First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 21, May 29, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Four Call journalists, led by the newspaper’s editor Dan Burstein, recently returned from a five-week visit to the People’s Republic of China. Beginning with this article, The Call will be presenting a regular series of their reports and commentaries concerning the great new developments in socialist China.
We arrived in China in the springtime. But we soon discovered that it was not just a springtime of beautiful plum and cherry blossoms – it was springtime for the Chinese revolution itself.
In the 13 cities we visited, among the dozens of people we interviewed, in the factories, communes and schools we toured, we found that the masses of people were celebrating what they call their “second liberation.” By this they mean their liberation from the reactionary line and policies of the “gang of four,” whose efforts to stage a counter-revolution in China were smashed in October of 1976 by Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
Our trip helped .answer many questions that people in this country have been asking about China. How could the “gang of four” get into such high positions? What really happened in the 1976 “incident in Tien An Men Square”? How should the Cultural Revolution be evaluated now that it has come to an end? Are Chairman Hua and the other Party leaders adhering to the road charted by Mao Tsetung, or have they deviated from it? Will China be able to succeed in the big plan to modernize the country by the year 2000?
These are just some of the questions that we put to rank-and-file workers, as well as Party leaders like Vice-Chairman Teng Hsiao-ping and Keng Piao, a member of the Party’s Political Bureau. The answers we received will provide the material for many Call articles to come. Here we can only begin our report.
To fully understand what is happening in China today, it is necessary to examine the turbulent events of the last 12 years. It is especially important to get an all-sided understanding of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and ended in 1977 following the defeat of the “gang.”
All over China today, the masses are discussing the Cultural Revolution and trying to sum it up. As early as 1970, Chairman Mao Tsetung had already made a general evaluation of the Cultural Revolution, saying that it should be viewed as 70% positive and 30% negative. He sharply disagreed with those like Lin Piao and the “gang of four,” who wanted to paint the Cultural Revolution as “100% correct,” and he even disputed their campaign, carried out with ulterior motives, to portray his own role as one of “perfection.”
Does the fact that criticisms are now being made of the Cultural Revolution mean that all its contributions are being rejected, as some articles in the bourgeois press here have recently speculated? No, it doesn’t. The “70%-30%” estimate made by Chairman Mao is still valid and was affirmed again by Teng Hsiao-ping in his talk with us.
The “70%-30%” estimate means, in the first place, that the Cultural Revolution was mainly a positive thing. It succeeded in smashing the three bourgeois headquarters within the Party – those of Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao, and ultimately the “gang of four.” It successfully averted the danger of capitalist restoration by arming the masses with knowledge of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on an unprecedented scale.
During the course of the Cultural Revolution, the masses learned through their own experiences to distinguish Marxism from revisionism, right from wrong, and good leaders from bad ones. Now the people are very sharp in their thinking, having been tempered in 11 years of sharp ideological struggle, and they are unafraid to speak their opinions.
It is these great achievements which constitute the 70% of the Cultural Revolution. And it is on the basis of these accomplishments that China can march confidently forward with the new tasks of modernizing the country by the year 2000, while persisting in following the socialist road.
At the same time, the errors and the problems during the Cultural Revolution – which are mainly attributable to Lin Piao and the “gang of four” – were very severe. The influence of the 30% that was negative about the Cultural Revolution is today being criticized by the masses, who for the first time can speak out freely without fear of suppression from the “gang” and their henchmen.
People did not hesitate to tell us about the damage done by the “gang,” especially in education, science and cultural work. At Futan University in Shanghai, students and teachers spoke of a situation in which virtually no real education could take place for more than 10 years. Laboratories were destroyed and libraries closed, while teachers who wanted to teach and students who wanted to study were labelled “bourgeois intellectuals.”
Pa Ching, one of China’s best-loved novelists, told us how he was kept under house arrest for 10 years and didn’t write a single word. His books and other possessions were taken from him, and those who came to see him were watched. This persecution was carried out in complete violation of the Party’s line as well as the socialist legal system.
A computer scientist told us that no progress was made in the development of China’s computers since 1965. He pointed out that the technical gap between China and the rest of the world had been narrowing before the Cultural Revolution, but widened significantly in recent years.
Staff members of the People’s Daily told us how the “gang” established control over the newspaper, using the cadre schools in the countryside as “prisons,” where those who opposed their line were banished.
Young people spoke of a “lost generation” who had grown up under the influence of the “gang’s” preachings that it is “right to rebel against all authority.” Some of these young people became hooligans and anti-social elements under this influence.
We got a chance to see some of the films which the “gang” stifled – films that had been made in the mid-sixties but had never been allowed on the screen. We could see for ourselves that these cultural works were not only revolutionary in their content, but of a high artistic quality, thus forming the correct combination of “red” and “expert” – a combination advocated by Chairman Mao, but which the “gang” insisted would lead to revisionism.
In numerous places, we met some of the very veteran cadres whom the “gang” worked so hard to overthrow. Insisting that nothing good had happened before the Cultural Revolution, and that all the veterans were nothing more than “bourgeois democrats,” the “gang“ tried to clear out the Party’s most experienced leaders, from the local level on up to Premier Chou En-lai, Vice-Premier Teng Hsiao-ping and Chairman Mao himself.
All this was part of their frenzied efforts to overthrow the Marxist-Leninists in the Party and seize power for themselves. These examples are only a small sampling of the elements that must be considered when evaluating the Cultural Revolution. Now, since the successful conclusion of the 11th Party Congress and the 5th National People’s Congress, much of this negative influence is coming under intense criticism. The confusion spread by the “gang” on points of Marxist theory, as well as-on concrete problems of the Chinese revolution, is being sorted out.
Steps have been taken to remove from their positions those who were organizationally connected to the “gang’s“ counter-revolutionary faction, but these people are relatively few in number. In Shantung, for example, a province of 70 million where the “gang” did extensive damage, only 200 people were real followers of the “gang.”
A far bigger task than removing the handful who were in direct complicity with the “gang” is “the movement now going on to root out the “gang’s” ideological influence. “
At Shengli oilfield, for example, although only 7 people out of 200,000 were followers of the “gang,” and only one person had to actually be arrested, nonetheless, the “gang’s” line of opposing the simple rules and regulations needed to run the oilfield deceived quite a number of people for a while and did some damage.
At Shengli, we heard two stories that encapsulate the reactionary thinking of the “gang.” First, we were told about a veteran worker who could make 30 screws in an 8-hour shift. At his side, a younger worker was only making 3 screws in the same period.
When asked about this discrepancy, the younger worker said, “It doesn’t matter. I work for revolution while you work for revisionism.” This was a typical reflection of the “gang’s” line of posing revolution in opposition to production with the result of actually sabotaging production. It clearly violated the instructions of the Party Central Committee issued at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution: “Any idea of counterposing the great cultural revolution against the development of production is incorrect.”
In the second story, we heard about a model drilling team that could drill 1,000 more than the average team. The “gang’s” followers, however, declared that this record meant nothing because it was achieved on the basis of “material incentives.” What were these “material incentives”? The drilling team was given cold drinks and fresh fruit during the hot summer months.
Was this really a case of privilege that expands bourgeois right, as the “gang” charged? Clearly not. Such incentives, combined with political and moral encouragement, serve to arouse the enthusiasm of the masses for socialist labor. Even small differences in pay can play this kind of positive role.
The “gang” struck a “left” pose with all their talk about “fighting revisionism” and “combating bourgeois right.” But from these stories about Shengli, and the hundreds of similar episodes we heard, it’s obvious that their line was rightist and revisionist in essence-an all-out attack on the working class and socialism itself.
Recently, several national conferences have been convened to help root out the influence of the “gang” in various fields. In particular, historic meetings of scientific and educational workers have taken place in Peking, as well as meetings of those involved in many other fields.
These conferences have deepened the criticism of the “gang” and put forward concrete plans and policies in line with the goal of achieving the “four modernizations” (of agriculture, industry, science and technology and national defense) by the year 2000. This goal of modernization was first articulated by Chairman Mao himself and later drawn up in a concrete proposal by Premier’ Chou En-lai at the Fourth National People’s Congress in 1975.
But the “gang” used every trick and tactic to block the implementation of the “four modernizations.” Now that they have been smashed, however, the energy of the whole country is rushing forward in a torrential wave to make up for lost time.
We found that Chairman Hua’s Report to the 5th National People’s Congress, which provided an overall blueprint for the “four modernizations,” was being eagerly discussed by the masses as soon as it was published.
This was the case even in a fairly remote part of China like Hainan Island. There, the Li and Meo minorities, who had long opposed the “gang” for their chauvinist policies of assimilationism, were eager to throw themselves into the great drive for modernization.
The whole country is rushing forward to make up for lost time. As the Chinese people look back on the complicated years of the Cultural Revolution and forward to the great tasks that lie before them, it is only natural that they are developing new policies and measures to deal with the present phase of the revolution.
In the U.S., the bourgeois press has tried to interpret these changes as a process of “de-Maoification” of China. They have been echoed by some so-called “communists” like the Revolutionary Communist Party, whose leader Bob Avakian has declared that “revisionists” have taken power in China and that the “revolutionaries” and “true followers” of Mao Tse- tung have been overthrown.
In fact, it is not Mao’s policies which are being cast aside. What is being overturned are the erroneous policies of the “gang of four.” True, the “gang” worked very hard to associate themselves and their reactionary line with Chairman Mao’s name and thus caused some confusion. But this cannot cover up the fact that the essence of their politics was to attack Mao Tsetung Thought.
An example from the situation in cultural work illustrates this point. Chiang Ching and the other three members of the “gang” exercised a total dictatorship over culture in recent years. Promoting eight so-called “model operas” (which the “gang” tried to pass off as their own creations, even though some of them were written as early as the 1940s), Chiang Ching ruled that no other cultural works could be performed.
Chairman Mao himself bitterly denounced this policy of only “eight model operas for 800 million people.” The cultural policy pursued by the “gang” had nothing in common with the views Chairman Mao articulated at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art in 1942 and in his subsequent call after the revolution to “let a hundred flowers blossom.” Whereas Chairman Mao advocated learning from the good points of classical Chinese culture, as well as from Western culture, the “gang” actually forbade the public performance or the publication of any such works for almost ten years.
On May Day in Peking we saw thousands of people lined up to buy newly-published Chinese editions of books by Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, as well as Pa Ching and other Chinese novelists whose works had been banned by the “gang.” Were the people deviating from Mao’s concept of the revolution by expressing such a thirst to read these books after the long years of cultural poverty under the “gang”? Not at all. In fact, some of the books which the “gang” had banned were books that Chairman Mao himself had read and urged others to read and learn from.
Another issue that has attracted much attention in the U.S. press is whether or not the return to college entrance examinations in China means closing the doors of the schools to workers and peasants. Is it in contradiction with Mao Tsetung’s guidance on education?
Not from what we could see. The overwhelming majority of those who took the entrance examinations this year were students from worker and peasant backgrounds. The problem is that China cannot yet offer universal higher education. Therefore, examinations can play a role in determining who has the most promise and who could benefit the most from a university education.
Chairman Mao himself never actually opposed entrance examinations as such. What he opposed were the type of exams that existed before the Cultural Revolution that were deliberately designed to keep the working class youth out of the schools.
In 1973, Premier Chou En-lai, acting on Chairman Mao’s instructions, attempted to re-introduce a system of entrance exams to help bring order back to China’s educational system. But he was blocked by the “gang of four” who used the cover of “egalitarianism” in education to keep the schools in a state of permanent turmoil.
At any rate, we found out that examinations are not being used now as the sole determining factor in admitting students. They are being used in conjunction with political standards, and the new method of enrollment has the overwhelming support of the masses.
What is happening in China; in sum, is not the overturning of Chairman Mao’s legacy, but the application of his teachings to the new phase in the Chinese revolution.
Does the new situation of unity and stability mean that there will be no more struggles? Certainly not. Chairman Hua has emphasized again and again that class struggle must be grasped as the “key link” and that the proletarian dictatorship must be continuously strengthened. In his Report to the 11th Party Congress, in fact, Chairman Hua said that more cultural revolutions would be needed in the future. Teng Hsiao-ping also emphasized this in his talk with us.
The new Constitution adopted at the 5th National People’s Congress has specifically insured the people the right to put up big character posters, hold great debates and otherwise practice broad democracy. Under such circumstances, the Chinese people are emancipating themselves from the shackles which the “gang of four” had imposed on them.
Truly great and soul-stirring events are taking place in China. After the complicated struggles of the Cultural Revolution, and particularly now that the “gang” has been defeated, the tremendous creative force of the masses, their Party, and the socialist system has been fully unleashed. The new long march to a modernized China has begun in earnest. The socialist system in China is demonstrating to the whole world its immeasurable superiority over capitalism.