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Revolutionary Struggle and the Second Generation in Communist China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

Various interpretations of Chinese politics have been offered since the tumultuous days of the abortive “great leap” and the high tide of the Mao-Khrushchev debate. The perplexing problem which has confronted the Western analyst has been that of estimating the effectiveness of Communist policies designed to initiate predictable and controlled changes. Though differently perceived, this same problem now underlies the principal concerns of the Chinese Communist elite. Rigid adherence to long-held views of development may have blinded Peking's leaders to subtle—but crucial—distinctions in the actual situation of their own society, and they may now be unable to prevent the advancement of fundamental changes which contradict cherished goals and programmes. This article seeks to analyse one limited dimension of the current disparity between policy and social reality in terms of the concept of revolutionary struggle.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1965

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References

* I am indebted to the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the Social Science Research Council for its generous support during the academic year 1964–65.

1 For an excellent preliminary analysis of the connections between the power structure and social milieu, see Lowi, Theodore J., “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics, July 1964, pp. 677715 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Roberts, John M., “The Self-Management of Cultures,” in Goodenough, Ward H., ed., Explorations in Cultural Anthropology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), pp. 433454.Google Scholar

2 The major theoretical underpinnings of the theory of struggle were presented by Mao Tse-tung's “On Practice” and “On Contradiction,” published respectively in Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), December 29, 1950, and April 1, 1952.Google Scholar

3 Liu, Lan-t'ao, “The Communist Party of China is the High Command of the Chinese People in Building Socialism,” in Ten Glorious Years (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), p. 284.Google Scholar

4 This campaign was directed against industrial and commercial circles and specifically sought to eradicate bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, and theft of state economic intelligence. An analysis of more than 2,500 biographies of officials in the North China industrial city of Tangshan strikingly reveals this pattern of purge among the so-called “capitalist” circles.Google Scholar

5 See especially Mao Tse-tung, “Carry the Revolution Through to the End,” December 30, 1948, Selected Works (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), IV, pp. 299307; and Mao, “Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,” March 5, 1949Google Scholar, Ibid. pp. 361–375. Mao also called upon his subordinates to “turn the army into a working force” (Ibid.. p. 337) and assumed that army cadres could learn the complex tasks of urban and industrial management.

6 “Resolution on the Anti-Party Bloc of Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih,” March 31, 1955, Documents of the National Conference of the Communist Party of China, March 1955 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955)Google Scholar, p. 14. Peter Tang correctly points out that the theory of the two parties may have referred to differences among cadres who served principally in Communist base areas and those who operated in Nationalist-controlled areas. See , Tang, Communist China Today: Domestic and Foreign Policies (New York: Praeger, 1957), p. 87.Google Scholar

7 Kao, Kang, Fan-tui T'an-wu Shui-hua, Fan-tui Kuan-liao-chu-i (Oppose Corruption and Decay, Oppose Bureaucratism; August 31, 1951) (Canton: Hua-nan Jen-min Ch'u-pan She, 1952). As the movement proceeded, “waste” (liang-fei) was substituted for “decay” as the second deviation.Google Scholar

8 Kao, Kang, “Ch'üan-mien K'ai-chan Tseng-ch'an Chieh-yüeh Yün-tung, Chin-i-pu Shen-ju Fan T'an-wu, Fan Liang-fei, Fan Kuan-liao-chu-i Ti Tou-cheng” (Fully Develop the Movement to Increase Production and for Austerity, Penetratingly Press Forward the Anti-Corruption, Anti-Waste and Anti-Bureaucratic Struggle), in Tseng-Ch'an Chieh-yüeh (Increase Production and Austerity) (n.p.; Chung-kuo Min-chu T'ung-meng Tsung pu Hsuan-ch'uan Wei-yüan-hui Ch'u-pan, 1952), pp. 2634.Google Scholar

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11 Many have argued, perhaps correctly, that Kao and Jao Shu-shih were brought to Peking in 1953 as a preliminary move in curtailing their power. For a more general treatment of regional problems, see Franz, Schurmann, “China's ‘New Economic Policy’—Transition or Beginning,” The China Quarterly, No. 17 (January–March, 1964), esp. pp. 7375 Google Scholar; on the broader questions raised here, see also his Economic Policy and Political Power in Communist China,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 349 (September, 1963), pp. 4969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For typical Communist treatment of the general line of transition to Socialism and the Kao-Jao faction, see Ho, Kan-chih, A History of the Modern Chinese Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), pp. 577589.Google Scholar A contemporary Western analysis may be found in Barnett, A. Doak, Communist China; The Early Years, 1949–55 (New York: Praeger, 1964), pp. 303324.Google Scholar

13 “Resolution on the Anti-Party Bloc,” op. cit., p. 14.Google Scholar

14 For a typical article on the study of Soviet Communist Party history, see Hsueh-hsi (Study), No. 11, 1954.Google Scholar

15 For a general, but important, article, see Wu, Chiang, “Kuo-tu Shih-ch'i Ho Chieh-chi Tou-cheng” (The Transitional Period and Class Struggle), Study, No. 6, 1954.Google Scholar

16 The best-known article in this period on collective leadership was written by An Tzu-wen for the journal For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy. For text, see Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 1000 (1955), pp. 3539.Google Scholar The basic article on collective leadership written at the time of the 1954 Fourth Plenum was by Yang Hsien-chen, discussed below. For text, see Yang, Hsien-chen, “Chi-t'i Ling-tao Shih Tang Ti Ling-tao Ti Tsui-kao Yüan-tse” (Collective Leadership is the Highest Principle of Party Leadership), Study, No. 3, 1954.Google Scholar

17 See particularly Li, Fu-ch'un, Report on the First Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy of the People's Republic of China in 1953–57, July 5 and 6, 1955 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955);Google Scholar and Mao, Tse-tung, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, July 31, 1955 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956).Google Scholar

18 See Lewis, John W., Leadership in Communist China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), p. 110. The apparent numerical stability (from 1950 to 1953 the Party membership increased by fewer than 800,000) in the reconstruction period probably hides a rapid turnover in Party rolls because of deaths in the Korean War and purges of members in the “three anti” movement.Google Scholar

19 “Resolution on the Anti-Party Bloc,” op. cit., p. 18. For the continued attack on “departmentalism,” a deviation related to factionalism, see statements by Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiao-p'ing in Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), I, pp. 77, 189–190.Google Scholar

20 In its famous editorial “On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” People's Daily, April 5, 1956 Google Scholar, indirectly linked the smashing of the Kao Kang faction to the entire question of Mao's correct handling of the inner-Party deviations as opposed to Stalin's perpetrating those deviations. Eight years later, the Chinese stated that up to the mid-forties “the Chinese Marxist-Leninists represented by Comrades Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-ch'i resisted the influence of Stalin's mistakes.…” On the Question of Stalin—Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU (II) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 8.Google Scholar

21 Mao, “Report to the Second Plenary Session,” op. cit., p. 374.Google Scholar

22 Liu, Shao-ch'i, “Report on the Work of the Central Committee…,” May 5, 1958, Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1958), p. 43.Google Scholar

23 Mao, Tse-tung, “Preface,” December 27, 1955, Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957), p. 9.Google Scholar

24 Liu, Shao-ch'i, “The Political Report of the Central Committee,” Eighth National Congress, op. cit., pp. 99103.Google Scholar

25 Mao, Tse-tung, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, February 27, 1957 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957).Google Scholar See also the recently published “Speech at the National Conference on Propaganda Work of the Chinese Communist Party,” March 12, 1957, in Mao Tse-tung Chu-tso Hsuan-tu (Selected Readings from Mao Tse-tung's Works) (Peking: Jen-min Ch'u-pan She, 1964), Collection A, II, pp. 496517.Google Scholar

26 For the text of the 1957 Moscow Declaration, see Hudson, G. F. et al. ed., The Sino-Soviet Dispute (New York: Praeger, 1961), pp. 4656.Google Scholar See also The Origin and Development of the Differences Between the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves—Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), App. I.Google Scholar

27 It is another matter, of course, whether the various rightist labels in fact applied to the same group of individuals over time. For two viewpoints on this question, see Communist China 1955–1959; Policy Documents with Analysis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 141 Google Scholar; Lewis, John W., Chinese Communist Party Leadership and the Succession to Mao Tse-tung; An Appraisal of Tensions (Washington: Department of State, 1964).Google Scholar

28 See Teng, Hsiao-p'ing, Report on the Rectification Campaign, September 23, 1957 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957).Google Scholar

29 For text of these directives, see Hsin-Hua Pan-yüeh K'an (New China Semi-Monthly), No. 19, 1957.Google Scholar

30 For an examination of the problems of the cadre force in the light of general educational programmes, see John W., Lewis, “Party Cadres in Communist China,” in Coleman, James S., ed., Education and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming), Chap. xii.Google Scholar

31 For a brief examination of these systems, see Lewis, , Leadership, op. cit., pp. 220232.Google Scholar

32 Many senior Party leaders often thought to belong to the “rightist faction” in the Central Committee spoke at this session of the National People's Congress. These include Chou En-lai, Li Hsien-nien, Li Hsueh-feng, and Po I-po, whose views fully coincided with those expressed three months later at the Party congress. For documents, see New China Semi-Monthly, No. 5, 1958.Google Scholar

33 See Chou, En-lai, A Great Decade (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), p. 19; and Liu Shao-ch'i, “Report on the Work of the Central Committee,” op. cit., esp. pp. 33–51.Google Scholar

34 Schurmann, “China's ‘New Economic Policy,’” op. cit., p. 89.Google Scholar

35 For a description of the military papers, see The China Quarterly, No. 18 (April–June, 1964)Google Scholar, p. 67; and Cheng, J. Chester, “Problems of Chinese Communist Leadership as Seen in the Secret Military Papers,” Asian Survey, IV, No. 6 (June 1964), pp. 861872.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Text of communiqué of the Ninth Plenum may be found in Jen-min Shou-ts'e 1961 (People's Handbook 1961) (Peking: Ta-kung Pao She, 1961), pp. 1112.Google Scholar

37 See John W. Lewis, , “China's Secret Military Papers: ‘Continuities’ and ‘Revelations,’The China Quarterly, No. 18 (April–June, 1964), pp. 6878.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 See Lewis, John W., “The Leadership Doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party: The Lesson of the People's Commune,” Asian Survey, III, No. 10 (October 1963), pp. 457464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Lewis, “Party Cadres,” op. cit.Google Scholar

40 For the text of the communiqué of the Tenth Plenum, see People's Handbook 1963, pp. 12 Google Scholar; for the name-list of the new Central Control Commission, see Ibid.. p. 137. An examination of the list shows a close relationship between the control and regional apparatus in some areas and indicates a tendency toward functional and area representation in the Commission.

41 See the editorial “On Certain Aspects of Party Life in the CCP,” in Pravda, April 28, 1964.Google Scholar

42 See Schurmann, “China's ‘New Economic Policy,’” op. cit., pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

43 Projecting figures for Kwangtung Province in 1960, there would have been 15,300,000 team and brigade cadres in the entire nation; in July, 1963, the Party revealed that there were more than 20,000,000 cadres at those two levels. See Lewis, Leadership, op. cit., p. 222Google Scholar; and People's Daily, July 4, 1963.Google Scholar

44 See Liao, Lu-yen, “Acerca de la colectivización de la agricultura en China,” Cuba Socialista, October 1963, p. 46.Google Scholar

45 For text of the Chou speech, see Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), No. 24, 1963.Google Scholar

46 Ibid.. pp. 4, 5.

47 U.S. Department of State Press Release, No. 618, December 12, 1963.Google Scholar

48 People's Daily, February 19, 1964.Google Scholar

49 See, for example, Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country?—Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU (III) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), pp. 38, 39.Google Scholar

50 See, for example, the People's Daily article on April 23, 1964, commemorating the 15th anniversary of the “liberation of Nanking.”Google Scholar

51 See John, Gittings, “The ‘Learn from the Army’ Campaign,” The China Quarterly, No. 18 (April-June 1964), pp. 153159.Google Scholar

52 Conferences were held in April and June 1964, for industrial and communication work and for finance and trade work. At those conferences it was announced that the Central Committee departments concerned with those areas of work were reorganised and renamed the Industrial and Communications Political Department (Ku Mu, director) and the Finance and Trade Political Department (Yao I-lin, director). See People's Daily, April 4, 1964, and June 7, 1964.Google Scholar

53 On the Peking opera, see, for example, Lu, Ting-yi, “For More and Finer Peking Operas on Contemporary Themes,” Peking Review, No. 24, 1964, pp. 79.Google Scholar The main emphasis on the “revolutionisation” of youth may be found in the documents of the Ninth National Congress of the Young Communist League, reproduced in Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 738 (1964).Google Scholar See also People's Daily, August 3, 1964 Google Scholar; and Red Flag, No. 17–18, 1964.Google Scholar

54 People's Daily, May 20, 1964.Google Scholar

55 On May 4, 1958, Yang delivered the major report which opened the Chinese attack on the Yugoslav “modern revisionists.” For typical essays by Yang, see Study, No. 7, 1958 Google Scholar, and New China Semi-Monthly, No. 14, 1958.Google Scholar

56 Mao, Tse-tung, On Contradiction (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1958), pp. 4050.Google Scholar

57 Although Yang continued to lecture at the Higher Party School after 1961, to my knowledge none of his writings have been released since that date. In the main we must depend on scrappy quotations of his critics, especially those in People's Daily, July 17, 1964.Google Scholar

58 Reprint of Kuang-ming Jih-pao, May 29, 1964, articleGoogle Scholar ibid..

59 Cited ibid.

60 For additional background on Yang Hsien-chen, see China News Analysis, No. 535 (October 2, 1964).Google Scholar

61 In addition to the People's Daily, July 17, 1964 Google Scholar, articles cited above, I have used the following for the survey of the press treatment of Yang, Hsien-chen: People's Daily, July 19 and 29, August 5, 14, and 24, October 9 and 16, and November 1, 1964 Google Scholar; Kuang-ming Jih-pao, June 26, July 31, August 3 and 7, and October 9, 1964 Google Scholar; and Ta-kung Pao, August 9, and September 6, 1964.Google Scholar According to Red Flag, No. 16, 1964, Yang presented lectures on his theory as early as November 1961. By the end of August, Red Flag further stated, more than 90 articles had been published on Yang's theory (ibid. p. 9). On November 1, 1964, the People's Daily presented a summary of an unpublished article by Yang entitled “Questions Concerning the Base and the Superstructure of the People's Republic of China in the Transition Period.” This article argued for a theory of the “composite economic base” and as a 1955 statement of Yang's views allegedly marked a beginning point in his deviation.

62 Ta-kung Pao, September 6, 1964 Google Scholar; the same points on the general line of Socialist construction are made by Red Flag, No. 16, 1964.Google Scholar

63 Ta-kung Pao, September 22, 1964.Google Scholar

64 Mao, Tse-tung, On the Correct Handling, op. cit., pp. 910.Google Scholar

65 See Liu's comments in Lun Yu Hung Yü Chuan (On Red and Expert) (Peking: Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien Ch'u-pan She, 1958), pp. 34.Google Scholar

66 Ta-kung Pao, September 22, 1964.Google Scholar

67 Ibid.

68 Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien Pao (Chinese Youth News), September 22, 1964.Google Scholar

69 Chinese Youth News, October 27, 1964.Google Scholar

70 In Red Flag, No. 17–18, 1964.Google Scholar

71 People's Daily, August 3, 1964, stated that “successors to the revolutionary cause must meet five requirements.” In brief, these were: “They must be genuine Marxist-Leninists; they must be revolutionaries …; they must be proletarian political leaders capable of rallying and working with the overwhelming majority …; they must set an example in applying the Party's democratic centralism [and the mass line] …; and they must be modest and prudent … imbued with the spirit of self-criticism. …”Google Scholar

72 The important “15-point” plan which covers most of Mao's doctrinal principles on contradictions, class struggle and political structure and operation cannot be easily summarised. For the complete list, see On Khrushchov's Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World—Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU (IX) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1964), pp. 6471.Google Scholar

73 This has already happened in the cases of popular writer Feng Ting and historian Chou Ku-ch'eng. See Red Flag, No. 15, No. 17–18, No. 20,Google Scholar