First Published: The Communist, Vol. III, No. 2, December 23, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has unfolded a mass campaign to consolidate the whole party, the whole army and the people of the country around the victory over the “gang of four”. The “gang of four” were four leaders of the Communist Party of China (CCP) who degenerated into an anti-Party clique. Every comrade should study carefully the issues involved in this struggle and staunchly support the Central Committee of the CCP.
The “gang of four” wanted to oppose Chairman Mao’s fundamental teaching that revisionism is the main danger throughout the historical period of socialism. Ultimately, the purpose of this was to attack the theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead the “gang of four” tried to substitute the slogan that empiricism is the main danger and wanted to make the struggle against empiricism the main link. They did this in an effort to attack veteran cadres with rich revolutionary experience in the class struggle of the proletariat.
Mao repudiated this one-sidedness masquerading as Marxism. When the slogan was raised to take empiricism as the main danger, he wrote:
It seems the formulation should be: oppose revisionism which includes empiricism and dogmatism. Both revise Marxism-Leninism. Don’t mention just one while omitting the other.
By making empiricism the main danger and anti-empiricism, the key link, the “gang of four” repudiated the correct position that revisionism is the main danger and that class struggle is the key link. In doing so they negated the basic line of the Chinese Party.
In addition the “gang of four” engaged in bourgeois factionalism and attacked the centralized leadership of the party. They worked contrary to party leadership and attempted to set up their own independent ties, seeking to establish their own system within the party, and they engaged in sectarianism and splittism. Chairman Mao repudiated these actions also. He wrote:
Don’t function as a gang of four. Don’t do it anymore. Why do you keep doing it? Why don’t you unite with the more than 200 members of the Party Central Committee? It is no good to keep a small circle of a few. It has always been no good doing so.
The “gang of four” ignored these instructions and worked to undermine the unity of the party. Attacking the centralized leadership of the party, they attacked an essential foundation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the struggle to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The “gang of four” sought to sow confusion concerning the principle of “grasping revolution, promoting production” by attacking every effort to promote production as an example of the theory of the productive forces. They created false contradictions such as saying that they “would rather have socialist trains late than revisionist punctuality”. The idea here is that politics is the important thing and that any emphasis on punctuality is an attack on the principle of placing politics in command and is a productive forces theory. But there is no necessary conflict between revolutionary politics and punctuality. With this argument the “gang of four” show their contempt for proletarian discipline.
The theory of the productive forces is a revisionist theory that one-sidedly emphasizes the role of the productive forces and ignores the role of revolutionizing the relations of production. Therefore, in the relationship between revolution and production, revolution is the principal aspect of the contradiction and plays the leading role. To reverse this relationship is to fail to place politics in command and to negate the principle that class strugqle is the key link. The “gang of four” wanted to undermine these principles by creating confusion.
For example, they said “production will automatically rise when revolution is carried out well”. This is an idealist and economist view. Only a representative of the non-producing classes could think that production happens automatically. If revolution is not carried out well then production definitely suffers, and grasping revolution is the principal aspect of the contradiction and plays the leading role. The key to developing production is taking class struggle as the key link. But production cannot be carried out without planning, effort, care and hard work. Any other view is not a materialist one, but an opportunist bowing to spontaneity.
Over all the “gang of four” failed to heed Chairman Mao’s teaching “Practice Marxism, and not revisionism; unite, and don’t split; be open and aboveboard, and don’t intrigue and conspire.” As a result they undermined the two line struggle in the party and the campaign against Teng Hsiao Ping and against the right deviationist wind which sought to reverse correct verdicts. They sought to wave the red flag to defeat the red flag.
A decisive manifestation of their counter-revolutionary campaign was their effort to do away with the principle that orients the work of Marxist-Leninists at the present time: Revisionism is the main danger.
Every comrade should carefully study the polemics against the “gang of four” according to the science of Marxism-Leninism and staunchly support the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.