The “Central Committee” of the Party met from August lst-12th, 1966, and on August 8th approved a resolution confirming the lines of the “cultural revolution” already laid down by the counter-revolutionary faction headed by Mao Tse-tung.
On August 5th Mao Tse-tung personally issued a big-character poster giving the call to rebellion: “BOMBARD THE HEADQUARTERS”.
’Bombard the Headquarters’...was a great call to battle to the whole Party and the people of the whole country. (“Completely Smash the Bourgeois Headquarters”, editorial in “Hongqi”, No. 13, 1967, in: “Peking Review”,’ No. 33, 1967.; P6-7).
One of the main slogans made use of in the propaganda of the counterrevolutionaries in the ensuing months was
Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (“Peking Review”, No. 26, 1967; p. 27).
But we have seen that the state in China in 1966-67 was not the dictatorship of the proletariat in which the working people led by the working class repressed the capitalist class, but a new-democratic state in which the working people share power with the capitalist class. But if it had been the dictatorship of the proletariat, what could be the character of a “revolution” under it? Marxist-Leninists understand that a revolution is the seizure of power from a more reactionary class by a more progressive class. Is there a more progressive class than the proletariat? Clearly, only a more reactionary class could seize power from the proletariat – the capitalist class.
“Revolution” under the dictatorship of the proletariat could only be counterrevolution.
Another main slogan made use of in the propaganda of the counterrevolutionaries in the ensuing months was taken from a speech of Mao Tse-tung in 1939:
Rebellion is justified. (Mao Tse-tung: “Speech at the Meeting of People from Various Walks of Life Celebrating Stalin’s 60th Birthday Anniversary”, cited in: “Peking Review”, No. 15, 1967, p.9.)
Whatever the usefulness of this slogan in particular circumstances, “rebellion” is not a term generally used in the slogans of Marxist-Leninists. “Rebellion” signifies a spontaneous rising against a state. Whether such a rising is progressive or reactionary depends on the class character of the state concerned and on the class character of the forces rising against it. But the new-democratic state is one in which the working people led by the working class hold the leading role. Clearly, the working people have no need to rebel against a state in which they hold the leading role. Rebellion against such a state could only be rebellion against the leading role of the working people. It could only be rebellion serving the interests of the capitalist class.
Clearly, the slogans made use of by the counter-revolutionaries are demagogic slogans designed to deceive the working people by presenting counter-revolution as revolution – exactly as was done by the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries in 1956.