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Mao Tse-tung and the Theory of the Permanent Revolution, 1958–69

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

In the history of the Chinese communist movement, the re-emergence of the term “permanent” or “uninterrupted” revolution is clearly associated with the Great Leap Forward of 1958. It is then that the concept was first put forward once more after an eclipse of 30 years, and though it has since been employed from time to time, the most important articles on the subject were published in 1958 and 1959. The Cultural Revolution, has, however, altered our perception of this as of so many other important matters, both by making available new information and by placing the events of the previous decade, in a new perspective.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

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References

1. Schram, S., Larévolution permanenteen Chine. (Paris: Mouton, 1963)Google Scholar. Despite the publication date, the book was in fact written in 1960–61, and printed n 1962.)

2. Since 1969, the Chinese have suddenly started translating pu-tuan ko-ming as “continued revolution,” instead of “uninterrupted” or “continuous” revolution, thus deliberately obscuring the difference between this term and the concept of “continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat” (wu- ch'an-chieh-chi chuan-cheng hsia chi-hsü ko-ming), which became current during the later stages of the Cultural Revolution. I shall return to this point and its possible significance at the end of the present article.

3. In Mao chu-hsi tui P'eng, Huang, Chang, Chou fan-tang chi't'uan ti p'i-p'an (n.p., n.d.), p. 3; translated (badly) in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. I, No. 4, pp. 1314.Google Scholar

4. For the latest example, see the article by Yang, Chao, originally published in Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily) (Peking) on 5 07 1969Google Scholar, and translated in Peking Review, No. 5 (1970), p. 4.Google Scholar

5. Although Mao would apparently prefer to forget this production today, there is not the slightest doubt as to its authenticity. As I have pointed out elsewhere, articles by Ju-hsin, Chang in Chieh-fang jih-pao (Liberation Daily) (18 and 19 02 1942)Google Scholar specifically referred to it as Chairman Mao's most important contribution to dialectics, and the very passage which he quoted (which I translated in part in a review in The China Quarterly, No. 29 (0103 1967), p. 159)Google Scholar, appears verbatim in the recently-available Red Guard text. The sources employed for Chapter II of “Dialectical Materialism” are the same as those identified earlier by Wittfogel, K. A. in his study of Chapter I (“Some Remarks on Mao's handling of Concepts and Problems of Dialectics,” Studies in Soviet Thought, Vol. III, No. 4 (12 1963), pp. 251277)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The extent of the plagiarism is, however, even greater than in Chapter I.I propose to publish subsequently in The China Quarterly an analysis of this text, with detailed indications regarding the borrowings from the Soviet writings translated by Ai Ssu-ch'i and others, and also of the changes made by Mao in revising, in 1959, the contemporary text of the lectures as published in K'ang-chan ta-hsüeh in 1938. (See The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York and London: Praeger. Revised edition, 1969), pp. 8489 and 185190Google Scholar. In view of the subsequent appearance of a complete English translation, in Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) (Washington), No. 50792, I shall probably not go ahead in the immediate future with the plan innounced there for publishing my own English version of paragraphs 1 to 6 of Chapter II.) The variants between the 1938 and 1959 versions are indicated n the Chinese text as reprinted recently in the edition of Mao's writings edited by a group of young Japanese scholars under the leadership of Minoru, Takeuchi, Collected Writings of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 6 (Tokyo: Hokubosha, 1970), pp. 165305.)Google Scholar (See the review of this issue, pp. 366–69.) By way of illustration of he extent of plagiarism involved in this text, paragraph 4 of Chapter II, as originally written, is made up as follows (using the symbols TK for Hsin che-hsüeh ta-kang (Tu-shu sheng-huo ch'u-pan-she, 1936)Google Scholar, and HC for Che-hsüeh hsüan-chi (San-lien shu-tien, 1950))Google Scholar: TK, p. 191Google Scholar, lines 1–4 and 11–12, p. 192, lines 8–12, p. 193, lines 8–13, p. 194, lines 1–3; HC p. 161Google Scholar, lines 11–14, p. 163, lines 4–13; TK p. 194Google Scholar, line 12, followed by lines 4–11, p. 195, lines 11–13, p. 196, line 1, p. 197, lines 5–6, 7–9, 11–14, p. 198, lines 1–4, 5–13, p. 200, lines 3–4, p. 201, lines 2–3, 5–9.

6. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, pp. 2930Google Scholar; also translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 32.Google Scholar

7. See The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, p. 94.Google Scholar

8. Quoted by Mao's biographer Li Jui. See The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, p. 26.Google Scholar

9. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 29Google Scholar, translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 31Google Scholar. The point of these criticisms was presumably not Mao's idea that opposites are trans formed into one another as such — since, as indicated by a quotation in paragraph 5 of “On Contradiction,” Lenin, too, had spoken in these terms — but the nature of the examples chosen, which evoked all too clearly the old yin-yang dialectics. (Because of the very large numbers of editions, both English and Chinese, of “On Contradiction” now about, I have identified citations to this work, here and elsewhere, by the paragraph in which they appear rather than by the page number, with the thought that this would make it easier for the reader to locate them.)

10. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 30Google Scholar. translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 33.Google Scholar

11. The speech of 28 January in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. I, No. pp. 1014Google Scholar; the Sixty Articles in Current Background (CB), (Hong Kong: U. Consulate General), No. 892, pp. 114Google Scholar, and in Ch'en, Jerome: Mao Papers (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 5775.Google Scholar

12. Mao chu-hsi tui P'eng.…, p. 3.Google Scholar

13. The above passage includes the full text of paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Sixty Articles on Work Methods, as given in an untitled collection of Mao's writings and speeches distributed by Richard Sorich of Columbia University. Mao's preface is dated 31 January 1958; the document was apparently distributed by the Central Committee on 19 February.

14. d'Encausse, H. Carrère and Schram, S., Marxism and Asia (London: Aller Lane, The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 302.Google Scholar

15. The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 226227.Google Scholar

16. La révolution permanenteen Chine, pp. xviii, xxvii.Google Scholar

17. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 80Google Scholar. (The translation in JPRS, No. 49826, p. 48Google Scholar, unfortunately omits entirely the clause referring to the permanent revolution.)

18. Marxism and Asia, p. 298.Google Scholar

19. Selected Readings from the Works of Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Peking, 1967), p. 361.Google Scholar

20. Untitled collection (see footnote 13), p. 30; translated in CB, No. 892, p. 3.Google Scholar

21. Chi-hua ching-chi, No, 1 (1958), p. 3Google Scholar. The problem of translation is complicated by the fact that p'ing-heng can refer either to balance or equilibrium as a general concept, or to balances as a planning technique. Given the focus of this article, I have chosen the first alternative whenever the context did not preclude this.

22. Ibid., No. 3 (1958), p. 4.

23. Ibid., p. 6.

24. Ibid., No. 4 (1958), p. 2.

25. Ibid., No. 5 (1958), pp. 1–2.

26. Ibid. No. 6 (1958), pp. 13–18.

27. Chi-hua yü t'ung-chi (Planning and Statistics), No. 1 (1959), p. 7.Google Scholar

28. For the views on equilibrium and “proportioned development” of anot very senior and influential Chinese economist, see Walker, Kenneth, “Ideole and Economic Discussion in China: Mao Yin-ch'u on Development Strate and his Critics,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. XI, No. Part I (01 1963), pp. 113133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Mao chu-hsi tui P'eng.… p. 10.Google Scholar

30. Yang-chih, Kao, article in Cheng-chih hsüeh-hsi (Political Study), No. (1959), in Larévolution permanenteen Chine, pp. 5758.Google Scholar

31. Talk with Ch'un-ch'iao, Chang and Wen-yüan, Yao, in Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 62Google Scholar; translation in JPRS, No. 49826, p. 44.Google Scholar

32. “On the Ten Great Relations.” Untitled collection (see footnote 13), p. 19.Google Scholar

33. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 33Google Scholar; JPRS, No. 49826, p. 51.Google Scholar

34. Cf. Ting-kuo, Sun, article in Larevolution permanenteen Chine, pp. 45Google Scholar; Kuan Feng, ibid. p. 18.

35. Chiang, Wu, article in Che-hsüeh yen-chiu, No. 8 (1958), p. 25Google Scholar; translated in op. cit. p. 23.Google Scholar

36. Yang-chih, Kao, article in Cheng-chih hsüeh-hsi, No. 18 (1959), p. 19Google Scholar; translated in La révolution permanenteen Chine, pp. 5758.Google Scholar

37. Chiang, Wu, article in Che-hsüeh yen-chiu, No. 8, 1958Google Scholar; translated in La revolution permanenteen Chine, p. 20.Google Scholar

38. See paragraphs 4 and 6 of Chapter II, compared to HC, p. 163Google Scholar, and TK, pp. 222223Google Scholar. The quotation below is from para. 6. Cf. Collected Writings of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 6, p. 288.Google Scholar

39. Mao did not modify the passage quoted above in revising his lectures in 1959, but then the revision of this text was very superficial.

40. Stalin, , Sochineniya, 13 vols. (Moscow, 19461951), Vol. X, pp. 330331.Google Scholar

41. Istoriya Vsesoyuznoy Kommunisticheskoy Partii (Bol'shevikov) (Moscow, 1950), p. 118.Google Scholar

42. Stalin, , Marksizm i Voprosy Yazykoznaniya (Moscow, 1953), pp. 2829Google Scholar; see also his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (Moscow, 1952).Google Scholar

43. Jen-min jih-pao, 23 04 1960Google Scholar. See also Wu Chiang's similar remarks as translated in La révolution permanenteen Chine, p. 21.Google Scholar

44. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsüan, p. 79Google Scholar. The translation in JPRS, No. 49826, p. 47Google Scholar is not quite acculate, and thus obscures some of these points.

45. Another interesting illustration of what Mao thought of Stalin as a philosopher is to be found in the original 1937 version of “On Practice,” which constitutes para. 11 of Chapter II of the lectures on dialectical materialism. Here Mao said (according to the recent Red Guard text), after stressing the importance of dialectics as a guide to revolutionary action: “This complete doctrine of dialectical materialism was created by Marx and Engels, Lenin developed this doctrine, and on reaching the present period of the victory of the socialist revolution in the Soviet Union and of the world revolution, this doctrine has again moved to a new stage, its content has become even richer.…” (Mao chu-hsi wen- hsüan, p. 26)Google Scholar. Not a word about Stalin in all this.

46. Kung-tso t'ung-hsün, No. 8, pp. 12, 14.Google Scholar

47. See the English version of the constitution in Peking Review, No. 18 (1969), p. 36.Google Scholar

48. My translation. Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 327328.Google Scholar

49. Peking Review, No. 5 (1970), pp. 47.Google Scholar