Mao Tse Tung made a historic contribution to the development of Marxism-Leninism in the spheres of philosophy, practice and Theory A. Peoples War It was Mao who developed the first military line of the proletariat in semi-colonial third world countries through his work on protracted peoples War. Since the Chinese revolution the peoples of the third world countries have launched heroic armed struggles either officially upholding the Maoist concept of protracted peoples War or unofficially implementing it without officially upholding it.Comrade Mao innovated Lenin¡¯s colonial thesis to the condition sof third world countries and was the first Marxist to discover a peasnt based revolution with the countryside and rural areas becoming the principal areas of struggle and encircling the towns.He developed the concept of setting up guerilla zones and developing military base areas.We are commemorating 75 years since the Long March,the greatest march in history. In the 1935 Tsunyi conference Mao ¡®s line won where the left sectarian line of Wang Ming and the right deviationist Chang Ku Tao were defeated.In the latter case the Vietnamese struggle against America is the best case. Vietnam won the war deploying the Maoist method of Peoples War. Heroic Maoist armed struggles were waged in Peru,Nepal India and Phillipines,Till the early 1990¡¯s the Peruvian Sendero Luminosos almost in every way implemented the Maoist mass line in their main periods.Amed actions were launching very reminiscent of the Maoist led Chinese party in the armed struggle which threatened the very foundations of the autocratic Peruvian regime.They superbly encircled the Peruvain towns upto 1992 and looked on the verge of triumphing.Sadly they met with a major setback just on that periphery of triumph.The Phillipines Communist Party was theoretically the soundest making a historic self-criticism in 1988 through a rectification programme.They have waged armed struggle since 1968 .They claim they will capture power in 10 years The Peruvian party had along period of mass preparation before launching the Peoples War.Today the Phillipines movement has built up legal forms and liasons of struggle in urban areas.. In India in 1946-51 the mass line in Telengana was implemented but today in India we have an armed struggle with strong distortions of the mass line, however commendable or historic the effort. In Nepal at one stage sustained efforts were made which later veered towards capitulationsism.The Peruvian Sendero Luminoso led the greatest armed struggle since the Chinese revolution and took a military struggle to the greatest depth since the armed struggle of the C.C.P. led by Mao. Some forces like that uphold Lin Biao as the percursor of the Peoples War theory forget that it was Comrade Mao Tse Tung who laid the foundation of this theory and Lin Biao only elaborated it.Overall what is significant is that it was Comrade Mao Tse Tung¡¯s military theories as a development of Leninism that led to the building of popular armed struggles and even victorious triumphs in Vietnam against America and France.In the trends that deferred armed struggles and still built mass movements like that of Nagi Reddy in India in the early 1970¡¯s. Mao¡¯s protracted Peoples War writings were a major factor.Struggles in Punjab are a major example.A very important factor in armed struggle was the leadership of the proletariat and the preparation. In this regard I would highlight the contribution of Comrades in India like Nagi Reddy and D.V Rao on the need for adequate agrarian revolutionary movement before creating the Peoples Liberation Army and launching the armed struggle.Infact the C.P.R.C.I.(M.L) of India is theoretically sounder than the C.P.I.(Maoist)on this question.Below I am reproducing 2 outstanding writings by Com.Mike Ely on Peoples war and the fact that the proletrait did laed the Chinese Revolution. a.There is a distinction conceptually between ¡°peoples war¡± and ¡°protracted peoples war.¡± .Protracted peoples war is a specific strategy of rural base areas, waged in semi-feudal countries. But Maoists have also discussed peoples wars that are less ¡°protracted¡± and that emerge from compressed insurrections in highly urbanized capitalist countries. The word Preparation is a major leap: because it acknowledges that the preconditions for initiating a war don¡¯t always exist, and there is (of necessity) a preparatory period (preparing the revolutionary forces, and perhaps also awaiting particular objective conditions and crisis). Previously in the ICM there were forces who denied (functionally) any need for preparation ¡ª and treated the initiation of peoples war as merely a matter of will and the courage to decide. It was tied to a view (promoted even by the RCPUSA) that the people of the third world were always (more or less) in a revolutionary situation, so that (even if there was a conjunctural element to launching armed struggle in advanced countries) there was probably not (in this view) much conjunctural element in launching people¡¯s war in a semifeudal-semicolonial country. In fact, there is both a need to do serious preparation (among the people, and in the preparation of the revolutionary core), and also a need for favorable objective conjunctures (involving both internal and external factors). b..Leadership of the Proletariat The fact that the Chinese revolution was a national liberation struggle and a radical anti-feudal agrarian revolution led by communists represented (in a real sense, at some levels of abstraction and mediation) a revolution led by the proletariat. In the sense that it was led as part of an ongoing process aimed for communism. That it was led by ideas and organization uncharacteristic of the peasants, or the local merchants but that (in fact) were a product (and extension) of the most class conscious movements of the working class (and the theory that led them). . There was always a concerted effort for this revolution did seek (whenever possible) to sink roots among the workers, and bring them to the fore as a class-in-itself becoming a class-for-itself.One early example of this was when the Maoist armies started taking cities ¡ª there were quickly line struggles over who to ¡°rely on¡± in the cities: Some wanted to rely on the existing administration(i.e. take over the state as it existed, but run it with new methods), some wanted to apply the methods from the countryside (i.e. find the most radicalized poor peasants living on the fringes of urban life), and Mao argued (strongly) that the revolution finally had a chance to connect with, mobilize and relying the masses of working people in these urban areas (and that this focus had an important strategic component). So while I am arguing that the notion of ¡°proletarian leadership¡± does not rest on the presence and initiative of people (literally) of working class origin ¡ª Mao and the other Maoists were quite conscious of wanting to make and strengthen that link, in order the strengthen the social basis for proletarian ideas within a movement (and within a country) of overwhelmingly non-proletarian classes. This same approach came forward in the GPCR, where the revolution was first triggered in schools among the youth (red guards) and among the soldiers (the publication of the Red Book), but where mao struggled to bring the actual workers into the conflict (not just as fresh footsoldiers in a key social sphere, but as a potentially transformative force.) The major error is to universalize the Chinese thesis to the conditions in all Countries.Although leading a great armed Struggle in Peru Comrdae Gonzalo generalized the theory of Maoist Peoples War to even European countries which was an error Peoples War propounded by Mao cannot be launched in a European country. B.Cultural Revolution The seeds of this movement were planted in Mao¡¯s Great Debate where he classified the Kruschevite U.S.S.R.as revisionist.Mao upheld Stalin¡¯s U.S.S.R.as Socialist and claimed that Kruschev¡¯ revisionist clique usurped power.Mao was the first Marxist to recognize the need for continuing class struggle under the dictatorship of the Proletariat. And thus founded the theory of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. ComMao created the most democratic society in the history of mankind in the Chinese revolution from the Socialist to the stage of the Cultural Revolution. The revolutionary creative energy of the masses was harnessed to phenomenal heights. Achievements of the Cultural Revolution. The most sweeping changes were made in the history of mankind in the spheres of medicine education,industry,agriculture ,army and political functioning. Compiled from Marxist Leninst Maoist Research Group This installment describes how workers transformed their factories, how peasants were empowered, and how health care was brought to the vast majority of the population in the countryside during the CR. . Below we look at the radical transformations of the Cultural Revolution in industry and agriculture. [1] Workers Transform Their Factories After the Cultural Revolution was launched in the spring of 1966, politically conscious workers in China¡¯s industrial centers watched events closely. Some made contact with local Red Guard groups and began to discuss their grievances with the top-down system of management that had been widely imposed in the early 1960s. One of the first groups to organize themselves in the factories was the ¡°revolutionary technicians,¡± many of who were former workers. They began to criticize the formally educated ¡°technical authorities¡± in their plants who relied on Western or Soviet technical methods and refused to experiment or listen to workers¡¯ suggestions for innovations.[2] The mass uprising of hundreds of thousands of workers in Shanghai in January 1967 was a signal to workers elsewhere, particularly workers in large state-owned enterprises who had participated in the Great Leap Forward, to organize and seize power from managers and party cadre who were running their factories like capitalist enterprises. These power seizures were led by varying combinations of rank and file workers, work group leaders, technicians, middle-level managers, and revolutionary cadre at various levels.[3] Where these in-plant uprisings took place, elected revolutionary committees¨Ccomposed of workers, technicians and party cadre¨Ctook over directing the daily activities of the factories. This new form of factory management was promoted as a model and spread nationwide during 1967 and early 1968. This political mobilization and surge of China¡¯s industrial workers enabled them to make many of the transformations within the factories that had first been attempted with varying degrees of success during the Great Leap Forward. Piece wage systems were abolished; by 1971, individual and group bonuses had been eliminated in most plants.[4] Production teams took over managerial responsibilities for their units. They took attendance, planned daily tasks, recorded use of materials, scheduled maintenance, performed quality control and coordinated production with other units. In some factories, yearly production quotas were determined after a lengthy process of consultation with all units in the plant, and production teams determined their own pay within the basic wage scale, based on length of experience, level of skill, and their attitude towards work and fellow workers.[5] At the same time, the 8 grade wage system¡ªin which the differential between the highest paid skilled workers and the lowest paid unskilled workers averaged three to one¡ªwas not a subject of struggle. One reason for this was that seniority allowed workers¡¯ wages to increase over the years; in some cases, senior skilled workers made more than managers.[6] As the Cultural Revolution progressed, managers and full-time cadre in all industrial enterprises were required to work on the shop floors on a regular or rotating basis. Those with intellectual backgrounds were given training in a particular skill. Members of in-plant revolutionary committees, as well as their administrative staff, participated in labor and made regular visits to the shop floor to assess conditions and make decisions. ¡°Triple combinations¡± of workers, technicians and administrators were organized to solve technical problems and make innovations at the point of production. Though it undoubtedly varied greatly from plant to plant, political study was a part of the daily work routine. Mao¡¯s works were not studied as abstract theory, but as a method of investigating and solving production problems and political issues in the factories. In late 1967, a campaign in the factories was launched to criticize Liu Shaoqi¡¯s ¡°70 Articles¡± from the early 1960s in order to clarify the differences between socialist and capitalist mechanisms of production both within the factories and in the system of nationwide economic planning and organization.[7] Particularly in the large state-owned enterprises, dependence on advanced foreign technology, Soviet or Western, was criticized. The large oilfields at Daqing in northeast China, which had been opened and operated with Chinese equipment and engineering, were held up a national model for self-reliant effort which created new production methods and products suited to Chinese conditions. This policy helped protect China¡¯s political independence as well. In addition, news of the progress of the Cultural Revolution and revolutionary struggles around the world was widely available in the plants. Individual workers could make their views known on any subject within or outside the plant by pasting dazibaos on the walls or by speaking out at ¡°mass airings¡± in front of the entire factory staff. This system promoted a constant give-and-take between the workers and the factory¡¯s revolutionary committee. In order to raise the technical and educational level of greater numbers of workers at all skill levels, a variety of schools and training institutes were set up inside the factories. In one large Shanghai machine tools plant, a ¡°July 21 university¡± enrolled its first class of fifty two workers in 1968, with an average age of 29. A two and a half year course prepared to them to become technicians in the factory with a high level of political consciousness. By 1974, there were 34 factory-run full-time workers¡¯ universities in Shanghai.[8] Women worked in skilled industrial jobs for the first time In many factories, ¡°spare time schools¡± were set up, where hundreds of workers studied technology, politics and culture. Since women were more recent arrivals to many factories, these in-plant training courses created increased opportunities for them to move into higher skilled jobs. A factory worker in Beijing described the classes she had attended that were given by veteran skilled workers: They taught us about electricity, how to read blueprints, geometry, chemistry, all kinds of things that we needed to know to do our job well. I thing that by having the actual experience of working in the factory combined with theory in the classes, we learned much quicker, and we did not slow down production.[9] The new system of factory management was put to use in solving a thorny production problem at the Anshan Iron and Steel Works, the largest, but also one of the oldest industrial complexes in China. In the 1960s, the plant¡¯s production of rolled steel was beginning to fall. In 1971, leading cadre at one of Anshan¡¯s old smelting mills claimed that its output could only be raised through an infusion of state funds, causing their renovation plan to remain on paper for years. After these leaders were criticized for not relying on the workers in the mills, the responsible revolutionary committee organized a dozen ¡°three-in-one¡± teams who worked closely with shop floor workers to solve the difficult technological problems of modernizing the mill. Using only internal funds, the workers rebuilt the old mill and were able to double its output.[10] The mass campaign at Anshan rooted out conservative views on how to increase production and state funds by relying on the workers¡¯ political consciousness and their hands-on understanding of production. During the Cultural Revolution this orientation was capsulized in the phrase ¡°grasp revolution, promote production.¡± Despite some disruptions during the Cultural Revolution, industrial production in China grew by more than 10% yearly from 1966 to 1976. [11] These revolutionary innovations in industry were not uniform. In more than a few factories, workers faced strong resistance from party cadre, managers and technicians to the new system of factory administration. However, it was deeply rooted in some areas. In December 1976, even after the military coup that brought an end to the Maoist era, an Italian teacher visited a power station in Shanghai where the workers still shared in management at all levels, and young workers were sent to universities to return to the plant as technicians.[12] As the Deng Xiaoping regime consolidated power in the late 1970s, these transformations were wiped out. Under the new ¡°manager responsibility¡± system, all authority was placed in the hands of factory managers. They decided how production was organized, whether to hire or fire employees, how much to pay workers, and how much they, the new bosses, would get paid. Peasant Empowerment and Learning from Dazhai Learn from Dazhai While the mass upsurges of the Cultural Revolution were concentrated in the cities, major social transformations took place in the rural areas, where 80% of the people still lived. With encouragement from Red Guard groups in village middle schools, peasants in many areas formed independent mass associations. This movement launched a frontal challenge to the traditional political culture of submission to authority in the countryside. These organizations of newly empowered peasants brought the political attitudes and work habits of party cadre and leadership at all levels¡ªthe commune, production brigade and production team [13]¡ªunder intense scrutiny. Mao¡¯s works became a weapon, a de facto constitution, for peasants in their debates with abusive and bureaucratic village leaders. According to a number of peasants interviewed in the 1990s, the term ¡°newly arisen bourgeoisie¡± referred to party leaders who did not work but bossed people around like the old landlords and capitalists.[14] Commune leaders no longer appointed production team leaders; they were elected by the team members. If the leaders did not do a good job, they would lose their positions at the end of the year. In one county in Shandong, the production team leaders had to be replaced every year.[15] An important part of the evaluation of local party cadre was how much time they spent working alongside ordinary farmers in the fields. Beginning in late 1967, a new power structure began to replace the old party apparatus in many areas. Mass associations, composed mainly of poor and lower middle peasants, chose people to sit on newly organized village revolutionary committees. These committees exercised day to day leadership in the villages and on the communes.[16] With the encouragement of cultural workers from the cities, peasants developed as painters, writers and performers. A vast expansion of education and health services brought immediate benefits to the lives of people in the rural areas. Poster shows model commune, Dazhai in early 70s The expansion of private plots and free markets in the early 1960s was reversed, with a renewed emphasis on political consciousness and collective effort. Dazhai, one brigade of a commune in a rocky and eroded part of Shanxi Province, was promoted as a model for agriculture during the Cultural Revolution. According to William Hinton, who spent decades working in the Chinese countryside: With a spirit of self-reliance, and without aid from the state, Dazhai transformed its hills and gullies into fertile fields by cutting stone, laying up walls, and carrying in earth. This transformation was carried out through collective effort after protracted political education and in the course of constant struggle against individualism and private-profit mentality. The result was a gradually rising standard of living for all members of the brigade, expanding sales of surplus grain to the state instead of demands for relief, the accumulation of reserves against bad years, the reconstruction of most of the housing in the village, and the establishment of many community projects to serve the people and community industries to supplement agricultural income.[17] In 1971, the Dazhai brigade was linking together hillside terraces and low-lying plots to be able to utilize farm machinery. In the preceding years, the county in which Dazhai was located had built its own garden tractors, electrical generators, a chemical fertilizer plant, a small iron blast furnace, and became self-sufficient in cement. [18] During the Cultural Revolution, there was a big push to mechanize agriculture. In the farming area around Shanghai, the amount of land that was machine-tilled grew from 17% in 1965 to 76% in 1972. The rural industrialization program begun during the Great Leap Forward was accelerated. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were nearly 800,000 rural industrial enterprises, plus 90,000 small hydroelectric stations, producing 15% of China¡¯s industrial output.[19] These advances could not have been achieved without the rapid expansion of the rural educational system during the Cultural Revolution, which produced agricultural experts, and technicians and skilled workers for commune factories and workshops. In areas of the countryside where there was strong leadership, there were impressive gains in production, but in other areas production stagnated.[20] Many large-scale infrastructural projects that were aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and the peasants¡¯ standard of living were undertaken during the Cultural Revolution involving tens of thousands of workers. In one part of Guangdong Province that the CCAS delegation visited in 1971, three communes had joined together to build a huge network of irrigation and flood control projects, including three large dams. Each dam had its own small hydroelectric station. In one county in Shandong Province, large-scale infrastructural projects were often popular initiatives, an important change from the Great Leap Forward, when peasants were sent out to work by commune and village leaders with no input on their part. On some projects, schoolteachers, students and local government employees joined the construction crews after they got off work. [21] These social and economic transformations in the Chinese countryside were thrown sharply into reverse after 1976. The achievements of the Dazhai brigade were denounced as a fraud. The communes and collectives were broken up, and land was distributed to peasant households in what became known as the ¡°family responsibility system.¡± Cadres, relatives, friends and cronies were able to buy at massive discounts the tractors, trucks, wells, pumps, processing equipment and other property that the collectives had accumulated over decades through the hard labor of all members.[22] Privatization also spelled the end of the collective health care system in the countryside. Health Care and Barefoot Doctors Prior to the Cultural Revolution, health care resources¡ªdoctors, hospital facilities and money¡ªwere concentrated in the cities. This system left hundreds of millions of peasants with rudimentary medical care, and it impeded the flow of advanced medical knowledge back to the villages. One of the most dynamic innovations of the Cultural Revolution was the system of ¡°barefoot doctors¡± that helped narrow the gap in health services between rural and urban areas. By the mid-1970s, more than a million of these paramedics, four times as many as in 1965, were working in the countryside. Many of them were educated urban youth who were part of the movement ¡°down to the villages.¡± The first group of 28 barefoot doctors, trained by Shanghai doctors in 1968 at Chiangchen People¡¯s Commune, set a pioneering example for the country. Their guidelines were to serve the countryside, to place prevention of diseases first, and to combine mental and manual labor¡ª¡±calluses on hands, mud on feet, medicine kit on shoulder, poor and lower-middle peasants in mind.¡± One of the first steps taken by these new medical workers was to train disease-prevention health workers from the peasants, enabling each production brigade to have its own health center. In one brigade, the barefoot doctors devoted a third to a half of their time to farm work. This not only created a medical corps with strong ties to the peasants, it enabled brigade doctors to help develop a rice strain that had high yields and eliminated disease-bearing mosquitoes. Finally, upon the recommendations of the peasants they worked with, the commune sent five barefoot doctors to medical school to pursue more advanced studies.[23] Urban hospitals and medical schools turned their attention to the countryside, establishing medical centers on communes and providing doctors to staff them. A commune hospital or clinic served two purposes: as a treatment center for seriously ill patients, and as a training center for barefoot doctors and midwives. After an initial training course of six months to a year, they would return for follow-up courses during the slack season. They continued to work in the fields and were paid by their communes. Barefoot doctors were often young women The tasks of these new doctors went far beyond the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. They administered vaccinations, demonstrated the correct use of pesticides, introduced new sanitation methods, and taught mothers about nutrition and child care. In addition to helping rural women to give birth at home, midwives were trained to diagnose a difficult birth early enough to bring the mother to a commune hospital. At the rural hospitals and clinics visited by the CCAS delegation, medicine was free. [24] During the same years, Red Medical Teams, an urban and industrial version of the barefoot doctors, were established. After a basic course and recurrent follow-up sessions, they staffed factory clinics and cared for the health of their fellow workers. The training of doctors and medical staff at urban hospitals also went through major changes during the Cultural Revolution. In medical schools, the program of study was shortened from six years to three years, followed by an internship of one and a half years. The curriculum was revised to place more emphasis on preventative medicine. Most graduates were generalists, not specialists. They would spend a good part of their lives in the countryside as part of mobile teams, or they resettled there.[25] In addition, many traditional forms of medicine, such as herbal remedies and acupuncture anesthesia, were widely used during the Cultural Revolution. Research institutes studied Chinese medicine to put it on a scientific and standardized basis, while many hospitals began to combine Chinese and Western medicine into an integrated system for the treatment of illness. The end of the Cultural Revolution led to a rapid and drastic decline in the health care system in the countryside. The barefoot doctor system was abandoned by Deng¡¯s regime in 1981. Doctors set up their own private practices, making medical treatment well beyond the means of most villagers. After the collectives were dissolved in 1983, health care insurance disappeared in the countryside. [26] Quoting an extract in Daily Life in Revolutionary China ¡°The Cultural Revolution sets in motion the inexhaustible participation of the masses, which accelerates and puts into concrete form the appearance of proletarian democracy of which the Chinese speak. How else are we to define the politicization of the masses, which I saw during the trip? The moment the masses no longer fear coercion from the state apparatus, proletarian democracy begins to establish itself. It is here on the level of consensus, that the mass line conceived by Mao more than 40 years ago undergoes it¡¯s broadest development This unprecedented reliance on the masses might merely conceal a pedagogical and academic character were it not based on social practice, did not explode within the heart of the ideological apparatus.��?. One of Mao¡¯s most important points was, ¡®Grasp the revolution and promote production ¡°Mao always insisted tat the contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production, and their contradictions with the superstructure will continue to exist in every human society as ling as production relations continue to exist. He also fought for revolutionary changes within the superstructure. In his essay ¡®On contradiction¡¯ Mao dealt with the question of the continuation of revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao dealt here with the ultimate goal of reducing the power of coercive and ideological apparatus of the state-until the state withered away. By carrying the revolution to the soul by the ¡°Intervention of the masses in the Superstructure��?.. Three in one committees were formed consisting of the revolutionary Party Cadre, revolutionary representatives from the Army and representatives of the revolutionary masses and a continuous process of struggle, criticism-transformation was carried out. ¡°In China the party is the dominant apparatus, under the dictatorship of the Proletariat, and that the ideological apparatus was carried out by the party. But at the same time the party is neither a metaphysical category nor a Thomist Credo. In China the struggle was raging within the party itself.The proletariat intervenes in the party,the ideological apparatus of the power system an elsewhere The dominant party of the proletarian revolution fulfills it¡¯s task ,which is to re-enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat ,by accomplishing it¡¯s own revolution as a ruling apparatus, and by opening it¡¯s structure to the masses. Criticism of the party and electoral replacements of committees and orther party organizations is done in open, with the participation of workers who are not members. This is the confirmation of the mass line which opens the party the ¡°the new blood of the Proletariat Maoist. ¡°The Quoting Raymond Lotta in his defending Socialism Columns in ¡®Revolution¡¯One of the major distortions about the Cultural Revolution is that Mao masterminded and manipulated whatever happened. Mao is said to be responsible for every act and struggle that took place. Mao is held responsible for any and all cases of violence. There is a notion that everything issued from a single locus of power and decision-making¡ªfrom Mao. Different class and social forces were involved in the Cultural Revolution. There were the genuine Maoists in the party and mass organizations. There were anti-Mao groupings within the party who organized students, workers and peasants. And there were conservative military forces, ultra-left groupings, mass organizations that divided into rebel and conservatives camps, criminal elements, and others. Different social interests and motivations were in play. Reasons for setback 1.At times, factionalism¡ªin the sense of groups placing their own narrow interests above political principle¨C was a difficult problem to resolve. Here what we have to analyse is the need for a further democratisation of the superstructure to combat factionalism nut sill promote democracy. In the course of the Cultural Revolution, rightist and leftist groupings all claimed to be following ¡°Chairman Mao¡¯s revolutionary line.¡± In this complex and often confusing situation, party members and the masses of people could only distinguish between correct and incorrect lines¡ªbetween the socialist road and the road back to capitalism¡ªby engaging in political and ideological study, discussion and struggle. In many cases, disputes between leftist groupings had to be resolved by the intervention of the People¡¯s Liberation Army, which brought new problems. Further advances in the Cultural Revolution and consolidation of its achievements would have required a higher level of political consciousness and willingness to put collective interests first in order to reduce the level of unprincipled factional struggle.This very point makes us question whether again was Chairman Mao¡¯s line the only revolutionary line..It also highlight the over-intervention of the Peoples Liberation Army.However the sincerity of the C.C.P.to implement 2 line struggle cannot be denied.A principal factor was the lack of preparation and political consciousness. 2.In spite of the August 1966 directive that the principal target of the Cultural Revolution was high-ranking party officials taking the capitalist road, intellectuals, especially those trained in the pre-Liberation era, were repeated, high-profile targets. At some points, nearly all teachers, writers and other intellectuals came under fire from Red Guard groups.[7].Here Bob Avakian¡¯s concept of allowing for dissent under dictatorship of the proletariats is very valid where even rightist artist of intellectuals can express themselves.¡± Here it must be said that there has been a problem in previous socialist societies. There has been a tendency to see intellectual activity that is not directly serving or linked to the agenda of the socialist state at any given time as not that important¡ªor as disruptive of that agenda.¡¯ Now in bringing forward this understanding and pointing to these weaknesses, Avakian has been retracing the experience of proletarian revolution in the intellectual and scientific realms. In his reenvisioning of socialism, Bob Avakian has been emphasizing the role of dissent in socialist society. Avakian has said that dissent must not only be allowed but actively fostered, and this includes opposition to the government.¡± Red Guard groups and workers and peasants organizations, each claiming to be flying the ¡°red flag,¡± at times resorted to force during political struggle. This violated the explicit instructions of the ¡°16 Point Decision,¡± one of which was that:The method to be used in debates is to present the facts, reason things out, and persuade through reasoning. Any method of forcing a minority holding different views to submit is impermissible. The minority should be protected, because sometimes the truth is with the minority. Even if the minority is wrong, they should still be allowed to argue their case and reserve their views.Here the supression of minorities is a very valid point.It again highlights the importance of Avakian¡¯s concept of dissent. 3. Later the Gang of 4 also made left sectarian errors, unable to unite with the broadest masses. Comrade Mao often rebuked them stating that ¡°You are trying to make the Socialist Revolution but you do not know where the bourgeoisie is-they are right there in the Communist Party��?.Often the Gang gave left sectarian slogans unable to totally unite the broad masses. Often Comrade Mao rebuked them when he stated that they often failed to hit the main revisionist targets stating ¡°You are trying to make the revolution but you do not know where the bourgeoisie is.They are right here in the Communist Party.��?Often the Gang was unable to implement the mass line and raised left sectarian slogansTowards the closing stages of the G.P.C.R the revolutionary Committees became legal institutions and morally ceased to function.Revocability of Committee members stopped and no more periodic re-elections took place. 4.Not adequate information was released to the broad masses on the political happenings,[particularly in the Lin Biao period. 5.One of the shortcomings of the Cultural Revolution that was most difficult to resolve was the inability of Mao and the leftists in the CCP to find the means to subject rightist commanders in the People¡¯s Liberation Army to mass criticism, to ferret out their connections to revisionist forces outside the army, and to remove them from power where necessary.This very point highlights the very lack of debate and democracy within the system and the excessive power in the hands of the P.L.A. 6.A huge personality cult was created around Comrade Mao Tse Tung.The best reference of this is an essay written by Rangayakaama in Frontier. Slogans like ¡°Chairman Mao will live for 10,000 years resounded, Eulogies were raised stating that Chairman Mao is like ¡® the sun giving light wherever it shines ¡®and a ¡®great prophet¡¯,Kindergarden students were made to chant ¡°Long Live Mao for 10,000 years and hailing Mao as great ¡®helmsman,¡¯ ¡®teacher,¡¯ ¡®leader¡¯ and ¡®commander¡¯ ,all took place. It is also true that the publication of the works of Marx,Engels,Lenin and Stalin Stopped and there was a policy to focus solely on Mao only. Slogans like ¡°Chairman Mao will live for 10,000 years resounded, Eulogies were raised stating that Chairman Mao is like ¡® the sun giving light wherever it shines ¡®and a ¡®great prophet¡¯,Kindergarden students were made to chant ¡°Long Live Mao for 10,000 years and hailing Mao as great ¡®helmsman,¡¯ ¡®teacher,¡¯ ¡®leader¡¯ and ¡®commander¡¯ ,all took place. It is also true that the publication of the works of Marx,Engels,Lenin and Stalin Stopped and there was a policy to focus solely on Mao only. 7..The fact that it was this Cultural Revolution movement was the first revolutionary movement of it¡¯s kind. Capitalism and feudalism already had a long history .For Centuries repressive bourgeoisie society Eg.The era of emperors, monarchs ,then parliamentary governments Etc.existed. The triumph of Socialist Revolution was very recent and thus there had to be errors in the course. It was an entirely new type of an experiment like a scientist using his latest theories in carrying out a new type of an experiment. hus errors were a natural phenomenon. Socialist Russia had never embarked on such a task and Stalinism sowed the seeds of revisionism. Many remnants of the feudal and bourgeois society were left behind in the minds of people after that thinking was perpetrated for thousands of years .It would perhaps take several revolutions to overcome what was created over generations. There was a deep-rooted Confucian tradition in China. 8..Sino Soviet Border conflict.-China had to combat their ideological problem with the then U.S.S R. They had a border disputes with Russia and that was the period where the Cold War was at it¡¯s peak with the U.S ¨CVietnam War in full flow.To save their state China had to create relations with bourgeoisie states for tactical purposes.On one hand Socialist China had to combat U.S imperialismon the other hand they had to stand upto the Soviet Social Imperialism.This was a complex problem. China had to fight the ¡®lion¡¯ but be aware of the ¡®bear.¡¯. 9..Persecution of writers , artist, musicians, and sectarian approach to bourgeois philosophers. Sportsmen Et Even not enough attention was given to psychology or Freudian ideas. Several writers, poets and artists and sportsmen were wrongly attacked and sent to be reformed.True,there were bourgeois tendencies ,but such elements also had progressive aspects which the cultural revolution leaders often failed to understand. Quoting the the MLMSRG.:In the course of the Cultural Revolution, the development of new revolutionary leadership in the top levels of the party was incomplete and it was difficult to consolidate. The downfall of Lin Biao, Mao¡¯s official successor as of 1969, the removal of the majority of the original members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, and the turn to the right in the early 1970s by many party leaders and officials grouped around Zhou Enlai made it considerably easier for Deng Xiaoping and other leading revisionists overthrown during the earlier stages of the Cultural Revolution to make successful political comebacks Some have argued that Mao was too lenient with Deng and other revisionist leaders. But it wasn¡¯t just Mao¡ªthe balance of forces in the leadership of the party had shifted sharply to the right. The fundamental issue, concerning which further investigation and discussion is needed, is how and the extent to which Mao and his leftist supporters waged what¨Cas the rightist offensive got under way in the early 1970s¨Cwas a steep uphill battle to mobilize the masses and the revolutionary forces in the party to defend the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. This effort would have required targeting, removing and neutralizing the top party leaders who were taking China off the socialist road.[21]¡± In the early 1970s, Mao, Zhou and most of the Chinese leadership advocated a ¡°three worlds¡± perspective for Chinese foreign policy[26] that was a retreat from the revolutionary internationalist line followed earlier in the Cultural Revolution. According to this perspective, the two superpowers (the U.S. and the Soviet Union¡ª¡°the first world¡±) were the principal enemies on a world scale; the Western imperialists and Japan (the ¡°second world¡±) were part of an international united front against the superpowers; and the peoples and countries of the ¡°third world¡± were the most reliable revolutionary force in opposing the superpowers. The view that the neo-colonial governments of the ¡°third world¡± could be united with against the superpowers undermined the position (held by the CCP leadership earlier in the Cultural Revolution) that it was essential to provide aid to revolutionary movements in these countries. As a perspective for the world¡¯s revolutionary movement, the ¡°three worlds¡± perspective had serious flaws.[27] It downplayed the reactionary nature of the other Western imperialist countries, and it created confusion about the nature of bourgeois nationalist regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America.[28] Emphasis on economic development in these countries and their disputes with the U.S. obscured the neo-colonial relations that persisted. The issues raised by the Three Worlds Theory remain crucial today. Similar sentiments are heard about the central importance of struggles for national sovereignty¡ª referring to Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Zimbabwe and a number of other countries. Revolutionary internationalism in the 1960s They should be defended against attacks by the U.S. or by other imperialist partners, surrogates, or emerging blocs. However, it is important to understand that these countries¡ªeven if led by social-democrats like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales¡ªare still caught in the web of imperialist economic relations. According to James Petras: My reply is : I think this is a harsh attack on Com.Zhou En Lai who was one of Mao and also unfair to the effort the C.C.P. made in combating the revisionist roaders. . A very important factor here is whether it was correct to elect Lin Biao as a successor in 1969,which I personally feel was wrong.One has to recognize the fact that the C.C.P.did it¡¯s best to pursue 2 line s-truggle.It also does not do complete justice to the struggle Mao and his followers waged to defeat the rightists and win the battle for Socialism.Personalli I feel that the C.C.P delayed it¡¯s criticism of Lin Biao because of Mao¡¯s fear of the right triumphing.Infact an essay by Rangakayaama illustrates how so much was not disclosed about Lin Bioa before the coup.It is difficult to imagine how differently Lin Biao wa sassed before and after hi s fall. The other point is that the three worlds theory was never an innovation of Comrade Mao and was aformulation of Deng Xiapoing.Mao formalized relations with Nixon for tactical relation s of survival of the Socialist State. Certain sections find fault with Comrade Mao like the L.L.C.O.(Leading Light Communist Organisation) Quoting the L.L.C.O : Maos shift to the right following the Ninth Congress of April of 1969. Into the 1970s, Mao moved rightward in both domestic policy and foreign policy. When Mao turned to the right, he came into conflict with many Maoists. After the victory of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969) and the Ninth Congress (1969), the Maoist prize should have been a return to the Maoist economic policies that had been defeated by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping during the Great Leap years (1958-1962). The point of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969) had been to reverse the creeping capitalism as the Maoist model was abandoned during the Great Leap years.Deng Xiaoping was brought back to power in 1974 to a top leadership role with Mao¡¯s blessing. Deng Xiaoping would later preside over the complete dismantling of socialism in the 1980s. Despite coming into conflict with the revisionists at times, Mao wavered and waffled. At times, Mao even protected the revisionists. Even though Deng Xiaoping was removed from power more than once, Mao had protected him. For example, Mao personally intervened to separate Deng Xiaoping¡¯s case from Liu Shaoqi¡¯s at the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969). Thus Mao saved Deng Xiaoping, allowing him to make a comeback. Mao failed to carry the Cultural Revolution through to the end. Errors in global outlook and foreign policy Errors were made in foreign policy and global outlook also. Mao correctly broke with the Soviet social-imperialists, in part, because of the Soviets had become imperialist themselves and even begun to align with the Western imperialists. Yet, in the 1970s, the CCP found itself also aligning with the Western imperialists. This rightward turn was part of Mao¡¯s rejection of Lin Biao¡¯s global people¡¯s war outlook. Lin Biao was associated with the line that China ought to promote the global people¡¯s war led by Maoism. The Lin Biao line was connected to dissemination of Maoism internationally. Lin Biao¡¯s line put China at odds with almost every state in the world except revolutionary and popular ones. The Lin Biao line advocated fighting both Western imperialism headed by the United States and social-imperialism all at once. The correct Lin Biao line came to be seen as ultra-left by Mao. As early as 1969, Mao assigned people like Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping to come up with a new line. Eventually the new, anti-Lin Biao line would recommend a tacit Chinese-US alliance against the Soviet Union, which the CCP characterized as ¡°Hitler-like.¡± This came to be justified after the fact by ¡°Three Worlds Theory¡± of the 1970s (not to be confused with ¡°Maoism-Third Worldism¡±). Deng Xiaoping was the main spokesman for this line and theory during the 1970s. Lin Biao¡¯s faction opposed this reactionary turn in foreign policy and global outlook. The endgame of the new, reactionary line was the full capitulation to imperialism that occurred under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. China, which had been a beacon for oppressed countries everywhere, now seemed to be selling out. Lin Biao was guilty for promoting the personality cult. Lin Biao issued the Red Book as part of the Maoification of the PLA, without which the Maoists would not have had the power base to launch the Cultural Revolution. However, the cult is something that the entire Maoist left, and even the right and revisionists, were guilty of to various degrees. The cult existed to various degrees before Lin Biao entered politics and after his fall, when the Gang of Four controlled much of the propaganda machinery. It is fine if people want to claim that the cult was an error, but they need to be consistent about it. The reality is that Mao himself gave his tacit support to the cult. Thinking that the blame for the personality cult can be placed entirely at Lin Biao¡¯s feet is ridiculous. Mao could have easily gone public with his criticisms, if you believe that he had them at all ¡ª yes, we all know Mao circulated his ¡°letter¡± that critiqued the cult, conveniently, after Lin Biao¡¯s fall. Let¡¯s be real. Mao could have announced his supposed criticism of the cult from Tiananmen for the whole world to hear, if he really wanted to. The most likely explanation is that Mao was well aware that he needed the cult as a battering ram against the Party and state, against the revisionists. Mao¡¯s personal authority, the cult, was used to mobilize the masses against the authority of Party and state functionaries. Without Lin Biao holding the gun, creating the protective bubble, and without Mao¡¯s personal authority, it is hard to see how the power seizures and mass movements would have been possible in 67-68. As far as mass line goes, Lin Biao, more than anyone else, spoke of ¡°mass democracy¡± and ¡°big debates.¡± After all, Lin Biao was the symbol of the Cultural Revolution. The whole criticism that Lin Biao as some kind of Confucian elitist against the mass line is ridiculous, and it is a criticism that can be made and was made of the entire Maoist bloc. It is a typical Zhou Enlai-ist-Dengist criticism to raise the flag of ¡°mass line¡± against those who want to advance to communism. This reactionary line had the effect of discrediting Mao-influenced movements worldwide.¡± My reply to this is : It is one of the most erroneous lines in the International Communist Movement to blame Com.Mao Tse Tung for errors.Was it not Comrade Mao who initiated the Great debate against Soviet Social Imperialism and founded the first Movement of revolutionary Struggle against the dictatorship of the Proletariat?Mao¡¯s policy was to recognize the American state and not betray the revolutionary struggles Internationally.Infact Lin Biao¡¯s peoples War theories were an over generalization and hardly corresponded to the specific charasterictics and problems of different countries.Remember the left sectarian line of Charu Mazumdar in India in the early 1970¡äs.Today there are so many region s yet not prepared for Peoples War in third world countries.Lin Biao may have played a great role in revolutionising the P.LA.but later even if not pro-Soviet did not wish to continue the Cultural Revolution,giving emphasis to production and insisted on the position of President being re-instated.Instaed of fighting for the correct mass line in correcting mistakes Lin turned against Com.Mao whose basic line was correct.There were great achievements in the G.P.C.R in the 1971-1975 era and the main errors were the left sectarian tendencies of the Gang of 4.I agree Lin may not have been pro-U.S.S.R but his line was conspirational .Theoretically one has to understand the tactical significance of Mao¡¯s normalsing relations with the American state.Vietnam won the war against America because of Socialist China¡¯s help. Maos error was possibly not condemning the overthrow of Allende by America in Chile and inability to control the personality cult and excesses.The cult wAs not only the cause of Lin Biao but because of the nature of the struggle and problems inherent in the nature of the struggle.Remember it was the first revolution of it¡¯s kind.Insufficient avenues or factions for debate and criticism were created but yet there were achievements in revolutionary democracy unprecedented in the history of mankind.China also in the Maoist period could not maintain the adequate balance in practice between Soviet Social Imperialism and U.S.imperialism and marginally drifted towards not placing enough emphasis on opposing U.S.Imperialism and supporting 3rd world liberation movements.This is highlighted in it¡¯s silence on certain issues and stand on countries like Ethiopia.We must praise Socialist China¡¯s efforts to aid Vietnam winning the war aginst U.S.A and not imposing itself on communist parties of other countriesThe C.C.P needed to make it¡¯s policies more open to the public .The 3 worlds theory was never propounded by Com Mao as R.C.P ,llco and Kasama propound...He fought for the Socialist line till his death and whatever Lin;s earlier positive contribution ssupporting Lin Over Mao would virtually be endorsing capitulationism. The fact that Lin Biao was elected as a successor shows the weakness of the then C.C.P. in the mass line.The chief deviation in the reign of Lin Biao as a military commander was the excessive power in the hands of the Peoples Liberation army and their deployment against civilians.Earlier Lin had made an important contribution in the Socialist education Movement and the building of the P.L.A.Maoist revolutionaries have to condemn Lin Biao¡¯s wrong political methods and conspiracy and remember the important mass revolutionary movement led by the Gang of 4 Criticizing Lin Biao and Confucius .The very rise of figures like Lin Biao and Liu Shao Chi have to be studied .Just because Lin had such a leading position cannot credit him with the succeses of the G.P.C.R. Liu Shao Chi was head of the state from 1956 but his line was for over a decade opposed to that of Mao¡¯s.Later Lin virtually opposed the revolutionary Commitess and the cultural Revolution Movements.It must also be mentioned that some of the greatest mass movements of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution took place after 1970 like the Tachai Commune in 1975.The Gang of 4 of ,especially Chiang Ching made some of the most extraordinary proletarian innovations in art, culture and politics. The author feels that the Gang of 4 displayed strong left sectarian tendencies towards the end and were unable to carry out the mass line inspite of making great efforts.William Hinton reported the left sectarian sloganeering of the Gang which even Mao was critical of ..I also feel that trends like Kasama and R.C.P.wrongly blame Zhou En-Lai as an ally of the revisionist forces.Infact Zhou En-Lai was the only stalwart who stood with Mao till the end and there is hardly any evidence to substantiate his collaborating with Deng Xiaoping.The author opposes the creation of factions and opposes the formation of other parties within a Socialist system .True the dictatorship of the Proletariat had to be mantained and western multi-party democracy opposes it. However there was lack of adequate scope of democracy and debate and a huge personality cult built around Comrade Mao was the chief percusor of that phenomena.Intellectuals ,musicians and artists were wrongly persecuted.In the end several revolutionary Committees were disbanded and functioned as legal structures. When any peoples war was launch whether in Peru,Nepal or Phillipines the theory wa s atributed to Comrade Mao Tse Tung and not Lin Biao.The Chinese armed struggle of the C.C.P. led by Mao was interpreted in the concrete conditions and there was no mention of Lin Biao as what the L.LCO keeps propounding. A very important aspect in this movement was the emergence and fall of Lin Biao.To me I oppose 3 trends in the Communist camp. One of them rejects any criticism of the International line of the C.C.P..led by Mao.The other blames Mao for the 3 worlds theory and collaborating with Nixon..The last one upholds Lin Biao as the true proletarian revolutionary.We have to negate the false view that Mao advocated the theory of 3 worlds but at the same time also be critical of China¡¯s inability to take strong positions against U.S.Imperialism in the early 1970¡¯s with the silence on Chile the best example.Inadequate support was given to the third world revolutionary movements and in practice greater emphasis was placed on combating the Social Imperialism of the U.S.S.R.We have also to examine the weaknesses that led to the emergence of Comrades like Lin Biao and the fact why the C.C.P .remained silent about many of his errors till 1970 and only totally exposed his errors after his coup.Another important aspect was the personality cult created around Mao Tse Tung which cannot be ascribed to Lin Biao.Mao himself has to be held responsible for errors.An important error was the CC.P.declaring in the 1969 Congress that it was the era when Imperialism was heading for a total collapse.¡±This was somewhat corrected in 1973 when stating that it was still the era of Imperialism. 5.Conclusion Today we have ahuge range of trends and debates but the author still feels that Marxism Leninsm and Mao-Tse Tung Thought is burning like a red flame.Whatever his marginal errors ComMao Tse Tung was the greatest revolutionary of his time and his contribution is on par with Marx and Lenin.New Left trends tend to de-link Mao¡¯s theories from Lenin nad Marx and treat it as an independent identity which is a capitulationist trend.There are several deviations of right and left while Peoples Wars are not at their ebb. Other deviations in the Communist Movement are allying with the Islamic Jihadist forces in an Anti-imperialist front ,which again hardly has any proletarian content However there is a world economic risis globally where ultimately the third world people will light the red torch and the crisis in the First World Countries will ultimately force them to join the third world Struggles.The Middle East is a very crucial issue where the proletariat has not taken the leadership.We have to commend aspects of Kasama for encouraging such wide debates on political and historical factors and inviting participants from such a wide range of view s but ultimately they veer towards rightists stands.Polemically today the Communist Party of Phillipines,the C.P.I.(Maoist) and the C.P.R.C.I.(M.L.)are the most correct.Infact the R.C.P.(U.S.A) is more theoretically sound than Kasama led by Mike Ely.Infact I value the R.C.P. and Com.Bob Avakian¡¯s works on dissent in Socialist Society ,upholding the Socialist Roaders in the G.P.C.R..I admire Avakian¡¯s democracy Can we do better than that where he effectively refuted K.Venu¡¯s proletrain democracy which rejected the concept of dictatorship of the Proletariat.The most correct theoretical contribution on polemics was made by Com.Harbhajan Sohi of India in his writings on ¡®Invincilbility of Mao Tse Tung Thought¡¯ and ¡®The Teng-Hua clique¡¯ .Significantly even in the early 1980¡¯s he was critical of R.I.M.forces but still upheld the revolutionary aspects of the R.C.P. and did not disqualify them from the revolutionary camp. Written with reference to 1.Kasama project blog-particularly MLMSRG.essays. 2.Leading Light Communist Organization blog 3.R.C.P.publications 4.Writings from Joseph Ball and Mike Ely.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 12:41:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015