The suppression of the Left in China
(Part I)October 13, 1976
Unless reports about the mass arrests are fabricated and wholly untrue, we are witnessing a terrifying effort to turn the clock of history back in China. It is a sad day for the Chinese Revolution, for the workers and peasants above all, and it will certainly have worldwide repercussions of a detrimental character.The long-predicted process of "reversing correct verdicts" may have begun.
The arrests of Chiang Ching, Chang Chun-chiao, Wang Hung-wen, and Yao Wen-yuan mean that Mao's closest supporters have been suppressed, and probably along with them thousands upon thousands of others will be affected.
The elimination of these four from the leadership and their suppression mean that Mao's party is virtually being liquidated. No other conclusion can be drawn if it is true that Hua Kuo-feng and his supporters have resorted to these unprecedented forcible measures.
Hua Kuo-feng himself may turn out to be an accidental and wholly transitional figure. It is the social forces behind him which are formidable and of consequence.
It is also true that none of the four leaders -- Chang Chun-chiao, Wang Hung-wen, Yao Wen-yuang, or even Chiang Ching -- could have claimed the full political confidence of Mao. Unquestionably there were differences even among themselves. But as a political grouping, in reality as the core of the party, they were in Mao's camp and most fervently tried to carry out his program.
The others were opposed to Mao and most strenuously opposed to the Cultural Revolution and its accomplishments. The removal of the photographs of the four party leaders from official places is an ominous sign. But the great cities of Shanghai, Canton, and Tientsin have not yet been heard from.
WARNING AT TIEN AN MEN
The destruction of the revolutionary left-wing in China, if that is what in effect is going on, would signify a major setback for the Chinese Revolution, the depth of which cannot at this moment be gauged.
The very large Tien An Men demonstration last April after Chou En-lai's death was a storm signal of what lay ahead. In a certain sense it was the last possible warning that the rightist reaction was strong, with solid social support in the upper layers of Chinese society far beyond what the numbers at the demonstration indicated.
In a way it was Kronstadt, 1921, revisited.
It is to be remembered that it was the Kronstadt rebellion that sobered up the Bolshevik party and indicated what a great peril the revolution was facing from the right. It was then that Lenin, fully realizing the situation, proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP). It was a drastic change for the Soviet Union but it saved the revolution from what certainly would have been not merely a Thermidorian reaction but possibly a full-scale counter-revolution.
Certainly no such drastic economic changes were needed in China more than 25 years after the revolution. And it is futile to engage in speculation now on what might have been the correct course for the revolutionary wing in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pursue in the light of the ominous Tien An Men upheaval.
But it is always a tremendous advantage to the revolutionary proletariat if, when faced with the necessity of taking a step backward in order to take two steps forward later, the revolutionary leadership itself can take the initiative and propose this course.
This not only takes the steam out of the rightists, the opportunists, and revisionists, but it also saves the day for the revolution and strengthens it.
When the revolutionary leadership itself directs such a step, this tends to counter any hardening of the opposing factions and limits the ability of the rightists to appeal directly to alien class elements -- which in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat are still formidable, especially in a huge country which is in the early stages of industrial development.
When the revolutionary leaders take an early initiative and frankly and openly state the problem to the masses, buttressing their appeal with revolutionary propaganda aimed at the broadest audience possible, this prepares for the future and strengthens the proletarian dictatorship.
Apparently this could not have been done in the days following Tien An Men. Certainly it was not done.
It is entirely possible also that the shift to the right took place right there and then; that when Hua Kuo-feng became Prime Minister the shift was already an accomplished fact and the rightists were merely biding their time until Mao's death.
WANG SOUNDED THE ALARM
Apparently the shift to the right was fully recognized by Wang Hung-wen. An article in the People's Daily after the Tien An Men demonstration, widely attributed to Wang, sounded the alarm. "Uphold the Marxist principle of going against the tide and have the revolutionary spirit of five fearlessnesses. ... When confronted with issues that concern the line and the overall situation, a true Communist must act without any selfish consideration and dare to go against the tide, fearing neither removal from his post, expulsion from the party, imprisonment, divorce, nor the guillotine." The word guillotine is presumably a reference to the French Revolution, and in particular to the Thermidorian phase of the revolution. It is necessary to examine the concept of Thermidor in relation to the present situation in China not only because we believe it is already being raised by Wang but also because hasty and unwarranted generalizations could be drawn if the concept of Thermidor were equated with a full-scale counter-revolution.
THERMIDOR: WHAT IT SIGNIFIES
Thermidor was the last stage of the French Revolution. It signified a deep-going reaction and the elimination of the revolutionary elements who had fought to continue and push the revolution forward.
The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. The Jacobins, particularly the left Jacobins, tried to push the revolution beyond the limits necessary for the development of bourgeois society and of capitalist production. By going beyond the needs of the bourgeoisie, the Jacobins acted as a brake on capitalist development. But at the same time, the fact that they had pushed the revolution so far insured its survival against feudal reaction.
The Thermidorians were the corrupt elements, the revisionists of their day, and their task was to sweep away the revolutionary elements. However, in the succeeding political regimes which followed the Thermidorian reaction there were alternately the dictatorial Napoleonic era, the restoration of the monarchy, and succeeding regimes of bourgeois democracy. But no regime, however severe the reaction, was able to reintroduce feudalism, which in the phrase of Engels was "cut root and branch."
The Thermidorian reaction, therefore, historically signified political reaction but on the basis of the new, social system. It signified reaction within the framework of the new bourgeois society.
POLITICAL REACTION, BUT NO IPSO FACTO COUNTER-REVOLUTION
If a Thermidorian period of reaction is in the offing in China as a result of what apparently is an unprecedented assault on the revolutionary wing of the CCP, it would signify the triumph of political reaction over revolutionary progress. But it would be reaction on the basis of a workers' state, of a proletarian dictatorship.
It would not automatically signify a full-scale bourgeois counter-revolution (against which Mao warned), even though the danger of one is inherent in any workers' state, even a very healthy one.
It is most important to analyze the nature of the reaction so as to be fully armed in the struggle against it and so as not to confuse it with the full restoration of capitalism. This is a mistake which the Mao leadership has made in connection with the USSR and which has caused incalculable confusion and disorientation in the working class movement.
It should be stated that the entire struggle in China which began with the Cultural Revolution and which has lasted for well over a decade constituted a heroic effort to avoid a Thermidor. We alluded to this in an article in our press. (See Workers World, March 3, 1967, "Mao Didn't Wait for Thermidor.")
Indeed, the struggle of the revolutionary vs. the revisionist wing of the CCP has through all its trials and tribulations been one heroic effort to storm the heavens and to avoid the corrosive effects of social inequality and material aggrandizement which have become such conspicuous features of the Soviet Union (although it too is nonetheless still a workers' state).
MANY FORMS OF POLITICAL REACTION
It is important to recognize that there can be a variety of forms of political reaction on the social foundations of a workers' state such as in China or the USSR, just as it is possible to have a variety of forms of political reaction in a bourgeois social system. It is possible that the dictatorship of the proletariat can succumb to a strictly military form of rule where the army is in complete charge -- as for instance could be the ease if the People's Liberation Army in China were to take over to the exclusion of civilian rule.
All forms of political reaction on the basis of a workers' state erode its social foundations, however, and can open the door to a full-scale counter-revolution. Fortunately, no socialist country has yet succumbed to this, and none may.
Bourgeois political reaction in a capitalist country has often gone hand in hand with rapid economic development. The same does not necessarily apply to political reaction in a workers' state.
Capitalism develops spontaneously. Forms of capitalist rule may change from bourgeois democracy to monarchy to military dictatorship or even theocracy. Under all of them, capitalism continues to exist. Even when it declines most catastrophically, it falls back to a lower level of capitalist production.
SOCIALIST DEVELOPMENT NOT SPONTANEOUS
It is otherwise in a workers' state. Socialism cannot develop spontaneously. It must be built consciously on the basis of a planned economy, on the basis of the collective ownership of the means of production and pursuant to some plan of economic and social development.
Without a party in power oriented in that direction, without a party geared and rooted in the ownership of the means of production and collectivization of land, degeneration back to capitalism is inevitable. Most likely this would be preceded by a violent struggle.
While it is necessary to raise the question of Thermidorian reaction in the light of the assault on the revolutionary left in China, in order to avoid political and theoretical confusion, it is exceptionally important to also see the possibilities inherent in the Chinese Revolution for a rejuvenation and victory of the revolutionary elements. This is in reality wholly in accord with historical development.
Only one aspect of the situation has thus far been revealed. The masses, however, have not yet spoken. True, their intervention cannot be evoked by mere exhortation and their enthusiasm for struggle cannot be turned on or off like a faucet. However, their apparent silence at present may only be of a momentary character.
For all we know at the present, the battle has scarcely been joined. It still rages at the summits of political authority and may not yet have reached down below.