First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 19, May 16, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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On May 1, an important article by Communist Party Chairman Hua Kuo-feng was published in China. It was entitled “Continue the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the End.”
In the article, Chairman Hua sums up the main points of the recently published Volume Five of The Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, concisely analyzing some of Chairman Mao’s most important contributions to Marxism.
The fundamental concept running through Volume Five, writes Chairman Hua, “is to uphold and develop the Marxist principle of continued revolution.”
In Volume Five, which covers the eight years following the establishment of the People’s Republic, Chairman Mao analyzed the changes in the revolutionary struggle as a result of nationwide liberation in 1949. He stated that the principal contradiction in China was between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In this period, he said, the focus of the class struggle had become the task of gradually transforming the ownership of the means of production from capitalist ownership into socialist ownership by the whole people.
This transformation, explains Hua Kuo-feng, was in the main completed in 1956. From then on, he says, “a new question confronted the Chinese revolution ... whether it remains necessary to continue the socialist revolution and how this revolution is to be carried on.”
Chairman Hua also points out that this was “a question for which no correct answer had been found in the international communist movement for a long time.” Neither Marx, Engels nor Lenin ever lived to see the complete transformation of the ownership of the means of production in their countries.
Hua Kuo-feng points out that Stalin, although he made great contributions to the socialist revolution, “did not acknowledge” that classes and class struggle continue for a long time under socialism and that the danger of capitalist restoration remains.
It was, therefore, up to Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party to sum up the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in order to continue to guide China along the socialist road.
At this critical juncture, writes Hua Kuo-feng, “Chairman Mao.. .founded the great theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Chairman Mao not only explained that the class struggle continues, but also how to carry it out successfully. He developed for the first time the theory of the two types of struggle under socialism–struggle between the people and the enemy and struggle among the people.
Chairman Hua’s article also discusses the method of carrying out class struggle within the Party itself. The article lays stress on Mao Tsetung’s important teaching that “the chief danger of capitalist restoration comes from the capitalist-roaders inside the Party.”
Another important contribution of Chairman Mao during this period was his guidance on “going all out to build socialism.” These writings were later concretized by Chou En-lai in plans submitted to the National People’s Congress in 1964 and 1975 to build China into a modern socialist country by the year 2000.
Finally, Chairman Hua points out that in Volume Five Chairman Mao had already begun to expose modern revisionism and defended Stalin and Marx-ism-Leninism from attacks by the Khrushchev clique.
In the current struggle to further expose and deepen the criticism of the “gang of four” in China, Volume Five is being studied carefully by the Chinese people. The “gang” consistently violated Chairman Mao’s teachings on how to carry out class struggle under socialism.
In summing up the great significance of Volume Five for China and the world today, Chairman Hua’s article is an important addition to the study and application of Chairman Mao’s teachings. The entire text of the article by Hua Kuo-feng will be printed in the coming issue of the October League’s theoretical journal, Class Struggle.