On the 50th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in socialist China
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The history of the Chinese revolution since liberation shows that every struggle for advancement in the economic base was preceded and succeeded by struggles in the superstructure, and the struggle in the superstructure in turn stimulated further development of the economic base. The political victory of the democratic revolution in 1949 was succeeded by a revolution in the ownership of means of production, i.e., socialist industrialisation and land reform movement of 1949-1952. This was consolidated by a struggle in the ideological sphere – the ‘three-antis and five-antis’ movement and the antiKao anti-Jao struggle of 1953-55. This in turn prepared the ground for the next big step in the development of the economic base – the movement for the collectivisation of agriculture in 1955-56. It was followed by another ideological struggle – the ‘Hundred Flowers’ movement and the ‘anti-rightist movement’ of 1957. This movement in the superstructure not only consolidated the collectivization movement but also laid the ground for a leap in socialist industrialisation and socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and commerce – the Great Leap Forward and people’s commune movement of 1958-59. This tremendous development in the economic base was consolidated by a fresh ideological struggle that led to the repudiation of P’eng Te-huai’s revisionist line in 1959 and the launching of the Socialist Education Movement in 1963, which was the immediate precursor of GPCR. This zigzag pattern of class struggle – transforming the superstructure to develop the forces and relations of production, and basing on the development in the forces and relations of production to further revolutionise the superstructure – in this way advancing through a series of nformed to the principles of Marxism and the laws of class struggle under socialism.
Thus, these revolutionary struggles marked the various stages of socialist transformation in the economic base and the superstructure of Chinese society before conditions matured for launching the GPCR. In fact, the lessons and experiences of the CPC and the Chinese people in ideological-political struggles during the democratic and the socialist revolutions, the ideological and political struggles in the CPSU led by Lenin and Stalin, the positive and negative experiences in building socialism in the Soviet Union, the lessons of the Great Debate against the Yugoslav, Italian and Soviet revisionists were all applied during the GPCR at a higher level.
The GPCR itself went through several stages from the standpoint of policy and tactics adopted by Mao and the CPC. As Mao noted, the GPCR had already passed through four stages by the middle of 1967. The appearance of Yao Wen-yuan’s article ‘On the New Historical Play Hai Jui Dismissed from Office’ in November 1965 criticising Peking Deputy Mayor Wu Han signaled the beginning of the GPCR although it was Mao who had fired the opening salvoes by criticising Wu Han’s play at a Central Committee meeting held in September-October that year. From then till the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth CPC Central Committee of August 1966 was the first stage of GPCR, which was primarily a stage of mobilising public opinion and bringing up the forces. Some of the important events of this stage were the appearance of a series of critical articles in Liberation Army Daily exposing the revisionist leaders of the Peking Municipal Party Committee, reconstitution of the Cultural Revolution Group appointed by the Central Committee, the ‘May 16 Circular’, Mao’s endorsement and countrywide propagation of the first socialist big-character poster put up at the Peking University and his own big-character poster titled ‘Bombard the Headquarters!’, large-scale mobilisation of the university and school students in Red Guards detachments and the spread of the cultural revolution throughout the country.
From the Eleventh Plenum to the “January storm” in 1967 was the second stage, in which the ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC concerning the GPCR’ was issued. Based on the Maoist principle of making use of contradictions, winning over the many, opposing the few and crushing the enemies one by one, this document – which came to be known as the ‘16-point Circular’ – divided the Party cadres into four broad categories of (1) good, (2) comparatively good, (3) those who have made serious mistakes but have not become antiParty, anti-Socialist Rightists, and (4) the small number of anti-Party, anti-Socialist Rightists.
It laid down the path for advancing the socialist revolution and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat by uniting the vast majority belonging to the first three categories of good cadres to struggle, expose and oust the handful of bad cadres belonging to the last category.
The industrial workers entered the struggle at this stage in large numbers, providing depth and breadth to the revolution. A notable event of this stage was the “January Storm”, in which the revolutionary workers of Shanghai seized power from below, overthrew the revisionist Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and set up a Workers’ Rebel Headquarters to function as the central revolutionary organ of power in the largest working-class city in China modeled on the Paris Commune.
The third stage of GPCR was the publication of articles by Chi Pen-yu, an editor of Hong-qui (Red Flag), openly criticising Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist ideas. This stage marked a further intensification of the two-line struggle. The attempt by the bourgeois representatives in power to counter-attack the “January storm” with an “adverse February current” was repulsed by the
revolutionary masses and the momentum of the GPCR was continued.
This gave way to the fourth stage, in which the masses aimed at seizing back political power from the revisionists throughout the country in the model of Shanghai. This involved the conducting of mass criticism by uniting the overwhelming majority of party cadres and masses in a “great alliance of people” against the power-holders in authority taking the capitalist-road. The class struggle in this stage became relatively more protracted, complicated and acute than all the preceding stages, and this constituted the most crucial stage of the entire GPCR. It was during this period that the bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shao-chi was smashed (the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC held in October 1968 declared Liu as a counter-revolutionary and expelled him from the Party), the adherents of his line were removed from office and political power was seized by the masses in all the 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of the country by destroying the old organs of power under the sway of the revisionists and replacing them with revolutionary committees.
The struggle against Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line during the GPCR was the ninth major two-line struggle in the history of the CPC, from which the revolutionary line once again emerged victorious. By the time of the Ninth Congress in April 1969, the GPCR was basically completed. Great victories were won in consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and clearing the way for further advancements in socialist construction. It settled the key question of political power between the Marxists and the revisionists and of leadership between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. After the historic Ninth Congress of 1969, the GPCR was continued for “striking at the counterrevolutionaries and opposing corruption and theft, opposing speculation and opposing extravagance and waste”, eliminating the remnant influence of Liu Shao-chi’s counterrevolutionary revisionist line by deepening struggle-criticism-transformation and for taking forward the revolution in all spheres of the superstructure. A movement to study MarxismLeninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought was undertaken on a mass scale as a part of this.
The biggest achievement of the GPCR after the Ninth Congress was the defeat of the Lin Piao anti-Party revisionist clique in 1971. Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta had emerged as prominent leaders of the Left in the CPC in the struggle against the capitalist-roaders during the three initial years of the GPCR. After the defeat of Liu Shao-chi, they started to push their own right-opportunist line in the ‘left’ guise. Another ideological and political struggle was initiated by Mao against this erroneous line that led to the downfall of the Lin-Chen antiparty clique. The achievements of this struggle were summed up in the Tenth Congress of the CPC in 1973. It was the tenth major two-line struggle in the fifty years of CPC’s history. It successfully exposed the counter-revolutionary plot hatched by Lin Piao in collusion with several top Party functionaries and four big PLA generals to remove the revolutionary leadership led by Mao through a coup d’etat, to seize power and set up a feudal-comprador fascist dictatorship. It was mainly due to the heightened ideological-political consciousness and vigilance generated in the party, army and the masses by the GPCR that Lin Piao’s counter-revolutionary plot serving the domestic and foreign reactionary classes could be exposed, criticised and smashed in a timely manner. It once again taught the lesson by negative example that in the entire historical period of socialism when classes, class contradictions and class struggle continued to exist, when the question of who will win out – the bourgeois or the proletariat – was not yet settled and when capitalism remained the dominant system in the world, the appearance of revisionist lines and bourgeois representatives like Lin Piao in the communist party and the restoration of capitalism in a socialist country remained a real danger.
The emergence of the ‘left’-opportunist line of Lin Piao, the ‘left’ sectarian excesses committed by a section of the followers of Mao’s line and the disruptionist activities deliberately carried out by revisionists in the ‘Left’ guise to sabotage and discredit the GPCR were among the reasons that gave a number of die-hard capitalist roaders and Rightists the opportunity to find their way back into positions of authority in the party, army and government. These two-faced double-dealers regained power by making false self-criticisms and taking advantage of the trust reposed on them by the party and the people. Heading this gang was Deng Xiao-ping who was removed from his post during the struggle against Liu Shao-chi and sent to a cadre school for ideological re-education. CPC re-inducted him into the Polit Bureau of the Party in 1973 after accepting his self-criticism. But this dyed-in-thewool capitalist-roader continued to lead the counter-revolutionary forces in sabotaging the socialist revolution by soon whipping up a right-deviationist wind.
Thus, these revolutionary struggles marked the various stages of socialist transformation in the economic base and the superstructure of Chinese society before conditions matured for launching the GPCR. In fact, the lessons and experiences of the CPC and the Chinese people in ideological-political struggles during the democratic and the socialist revolutions, the ideological and political struggles in the CPSU led by Lenin and Stalin, the positive and negative experiences in building socialism in the Soviet Union, the lessons of the Great Debate against the Yugoslav, Italian and Soviet revisionists were all applied during the GPCR at a higher level.
The GPCR itself went through several stages from the standpoint of policy and tactics adopted by Mao and the CPC. As Mao noted, the GPCR had already passed through four stages by the middle of 1967. The appearance of Yao Wen-yuan’s article ‘On the New Historical Play Hai Jui Dismissed from Office’ in November 1965 criticising Peking Deputy Mayor Wu Han signaled the beginning of the GPCR although it was Mao who had fired the opening salvoes by criticising Wu Han’s play at a Central Committee meeting held in September-October that year. From then till the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth CPC Central Committee of August 1966 was the first stage of GPCR, which was primarily a stage of mobilising public opinion and bringing up the forces. Some of the important events of this stage were the appearance of a series of critical articles in Liberation Army Daily exposing the revisionist leaders of the Peking Municipal Party Committee, reconstitution of the Cultural Revolution Group appointed by the Central Committee, the ‘May 16 Circular’, Mao’s endorsement and countrywide propagation of the first socialist big-character poster put up at the Peking University and his own big-character poster titled ‘Bombard the Headquarters!’, large-scale mobilisation of the university and school students in Red Guards detachments and the spread of the cultural revolution throughout the country.
From the Eleventh Plenum to the “January storm” in 1967 was the second stage, in which the ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC concerning the GPCR’ was issued. Based on the Maoist principle of making use of contradictions, winning over the many, opposing the few and crushing the enemies one by one, this document – which came to be known as the ‘16-point Circular’ – divided the Party cadres into four broad categories of (1) good, (2) comparatively good, (3) those who have made serious mistakes but have not become antiParty, anti-Socialist Rightists, and (4) the small number of anti-Party, anti-Socialist Rightists.
It laid down the path for advancing the socialist revolution and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat by uniting the vast majority belonging to the first three categories of good cadres to struggle, expose and oust the handful of bad cadres belonging to the last category.
The industrial workers entered the struggle at this stage in large numbers, providing depth and breadth to the revolution. A notable event of this stage was the “January Storm”, in which the revolutionary workers of Shanghai seized power from below, overthrew the revisionist Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and set up a Workers’ Rebel Headquarters to function as the central revolutionary organ of power in the largest working-class city in China modeled on the Paris Commune.
The third stage of GPCR was the publication of articles by Chi Pen-yu, an editor of Hong-qui (Red Flag), openly criticising Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist ideas. This stage marked a further intensification of the two-line struggle. The attempt by the bourgeois representatives in power to counter-attack the “January storm” with an “adverse February current” was repulsed by the
revolutionary masses and the momentum of the GPCR was continued.
This gave way to the fourth stage, in which the masses aimed at seizing back political power from the revisionists throughout the country in the model of Shanghai. This involved the conducting of mass criticism by uniting the overwhelming majority of party cadres and masses in a “great alliance of people” against the power-holders in authority taking the capitalist-road. The class struggle in this stage became relatively more protracted, complicated and acute than all the preceding stages, and this constituted the most crucial stage of the entire GPCR. It was during this period that the bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shao-chi was smashed (the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC held in October 1968 declared Liu as a counter-revolutionary and expelled him from the Party), the adherents of his line were removed from office and political power was seized by the masses in all the 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of the country by destroying the old organs of power under the sway of the revisionists and replacing them with revolutionary committees.
The struggle against Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line during the GPCR was the ninth major two-line struggle in the history of the CPC, from which the revolutionary line once again emerged victorious. By the time of the Ninth Congress in April 1969, the GPCR was basically completed. Great victories were won in consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and clearing the way for further advancements in socialist construction. It settled the key question of political power between the Marxists and the revisionists and of leadership between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. After the historic Ninth Congress of 1969, the GPCR was continued for “striking at the counterrevolutionaries and opposing corruption and theft, opposing speculation and opposing extravagance and waste”, eliminating the remnant influence of Liu Shao-chi’s counterrevolutionary revisionist line by deepening struggle-criticism-transformation and for taking forward the revolution in all spheres of the superstructure. A movement to study MarxismLeninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought was undertaken on a mass scale as a part of this.
The biggest achievement of the GPCR after the Ninth Congress was the defeat of the Lin Piao anti-Party revisionist clique in 1971. Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta had emerged as prominent leaders of the Left in the CPC in the struggle against the capitalist-roaders during the three initial years of the GPCR. After the defeat of Liu Shao-chi, they started to push their own right-opportunist line in the ‘left’ guise. Another ideological and political struggle was initiated by Mao against this erroneous line that led to the downfall of the Lin-Chen antiparty clique. The achievements of this struggle were summed up in the Tenth Congress of the CPC in 1973. It was the tenth major two-line struggle in the fifty years of CPC’s history. It successfully exposed the counter-revolutionary plot hatched by Lin Piao in collusion with several top Party functionaries and four big PLA generals to remove the revolutionary leadership led by Mao through a coup d’etat, to seize power and set up a feudal-comprador fascist dictatorship. It was mainly due to the heightened ideological-political consciousness and vigilance generated in the party, army and the masses by the GPCR that Lin Piao’s counter-revolutionary plot serving the domestic and foreign reactionary classes could be exposed, criticised and smashed in a timely manner. It once again taught the lesson by negative example that in the entire historical period of socialism when classes, class contradictions and class struggle continued to exist, when the question of who will win out – the bourgeois or the proletariat – was not yet settled and when capitalism remained the dominant system in the world, the appearance of revisionist lines and bourgeois representatives like Lin Piao in the communist party and the restoration of capitalism in a socialist country remained a real danger.
The emergence of the ‘left’-opportunist line of Lin Piao, the ‘left’ sectarian excesses committed by a section of the followers of Mao’s line and the disruptionist activities deliberately carried out by revisionists in the ‘Left’ guise to sabotage and discredit the GPCR were among the reasons that gave a number of die-hard capitalist roaders and Rightists the opportunity to find their way back into positions of authority in the party, army and government. These two-faced double-dealers regained power by making false self-criticisms and taking advantage of the trust reposed on them by the party and the people. Heading this gang was Deng Xiao-ping who was removed from his post during the struggle against Liu Shao-chi and sent to a cadre school for ideological re-education. CPC re-inducted him into the Polit Bureau of the Party in 1973 after accepting his self-criticism. But this dyed-in-thewool capitalist-roader continued to lead the counter-revolutionary forces in sabotaging the socialist revolution by soon whipping up a right-deviationist wind.
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