First Published: Bolshevik, Vol. 8, No. 5, December 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
At the present moment in the international world situation, it is clear to all and for all to see, that the People’s Republic of China is not a socialist country, but a capitalist, a social-imperialist country, aspiring to become a superpower–socialist in words, but imperialist in its deeds. Whosoever fails to unite with this analysis, or denies this basic reality of Chinese social-imperialism, is an agent of modern revisionism, in this particular case, an agent of Chinese revisionism–no matter whether they come under the cloak of out-and-out support of Chinese revisionism like the “C”P (“ML”), the “Gotten Together League”, “Revolutionary Headquarters” faction of the “RC”P; or if they come under the slimey, centrist cover of opposition to Chinese revisionism, but in practice implement the lines of Chinese revisionism, such as “COUSML”, “MLOC”, and the revisionist headquarters of “RC”P.
China today, and since yesterday (or more correctly–since yester-decades) has been seeking superpower status. It, too, like the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists, has been seeking to redivide the world so as to fulfill the Chinese revisionists’ imperialist ambitions.
The Chinese revisionists have been seeking to establish a sphere of influence and domination for China, by calling for the establishment of a “new, international economic order” of the, countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America–of a “third world”, with China as its “leader”.
The elaborate plan, the revisionist theory which guides the strategy of the Chinese revisionists to achieve superpower status at the level of U.S. and Soviet superpowers, if not to surpass them, is the revisionist theory of “three worlds”. This theory distorts the present world situation, denying that the world is divided into two camps–the camp of socialism, today led by the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, along with the international proletariat struggling with all its might to establish socialism in its countries, and with the alliance, the reserves of the international proletariat, the national and social liberation struggle of the oppressed nations concentrated mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America against all the imperialist blocs–and the camp of imperialism, which is divided into various blocs, most notably, the bloc of U.S. imperialism and the bloc of Soviet social-imperialism. This imperialist camp is a camp of counter-revolution, which includes the fascist regimes in Iran, the Philippines, Chile, which, according to the Chinese revisionists, would be part of their “third world” and therefore “revolutionary”.
The Chinese revisionists now, too, belong to this imperialist camp, but they will not admit this, so they develop and cover themselves under the theory of “three worlds”. Through this revisionist theory, they openly advocate “defence of the second world” (the European imperialist countries, Japanese, and Canadian imperialism), i.e., for the proletariat in these advanced capitalist countries to unite with its bourgeoisie, to lay down the struggle for socialism and instead to unite with the bourgeoisie against the “first world” (the superpowers: U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism) , openly advocating the class collaborationist, social-chauvinist line of Kautsky and the Second International. Within this theory, they claim that of the two superpowers, the Soviet social-imperialists are more dangerous, so it therefore calls for unity and support of U.S. imperialism. Then, they advocate that the national liberations struggles be led by the bourgeoisie, calling for unities even with the fascist governments such as in Iran, the Philippines, Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, etc. And in the “third world”, it places Itself, China, as the “leader” of this “world”.
It is with this theory that the Chinese revisionists have attempted to totally liquidate the socialist world. In the theory of “three worlds”, the socialist camp does not exist. In this theory, the leading role of the international proletariat is liquidated, as is class struggle, as the motive force moving the wheels of history forward. They oppose the uniting of the Communist parties and organizations on a world scale, for fear of undermining the so-called “third world” and “nonaligned” movement, that is, for that the Chinese revisionists’ ambitious aims will be undermined by the victories of proletarian revolution and national liberations struggles, by the proletariat and its Communist parties.
As a whole, this theory calls the maintenance of the status quo, liquidation of proletarian revolution and for the policy of class collaboration on an international scale. The aims of the Chinese revisionists, through this theory, are to redivide the world, to gain markets to exploit and plunder, so as to develop itself into the top superpower, “by the year 2000”, if not sooner.
But not only are China’s social imperialist ambitions exposed through its theory of “three worlds”, for is clear enough for all genuine class conscious workers and revolutionaries to see. But, even by studying the Chinese revisionist documents, such as 11th Party Congress of the “Communist” Party of China (hailed by the Yugoslav revisionists), and all the Peking Reviews, it is clear to see that it is capitalism that exists in China, and not socialism. In addition, this can be seen by the reading of U.S. bourgeois newspapers, which have themselves shown the open collaboration between Chinese revisionism and U.S. imperialism.
In the Eleventh National Congress of the “Communist” Party of China new Chairman, Hua Kuo-feng, declared the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of a “new period” of development, a period of “modernization”, to carry out Mao Tse-tung’s behest of making China “a great, powerful, and modern socialist country by the end of the century”.[1]
This newest government of revisionism in China (which is again presently being divided by the various bourgeois factions within it, i.e., the Hua Kuo-fengists, and the Teng Hsiao-pingists, and whatever other factions exist within it), set up illegally after the death of their beloved leader, Mao Tse-tung, and with the ouster of the so-called “Gang of Four”, has come out most clearest of all the revisionist factions which have held power before it, with its superpower ambitions. In China, it has more and more openly attacked the great teachers, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, raising that the theory of scientific socialism, developed by these four great teachers of the international proletariat, cannot be implemented “dogmatically” in China. Their attack on the “dogmatic” application of Marxism-Leninism in China is just a veiled attack on Marxism-Leninism, and a refusal to apply its universal truths to China. The Chinese revisionists prefer to replace Marxism-Leninism with the eclectic theories of Mao Tse-tung, which we shall soon see, are not classical Marxism, but rather, and more precisely, classical revisionism.
In China, the revisionists have branded Karl Marx’s analysis of the socialist principles, in particular the analysis of “bourgeois right”, as being “abstract” analysis.
The bourgeois right referred to by Marx in Critique of the Gotha Programme as something existing in the first phase of communist society is an abstract concept, the meaning of which is something like the right to exchange equal amounts of labour.[2] (our emphasis–ed.)
The Chinese revisionists didn’t rest content with this slander on Marx’s analysis as being “abstract”, but they went further–they went on to say that Marx didn’t envisage commodity production and class struggle in the first phase of communism. But why have the Chinese revisionists done this? Because, they see it necessary to totally distort Marxism-Leninism, in order to have the proletariat and labouring masses of China accept Mao Tse-tung’s theory as the only “genuine revolutionary” theory, and thus, prepare better conditions to go all out for developing capitalist relations further, expanding its bureaucracy by bringing in more technocrats, specialists, experts, trained by the Yugoslav revisionists, and by Japanese and U.S. imperialism. Their aims of following Mao’s behest, of making China a superpower “by the year 2000”, they thus, hope to realize.
Thus, we have a situation today, where Coca Cola, one of the U.S. monopolies, is opening up markets in China, where business deals with U.S. banks and Chinese enterprises are proceeding, and where the Chinese specialists are learning with heart and soul how to implement the forms of management that the U.S. imperialists employ in the large-scale industries.
As we shall see, the attacks on Marx, the “refutation” of this epoch being the epoch of imperialism, the eve of the social revolution, as elaborated on by Lenin, the historic attacks on Stalin made by Mao Tse-tung, one example being “On The Ten Major Relationships”, the calls for material incentives, personal Interests, for “workers self-management” (the Yugoslav revisionist-capitalist system of management in industry), the calls for the studying of Mao’s works, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” and “On the Ten Major Relationships”, along with Teng Hsiao-ping’s revisionist programme, has set the basis for the all-out “modernization of China, that is, has intensified the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implementing and expanding further a bureaucratic, fascist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in China.
In future articles we will elaborate more, and expose further, exactly how capitalism exists in China today, tracing it to its origin. However, for the present, we see it necessary to make clear wherein lies the source of China’s superpower ambitions. Was is after Mao’s death and the expulsion of the so-called “Gang of Four”, that the Chinese revisionists seized state power, proceeded to restore capitalism, and strove to turn China into a social-imperialist superpower? Or, was China ever a genuinely socialist country, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by a truly Bolshevik Party of the New Type? What indeed gave rise to the present situation in China?
More and more facts prove, that in China, genuine communists never really had full control of the leadership of the “Communist” Party of China, that the “Communist” Party of China was never a truly, genuine Bolshevik Party of the New Type, basing itself on unerring Marxism-Leninism. In fact, the “C”PC itself admits, that the theoretical foundation of the party is not unerring Marxism-Leninism, but rather, “Mao Tse-tung Thought”.
The Cultural Revolution of China, initiated and led by Mao Tse-tung, was supported by Marxist-Leninists throughout the world at the time, principally because its strategic aim was said to be the achievement and consolidation of a socialist society in China. However, as facts have proven, the Cultural Revolution degenerated into factional struggles of revisionist groupings in the leadership of the “C”PC, who were either pro-Soviet, or pro-U.S., thus, undermining further any hopes for the construction of socialism in China. In the “C”PC, during the Cultural Revolution, the various factions that existed were Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping’s, Lin Piao’s, then the so-called “Gang of Four”. Throughout this factional struggle, Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-iai, on the face of it, appeared to be the genuine Marxist-Leninists. But, as facts are disclosed, we see that, in fact, Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, too, have been part of these factional fights, that their interests were not based on proletarian internationalism, but on bourgeois nationalism, i.e., the Chinese nation above everything else. It is a known fact that Mao had many times proclaimed that the bourgeoisie existed within the party:
You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don’t know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party–those in power taking the capitalist road.[3]
Yet, never in the history of Bolshevism, have the great Marxist-Leninists, such as Lenin and Stalin, allowed for the bourgeoisie to exist in the Party. Stalin has made clear that the Party must purge all factions, not allow for two lines to peacefully co-exist within the Party. Comrade Plasari, of the Party of Labour of Albania, makes this explicity clear in his article, “The PLA has always Pursued a Single Marxist-Leninist Line”, when he raises the following:
’A Marxist-Leninist party which is respected as such’, says Comrade Enver Hoxha, ’cannot allow the existence of two lines in the party; thus it cannot permit the existence of one or more factions. And if such a thing does occur, the party cannot and must not allow their existence even for a short time.’[4]
Yet, in China, it was Mao who championed the method of allowing two lines to exist in the “C”PC, and more so, to allow various bourgeois parties to peacefully co-exist with the “C”PC, in the administration of the state (which was never really the dictatorship of the proletariat). Thus, with the acceptance and allowance of the bourgeoisie to exist peacefully with the proletariat in China, revisionism was strengthened and seized full state power In China. We quote the Party of Labour of Albania, from their Letter Of the CC of the Party of Labour and the Government of Albania to the CC of the Communist Party and the Government of China, where they state:
The Cultural Revolution, more often than not, preserved the spirit and actions of an unprincipled struggle, which was not led by a genuine party of the working class which should strive for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus, these clashes among factional-ist groups ended in the establishment in China of a state power dominated by bourgeois and revisionist elements.[5]
And so, we have concluded that socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, never really existed in China, and that Mao Tse-tung was principally responsible for the chaotic situation that developed and the temporary defeat of socialism in China. Why have we drawn this conclusion?
The answer to this question lies in the history of the factional struggles that existed in the “C”PC, since even before the 1949 revolution, and in the theoretical writings of Mao Tse-tung, which set forth the “C”PC’s programme and tasks, which, as he stated, was to achieve the goal of making China ”independent and free, democratic and united, prosperous and peaceful.”[6]
The main works of Mao Tse-tung we would like to address, and wherein we find eclecticism (i.e., a mishmosh of theories, taking bits and pieces from Marxism-Leninism, and from Confucius and Sun Yat-sen), are those in which he set forth the programme of the “C”PC, are “On New Democracy”, “On Coalition Government”, “On the Ten Major Relationships”, and “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”.
The great teacher, Joseph V. Stalin, in his great work, Foundations of Leninism, states:
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.[7]
Indeed it is! This is as true today as it was then. Objective conditions throughout the world prove that we are still in the epoch of imperialism and the rise of the social revolution, that we are still In the era of Leninism, and that Marxism-Leninism is the only true scientific socialism, the only revolutionary theory of the international proletariat, founded by the four great teachers, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Whosoever tries to deny or revise this truth is tampering with scientific socialism, are revisionists and renegades of the proletarian revolution.
For some time, the Chinese revisionists have tampered with this basic truth, their purpose being to replace Leninism with their revisionist theories, in order to “smoothly” develop the world situation where China could achieve superpower status. The revisionist theory of “three worlds” distorts and denies the present epoch of proletarian revolution and national liberation struggles, as defined by Lenin. And in fact, the theory of “three worlds” was the outcome of the line that we are now in a new era, the era of “Mao Tse-tung Thought”.
We are now in a new era, an era under the great banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The Marxist-Leninists and the revolutionary people all over the world, armed with the great invincible thought of Mao Tse-tung, will certainly be able to smash the old world...[8]
Thus, the Chinese revisionists set about the task of rendering the Marxist-Leninist classics obsolete, and strove to have the international proletariat study “Mao Tse-tung Thought”. This has created great setbacks in the international communist movement, for as we shall see, “Mao Tse-tung Thought” is indeed revisionism.
The Albanian comrades made this exposure in their article, “The Revolution–A Question Taken Up For Solution”, where they state:
The Chinese version of modern revisionism goes even further in the struggle against Leninism than all its revisionists that preceded it, by opposing to it the so-called ”Mao Tse-tung thought” and its offspring– the theory of “three worlds”, which is complete negation of the revolution.[9]
The Chinese revisionists have stressed, throughout the history of the “C”PC, that the cadres of the “C”PC mainly study Mao’s writings, and that it was optional to study the Marxist-Leninist classics. In fact, when it came to the study of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Mao always raised a big polemic to guard against “dogmatism”–that it was “dogmatism” to strictly apply Marxism-Leninism to the conditions of China, and that instead, the cadres should follow mainly his own theories in his works. In “On the Ten Major Relationships”, Mao clearly places the theory guiding the Chinese revolution as something more nationalistic, than Marxism-Leninism:
Our theory is an integration of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution.[10] (our emphasis–ed.)
Thus, he made clear that his theory is eclecticism, i.e., bits and pieces of Marxism-Leninism merged with the theories and ”wise” thoughts of Sun Yat-sen, Confucius, etc. That’s why, in many of his works, you find Mao often quoting from Confucius.
Communists make clear that the theory guiding the revolution is Marxism-Leninism, applied to the concrete conditions of each country, and not that the theory is some truths from Marxism-Leninism combined with various other theories, etc.
Nevertheless, the Chinese revisionists passed from spreading “Mao Tse-tung Thought” in China alone, to spreading it throughout the international communist movement, thus striving to undermine the theory of scientific socialism, striving to replace Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin with Mao Tse-tung, the supposed greatest theoretician of this “new epoch” which they had proclaimed. The Chinese revisionists claim that the most important contributions setting forth the theoretical guidance for the study of “modern contemporary history” Is Mao’s “On New Democracy”. Thus, they liquidate the writings of Lenin and Stalin on the National and Colonial Questions.
But let us see now, how in fact, “On New Democracy”, written in 1940, “On Coalition Government”, the political report made by Mao to the Seventh National Congress of the “C”PC on April 24, 1945 (the programme of the “C”PC which led it to the revolution in 1949), “On the Ten Major Relationships”, written in 1956, and “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”, written in 1957 (which was the period right after the Eighth National Congress of the “C”PC, and declared that socialism in the main existed in China)– let us see how in fact, these “great” works of Mao, which are the main writings which denote the new Chinese revisionist era of “Mao Tse-tung Thought”, let to the failure of socialism in the People’s Republic of China.
In order to clearly understand the incorrectness of the revisionist, capitulationist line of Mao’s “New Democracy”, we must reaffirm Comrade Stalin’s and the Comintern’s analysis of the prospects of the Chinese revolution. The Comintern, under Stalin’s leadership, had been providing guidance to the Chinese revolutionary movement since the early 1920’s.
In defining the character of the Chinese revolution, Stalin takes note of the following specific features of the Chinese revolution:
The first specific feature is that, while the Chinese revolution is a bourgeois-democratic revolution, it is at the same time a revolution of national liberation spearheaded against the domination of foreign imperialism in China. It is in this, above all, that it differs from the 1905 Revolution in Russia...
The second specific feature of the Chinese revolution is that the national big bourgeoisie in China is weak in the extreme, incomparably weaker than the Russian bourgeoisie was in the period of 1905...it follows from this that the role of initiator of the Chinese peasantry, must Inevitably fall to the Chinese proletariat and its party.
Nor should a third specific feature of the Chinese revolution be overlooked, namely, that side by side with China the Soviet Union exists and is developing, and its revolutionary experience and aid cannot but facilitate the struggle of the Chinese proletariat against imperialism and against medieval and feudal survivals in China.[11]
China, at that time, was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. The feudal survivals were supported by imperialism. The bourgeois-democratic revolution was on the order of the day. Capitalism existed, however it was mainly foreign capital, i.e. imperialism. The export of capital to China, on the part of Japanese, U.S. and British imperialism was the main source of industry in China. Thus, under these conditions, as stated by Comrade Stalin, the bourgeois democratic revolution was also a national liberation movement of the oppressed Chinese nation.
The outcome of this revolutionary struggle on the part of the Chinese nation, had two possibilities:
either the national bourgeoisie smashes the proletariat, makes a deal with imperialism and together with it launches a campaign against the revolution in order to end the latter by establishing the rule of capitalism;
or the proletariat pushes aside the national bourgeoisie, consolidates its hegemony and assumes the lead of the vast masses of the working people in town and country, in order to overcome the resistance of the national bourgeoisie, secure the complete victory of the bourgeois democratic revolution, and then gradually convert it Into a socialist revolution, with all the consequences following from that.[12]
Thus, the strategy and tactics of the “C”PC had to be those of ensuring the hegemony of the proletariat in the national-revolutionary movement, completing the democratic revolutionary stage and passing onto the socialist revolution. The tactics of the “C”PC applied to the anti-imperialist, bourgeois democratic revolution In China changed at various times, due to the various sub-stages of development that the revolutionary movement in China underwent. The main utilization of tactics we would like to address, in light of the main point this article is addressing, is the tactic of alliance with the national bourgeoisie on the part of the “C”PC.
In the early stages of the revolution, the “C”PC, aided by Stalin and the Comintern, formed a united front with the national bourgeoisie (i.e., the Kuomintang, which also included the petty-bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia). However, by 1927, the national bourgeoisie, terrified at the growing revolutionary movement of the masses of peasants, led by the proletariat and the “C”PC, capitulated to foreign imperialism and implemented a counterrevolutionary offensive aimed directly at the communists. It was at this point that Stalin stated:
Thus the revolution lost the national bourgeoisie. That was a partial loss for the revolution. But, on the other hand, it entered a higher phase of its development, the phase of agrarian revolution, by bringing the broad masses of the peasantry closer to itself. That was a gain for the revolution.[13]
Keeping in mind that there were correct and incorrect times and conditions when alliances were made with the national bourgeoisie by the “C”PC in the national revolutionary movement, we will show how, on the part of Mao Tse-tung, what was actually developed was a long-term alliance, and more so, reliance on the national bourgeoisie, even after the overthrow of imperialism and the compradore bourgeoisie in China.
Mao’s analysis as expressed in his “On New Democracy”, is what set the basis for future setbacks and subversion of the socialist revolution in China. What Mao forsees in the achievement of revolution in China, is a state of a so-called “new type”, a ”New Democracy”, supposedly according to the peculiarities of China. Rather than proceed from the experiences gained in the Russian revolutions of 1905, of February 1917, and of the historic and great October Revolution of 1917, Mao pushes them aside in practice (despite all the claims he makes), and pursues a revisionist line on a “new” form of state, which would be neither a bourgeois dictatorship nor a proletarian dictatorship, but a combination of both. In order for him to justify this state of a “new” kind, he makes the absurd analysis that a bourgeois dictatorship in China and in all colonial and semi-colonial countries is impossible, due to imperialism and the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia.
In the first place, international capitalism, or imperialism, will not permit the establishment in China of a capitalist society under bourgeois dictatorship...
In the second place, socialism will not let it.[14]
Indeed, socialism will strive heart and soul not to permit a bourgeois dictatorship to be set up in a country undergoing a national revolutionary movement. However, if a communist party in such a national-revolutionary movement does not take hegemony and guide the revolution on a correct, revolutionary path, and instead follows a reformist, or slimier yet, a revisionist programme (as was the case in China), then, yes, the socialist revolution will be temporarily defeated, and a bourgeois dictatorship will reign. Such was the case in Cuba, where today it is ruled by a revisionist, bourgeois dictatorship, due to the revisionists that led the Cuban national-revolutionary movement.
Mao’s notions of the impossibility of the creation of a bourgeois dictatorship is just a cover, so that he can present his alternative–a state, or dictatorship, of many classes.
The first step or stage in our revolution is definitely not, and cannot be, the establishment of capitalist society under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoisie, but will result in the establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes of China headed by the Chinese proletariat.[15] (our emphasis–ed.)
At first glance, one may think, “this sounds correct”–but in analysing this thoroughly, we find that the national bourgeoisie is part of this joint dictatorship.
Not one lesson is learnt from the October Revolutions where the Bolshevik Party, upon seizing state power, and despite the fact that in the economy, there still existed the necessity to pass through basic forms of capitalist economy, in order to be able to construct socialism, established the dictatorship of the proletariat, based on the worker-peasant alliance. Instead, as we shall prove, Mao learnt not from Lenin and Stalin and the heroic Bolshevik Party, but from Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin, who all strove wholeheartedly to subvert socialist construction and restore capitalism.
Mao didn’t restore capitalism, but he did build and construct a “new democratic” capitalist society under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, landlords, petty-bourgeoisie, and supposedly–the proletariat. Mao’s contradiction was not with capitalism, but with imperialism and the compradore bourgeoisie, who would make China a colony, and specifically at that time, with Japanese imperialism.
Mao, as a loyal follower of Sun Yat-sen, strove to build an independent and free, prosperous and powerful, bourgeois Chinese nation. He said, showing his full colors of bourgeois nationalism,
Today a powerful Japanese imperialism is forcing its way into China and wants to reduce her to a colony; it is not China that is developing Chinese capitalism but Japan that is developing Japanese capitalism in our country; and it is not the Chinese bourgeoisie but the Japanese bourgeoisie that is exercising dictatorship in our country.[16]
Take this and combine it with what he later stated at the Seventh Congress of the “C”PC in 1945, “Foreign imperialism and native feudalism are not what China needs today but native capitalism is needed; there is too little of it.[17] and one may begin to see clearly that Mao’s advocacy of a “joint dictatorship” is really a bourgeois dictatorship in disguise.
However, in order to set everyone clear, before the marsh of opportunism in the U.S., most especially the “C”P (“ML”), starts accusing us of being ”Trotskyites” and adopting the Trotskyite line of the opposition bloc in the CPSU(B) in relationship to the capitalist stage of development in backward, underdeveloped countries, we shall go back to Russia to draw lessons as to how the Bolshevik Party was able to deal with this similar type of situation.
In Russia, the Bolshevik Party was the first proletarian party ever to successfully lead the proletariat and the peasantry through two stages in the revolution, the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the Soviet October Revolution. The tactics of the Bolshevik Party in this two-stage revolution, were developed by the great Lenin, as espoused in his great work, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. In it, Lenin makes clear the correct tactics to ensure the proletariat’s hegemony in the bourgeois democratic revolution passing uninterruptedly into the socialist revolution. As early as 1904, Lenin elaborated on the form of government which was aimed at, namely, a Revolutionary Provisional Government, based on the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.
In the February, 1917 Revolution, the bourgeois-democratic revolution was victorious. The victory of the revolution was due primarily to the correct leadership of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. In the course of this struggle, Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies were formed and came to the forefront as organs of armed uprising and the embryo of the socialist state. However, while the Bolsheviks were in the forefront leading the proletariat and peasantry in the revolution, the traitorous counter-revolutionary Mensheviks and the petty-bourgeois Socialist Revolutionary Party tried to reap the fruits of the victory, through maneuvers, seizing state power and forming a provisional government (not revolutionary), i.e., a bourgeois dictatorship.
From this period on, as expressed in Lenin’s April Theses, the struggle had to pass onto the achievement of the socialist revolution. Thus, the October Socialist Revolution takes place in 1917, where, upon seizing state power, implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat based on the worker-peasant alliance, the Bolshevik Party as vanguard of the proletariat, immediately expropriates the private property of the landlords and the national bourgeoisie. Land is distributed to the middle and poor peasants, and a resolute struggle against the kulaks, the rich peasants, takes place. In the first few years of Soviet power, imperialism strives to subvert the socialist republic, but to no avail. By 1921, the Soviet Republic undertakes the enormous task of restoring the economy. It is in this period when the Soviet Republic, led by Lenin, adopted and implemented the New Economic Policy, so that the dictatorship of the proletariat ensured that the economic basis for the construction of socialism existed. In this period, there was a need for a certain amount of capitalist development.
In his speech, Lenin said that freedom of trade would at first lead to a certain revival of capitalism in the country. It would be necessary to permit private trade and to allow private manufacturers to open small businesses. But no fears need by entertained on this score. Lenin considered that a certain freedom of trade would give the peasant an economic incentive, induce him to produce more and would lead to a rapid improvement of agriculture; that, on this basis, the state-owned industries would be restored and private capital displaced; that strength and resources having been accumulated, a powerful industry could be created as the economic foundation of Socialism, and that then a determined offensive could be undertaken to destroy the remnants of capitalism in the country.[18]
Thus, it is clear that there was an objective necessity for certain revivals of capitalism, in order to create the basis for the construction of socialism. Lenin and Stalin did not implement a long stage of capitalism, nor a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie aligned with the proletariat. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat based on the worker-peasant alliance, which ensured that no setbacks to the cause of socialism would develop. In this struggle, the Bolshevik Party had to wage a resolute struggle against the opportunists Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin, who, in one form or another, strove to restore capitalism, protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie and rich kulaks. But the Bolshevik Party, under Stalin’s leadership, resolved these contradictions and purged these renegades from the Party and placed them in their proper place.
By 1925, only a few years after the Introduction of the N.E.P., Stalin and the Bolshevik Party put forth the following:
Yes, replied the Party, a Socialist economic system could be and should be built in our country, for we had everything needed for the building of a Socialist economic system, for the building of a complete Socialist society. In October 1917 the working class had vanquished capitalism politically, by establishing its own political dictatorship. Since then the Soviet Government had been taking every measure to shatter the economic power of capitalism and to create conditions for the building of a Socialist economic system. These measures were: the expropriation of the capitalists and landlords; the conversion of the land, factories, mills, railways and the banks into public property; the adoption of the New Economic Policy; the building up of a state-owned Socialist industry; and the application of Lenin’s co-operative plan. Now the main task was to proceed to build a new, Socialist economic system all over the country and thus smash capitalism economically as well. All our practical work, all our actions must be made to serve this main purpose. The working class could do it, and would do it. The realization of this colossal task must begin with the industrialization of the country (note comrades, not “modernization” as the Chinese revisionists claim-ed.). The Socialist industrialization of the country was the chief link in the chain; with it the construction of a Socialist economic system must begin. Neither the delay of the revolution in the west, nor the partial stabilization of capitalism in the non-Soviet countries could stop our advance–to Socialism. The New Economic Policy could only make this task easier, for it had been introduced by the Party with the specific purpose of facilitating the laying of a Socialist foundation for our economic system.[19]
Meanwhile, the Trotskyites and Bukharanites denied the possibility of the construction of socialism in one country, under the pretentions that for socialism to be built, the whole world had to have a “permanent revolution” at the same time. According to these traitors, it was necessary for capitalism to exist in Russia for a “long stage”, until their “views” of revolution finally arrived. The Bukharanites put forth such theories as,
...the peaceful growing of the bourgeoisie into Socialism, amplifying it with a ’new’ slogan– ’Get Rich!’ According to the Bukharinites, the victory of Socialism meant fostering and enriching the bourgeoisie, not destroying it.[20]
Ring any bells? Of course! Mao said the exact same thing and implemented it in China.
It is necessary to go on educating the capitalists in patriotism, and to this end we should systematically cultivate a number of them who have a broader vision and are ready to lean towards the Communist Party and the People’s Government, so that most of the other capitalists may be convinced through them.[21]
In China, Mao Tse-tung’s line is that of the Trotskyites and Bukharinites. His line is one of protecting the interests of the national bourgeoisie, landlords and rich peasants. This is shown throughout all of his writings.
It is clear that Mao was hostile to the dictatorship of the proletariat as implemented in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin’s leadership. That he didn’t want anything like what existed in the Soviet Union, is made clear in his “On Coalition Government”, where he states;
Some people wonder whether the Chinese Communists, once in power, would follow the example of the Russian Communists and establish a proletarian dictatorship and a one-party government. Our answer is that a new-democratic state based on an alliance of several democratic classes is different in principle from a socialist state under proletarian dictatorship.[22]
Thus, he states clearly–on principle–that he will have nothing to do with a dictatorship of the proletariat. More so than that, under the cover of attacking the one-party system of the bourgeois dictatorship of the Kuomintang (which Mao said earlier was impossible to exist), he really attacks the one-party system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, showing truly that he never really united with the genuine construction of socialism. Mao states:
Beyond doubt, our system of New Democracy will be built under the leadership of the proletariat and the Communist Party, but throughout the stage of New Democracy there cannot and therefore should not be in China a system of one-class dictatorship and one-party government.[23] (our emphasis–ed.)
Displaying his bourgeois nationalism, Mao states that Russia had a ”one-class dictatorship” because of Russian history, but the Chinese should have a different course, a “third course”. Thus, he doesn’t proceed from the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism, but from the pragmatic interests of bourgeois nationalism, in analyzing the state in China.
Similarly, Chinese history of the present stage will shape a Chinese system for the present stage, and for a long time to come there will exist in China a particular form of state and political power, namely, New Democracy based on the alliance of several democratic classes, a system which is distinguished from the Russian system and which is perfectly necessary and reasonable for us. (our emphasis–ed.)[24]
In the above quoted passage, Mao makes it perfectly clear that he is not drawing on the lessons of the October Revolution, that in China the capitalist stage, disguised as New Democracy, and the bourgeois dictatorship, disguised as “joint dictatorship”, will exist for a fairly long time. He argues that socialism cannot be constructed, and that therefore, the task is to build a “democratic”, prosperous and great Chinese nation.
As for Mao’s line of the dictatorship of many classes, it is clear that he was not referring only to the democratic stage of the revolution, why? Because by 1956 and 1957, when socialism was supposedly being built, Mao still saw a system of “many parties” in China, again expressing that all he really wanted was a bourgeois dictatorship such as that in the United States. He states this clearly in “On the Ten Major Relationships”, written in 1956:
Which is better, to have just one party or several? As we see it now, it’s perhaps better to have several parties. This has been true in the past and may well be so for the future; it means long-term coexistence and mutual supervision.
In our country the various democratic parties, consisting primarily of the national bourgeoisie and its intellectuals, emerged during the resistance to Japan and the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek, and they continue to exist to this day. In this respect, China is different from the Soviet Union. We have purposely let the democratic parties remain, giving them opportunities to express their views and adopting a policy of both unity and struggle towards them.[25]
Again, Mao Tse-tung makes known that he is not a Marxist, but a bourgeois nationalist who opposed foreign imperialism, and had the ambition of developing China into an imperialist power cloaked in socialist phraseology. That his views on the dictatorship of the proletariat are anti-Marxist and hostile to the proletariat, can be seen by contrasting them to the correct Marxist-Leninist line on the dictatorship of the proletariat as stated by Stalin:
...the leader of the state, the leader in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat is one party, the party of the proletariat, the Party of the Communists, which does not and cannot share leadership with other parties.[26]
So much for Mao’s revisionist line on the state.
As for the economy, as foreseen in his “On New Democracy”, it is clear that his aim was not one of developing the basis for socialism, but rather for promoting capitalism, taking it to the stage of state capitalism. Mao the sophist said that this was necessary for “developing socialism”, but in fact it was for the purpose of achieving, via the shortest road possible, social-imperialist, superpower status.
In “On New Democracy” he states:
In the new-democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat (what sophistry!-ed.), the state enterprises will be of a socialist character (again sophistry-ed.) and will constitute the leading force in the whole national economy, but the republic will neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production...[27]
And in his “On Coalition Government”, he shows support of the rich peasants (the kulaks), when he states:
turning the private property of the feudal landlords into the private property of the peasants and freeing the peasants from feudal agrarian bonds so that it will be possible to transform an agricultural into an industrial country.[28]
The bourgeois nationalist programme, as set forth by Mao Tse-tung, was realized after the 1949 revolution in China. In 1950 he stated the following:
The tactics in question are to leave untouched not only the capitalist rich peasants but also the semi-feudal ones in the agrarian reform scheduled for this winter...and to defer the solution of the problem of the semi-feudal rich peasants for several years.
He goes on to say,
...we have formed a united front with the national bourgeoisie politically, economically, and organizationally; and since the national bourgeoisie is closely tied up with the land problem, it seems better not to touch the seal-feudal rich peasants for the time being in order to set the minds of the national bourgeoisie at rest. (our emphasis–ed.)[29]
Thus, again it is made clear whose interests Mao Tse-tung protected and represented. In fact, in this period, Mao led a struggle against a so-called “ultra-left” trend in the party which opposed this capitulationist line of Mao Tse-tung. Indeed, Mao implemented in China the Trotskyite and Bukharinite lines which existed in Russia.
Again, we would like to contrast the line of Mao with that of Lenin in Russia. In Russia, which was not an advanced capitalist country like the United States, Britain, etc., but a country with a large rural and agricultural economy, the Bolshevik Party under Lenin’s leadership on day one of the seizure of state power by the proletariat, led the abolition of private property of the big landowners and expropriated the means of production from the bourgeoisie and placed its ownership and disposal in the hands of the proletariat through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In Russia, labour is united communistically in so far as firstly, private ownership of the means of production has been abolished, and secondly, the proletariat state power is organizing large-scale production on state-owned land and in state-owned enterprises on a national scale, is distributing labour power among the various branches of production and the various enterprises and is distributing large quantities of articles of consumption belonging to the state among the working people.
He then says explicitly:
...We accomplished instantly, at one revolutionary blow, all those things that in general can be instantly accomplished; for instance, on the first day of the dictatorship of the proletariat, October 26 (November 8), 1917, private ownership of land was abolished without compensation to the big landowners; the big landowners were expropriated. Within the space of a few months practically all the big capitalists, owners of mills and factories, joint-stock companies, banks, railways, and so forth, were expropriated, also without compensation. The state organization of large-scale production in industry and the transition from ’workers control’ to ’workers administration’ of factories, mills and railways– this, in its basic and main features, has already been accomplished; but in relation to agriculture it has only just begun (’state farms’, i.e. large farms organized by the workers state on state-owned land).[30]
This indeed is one of the basic characteristics and first steps to be taken under socialism, steps which were never taken in China.
By 1953, Mao, covering himself in socialist phraseology, had already begun a process of transforming private capitalism Into state capitalism, for the purpose of achieving superpower status. Mao states:
The transformation of capitalism into socialism (should really read into social-imperialism-ed.) is to be accomplished through state capitalism.[31]
Later on in this same article, showing his total refusal to adhere to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the coercion of the bourgeoisie under the dictatorship of the proletariat, he says:
Not only must the implementation of state capitalism be based on what is necessary and feasable (see the Common Programme), but it must also be voluntary on the part of the capitalists, because it is a co-operative undertaking and co-operation admits of no coercion. (our emphasis–ed.)[32]
By 1956-57 it appears that state capitalism existed on a large scale throughout China, for it Is during this period that Mao Tse-tung claims that the period of ”socialist construction” had begun. In his work, “On the Ten Major Relationships”, he attacks Comrade Stalin from all directions and sets forth the task of achieving the “modernization” of China “by the year 2000”, which his followers Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping, are today aspiring to achieve.
Mao further develops his revisionist, bourgeois-nationalist line in his article, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”. He states:
In our country, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie comes under the category of contradictions among the people. (sic!!)
He then states, under an extensive cover of sophistry:
In the period of the socialist revolution, exploitation of the working class for profit constitutes one side of the character of the national bourgeoisie, while its support of the Constitution and its willingness to accept socialist transformation (sic) constitute the other. The national bourgeoisie differs from the imperialists, the landlords and the bureaucrat-capitalists. The contradiction between the national bourgeoisie and the working class is one between exploiter and exploited, and is by nature antagonistic. But in the concrete conditions of China, this antagonistic contradiction between the two classes, if properly handled, can be transformed into a non-antagonistic one and be resolved by peaceful methods.[33]
Without a doubt, Mao is here propagating the line of the bourgeoisie peacefully growing into socialism, i.e. the line of the peaceful transition to socialism. It is clear in all his writings that the struggle he waged against the so-called “ultra-leftists” was an attempt to hold back the civil war in China, to hold back the socialist revolution, i.e., to “achieve” the “peaceful transition to socialism”.
Let us proceed with the examination of his revisionist line found in this grandiose text of revisionism, so-hailed by all third worldist revisionists:
In joint state-private industrial and commercial enterprises, capitalists still get a fixed rate of interest on their capital, that is to say, exploitation still exists.[34]
And this exploitation still exists in the so-called period of socialism. He even goes so far as to say that the bourgeoisie should voluntarily study Marxism so they can “communicate” with the workers more easily!
Such study should be on a voluntary basis. When they return to the enterprises after being in study groups for some weeks, many industrialists and businessmen find that they have more of a common language with the workers and the representatives of state ownership and so there are better possibilities for working together.[35]
Here we have Mao openly advocating class collaboration of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, and even teaching the bourgeoisie how to stay in power by using socialist phraseology and demagogy.
It is in this same revisionist “classic” that Mao makes the call for the spread of all sorts of Ideas, that is, for the spread of bourgeois-ideology, in the realm of the superstructure. This call is made by his notorious slogan: “Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend”. In fact, what Mao is calling for is the “freedom of criticism”– the freedom to attack and slander Marxism-Leninism. He himself admits that this call has no class character, and even this isn’t true–for the class character it has is the bourgeois class character, the line of “pure democracy”.
Literally the two slogans– let a hundred flowers blossom and let a hundred schools of thought contend–have no class character; the proletariat can turn them to account, and so can the bourgeoisie or others.[36]
Along with his other slogan of “Long-term Co-existence and Mutual Supervision” the above is a reaffirmation of the revisionist line which allowed the bourgeois parties to exist, and share power with the “C”PC.
Clearly, comrades, with these lines, developed and spread by Mao Tse-tung, its no wonder that the proletariat and the genuine communists in China have been temporarily defeated in the course of the Cultural Revolution, no mystery why and how the socialist revolution was undermined. It is also crystal clear that socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat never existed in China.
It is the task of all genuine communists throughout the world to take a stand against the revisionist betrayal on the part of the “C”PC, and to further expose the bourgeois-nationalist, revisionist line of Mao Tse-tung.
We call on all class-conscious proletarians to struggle in defense of the Marxist-Leninist line and to defend the great Socialist Republic of Albania, led by the Party of Labour of Albania with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, which has consistently defended the correct line of the international communist movement.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
[1] Documents of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 117
[2] “Implementing the Socialist Principle ’To Each According to His Work’”, Peking Review, #31, 1978
[3] Peking Review #16. 1976
[4] “The PLA has always Pursued a Single Marxist-Leninist Line”, Lenin Press Reprint, P. 1
[5] “Letter of the CC of the Party of Labour and the Government of Albania to the CC of the Communist Party and the Government of China”, p. 36
[6] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 251
[7] J.V. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, Peking edition, p. 7
[8] “China’s Great Revolution and the Soviet Union’s Great Tragedy”, June 4, 1967, Foreign Language Press, Peking
[9] Ramiz Alia, “The Revolution– A Question Taken Up for Solution”, p. 8
[10] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, p. 304
[11] J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, “Prospects of the Revolution in China”, Peking Edition, p. 500
[12] J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, “Questions of the Chinese Revolution”, Peking Edition, p. 658
[13] J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, “Notes on Contemporary Themes”, Peking Edition, p. 744
[14] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 354
[15] ibid., p. 347
[16] ibid.. p. 354
[17] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, “On Coalition Government”
[18] History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), Calcutta Edition, p. 238
[19] ibid., p. 253
[20] ibid., p. 255
[21] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, p. 113
[22] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, “On Coalition Government’, Vol. 3
[23] ibid., p. 234
[24] ibid.
[25] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, p. 296
[26] J.V. Stalin, Selected Works, “Problems of Leninism”, p. 151
[27] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 253
[28] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 247
[29] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 24-25
[30] V.I. Lenin, “Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, Peking Edition, p. 3
[31] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, p. 112
[32] ibid., p. 113
[33] ibid., p. 386
[34] ibid., p. 394
[35] ibid., p. 403
[36] ibid., p. 412