of the second phase of the Cultural Revolution, many bourgeois politicians took turns in Beijing. The depiction that China was isolated at the time is completely wrong. China achieved UN membership in 1971 in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, managed to break through the blockade of the USA in the middle of the Cultural Revolution - Kissinger and Nixon visit 1971/72! Many bourgeois politicians, including Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt, and then above all Franz-Josef Strauss, made every effort to come to China and speak to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, China had gained enormous weight and not, as is being portrayed today, that China had been thrown back ten years. The development of an independent industry also progressed during the Cultural Revolution. In the middle of the second phase of the Cultural Revolution, many bourgeois politicians are already in Beijing, stepping in. The depiction that China was isolated at the time is completely wrong. China achieved UN membership in 1971 in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, managed to break through the blockade of the USA in the middle of the Cultural Revolution - Kissinger and Nixon visit 1971/72! Many bourgeois politicians, including Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt, and then above all Franz-Josef Strauss, made every effort to come to China and speak to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, China had gained enormous weight and not, as is being portrayed today, that China had been thrown back ten years. The development of an independent industry also progressed during the Cultural Revolution. In the middle of the second phase of the Cultural Revolution, many bourgeois politicians are already in Beijing, stepping in. The depiction that China was isolated at the time is completely wrong. China achieved UN membership in 1971 in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, managed to break through the blockade of the USA in the middle of the Cultural Revolution - Kissinger and Nixon visit 1971/72! Many bourgeois politicians, including Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt, and then above all Franz-Josef Strauss, made every effort to come to China and speak to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, China had gained enormous weight and not, as is being portrayed today, that China had been thrown back ten years. The development of an independent industry also progressed during the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution consisted of several epochs, the actual beginning of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-69, in which the mass uprising against revisionist authorities within the CCP was waged, phases of consolidation and the confrontation with Lin Biao, who attempted a coup in 1970-71. He had initially played a certain driving role, only to then prove himself to be a supporter of ultra-right theories among ultra-left phrases. The Cultural Revolution's continued phase from 1971-76 saw major campaigns that transformed thinking in China. A thorough campaign of criticism of Confucius was launched at this time, and it began to attack the reactionary prejudices that have dwelt in the minds of China through millennia-old tradition. A campaign to spread Marxism is part of it, which precisely in the years 1974-76 formulated the dictatorship of the proletariat more clearly than ever before and summarized the experiences. In the final phase of the Cultural Revolution, from around the end of 1973 to September 1976, there was a diversification of the various tendencies, a proliferation of metaphysics, as Mao Zedong called it. Not a single person or group that followed succeeded in really linking the class struggle in the country with international tasks. Last but not least, this is due to the fact that China did not come into any real connection with international forces supporting it. The opposing line held strong positions in all organs dealing with international relations, both in the party and in the state apparatus.
The epoch from 1974-1976 requires its own detailed consideration.
III.
Even after the death of Mao Zedong, CCP leaders like Hua Guo-feng and even Deng Xiaoping were forced to talk for two years that they wanted to continue the Cultural Revolution, that they would stick to the principles, etc., and that they were not at all intended to overthrow them. But by then they were already seen through. Formally they walked around acknowledging the principles, but in fact they worked or condoned the capitalist overthrow that was then completed in late 1978 and during the spring of 1979.
While the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 attracted all sorts of politically interested people from all over the world and encouraged the formation of revolutionary Marxist-Leninist parties, after the Cultural Revolution there was an extremely sharp break.
Long before that, these parties had been criticized by us and many others. Already in the phase of formation and intensification in the period from 1970 to 1972, it became clear that they were double-sided associations that numerous people were involved with Bind people to you and on the other side left a gateway for right-wing and revisionist forces. As long as the People's Republic of China had existed as a revolutionary state, they had largely spoken after it; now, within a very short space of time, there was a 180-degree turn in relation to what was previously represented. [6]
Anyone who had observed these people more closely could certainly see things in their essence and describe them in advance. Here people acted in the leaderships who had only superficially adapted or worse.
This new movement was so provocative that in various countries every effort by the security authorities there had to be directed towards splitting these countless organizations and keeping international relations with China exclusively under the control of bourgeois forces. Back then, in 1970-71, we already noticed that the bourgeois forces, the states themselves, even lend a hand to found parties and try with all means to get into this party structure and fight it from within. In the meantime, official statements have already proven that in certain states so-called Marxist-Leninist parties were created as secret service products, where even sometimes individual people were deliberately and deliberately deceived and pulled in front of the carts of these machinations set up with a lot of money. Some parties had a half-hearted and ambiguous character, they were literally harnessed for a long time, organized in their ranks thousands of people ready for revolutionary work and wore them out.[7]
On the other hand, in very many countries, forces that remained after the Cultural Revolution have defended these principles and continued the struggle and revolution under adverse conditions for decades. This also proves the viability of the ideas that were connected with it.
The abruptness of the betrayal, the 180-degree turn that the Albanian Labor Party made, is a particularly important international example. Unsurpassed the praise for the Chinese Communist Party, from the point of view of the Albanian Workers' Party everything seemed right about it, at least in its confession, only to fall into the absolute opposite with the coup from 1977 onwards. All the successes of the CCP since 1935 were now supposed to be the result of wrong policies. It was obvious that this was completely divorced from reality, representing a degenerate political idealism. An inevitable consequence was that the PAA bogged down in the most righteous morass very quickly thereafter.
After the Chinese overthrow had succeeded, a certain part had to fall just as deeply in the opposite direction as they had jubilantly taken part in, so to speak. Whoever only understands things superficially and does not go into the depths is destined to suffer such a fate - first of all, generally speaking.
IV
So what was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution about? It was about the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat from the base, especially from the youth. It was a completely new youth, unprecedented in the history of this country because they had grown up under completely changed conditions of socialism and the New Democracy in the seventeen years of the People's Republic of China from 1949-1966. She embodied the will to concretely realize socialist and communist goals. When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the CPC under Mao Zedong relied on a very broad alliance of all the forces that opposed Chiang Kai-shek and US imperialism and condemned the reaction in the country. China underwent a renewal under the People's Democratic Republic, becoming, if you will, a modern, socialist-based bourgeois state that lifted China out of the filth of centuries-old stagnation. Although a great clamor began in the West about "blue ants" and the "most appalling communism that ever existed", many successes soon had to be conceded. General education, general education for all, the systematic development of agriculture throughout China, the elimination of hunger and the development of an independent industry in China, which was also to form the basis for the subsequent tremendous upswing. who pulled China out of the filth of centuries of stagnation. Although a great clamor began in the West about "blue ants" and the "most appalling communism that ever existed", many successes soon had to be conceded. General education, general education for all, the systematic development of agriculture throughout China, the elimination of hunger and the development of an independent industry in China, which was also to form the basis for the subsequent tremendous upswing. who pulled China out of the filth of centuries of stagnation. Although a great clamor began in the West about "blue ants" and the "most appalling communism that ever existed", many successes soon had to be conceded. General education, general education for all, the systematic development of agriculture throughout China, the elimination of hunger and the development of an independent industry in China, which was also to form the basis for the subsequent tremendous upswing.
Under these conditions of complete upheaval, an unprecedented breakthrough in Chinese history, a youth grew up that now wanted to push through the ideals in all areas of China under the close guidance of the CPChina and above all Mao Zedong. But in the party, as in the official bodies, as in the factories, there were many who had waved their flag to the wind and actually represented capitalist, neo-exploitative tendencies. In concrete terms, China's ancient culture was often praised and cultivated, and an arbitrary system of censorship was practiced at the universities, which was a means of oppression.
In the economic base, special privileges were created for functionaries or factory directors, one way or another, the repression continued despite formal recognition of communist ideology and state doctrine. These were objective foundations that provoked struggle and contradiction.
It was later claimed that Mao Zedong had staged a coup, but that is nonsense, because this broad movement in China shows that objective social interest existed in this direction, and the CPC leadership from the leadership only sparked this objective conflict, against those in the party and in the authorities who represented these old relationships. For more than four years there was a fundamental debate about the course in the Chinese Communist Party, at the Bedaiho conference Mao Zedong had reported on the necessities of the proletarian line. Many of the intended measures, such as the implementation of the proletarian policy in the superstructure, had been blocked. Hence the escalation of the argument was prepared, and the argument on a higher level,
V
The Cultural Revolution is preceded by the years of the so-called Great Polemics [8]immediately beforehand, with which one had dealt with the Soviet Union. In the final phase in 1964, the internal structures of the Soviet Union were dealt with, in which an underground black capitalist element with brutal neo-exploitative characteristics was spreading. We all know today that in 1989 these brutal conditions turned outwards and finally established capitalism in Russia again. But in reality this was already criticized 25 years earlier at that time in the Great Polemic in the crucial documents (“On Khrushchev's Pseudo-Communism and the Historical Lessons for the World”). With this polemic, with this proposal for a general line, the Chinese Communist Party tried again to create the initiative for a revolutionary line worldwide, which tried to free itself from a number of mistakes in the past, first of all from what happened after the XX. party congress in the CPSU and the parties that worked closely with it, but also from various mistakes that had already taken root, for example, during the Stalin era. Participation in neocolonialism on the part of the Soviet revisionists was criticized, for example Congo, complicit cooperation with the USA (joint nuclear blackmail, preparation of the so-called nuclear non-proliferation treaty), joint attempts by the USA and the Soviet Union to blackmail China and to thwart the other revolutionary approaches in the world. This criticism is perhaps the most important document of the communist movement in the second half of the 20th century.
We don't want to hide the fact that there are, of course, limits to polemics. For example, it does not work through the defeat of the workers' movement against fascism in Europe, and in particular the important German questions were only dealt with very marginally. Mao Zedong's ideas are also not all-encompassing or a fundamental new theory for the entire communist movement. The term Maoism is objectively wrong and unjustified, and was also rejected by the CCP. One must also recognize the limitations of the work of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, which was derived, particularly in the early decades, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism in conjunction with practice in China. essential other questions, how they are connected to the defeat of fascism in Germany and also require a deep examination and are of international relevance, could not be developed by the Chinese Communist Party, and you cannot blame them for that. Today's revolutionaries cannot avoid doing the necessary review and further development of theory on their own, also in connection with practice. But important, even fundamental, suggestions by the CCP of international relevance undoubtedly emanated from this important theoretical struggle. to carry out the necessary review and further development of the theory based on itself, also in connection with practice. But important, even fundamental, suggestions by the CCP of international relevance undoubtedly emanated from this important theoretical struggle. to carry out the necessary review and further development of the theory based on itself, also in connection with practice. But important, even fundamental, suggestions by the CCP of international relevance undoubtedly emanated from this important theoretical struggle.
In general, the correct postulates were made in the polemics, including, for example, the bourgeois character of social democracy and the whole character of modern revisionism, which the Chinese Communist Party rightly regarded as the main danger to the entire world movement. The center of these activities was the CPSU itself and not the CP of Yugoslavia, which was an important precursor of this development but was not the center in the final analysis.
In connection with the criticism of the CPSU in the polemics, it was also understood that the refusal to deal with a number of principles of Marxism-Leninism, to which it was invoked, had deep roots in the history of the CPSU and the Soviet Union itself had to. Increasingly, the Russian chauvinist great power politics, which had existed in a hidden form in the CPSU for a long time and was particularly open after the XX. Party congress, criticized, and in certain remarks even dissatisfaction with the expansionist and chauvinist policy, which had already emerged in very essential traits during the Second World War, came to light.
In the autumn of 1964, public polemics and criticism of the Soviet Union forced the overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev, who was the main exponent of this movement. After a new leadership of the CPSU had been established under Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin, the question arose as to how to proceed.
Without harboring any illusions about this new leadership, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong set out to ensure that this new leadership first explained and showed through its own behavior what it intends to do. The Communist Parties consist not only of leaders but of a large number of members who want to be convinced by the facts, and there is a worldwide movement for which the same is true.
It was later one of the typical hostilities against the CCP from the Albanian party and its supporters like Red Dawn to construct an arbitrary accusation out of it. This was unjustified. Of course it wasn't, because under the conditions of that time it was the duty of all communist parties to try to achieve unity and to make the best of it, and first of all to assume that there was at least the possibility of change. If you then find out that this is not the case, then you are on the safer side than if you denied it from the outset. It was to turn out that the new leadership of the CPSU represented the same thing as Nikita Khrushchev, only using slightly different phrases. The revisionist overthrow in the Soviet Union went on and on,
The unity of the communist movement, which had been fought for for years, could not simply be dismissed as completely uninteresting. A few weeks later it was already clear to the public how the new leadership under Brezhnev would proceed, not only with the same course, but with an intensified course of revisionism and the emergence of a Soviet hegemonist policy. Several excellent articles appeared in 1965 describing the role of the new Soviet leadership. [9] [10]
And against Mao Zedong, the pressure in China also began to increase. The Soviet Union could not tolerate the criticism. All means were used to overthrow this revolutionary center from within. After all, it had been in contact with many members and organizations in the CCP. It was essential for the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution that after the international policy of the CPSU had further discredited itself and after the question in China was: in which direction do we want to go, should we bow to the pressure of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie at home and in the same way Go in the direction of the CPSU or do we want to go another way that this question came to a head.
The CCP's May 16, 1966 appeal unleashed the storm. Cultural issues had long been debated in China, but now they wanted to get serious about transforming the superstructure, transforming the state apparatus, and transforming the communist movement itself.
VI.
The top exponent of the CCP direction, who represented the revisionist politics in China and wanted to give up the independence of the revolutionary politics, was Liu Shao-chi, who was later decisively attacked with his followers within the Cultural Revolution. In the post-1956 period, Mao Zedong himself was involved in winning over the majority of the CCP and the party's inner circle to his political beliefs. Mao Zedong did not always have the majority. Had the forces around Liu Shao-chi and others succeeded in isolating and suppressing Mao Zedong, something similar to what happened in the Soviet Union would have happened, leading to the total liquidation of the People's Republic of China.
It was the Soviet Union, curiously enough, in the years that followed that the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution would plunge China into the abyss and was incompatible with Communism altogether. We know today that the country in which conditions were supposedly so orderly, in which there was no class struggle and everything was perfect, namely the Soviet Union, was exactly the country that sank into the greatest chaos, but the country that cultural revolution has experienced a tremendous rise, albeit in different forms. One can see from this that revolutions do not ruin states, as all revisionists and clerical lackeys and bourgeois reactionaries insist on. In fact, revolutions are the engines of history that move things forward.
Today, 30 or 40 years later, one can make such judgments. Now the truth has already emerged in many points through the concrete development, which was derived in a general form at that time or at least was guessed at.
The struggle in the first great epoch of the Cultural Revolution was waged against the direction of Liu Shao-chi. In many ways, Liu Shao-chi contradicted the principles developed by Mao Zedong in the Chinese revolution and did exactly the opposite. Mao Zedong had announced that the revolution is learned in practice and that revolutionary theory is also developed in connection with practice and theoretical studies should be carried out in connection with practice, Liu Shao-chi essentially taught study in the small room " how to become a correct communist” as a life guide on how to educate yourself. That alone was a clear difference in the whole approach. Mao Zedong had discovered the independent revolutionary war as the basis of the proletarian revolution, Like the communist leaders of other parties, Liu Shao-chi advocated a path of more or less giving up his independent position and close ties to the Soviet Union. These were bound to collide with each other. It was either-or in China, and that question, that first battle, was decided in Mao Zedong's favor in May 1966-January 1967.
In addition to the direction of Liu Shao-chi, there was that of Deng Xiaoping, who, however, advocated more independent development for China, not such a strong pandering towards the Soviet Union, but a much stronger independent development of the capitalist elements in China, which he later actually integrated into a brought some development. As already mentioned, Mao Zedong always had an attitude that emphasized the contradiction in Deng Xiaoping's character. This should also be used as a point of attack later on a trial basis. In reality, there was no other way to deal with him. The further development of the People's Republic of China under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 1990s also shows that Mao Zedong was right in this regard, because although it was a question of capitalist construction, who betrayed much of the foundations of the Chinese revolution, this capitalist construction also has many great and world-shattering elements, so that one could not deny it a certain revolutionary character. The Chinese party leadership under Mao Zedong saw these contradictory aspects of Deng Xiaoping's policy, which is why they even spoke of a "Deng Xiaoping issue".
Mao Zedong's allegedly hesitant behavior towards Deng Xiaoping was later interpreted by certain ultra-leftists as a 'sign of revisionism'. They only show that they themselves have no idea. In China, certain sections of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia had to be included in the construction, and the contradiction with this class had to gradually intensify and assume an antagonistic character.
The Cultural Revolution continued. She also had to reveal many weaknesses. There have been forces which, under the cover of the ultra-left, have actually pursued the crushing of the CCP in its entirety and all the foundations of the People's Republic of China. Anarchist, ultra-left forces raised their heads, they too had to be fought. One must not forget: the Chinese people had then just seventeen years of socialism and at most forty years of revolutionary development behind them, at least in parts of China. In such a short period, the habits that have crept into the mentality of a country over thousands of years will not be overcome. Divine worship of this new cultural revolution, spirit of obedience to the new leader were aberrations, exploited by certain ultra-left forces. If action was taken against Liu Shao-chi because he had demanded obedience and subservience to the bourgeois "authorities", then certain forces practiced it again under the opposite sign. So there were more fights.
During this phase of the Cultural Revolution from 67-68, there were representatives in many other communist parties who publicly questioned: what is Mao Zedong doing? He smashes his own party! Or even: this is counter-revolution!
Smash his own party? First of all, that's not true, because large sections of the Chinese Communist Party supported the Cultural Revolution themselves. And on the other hand: a party is not a shrine, and individual party organizations are certainly not a shrine. A party is not an end in itself, it can and must be broken up if it contradicts the cause. And this very lesson, that the party is created anew from the people themselves, that the people are mobilized when things go wrong, is fundamental and will also be used in the further development of the communist movement, which is far from over, play a very important role.
It was also one of the fatal aberrations that all sorts of CCP cadres were now being accused by certain overzealous forces of "walking on the capitalist path". People who had worked for the communist party for decades were accused of being anything like that, completely irrelevant points pushed to the fore. However, many things that went so wrong were cleared up again during the Cultural Revolution, and many a person who had been criticized later took part in the Cultural Revolution.
Most of the capitalist leaders abroad and above all the Soviet revisionists threw up their hands over their heads: oh dear, what is happening in China! How dreadful, how can one fall into such a frenzy! Some of them still talk like that today, even though their whole Soviet Union was blown up. They have not understood that revolutions cannot be ordered processes that are directed from above, but that the unfolding of the forces developing themselves from below are the measures that initiate the new historical movement.
The People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong was by no means isolated. Rather, the Soviet Union began to establish principles that more and more resembled those of the United States, and which also increasingly brought about the same contradictions. There was the theory of “limited sovereignty”, with which even alleged socialist brother countries could be brought to reason militarily. With its diplomacy, the People's Republic of China also managed to isolate the Soviet revisionists, thereby making it impossible for them to gain military access to China.
In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China also succeeded in further developing atomic technology, detonating the second atomic bomb and making great efforts for independence in the mechanical engineering sector. Certainly there were also undesirable developments and one-sidedness, such as those that occurred in the Great Leap. At that time it was also about introducing the people in China, who were often completely detached from industrial developments, to industrial thinking and industrial production. Although the many individual small steel furnaces were not a real success in the purely economic sense, important goals were achieved in the transformation of man. So that was also a success. The same applies to the Cultural Revolution. Through this, that people were introduced to the class struggle and independence, many elements of the negative Chinese mentality of the past, such as the excessive acceptance of despotism and hierarchy, as taught by Confucianism, for example, were broken. Deng Xiaoping's later march through capitalism to world success presupposed that precisely these negative qualities had been combated. He profited from the cultural revolutionary development, which he himself condemned, in much the same way that Napoleon I profited from the revolutionary escalation of the French Revolution. Deng Xiaoping's later march through capitalism to world success presupposed that precisely these negative qualities had been combated. He profited from the cultural revolutionary development, which he himself condemned, in much the same way that Napoleon I profited from the revolutionary escalation of the French Revolution. Deng Xiaoping's later march through capitalism to world success presupposed that precisely these negative qualities had been combated. He profited from the cultural revolutionary development, which he himself condemned, in much the same way that Napoleon I profited from the revolutionary escalation of the French Revolution.
vii
The lessons of the Cultural Revolution spread from China, drawing millions of activists around the world to promote these new principles in the communist movement, and spreading panic, fear and terror among capitalist forces around the world. In the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, which is acting as if all of this was completely irrelevant, the elements of the transfer of production, the transformation of this country into a so-called service society, were being prepared precisely at this time from 1968-1974. From 1974, large-scale mining began. Nothing was more feared than that these revolutionary new principles might be combined with a large working class in the country. Although the working class lived in relative prosperity in international comparison, but the history of the labor movement in this country and the high degree of socialization were too critical to be sure. Contrary to official opinion, they feared the new party approaches like the devil feared holy water and fought them. And so it was in many countries. All means were called upon to drive division, disintegration from within, and above all to spread corruption on a large scale, which has led to the often negatively connoted term “sixty-eight” by mixing it with the corrupted elements of the earlier ones impermissibly equates movement. Contrary to official opinion, they feared the new party approaches like the devil feared holy water and fought them. And so it was in many countries. All means were called upon to drive division, disintegration from within, and above all to spread corruption on a large scale, which has led to the often negatively connoted term “sixty-eight” by mixing it with the corrupted elements of the earlier ones impermissibly equates movement. Contrary to official opinion, they feared the new party approaches like the devil feared holy water and fought them. And so it was in many countries. All means were called upon to drive division, disintegration from within, and above all to spread corruption on a large scale, which has led to the often negatively connoted term “sixty-eight” by mixing it with the corrupted elements of the earlier ones impermissibly equates movement.
In many countries, especially in Germany, there were also so-called "terrorism" campaigns in which public hysteria was heated up in order to actually fight the new revolutionary approaches with all means. You were fighting against an imaginary opponent who had been assumed to have other powers, and in reality you had completely different tasks in mind that were not directly connected with it.
Nor was the Cultural Revolution anti-technology, as is repeatedly emphasized. In the Cultural Revolution, nuclear technology was defended and countries championed nuclear self-defense. The so-called nuclear non-proliferation treaty was immediately condemned in the strongest possible terms. It was no coincidence that this was concluded on July 1, 1968, still as a means of pressure against the People's Republic of China and against renewed rebellion by all possible states and revolutionary forces in the world against the dominance of the two superpowers. He was the bare threat to all these forces.
Under the influence of the Cultural Revolution, there were not only new communist movements all over the world, but the world of states also continued to differentiate. The two superpowers became increasingly isolated, particularly the Soviet Union.
The People's Republic of China tried, for example, to dissuade the GDR from its completely submissive attitude towards the Soviet Union and at least encourage it to adopt an independent course. It failed, particularly because the Honecker party leadership strictly refused to do so from 1971 onwards. We all know how this thing turned out. If the GDR had freed itself from certain historical ballast elements and if it had begun to wage an independent struggle that also included the German revolution, its fate would have been different. As it was, however, it could only march to its demise together with the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, in its own way, tried to break through the isolation more and more and allied itself with the most reactionary forces around the world. The Chiang gang in Taiwan became a de facto ally; they also entered into close de facto ties with Israel and deceived the Arab states. The Federal Republic tried to attract them and to pull them onto the track of the "detente policy", which became their special hobbyhorse. The policy of détente, ie the bringing together of the most diverse capitalist and reactionary forces in the world, became the main opponent and point of attack for those interested in continuing revolutionary work. We all know where this so-called policy of detente ended.
Again and again there were accusations that the People's Republic of China had fought the Soviet Union too vigorously at that time, that it finally only hit the Soviet Union and overlooked the fact that the capitalist forces in the background were also pushing for the overthrow in China. The danger of an overthrow in China was not overlooked. One has to see that with all the diplomatic measures of that time it is essentially clear that this was done for tactical and political-strategic reasons. For example, Nixon's visit to China was never used to forego his own revolutionary policies. The whole period from 1971 to 1976 is associated with constant attempts to deepen the class struggle in China. However, the subversion in the diplomatic apparatus of the People's Republic of China in connection with the western side also continued in order to carry out the overthrow in China in their interest. This is absolutely true. A precise study of the individual events from this time will help here, but above all this must be done from China itself with the internal documents available there.[11]
viii
But how is it now with capitalism itself, which after the undermining of the Soviet Union and the development of a bureaucratic open capitalism in this country as well as after the undermining of the People's Republic of China and the development of an independent capitalism under external socialist-communist signs will be there for the time being goal seems to have been achieved?
What was it called in the early 1990s? There, some authors claimed that the end of history had arrived, that capitalism had become the ultimate victor of development. And what is real? Indeed, capitalism has developed and continues to develop the most radical forms of capitalism that have ever existed on earth. And what does it do? It undermines itself like mad and will create new forces against itself, despite all attempts to take the dynamics out of capitalism, to build in brakes on growth, and to overexploit the population. A new communist movement will develop again, building on the earlier interim successes of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and other countries.
Among the capitalist tendencies of the present time, it is worth mentioning that theory, which is propagated worldwide by all the apologists of capitalism, such as the propagation of the so-called imminent “total ecological” catastrophe or the danger of the end of the world due to environmental damage and the consequent that one should if possible control industrial development, increase energy costs, decrease labor costs, and so achieve more radical, more brutal capitalism. Incidentally, this direction, which we call ecologism, was also recognized in its early stages in the People's Republic of China. In articles from the time of the Cultural Revolution, for example, cultural pessimism or the denial of sufficient energy supply for the future is clearly criticized,
Today's development of capitalism, its radical nature, its endless playing off of the working classes in different countries against each other, shows what capitalism is all about and how it must be fought. Whole continental regions are released from industrial work here in order to create new proletariat in other geographical centers and exploit them there first - if they can't get any further there, they will move on to other countries again. Perhaps they will return to the countries where they created their deserts and lack of social rights in order to exploit there again under these conditions. The spirit of the Cultural Revolution fits such capitalism like a fist to the eye. It shows how radical capital is and how, under the laws to which it is subject. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution ultimately pinned its demands on nothing other than clinging to this realization.
It is also quite certain that one must not stop at the Cultural Revolution and only look at the People's Republic of China as a ready-made model for the communist movement of the future, as some do and here "Maoism" as the basis for the coming time propagate. As already mentioned, there are a number of problems facing the communist movement within Europe, there are theoretical questions, we also have to analyze negative sides of Lenin, for example, the great power chauvinism of the Soviet Union must be revealed in its entirety as an undesirable development that underground, we have to see that in many respects the People's Republic of China has hardly got beyond the beginnings of the criticism of the Soviet Union, that we have to go deeper than it used to be. It would also be completely wrong to assume that what was theoretically achieved in the world 30-50 years ago would be sufficient for the future.
So you have to see the limitations of the CCP as well as the Cultural Revolution. It was no coincidence that such an escalating personality cult had developed in the meantime. It contradicts the goal of human emancipation from any kind of exploitative rule.
It will be of great benefit if important documents of the Cultural Revolution are discussed again in the future and if the concrete reality of the Cultural Revolution is dealt with more intensively than before. Individual undesirable developments such as denunciation campaigns and undesirable developments of an ultra-left kind definitely have to be criticized. At the same time, however, the very substance of the Cultural Revolution must also be defended.
The great strength of the Cultural Revolution is also shown by the fact that even the most severe shocks could not overthrow it. In 1970-71, Lin Biao, who held the position of first vice chairman, attempted a kind of coup attempt based largely on certain Air Force forces. This was really a coup, but doomed to failure due to complete isolation. The core of his political intentions was, among other external labels, to pursue the restoration of the old revisionist line. A clan had formed around him, which, riding the wave of widespread support for Mao Zedong, first tried to introduce uncritical, blind obedience to him and bring itself to the top. To do this, they tried to oust Mao Zedong from the role of practical leadership. According to documents later cited, he believed he could reestablish ancient Chinese principles of obedience and "rites" as laid down in Confucianism.
According to the official accounts of the People's Republic of China published in the aftermath of his attempted coup, he condemned the break with Confucianism and indirectly preached the system of black underground capitalism already fully operational in the Soviet Union itself. However, this attempted coup has not yet been fully elucidated.
In the subsequent phase after 1971-72, attempts were made to consolidate the situation by reintegrating into party work certain people who had previously been criticized but who were loyal to the People's Republic of China and the new course, such as Deng Xiaoping, who soon assumed a leading government role again and in 1973 acknowledged the cultural-revolutionary criticism leveled at him. It is often said that Deng Xiaoping has been rehabilitated. This is not true. Nowhere had the CCP testified that criticism of Deng Xiaoping in 1966-69 was wrong in substance. On the contrary, Deng Xiaoping had declared that he recognized his mistakes and would now try to cooperate loyally. Although he also took part in the international work of strengthening the People's Republic of China by name, after some time he began to follow the same capitalist path for which he had been criticized a few years earlier. This then led to one of the altercations of late 1974 and early 1976.
In particular, the failure of the Cultural Revolution after Mao Zedong was due to the failure to link this new movement in China with an international movement of authentic character. Too many parties claiming to be representatives of the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong's line were basically lies and deceit, or at least parts of these parties must be judged as such. The People's Republic of China could not overcome the setbacks experienced by the communist movement in large parts of the world in the 1930s and 1940s.
The criticism campaign against Lin Piao and Confucius, for example, which ran in the years 1971-75 could only affect the internal reaction in China itself. With regard to the Comintern, its politics and the development of revisionism in the West, completely different approaches would have been necessary.
The final phase of the Cultural Revolution, from around the fall of 1974 to the fall of 1976, is itself an extremely complicated process, connected not only with events in China itself, but also with the international connection of the Chinese revolution. His presentation would go beyond the scope of this article. [12]
The representatives of the so-called Gang of Four were unable to win over the majority in their country because they themselves pursued a policy of condescension, a policy of denunciation and one-sided condemnation, which eventually contributed to their complete isolation. Then, conversely, the defeat of the Gang of Four was used to ruthlessly denounce all left forces in China and finally to attack the Cultural Revolution itself. Without this condemnation of the so-called Gang of Four and their own isolated politics, the overthrow of the Cultural Revolution would not have succeeded.
It was also claimed by many forces that the forces of the Cultural Revolution could not assert themselves and offered no resistance after 1976, the death of Mao Zedong. On the contrary, resistance to the complete abolition of revolutionary policy went on for more than two years from the various Chinese provinces. However, the right-wing forces, which eventually founded capitalist development, had the advantage of being in control of all international connections and having great power at the headquarters. In the end, however, this struggle is not over, because the international dispute about capitalism, which has spread so manifestly based on the development of capitalism in China itself, will inevitably also play a role in the social conflicts in China, and there will be a recapping of earlier phases, whether contemporary Chinese leaders like it or not. If they close the Internet to possible criticism of their policies, that will do them no good in the long run.
For its part, the West wants to use the insecurity in China to bring a right-wing trend to power, as expressed in the Falun Gong movement [ 13 ] or similar “human rights movements”. If successful, China would fall into the blackest hole it has ever fallen into. Compared to that, even the present government of China is a huge step forward. These people would readily propagate that there are far too many Chinese and ultimately work to murder part of their population. [14]These forces must be seen in this sharpness. One would try to undo the entire Chinese revolution and turn back the wheel of history by a hundred years. It's madness, but the attempts of such capitalists are inevitable, as we also know of the "ecological movement", the "anti-nuclear" movement and other reactionary movements which are ultimately expressions of these efforts. After all, backwardness is a product of bourgeois position itself, bound to appear, but doomed to fail. However, it is also important that the communist movement and the communist parties attack this reaction in its substance and do not ignore it or even adapt to such tendencies.
In the summer of 2006
[1] Long March Oct.1934-1935 - The Chinese Communist Party led several major base areas in southern China, that is, areas where revolutionary council state power already existed. The starting point was the peasant unions, which since the 1920s had become an instrument of the peasants' revolutionary rule over the great landlords.
A kind of democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, who made up the majority of the population, ruled here. Agrarian reform, establishment of peasant rights, education for all, elimination of hunger and development of mass activities were the social goals of these base areas, which were successfully pursued there for years. Several encirclement campaigns by the imperialist-backed counter-revolutionary Chiang Kai Chek, who had staged a coup against the Communist Party in the cities in 1927, failed. At the same time, there were a number of mistakes made by the leadership of the CCP at the time. At the end of 1934 it was felt that the base areas would not be able to withstand military pressure in the long run and that it would be necessary to break out as a result.
This gave rise to the Long March, which the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Revolutionary Army endured with heavy losses but heroic efforts. At the start of the Long March, Mao Zedong was not part of the CCP's inner-city leadership. But he prevailed, and at the Dsunyi Conference in January 1935 he became the head of the CPC.
[2] Superpower - This term stands for imperialist supremacy with a claim to world hegemony, as it finally developed with the Second World War in the form of the USA and later in the form of two such "superpowers", the USA and the Soviet Union.
[3]Chang Chun-chiao (1917-2005) delivered the speech on the new constitution of the People's Republic of China at the People's Congress in Beijing in 1975 and delivered a speech on the all-round dictatorship of the proletariat in early 1975. He later belonged to the so-called Gang of Four and was "convicted" as one of the main perpetrators by the so-called tribunal of 1980. This “tribunal” discredited itself from the start. The members of the so-called Gang of Four were violently arrested in 1976 while they were in office, accused of thwarting the line of Chairman Mao Zedong, especially that of the Cultural Revolution, and four years later they were convicted by the capitalist usurpers of initiating the Cultural Revolution. There was no more ridiculous "tribunal" in the whole 20th century than this one,
Compare also the then current elaborations NE 1980, No.3/4 and 1981/No.1. to this topic.
For criticism of the so-called Gang of Four, whose direction we criticized as ultra-left in 1976: see a number of other documents from us. However, the failures of this group in no way justify the suppression, measures and terror against the revolutionary members of the CCP that began in the fall of 1976.
[4] Speech by comrade Chang Chun-Chiao on Behalf of the Delegations of the Revolutionary Committees in Four Provinces and One Municipality
-At the Rally to Inaugurate and Celebrate the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee, April 20, 1967,
In “Great Victory for Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line”, Beijing 1967, p.67
"You have contributed the first Marxist-Leninist big-character poster in the whole country and initiated the world shaking movement of the Red Guards."
[5]It is a method that is no longer entirely new today, not only to fight something directly, but also to destroy it by overdoing it. A cult of personality that does not describe the objective and driving role of a specific person, but rather ascribes to them miraculous qualities that one can only obey, completely thwarts the Cultural Revolution. When the majority assumes such "authority," when an individual is put in the place of the people's driving role, someone has only to come and fill or inherit that position for the anti-mass dictatorship, the bourgeois and establish a bureaucratic bourgeois dictatorship. Such a personality cult thwarts the critical and independent thinking of the masses, which should actually be promoted by the Cultural Revolution. It is an essential result that this attempt at such a fight as by Lin Biao failed.
[6] These are the parties KPD/ML (Roter Morgen), the KPD (formerly KPD/AO) and the KBW. This was particularly blatant in the case of Red Morning, he was the biggest seeker after so-called Chinese recognition and peddled this supposed recognition in a particularly obtrusive manner, only to then slander the entire policy of the People's Republic of China. The so-called Communist League, which later produced a particularly large number of members of the government, actually slandered Mao Zedong's later foreign policy for a long time, while formally recognizing it.
On the KABD (since 1982 MLPD) see a number of other statements , among the latter above all IS 2006-28 .
[7] The KPD/AO and the KBW must be mentioned here as particularly important examples in terms of numbers; thousands of interested people and activists passed through the KBW alone.
[8] 'Polemics': "A Proposal for the General Line of the International Communist Movement - Response of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963" - Nine fundamental commentaries on this were published by July 1964. The last under the title "On Khrushchev's Pseudo-Communism and the Historical Lessons for the World.". The whole thing is usually referred to briefly as "polemics", it is the most important and significant reckoning with modern revisionism from this time.
[9] Among these documents as proof are mentioned here:
"Commentary on the Moscow March Conference" (intended to "condemn" the CCP) March 23, 1965
"Completing the Struggle Against Khrushchev's Revisionism", June 1965.
Further to be mentioned:
"Battle between two lines in the attitude towards US imperialism" by Fan Hsiu-Chu, July 26, 1965
"Refutation of the so-called "unit of action" of the new leadership of the CPSU", from November 11, 1965, which also explains the basics of the tactics of the CP of China for the rest
[10] A particularly important event is the attack on the Indonesian Communist Party in October 1965, which resulted in the bloodiest and most brutal counter-revolution of the second half of the 20th century. It should have caused a jolt in the entire communist movement. This is not the case, however, and research is needed here.
[11] Here one must refer to the experience of 1990 during the dissolution of the GDR, with which haste the USA in particular tried to get hold of the documents on subversion, especially in the former Federal Republic, and to clean them up as they saw fit and to control. This is the case of the so-called rosewood files, which were stolen in the GDR immediately after 1989 and taken to the USA. Years later, they were finally handed over to the federal German authorities. In the event of unrest in China, there will be similar attempts to cover up the tracks.
[12] But see the existing representations from our side:
Most recently, above all, the article " On the death of Yao Wen Yüan " (IS 2006-06, Jan. 21, 2006) or the article " About an article and an argument with Michael Opperskalski - what a criticism of revisionism and what an attempt the justification of the previous policy of the DKP! - On issues of the policies of the CCP in the 1960s and 1970s ” (IS 2004-41 of 2004-07-26)
[13] Falun Gong - extreme right-wing movement directed against the entire Chinese revolution, which appears under the guise of Chinese meditation and movement teachings. It is closely linked to US imperialism, but also to other reactionaries, and was at least temporarily favored by the Western media. All in all, weapons are being forged with which one would like to intervene in the event of internal unrest in China. The aforementioned reactionary Falun Gong sect is also linked to other "human rights" organizations.
[14] The accusation that the Mao Zedong era in China produced "so many people" because of its social improvements is one of the main attacks put forward by black forces of various persuasions.