First Published: People’s Canada Daily News, Vol 6, No. 113, November 17, 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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A massive discussion has been going on amongst the proletariat and people all across Canada about Chairman Mao’s China since the time of Chairman Mao’s death on September 9, 1976. The bourgeois journalists have been having a hey-day by detailing stories “leaked” to them or from rumours they have heard from various sources. These bourgeois journalists have written Chairman Mao’s China off. Ross Monroe of the Globe and Mail and Mark Gayn of the Toronto Star, the chief propagandists for the bourgeoisie regarding mystifying the issues involved in China have concluded that Chairman Mao’s China will soon change colour. The opportunists, most particularly the “genuine” Marxist-Leninist have also been participating in rumours and stories they have received from various sources. Certain professors have installed themselves as those who have received information from the “highest” level about the situation in China.
The bourgeois journalists and the opportunists are talking about the class struggle in China as if the question of whether China changes colour or not is not a matter of life and death struggle for the proletariat of China and whether this is not of any concern for the international proletariat. Of course, behind this “discussion”, distribution of rumours and mystification of issues, there is an euphoria created that after all their hopes of many years, China now will change its colour. Both Ross Monroe and Mark Gayn are overjoyed that this is already on the way.
What is the view of the revolutionary proletariat? The revolutionary proletariat does not look at events in isolation from the entire historical process. Internationally, there is the world of capital, led by the two superpowers, and the world of labour, led by the socialist countries, Albania, China and the Marxist-Leninist parties of various countries. The two worlds are in life-death struggle. The class struggle in China and the global events taking place must be looked at from this point of view. A victory for labour in one country is a victory for the world of labour and a defeat for labour in one country is a setback for the world of labour. We cannot look at the world situation in isolation from this outlook.
Chairman Mao’s China has gained the great love and respect of the people of all lands. Chairman Mao’s China has made tremendous contributions to the victory of the world of labour. The victory of People’s Democratic Revolution in China in 1949 was a historic victory for the world of labour. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a great victory for the world of labour. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution not only smashed the counter-revolutionary headquarters of Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao but it also triggelied the formation of revolutionary parties and groups based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in other lands. Our Party, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was founded at the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. After the defeat of Liu Shao-chi’s counter-revolutionary revisionist headquarters and superspy Lin Piao, a vigorous struggle broke out against the right-deviationist wind fanned Teng Hsiao-ping. Teng Hsiao-ping fanned a right-deviationist wind not only in China but on the world scale, as opportunism is an international bourgeois ideological trend. Certain opportunist groups came into being in Canada and elsewhere at the call of this international bourgeois ideological trend. Struggle against the international bourgeois ideological trend is also international. While Teng Hisao-ping was being combatted in China, he was also opposed and repudiated abroad. Our Party vigorously stood against Teng Hsiao-ping’s rightist theories on international questions.
Since the death of Chairman Mao Tsetung, a vigorous class struggle has broken out in China. Which road to follow? The road of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the path opened up by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or to follow the road of capitalist restoration. This is the issue. Whether the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is held high or thrown into the dust is being decided today. This class struggle is raging in China where the social base for it exists. There are the remnants of the overthrown classes and there is the new bourgeoisie. There is imperialism, social-imperialism and modern revisionism internationally. Political representatives of these social classes will try time and time again to have a trial of strength with the proletariat. They will follow the path of all reactionaries.
Chairman Mao pointed out that class struggle will remain in the Party. He pointed out: “Great disorder across the land leads to great order.. and so once again every seven or eight years monsters and demons will jump out themselves. Determined by their own class nature, they are bound to jump out.” But Chairman Mao had absolute faith in the revolutionary capacity of the masses and in the revolutionary outcome of the struggle. Chairman Mao pointed out:
In China, after the emperor was overthrown in 1911, no reactionary was able to stay long in power. The longest was only twenty years (Chiang Kai-shek), but he was also toppled once the people rose in revolt. Chiang Kai-shek climbed to power by taking advantage of Sun Yat-sen’s trust in him and by running the Whampoa Academy and gathering around him a bunch of reactionaries: Practically the whole landlord class and bourgerake supported him when he turned against the Communist Party. Moreover, the Communist Party was inexperienced at the time. So, he gleefully gained temporary ascendancy. In those twenty years, however, he never achieved unification. There occurred the war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the wars between the Kuomintang and the various warlord cliques, the Sino-Japanese war and, finally, the four-year large-scale civil war, which sent him scampering to a cluster of islands. If the Rightists were to stage an anti-Communist coup d’etat in China, I am sure they would have no peace either and their rule would most probably, be short-lived, because it would never be tolerated by the revolutionaries who represent the interests of the people constituting more than 90 percent of the population.
The conclusion is still the two oft-repeated sentences: “The future is bright; the road is tortuous.”
Comrade Karl Marx, in his brilliant pamphlet The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, points out the general historical trend:
Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, storm swiftly from success to success; their dramatic effects outdo each other; men and things seem set in sparkling brilliants; ecstasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived; soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hold of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period. On the other hand, proletarian revolutions, like those of the nineteenth century, criticise, themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltrinesses of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, more gigantic, before them, recoil ever and non from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out;
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Here is the rose, here dance!
(Hic Rhodus, hic salta! Here is Rhodes, leap here! – the words taken from a fable by Aesop about a swaggerer who claimed to be able to produce witnesses to prove that he had once made a remarkable leap in Rhodes, to which he received the reply: “Why cite witnesses if it is true? Here is Rhodes, leap here! Show us right here what you can do!”)
The class struggle taking place in China is the life-death struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie on the basic question of whether to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletatiat or take up the line of capitalist restoration. It has been pointed out through various speeches, articles etc. that four comrades in leading positions of the Communist Party of China were actually counter-revolutionary “splittists”. Various charges have been laid against them. Various comrades and friends have asked our views as to whom do we support. The issue here is not whether to support this leadership or that; the issue is which road for China? Our Party is conscientiously studying the documents coming out of China. We will give our views on specific issues as the time comes. For the time being, we call upon all comrades to vigorously participate in opposing revisionism and all forms of opportunism. We are vigorous supporters of Chairman Mao’s China and we remain vigorous supporters to-date. But the situation is far more complicated. Comrade Enver Hoxha points out:
The present situation in the international communist movement resembles the heroic period in which Marx and Engels struggled and worked. The world proletariat, we Marxist-Leninists, must return to, and study the doctrine of Marx and Engels, their strategy and tactics of struggle and victory. Marx and Engels are no longer alive, but their doctrine lives on, and it should guide us. They are our irreplaceable leaders.
The present situation in the international communist movement resembles the period of the principled revolutionary struggle of Lenin, Stalin and the Bolshevik Party. They had Marx and Engels as their only and unerring guide. At the head of the Russian proletariat, they led the revolution to its triumph and established the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin and Stalin died, the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union turned into a revisionist party and the first state of the proletariat, was transformed into a bourgeois chauvinist and social-imperialist state. Neither Lenin nor Stalin had the experience of a proletarian state prior to them, but they created it with the Revolution, through revolutionary violence and work, being guided step by step by the doctrine of Marx and Engels which they further enriched.
Now the Marxist-Leninist theory and practice remains as a great store of wealth for the world proletariat. It should study and apply it consistently.
When we look at the class struggle in China, we must pay main attention to the study and application of the theory of Marxism-Leninism, vigorously oppose revisionism and all brands of opportunism and wage a revolutionary mass struggle for political power. The bourgeois journalists and the opportunists of all hues are creating a fog of various issues so that during this period, the bourgeois journalists and opportunists of all hues have maximum say while the Marxist-Leninists have no say whatsoever. We will vigorously fight all those who try to impose this on the situation. We are undaunted by all the calumnies and slanders of the bourgeois journalists and all hues of opportunists.
We convey to our readers that over the years, our Party upheld the correct policy that we must orientate our policies according to the policies of Chairman Mao’s China. We still stand for this. While we still maintain the same view, it does not mean that our policy is dictated from abroad. Neither did it mean this before nor does it mean this now. What it means is that we judge the policy of a country on the basis of its social system and we, being proletarian revolutionaries, learn from the experience of socialist countries like Albania and China. But it is we who are the ones who decide the political line for our Party and we decide on the basis of the theory of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Now, when various bourgeois journalists and opportunists of all hues are creating confusion about the world situation, it is all the more necessary that all our comrades and friends pay serious attention to study the theory of Marxism-Leninism and apply it to the concrete conditions. We will also study the line coming from China on the basis of this theory and boldly presept our views about the national and international situation.
With PCDN, Vol. 6, No. 116, we will begin serializing the article: “At the Heart of the Slogan ’To Safeguard the Independence of Canada’ is Class and National Betrayal: A Criticism of the Right-Opportunist Line of ’Canadian’ ’Communist’ League.” This will provide CPC (M-L)’s analysis of the national and international situation. Also, we will begin reprinting certain articles on the question of current class struggle in China, beginning with issue No 114, for the purposes of our readers. All our readers must understand that no reprint from other than our own Party sources is the line of PCDN. Our readers must not have the erroneous view that PCDN or the Party agrees or disagrees with these reprinted articles. Our own view about the articles will be clearly presented wherever we consider it necessary.