Published: Marxist-Leininst Forward, No. 1, January 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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China’s biggest, most exuberant and most militant demonstrations since the Cultural Revolution have greeted the selection of Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and the ouster of the “gang of four.”
The joyful events, in which more than 50 million people participated, mark a happy ending and a bright new beginning after the chain of calamities – the grievous deaths and natural disasters – that befell the country in the first three quarters of 1976.
The transition from Chairman Mao to Chairman Hua has been, all in all, a smooth and orderly one. Only a few weeks of relative political uncertainty intervened between the day when all of China stood still in deep grief for Chairman Mao and the day when the country erupted like a volcano with gladness that Hua was in and the “four” were out.
Chairman Hua comes well recommended. He is Chairman Mao’s nominee for the post, and enjoys the obvious support of the Chinese people.
Hua is a veteran Communist who rose to national prominence in the course of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He was elected to the Party’s Central Committee in 1969, on the strength of the abilities he displayed in the struggle against the revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi.
Two years later, Hua was named to head up the Party commission to investigate the crimes of Lin Piao, the sham “Leftist” who was an ultra-Right conspirator plotting to make a fascist coup.
In April 1976, at the same time that Teng Hsiao-ping was stripped of his posts, Hua was promoted to the post of Premier left vacant by the death of Chou En-lai.
At the same time, he was promoted to First Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party, the “number two” position. Not coincidentally, as it turns out, this appointment bumped the then second-ranking party leader to the “number three” spot. This was Wang Hung-wen, one of the “gang of four,” who took their inspiration more from Lin Piao than from Mao Tsetung.
All the nominations and decisions of April were on the personal motion of Chairman Mao.
Thus Chairman Hua, like Chairman Mao himself was, is a tried and tested fighter in the struggle both against the open Right and the sham “Left” forms of revisionism. He is nobody’s fool.
Chairman Hua has played a vanguard role in implementing the principle of “grasp revolution, promote production,” which Chairman Mao formulated in the Cultural Revolution. Hua was selected to give the main report summing up the work of the month-long National Conference on Learning from Tachai in the autumn of 1975.
Tachai village is the standard-bearer of China’s socialist revolution in agriculture. It is a model in “grasping class struggle as the key link” in transforming China into a strong, modern socialist country.
It was these and other abilities that led Chairman Mao last April 30 to write to Hua, “With you in charge, I’m at ease.”
There is every indication that Chairman Hua’s leadership will also put “at ease” all the genuine followers and friends of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought around the world. Both in domestic and in foreign affairs. Chairman Hua is carrying forward Chairman Mao’s correct line, and is giving fresh proofs with each passing week that he is a worthy successor to this high and responsible post.
Already the smashing of the Wang-Chang-Chiang-Yao anti-Party clique was such a proof. After Chairman Mao’s death, the four provoked what several Party sources have described as an “extremely grave crisis” by trying to usurp power, contrary to the wishes of Chairman Mao, the Party, and the people of China.
Other reports, still not officially confirmed, speak of an attempt to assassinate Hua on the orders of the “four.” Hua’s leadership of the central committee in taking decisive action against the “gang” in this crisis saved the dictatorship of the proletariat, and averted a grave risk of China turning color.
Thus Hua’s selection to the leadership of the Party brought great joy to the people of China and their friends around the world. On the other hand, it is a disappointment to all those who prayed that China after Chairman Mao would turn revisionist like the USSR did after the death of its great leader, Joseph Stalin.
It has not turned out that way. The East remains red; the proletariat retains state power, and has become stronger by purging itself of an opportunist scourge.
A large part of the credit for the successful transition goes to Chairman Mao himself, who prepared for it long before his death.
One of Chairman Mao’s major contributions to Marxism-Leninism was precisely to sum up the lessons of what happened in the USSR, and to take measures to assure that it would not be repeated in China. He armed the Chinese people theoretically and practically and taught them to be vigilant against capitalist-roaders like Khrushchov emerging within the Party.
In the words of Hua Kuo-feng’s memorial speech:
In the new historical period of socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in China, Chairman Mao summed up both the positive and the negative experience of the international communist movement, made a penetrating analysis of the class relations in socialist society by applying the Marxist-Leninist theory of the unity of opposites, and pointed out that the principal contradiction in socialist society is the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
For the first time in the history of the development of Marxism, Chairman Mao explicitly pointed out that there are still classes and class struggle after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has in the main been completed, put forward the thesis that in socialist society there are two different types of contradictions – those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves, and advanced the great theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Chairman Mao time and again admonished the whole Party, the whole army and the people of the whole country, ‘never forget class struggle’; he pointed out that socialist society covers a considerably long historical period and that, throughout this historical period, there are classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, there is the danger of capitalist restoration and there is the threat of subversion and aggression by imperialism and social-imperialism, and established the Party’s basic line for the entire historical period of socialism. In view of the changes in class relations and the characteristics of the class struggle in the period of socialism, Chairman Mao drew the scientific conclusion: ’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. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road.’
All these and others of Chairman Mao’s teachings constitute weapons for preventing a revisionist takeover and a capitalist restoration in China, weapons that were not available in the USSR 20 years ago.
Moreover, these teachings of Chairman Mao’s have been popularised throughout China. They have greatly raised the Chinese people’s vigilance against new Khrushchovs, and sharpened their eyes for distinguishing genuine from sham Marxism. Thanks to Chairman Mao, the Chinese masses have a high level of political consciousness; this is a powerful bastion against the threat of a revisionist usurpation and restoration of capitalism.
Furthermore, Chairman Mao taught the Chinese workers and peasants how to struggle under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, led them in “bombarding the bourgeois headquarters,” and taught them “it is right to rebel against reactionaries.”
Thereafter, Chairman Mao initiated a series of campaigns in continuation of the Cultural Revolution, such as the campaign to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius, the campaign to study the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the campaign against the right-deviationist wind stirred up by Teng Hsiao-ping, and others.
These campaigns have taught the Chinese people in their millions rich lessons from experience in how to struggle against various types of capitalist-roaders in the Party under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This, too, was part of Chairman Mao’s work to prepare the country to fight against any efforts to restore capitalism in China, even long after his death. Even if a Khrushchov should emerge one day at the head of the Party, the Chinese people, remembering the lessons of Chairman Mao, will know very well how to deal with him or her, and will rise up and restore the proletarian dictatorship.
Thanks to these theoretical and practical preparations made by Chairman Mao, the proletariat in China is in a comparatively stronger position for combating revisionism than was the case in the USSR 20 years ago. The Soviet Union was, after the Paris Commune, the first dictatorship of the proletariat in world history; it was a pioneer effort with no previous experience to go by, and it thus developed some weaknesses which the bourgeoisie was able to exploit to its advantage. This was a grave setback, but it has benefited the people of China as a lesson by negative example.
Chairman Mao also made preparations for his succession in a direct form, and gave concrete leadership on the question.
More than two years ago, he warned Wang Hung-wen, Chang Chun-chiao, Chiang Ching and Yao Wen-yuan: “You’d better be careful; don’t let yourselves become a smai1 faction of four,” and he warned in particular of the “wild ambitions” of Chiang Ching. He reminded them of the “three dos and three don’ts” (“Practice Marxism, not revisionism; unite and don’t split; be open and aboveboard, don’t intrigue and conspire”) and in May 1975 admonished them again: “Don’t function as a gang of four, don’t do it any more, why .do you keep doing it?”
At the same time, Chairman Mao laid before the Political Bureau of the Central Committee the task of settling this matter of the gang of four, if not right away, then before the year was out; and if not in 1976 then in 1977. Thus, the inspiration for the campaign to smash the “gang of four” came directly from Chairman Mao. He personally instructed the party to settle this matter.
Chairman Hua’s initiative in launching the mass campaign against the Wang-Chang-Chiang-Yao anti-Party clique is in keeping with Chairman Mao’s line and is in the fine tradition of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
As for this “gang,” its claims to sympathy are based on the reputation it cultivated as the alleged Left of the party. The whole U.S. bourgeois press panders to this claim by dubbing the four the “radicals” or even the “Maoists.” The revisionist press has the same idea; it hopes that the Communist Party of China under Chairman Hua will be more “moderate” than under Chairman Mao, meaning: more yielding to revisionism.
Not surprisingly, the “centrist” press chimes in with its echo. The most notable case in point is Jack Smith’s recent series in the Guardian. One only wishes that Guardian managing editor Smith had the forth-rightness of his convictions. If he believes that the “four” genuinely represented the Left, without quotation marks, then he should bluntly oppose Chairman Hua and the people of China and just as squarely defend the “gang,” as one or two negligible “Marxist-Leninists” (in reality, Trotskyists) have had the frankness to do.
Instead, Smith covers endless pages with verbal convolutions and contortions trying to defend the four with one hand, by labeling them the genuine trend, while trying to “defend” Chairman Hua with the other hand – by slandering him as a bureaucratic, opportunist, “centrist” and essentially revisionist figure (in short, more or less in the Guardian’s own image...).
By these acrobatics – and by little letters with a home-cooked odor to them – the Guardian editors are trying to prepare their readers for the inevitable Guardian Viewpoint entitled “China has Gone Revisionist” (or: “Has China Gone Revisionist?”). This idea of theirs was already clearly implicit in their slanderous attacks of last May on China’s foreign policy, and Irwin Silber let it slip out at a Chicago forum a month after. It is written between all the lines of Smith’s series and will be written in the headlines of the Guardian in due course. Perhaps the editors are delaying the pronouncement only in order first to clear out their stock of Chinese work jackets. Those whose basic business is providing a “left” cover for revisionism and Soviet social-imperialism must be prepared, it is plain, to forego some profitable little sidelines when the pinch comes.
Marxist-Leninists cannot take lightly the label, Left. It is no better if one pretends to use the terms Left and Center merely “to locate various forces in relation to each other, not necessarily as political judgments.” (Smith, Guardian, Nov. 10) The “location of forces in relation to each other” is precisely the point. Marxism-Leninism is the Left, without quotation marks. It is the most principled, the most militant, far-seeing and scientific element. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tsetung all were leaders of the Left, without quotation marks. All those who claimed to be the “Left” in opposition to them were in fact “Left” only in appearance, with quotation marks. In their real political character they were the same as the more open Right opportunists, the revisionists. The Right and the sham “Left” are the same bourgeoisie in different disguises. The end result if either of them comes to power is the restoration of capitalism.
The “four’s” claim to represent the Left, without quotes, rests on some very loose ideas-by-association. They were leaders in Shanghai, a city with a long and brilliant revolutionary tradition, the birthplace of the Communist Party of China; and they emerged to prominence in the course of the Cultural Revolution. Hence, by loose association, it is claimed that they must have embodied the revolutionary traditions of Shanghai and the genuine spirit of the Cultural Revolution. The facts now being uncovered one by one about the “four” make mincemeat of these superficial stereotypes.
The “four,” it appears, looked on Shanghai as their “base” much as bourgeois politicians look on their wards or constituencies as a “base” for grabbing and exploiting. They forgot, as the bourgeois politicians in all countries forget, that this “base” is not a slab of stone, but composed of active, conscious human beings, who can and will rise up to topple whoever abuses it. The four were guilty of extremely serious abuse of revolutionary Shanghai.
They tried to use Shanghai as a base to attack Tachai, and they tried to use Shanghai as a base to attack Peking.
Peking Review No. 46 carries a revealing account from Tachai des cribing the repeated attacks of the “gang of four” on this standard-bearer of the socialist revolution in agriculture. Wang Hung-wen is said to have been the leader of the “four” in regard to attacking Tachai, but Chiang Ching’s personal visit there in the autumn of 1975 left a particularly vivid impression on the eyewitnesses.
Chiang arrived, uninvited, with truckloads of baggage and a small batallion of attendants. She reportedly forbade people to sing “The East Is Red,” the immensely popular song in praise of Chairman Mao, and forbade kids to wear the red scarves that symbolize their determination to become worthy successors to the revolutionary cause.
Chiang spent the evenings watching imported films she had brought – she was in charge of China’s film production – which the working people of Tachai judged “X”-rated by their standards. She had herself photographed on foot and on horseback against every conceivable backdrop, and even had her staff dig a fake “war time trench” at a scenic spot overlooking Tachai village to make a more dramatic photograph.
On Sept. 5 came an urgent message to go to Peking, Chairman Mao was in critical condition. She was playing poker when the message arrived, and kept right on playing, in no hurry to depart.
Mr. Smith of the Guardian is of the opinion that reports of this sort constitute “sexist slanders.” Why does Mr. Smith play Sir Walter Raleigh and throw down his cloak for this arch-reactionary person to walk on? Why does Mr. Smith refuse to unite with the millions of Chinese working women who took to the streets to cheer with enormous relief and joy the exposure and downfall of this corrupt and bourgeois woman who hated Tachai and hated Chairman Mao and socialism with all her heart? This is nothing but an extension, on the international level, of the Guardian editors’ basic line on the woman question.
After Chiang Ching left from Tachai, the peasants filled in the “war time trench” she had had dug, and built a kind of memorial to her visit by constructing a pig sty on the spot.
Is it thinkable that the masses of Tachai would have taken to the streets in a demonstration of support for Chiang Ching and her gang if they had realized their ambition of seizing power in China? No way. And the eyewitness report from Tachai appears typical of the kind of impression the whole “gang” created over a period of time all over China.
A particular “prize” for hypocrisy must go to Yao Wen-yuan, the chief propagandist for the ”gang.” To write pretty-sounding phrases about “restricting bourgeois right” while hooking up with the likes of Chiang Ching, who exemplified bourgeois right on the rampage – this is carrying the contradiction between theory and practice to criminal extremes.
To try to use the city of Shanghai as a base for attacking Tachai is itself a flagrant violation of the policy of restricting bourgeois right under socialism. A basic element in this policy, always followed by Chairman Mao, is gradually to overcome the differences in material and cultural standards between the city and the countryside, between industry and agriculture – between “Shanghai” and “Tachai.” These differences are a leftover from capitalism, in which the city develops at the expense of the countryside and becomes a parasite on it. Every Right and “Left” deviation in the history of socialist countries, beginning already with Bukharin and Trotsky in the USSR, has tried by various stratagems to aggravate and to widen these differences, sowing antagonism between workers and peasants – with grave results for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The trademark of every such deviation has been one form or another of opposing the city to the country. Using Shanghai as a base to attack Tachai is a policy in a direct line of succession from these counterrevolutionary earlier attempts at restoring capitalism.
In addition, reports that have not yet been confirmed in every detail indicate that the “gang” tried to turn the militia of Shanghai, and then of all China, into their private counterrevolutionary armed force with the aim of staging a seizure of power. Some of the reports say that the “four” issued an order to the Shanghai militia to mobilize with weapons in hand to come to their rescue in case they were arrested. If such an order was indeed given, there is no indication that the militiamen and women of Shanghai lifted a finger to obey it.
By trying to convert the birthplace of the Communist Party of China into its graveyard, by abusing Shanghai to attack Tachai and the central government in Peking, the “four” built up a powerful hatred toward themselves not only in China generally, but in Shanghai especially. Nowhere in China were the demonstrations of joy at the selection of Chairman Hua and of fury at the “gang of four” so prolonged and volcanic as in Shanghai itself. For a full week from dawn to midnight the city of Shanghai was filled with demonstrators of every age group, occupation and description, powerfully relieved and exuberant that the city was free at last of these scourges, these ugly blots on the city’s revolutionary banner.
It is going the same way with the “four’s” myth of embodying the spirit of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Lin Piao, too, made the claim to embody that spirit, continually shouting “down with revisionism, down with Liu Shao-chi” and trying to pass himself off as the genuine successor to the cause of Chairman Mao.
“When the scheme of the Lin Piao anti-party clique to usurp Party and state power was brought to light and came to naught,” states a report on the “four” from China, “the ’gang of four’ resembled frightened fish that narrowly escaped the dragnet.” Like Lin Piao himself, the “four” reportedly “actually were the chief culprits who incited bourgeois factionalism, engineered ’all-out civil war’ (struggles by coercion or force in many places during the Great Cultural Revolution – Note by Peking Review translator), called for suspecting and overthrowing everybody and undermined the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” The promotion of factionalism and of sectarian, splittist warfare, the indiscriminate flinging of labels at anyone and everyone who opposed them, the heaping of “criticisms” and “accusations” without rhyme or reason, nitpicking and exaggerating small weaknesses into alleged gigantic “crimes,” wild howling and shouting to spread confusion among the people – these were the earmarks of reactionaries who operated under the cover of the Cultural Revolution to try to sabotage the Cultural Revolution. It was for such elements that the phrase “waving the red flag to strike at Chairman Mao’s forces” was coined. The “four” tried to pervert every campaign they participated in and to turn it to counterrevolutionary ends.
The people of China, under the leadership of the Communist Party headed by Chairman Hua, are now engaged in a great campaign to deepen the exposure of the “gang of four,” and to root out their pernicious influence. This campaign, personally inspired by Chairman Mao before his death, is a continuation of the great campaigns Chairman Mao led during his lifetime both against open Right and sham “Left” deviations. In the course of this struggle, the people of China will further sharpen their ability to distinguish genuine from sham Marxism and to combat revisionism in every form. This campaign will further strengthen the Communist Party’s leading role and the dictatorship of the proletariat and speed China’s progress on the road of socialism and proletarian internationalism, toward communism.
Thanks to Chairman Mao’s wise preparations and to Chairman Hua’s decisive leadership, China’s gravest crisis since Liberation in 1949 has been resolved with comparative ease and in a relatively short period of time. It has been resolved with a victory for Marxism-Leninism, for the line of Chairman Mao, for the workers and the poor and lower-middle peasants of China, and for the countries who want independence, the nations who want liberation and the people who want revolution all over the world. There will still be further class struggles and further twists and turns ahead, as Wuh Teh pointed out in his Oct. 24 address to the rally on Tienanmen Square in Peking. This is a law of socialism. The events so far, however, give every ground for confidence that the Chinese people, under the leadership of Chairman Hua, will resolve the present and future contradictions as triumphantly as they did under the leadership of Chairman Mao.
Chairman Mao has passed away, but his presence and work live on. The memorial hall to Chairman Mao now being constructed on Tienanmen Square will allow the millions of visitors who come to Peking from all over China and all over the world to pay homage to the great leader and teacher of the proletariat, the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our time. The publication of Vol. 5 of Chairman Mao’s Selected Works and then of his Collected Works, entrusted by the Central Committee to the supervision of Chairman Hua, will be great events in the history of Marxism-Leninism, real “red letter days,” that are eagerly awaited by revolutionaries the world over.