internal struggle agitating Peking. :
co In Lenin's time the working masses of the Soviet Union and revolutionists elsewhere:were kept well informed about the major. policy disagreements among the Communists both on a national and an international level. Such enlightenment was considered essential to Soviet and party democracy and the worldwide struggle for socialism.
“In this respect Mao! Ss regime sticks to the accursed tradition of Stalin: who instituted the opposite practice of restricting policymaking ‘powers. to a tiny top group dominated by the arbitrary will of the unchallengeable individual. Everyone else at home and abroad was obliged to acquiesce in what emanated from the infallible leader.
How! things stand in this respect in China is indicated by the’-fact that the Chinese Communist party has not held a congress Since 1958. So far as is known, the Central Committee has not met since September 1962!
.S a result of this authoritarian secretiveness, outside owser ers “are reduced to "educated guesses" in analyzing and apprais- “tag the > current political crisis.
What facts have been reported ; in the Chinese and Western press to date as a basis for speculation?-~
For a number of months the Chinese press has been conducting a strident nationwide campaign against erring intellectuals who are condemned as insidious, two-faced, dangerous "antiparty elements." . This massive propaganda effort has been stepped up in recent weeks. | Hundreds of articles on these themes appear every day throughout China and denunciations of the culprits over the radio and in the newspapers have virtually excluded comment on other subjects.
An editorial in the May 4 Liberation Army Daily links this "extremely sharp class struggle on the cultural front" with previous ideological campaigns over the past fifteen years. It cites "the criticism of the film 'Life of Wu Hsun' in 1951: the criticism of ‘Studies on "The Dream of the Red Chamber"' in 1954 and later the criticism of the reactionary ideas of Hu Shih; the criticism of Hu Feng and rejection of the Hu Feng counterrevolutionary clique in 1955; the counterattack against the reckless onslaught by the bourgeois rightist forces on the cultural front in 1957; the mushrcoming of bourgeois and revisionist poisonous weeds in the fields of cinera, drama and literature since 1959 and our struggle against them; the criticism of Yang Hshien~chen's concept of 'two combining into one' in 1964." It asserts that "the current great polemic...is being carried to greater depth."
Nothing less is involved than "a life and death struggle" against "antiparty, antisocialist activities" which are "in tune with the international anti-China chorus raised by the imperialists, modern revisionists and the reactionaries of all countries, in con-
within the- éountry” to attempt a. restoration, and in coordination with the antiparty activities of the wight opportunist elements within the party. *t a
ithe gravity of these accusations and the scale and intensity of the polemical campaign betoken a condition of high tension within the ruling circles of the regime. One commentator, Victor Z4orza, in the May £2 Manchester Guardian, has likened the situation in Peking | to "the crisis-“in the Soviet ‘Leadership a few months before the — death of" ‘Stalin 7 .
The present targets of the attack are a group of leading intellectuals,’ ‘authors, scholars and journalists who have been intimately associated with the upper party levels and who hold high posts in the government.
The most eminent is Kuo Mo-jo, the country's most prominent scholar, who has been called the "Victor Hugo of China" by l'Humanité, ‘the official daily of the French Communist party. He is president of. the Chinese Academy of Sciences, chairman of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Workers, chairman of the China Peace Committee, and occupies more than twenty other official positions. The 74—-yearold Kuo has set the pattern for the current phase of the campaign by publishing a "Self-criticism" made April 14 to the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress of which he is a vice-. 35 chairman.
“There he confessed ' ‘that all his voluminous writings deserved to be burned because ‘he had’ not deigned to learn from the workers and peasants and had neglected to apply Mao's teachings correctly.
This obsequious obeisance: to the omniscience of Mao Tse-tung by China's foremost scholar was preceded..by a series of attacks upon four other prominent "bourgeois" historians and writers: Wu Han, Chien Po-tsan, head of the history department of Peking: University, Hsia Yen, noted playwright, and Tien Han, for their failure to toe the line and for neglecting the role of class struggle in histery..
It has been followed by attacks upon the official newspapers > of the Peking municipal party committee for having published articles branded as "antiparty, probourgeois and profeudalist." These articles came from three writers: Teng To, Professor Wu Han. and Liao Mo-sha.. The party's theoretical journal, Hung Chi, said that these papers deceived their readers by pretending to criticize the three writers while actually shielding them and others who were:carrying on their antiparty activities "in an organized, planned and led way." Professor Wu was accused of being "willing to be the slave of the United States and guilty of scheming and planning for the reactionary Kuomintang clique."
The trio are important official.and: literary figures. Teng is secretary of the Peking municipal party committee and former chief editor of Jen Min Jih Pao, the principal Communist newspaper. Liao is a former departmental director in the committee and Profes-
‘sor Wu is deputy mayor of Peking. They have riow béen joined by Li. Chi, director of the party's. Peking municipal branch, who has been assailed in radio and press commentaries for Soviet revisionist tendencies and for shielding antiparty elements . .
One provincial ‘broadcast ‘has accused the Peng | ‘grouv of: attempt ing ” to wrest Power ; ‘from the party" s Central Committeé. ~ “Meng: “Ro, “the | so-called "leader of the antiparty, antisocialist gang of: ‘conspirators, " may well have committed ‘lése majesté by indirectly questioning Mao's infallibility. In parables ‘written in 1961; extracts from which have just been reproduced in both the army and the intellectual's newspapers, Teng said: "It is only a wild dream of foolish men to know everything and possess inexhaustible wisdom." In ‘another article he discussed a famous reforming” prime minister, Wang An-shih, who hdd many new ideas but one great shortcoming: "He. was not open-minded. " '
He recounted a Ming story of a man suffering from amnesia, who tripped over his own arrows and thought someone was shooting at him-and-then stepped in his own dung. Teng wrote that "those who suffer from this disease swallow their own words and become untrustworthy, ". and that if the symptoms appear in an extreme form, "the patients* must* take” a “complete rest, say nothing and do nothing, " otherwise, "the | results will be- quite disastrous." Di
The May 21 Economist believes that Teng To "was probably: referring to the party's attitude after the 'leap,' its convenient amnesia about its errors, its switches of policy’ and its paranoia about opposition: " So far Teng has refused to recant his. heresies. Last December he held a meeting of students in order to. urge the’: creation of a "hundred flowers" atmosphere in which everyone could write "according to our own views."
‘No comment on the charges against his co-workers has come from Peking's mayor , Peng Chen, member of the Politbureau and one: of the top ten in the Communist party hierarchy. Since he has not been seen’ in public or mentioned in the press since March, he may be implicated in the opposition. Nor has Iu Ting-yi, director: of the propaganda department. of the Central Committee and minister of culture ,. been. seen in Peking’: since the end of February. :
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These one-sided polemics have been raging while speculation: : is rife about the health of Mao Tse-tung and the identity of. his: possible successor. After an unexplained absence of five and a half months, the 72-year-old chairman of the Chinese Communist party briefly reappeared -~ at léast photographically -- in mid-May to meet with the visiting premier of Albania. The occasion was ; Staged © to counteract: rumors of his: serious illness. o B:
The missing Peng was rated high among the probable heirs of. Mao Tse-tung. The disgracing of his closest collaborators in the
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Peking municipal apparatus and its intellectual circles suggests that 2 dde has been put out of the. running for the time being.
‘Hung Chi, ‘the ideological journal of the party' s central conmittee, has hinted that the purge of intellectuals and officials of the Peking municipal party may be expended to other areas. One is the army. Lo Jui-ching, chief of the General Staff, has not. been mentioned in the press since November 27. The Peking People's Daily has hinted at the persistence of opposition among the military. "Our army does not-exist in a-vacuum," it wrote, and added that "class ... struggle in the society will surely be reflected in the. army. —_
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- From the accusations against the dissident intellectuals andother sources it is possible to discern the vague contours of their . criticism and the trend of their thinking.
(1) They doubt the infallibility of Mao Tse-tung.
(2) They claim: to be better (Communists: than the present leaders. z
(3) They ‘a@isplay "sympathy". for the .Karushchev revisionists, that is, they want to unite the "socialist countries" in face of a possible attack by the United States, heal the breach, and renew the Russian alliance. 7
(4). They have criticized. ‘the: excesses. “of. the "Great Leap Forward"*and such wasteful efforts ..as attempting: to. ‘produce steel in. backyard furnaces. = =;. fae 7 . si. :
(5) They seek changes” in economic , policy, and agrarian reforms.
-(6) They demand more intellectual liberty,.freedom. of expres~ sion,’ and the. right to dissent from..the official line. _
(7) They may even have dared to. suggest that, Mao step ‘down on grounds of: health or age.
Taken together, these positions. ould constitute a serious oppositional program to the policies of the Peking leadership. It” thus appears plausible that a serious struggle is being waged in the top echelons of the Chinese Communist party over policy and perspectives and that the intellectuals under fire, and possibly the absent generals, are. tied up with an anti-Mao faction and reflect its views.
The publicly assailed writers, experts and scholars may “be surrogates. fur the. real targets in the commanding heights of the | party and army, embracing those dissidents who are discontented with the results of the foreign and domestic policy in recent years, have voiced opposition to them, and project an alternative course vigorously rejected by Mao and his men. .
. The singling out of eligible intellectuals as symbolic scapegoats for ‘the main opponents in the early phases of a political struggle has: a precedent in the Sino-Soviet dispute when Yugoslavia served for a while as ‘a substitute for Moscow in Peking's polemics “against Khrushchev's revisionism.
It would also be in accord with the Stalinist habit of the Maoists to lump together left communist. critics of their policies with "rightist" elements so that it is’ difficult to discriminate the one from the other. This was done during and after the short-lived "hundred flowers bloom" period in 1957.
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The multiple stresses and strains within the country menaced by attack from the United States and the crisis in China's foreign policy are likely--te generate differences and conflicts over policy in leading’ circles, ‘no matter how much veneration is:accorded Mao: Tsé-tung. ‘Those::who:can observe the conduct of the rulers ‘at-first hand in the capital, who are susceptible to the real sentiments among the people, and who are not bereft of realism, have adequate reasons for seeking a reconsideration of the present course.
China's difficulties are most apparent in the foreign field. It is “péiing more tightly encircled and directly imperiled by. the extension of U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia. It is © uncertain about the’ Kremlin's response in case its nuclear installations are bombed. Its diplomacy has not met with success in Africa, Latin America and many places in Asia. The»setbacks of the colonial revolution on’ ‘these- ‘three continents have: served to heighten | China's isolation. - Se .
Its weakened position in "the ‘third world" is coupled with growing isolation in. the Communist ‘world. After four years of controversy against Russian revisionism, only. three Communist parties, those in Albania, New Zealand and Japan, followed its example.-in boycotting the recent twenty-third party congress in Moscow. Even the leadership of the Japanese CP does not:see eye to eye with Peking' s intransigence. The presence of so many Communist delegations in Moscow for that event’ was a tactical success for the Soviet: leaders in their contest for influence against Peking.
Now signs of differences have emerged with Hanoi,’ which sent representatives to the twenty-third congress despite Peking's ban. The speeches made during the Albanian delegation's visit to Peking implicitly warned the North Vietnamese, who have: been trying to steer a middle course’ between Moscow and Peking, against remaining friendly with the perfidious Russians. Both the Chinese and Albanians insist that there cam be no neutrality in the: Sino-Soviet conflict and that the struggle against "Soviet revisionism must be carried through to the end." The end means severing, ties with Moscow on both a state and party level. :
This factional demand that "Soviet revisionism must be defeated before victory over imperialism can be attained" was one ofthe major factors in precipitating a rupture between Havana and Peking. Whatever the pros and cons of the case, this breach’has neither improved China's position nor enhanced its reputation in the other Communist capitals.
Finally, the catastrophe in Indonesia in which from 300,000 to 600,000 Communists have been slaughtered, and the biggest Communist party outside China and the Soviet Union crushed, is in part attributable to Peking's tolerance -- for its own diplomatic and factional reasons -- of Aidit's policy of relying on a bloc with Sukarno as the representative of the so-called progressive, antiimperialist colonial bourgeoisie. This debacle has not enhanced confidence in Mao's omniscience.
The Maoist groups in the capitalist countries, which started with great expectations, are becoming more and more demoralized, disoriented and disintegrated by these developments and their incapacity to justify then.
* Ke *.
China has: recovered from the worst difficulties created by the Great Leap Forward and the famine years and has repaired much of the resulting economic damage. But the scars of the experience remain. Food production is only now approaching the output of 1956. The proposals: for agrarian reform are understandably, as Victor Z4orza says, the most explosive political: issue raised by the opposition. However, it is impossible to make any informed judgments on the merits of the matter and the real tendency of the critics since the counterproposals are concealed.
Some’ military strategists are: certainly calling for a more realistic relation with the Soviet Union: for the: sake of military defense. =~ 7
On one point there is Little doubt. That. is the yearning for greater freedom of intellectual, artistic and scientific activity. This is denoted, not only by Teng's position, but: by the parallel which the editorial in the Liberation Army Daily drew between the views of the critics and the Hungarian intellectuals who set up the Petofi Circle. - . : fhe
The Petofi Circle, “named for the popular poet killed in the Hungarian patriotic war tor liberation in 1849, was a debating club formed in Budapest March 1956 by the Communist youth organization as a response to the liberalization after the Twentieth Congress of the CPUSSR. Students, writers, philosophers, economists, scientists and dissident party members used it as a platform for vehement -eriticism against the crimes, blunders and deficiencies of Rakosi.'s regime. The controversies in this unofficial parliament played a key role in the ideological preparation for the popular outburst in October that was smashed with the aid of Khrushchev's tanks and the approval of Mao Tse-tung.
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In crushing the Hungarian uprising, Khrushchev charged that it was "counterrevolutionary" and he associated it with the bourgeois restorationist currents that also existed in Hungary. Maoagreed. Chou En-lai even toured Eastern Europe to bolster Khrushchev's hand in this counterrevolutionary repression of the socialist aspirations of the Hungarian intellectuals, students and workers. The Hungarian workers, however, clearly demonstrated that what they wanted was proletarian democracy and not a return to capitalisn.
The reference by the Liberation’ Army Daily to the Petofi. Circle is all the more interesting; since it may indicate the existence of similar left-wing ferment. in China. By deliberatély mixing up a tendency of this kind with the remnants of the "progressive bourgeoisie," whose parties are still represented in the government of the People's Republic of China, Mao would be following the pattern set by Khrushchev, who, of course, was only applying what he learned from Stalin. .
Today in: Peking ‘the intimidated intellectuals must be keeping quiet, withdrawing deeper into themselves, and hypocritically kowtowing before Mao Tse-tung while privately cursing the -abasSement inflicted upon then. and their associates. If Kuo Mo-jo must: humiliate himself under -pressure,,what otner intellectuals can feel ‘secure?
Most alarming is the assertion that this struggle against "revisionist and bourgeois,elements" will go on "anywhere from one to several centuries."; ‘What a. cheering prospect for the Chinese writers, scholars and technical experts and for, socialists everywhere! And what a damning admission of the incapacity of Mao's thought to convince either the present generation or the many gener-— ations to come, not to mention its incapacity to open a revolutionary perspective for the industrially . developed’ countries where a socialist victory. would: quickly establish the. material base fora . classless society on a worldwide. scale.
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Those for whom Mao has replaced Stalin as the fount of all political and philosophical wisdom hold that only servants of imperialism can ask to be informed about the issues.and alignments on important questions or criticize the Chinese leaders for suppressing reasoned and informed discussion inside their party or in the Communist movement. These blind followers are as wrong today as they were in Stalin's time.
We may assume that the CIA, the Pentagon and other imperialist enemies have their, own sources of knowledge about what is taking place in China from the remotest provinces and nuclear installations to the Politbureau in the capital. Indeed, they are far better informed on these matters than the workers of all countries and their Marxist vanguard. This state of affairs is highly damaging to the cause of revolutionary China and its defense at a time when it stands in great peril of an imperialist assault.
a BRITISH SEAMEN CONTINUE TO QTE UP SHIPS
By John’ Walters
“London
. The ‘strike of the’ National Union of Seamen is solid. As each- British ship docks, its crew are joining those men already out. So the situation seems set for a long struggle. The union is talking in terms of. three months, and have the funds to back this up. Further, the strike is receiving support from other sections of the union movement. The powerful Transport and General Workers Union has come out in support and’ told its members on the docks to honor the picket ~: lines. It is also clear that there is the possibility of the dockers taking strike action themselves (even unofficially) to support the seamen. This happened in the unofficial seamen's strike of ‘1961, and today there is a bigger current running this way.
_ Alongside this has come a speech by Dan McGarvey, president of the Boilermakers Union (a powerful union in shipbuilding). attacked the incomes. policy, of the government and said, Weare. oh. where, in the Labour party are the democrats who will come forward: — and stop this gross betrayal of the trade-union movement?" MeGarvey said that the whole basis of the present incomes policy must be revised.
“The strike committee at the port of : Hull have issued a leaflet putting forward their case and demands. This leaflet, apart : from putting the national position of the union, has a significant extra point:
““"Tncomes policy. The NUS accepted the incomes policy in the: © belief that it would benefit low-wage groups like the seamen. We now find a 15% increase for doctors...is permissible, but a 15%. increase for seamen will ruin the country! Is it wrong for us to feel that ‘incomes policy' has become the old familiar WAGE RESTRAINT? Shipowners cry they can't afford it. The seamen men cannot judge this, and neither can Mr. Gunter [Minister of Labour] BECAUSE PROFITS AND COSTS. ARE THE BEST KEPT SECRET OF THE INDUSTRY... THE SHIPOWNERS MUST PROVE THEIR CASE BY OPENING THEIR BOOKS. Too long they -have cried, ‘wolf! about profits | -- now once too often. "
The ‘demand that the shipowners open their books to inspection can become popular with the seamen as it is in tune with their very — militant mood and their feeling that they have been "conned" by Wilson about the real nature of an incomes policy.
The demand to "open the books" has been suggested in the pages of The Week for the past eighteen months. The idea appears to have had an impact in Hull. Over the last few months, two pamphlets on | the subject have been published in Hull, one a plan for workers. control of publicly owned "bus undertakings," and the other a plan for nationalisation of the docks industry under workers control.
Clive Jenkins, general secretary of ASSET, the technicians union, has threatened to bring his men out at the airports if the shipowners try to fly in blackleg:. [scab]: crews for their ships. Also the weekly Tribune has come out in support of the strike. This is a good sign of the sympathetic response to the strike, since this paper up to now has! reflected. that section of the Labour: Party "left" which has capitulated to Wilson.
Even the serious capitalist press, while. condemning the. strike, have published factual material on the seamen's wages and conditions which leave one in little doubt as to the justice of their present claim. It has been left to the "popular" press such as the Daily Mirror to scream vilification at-the seamen in terms of "blackmail" and "sabotage." However, such language, rather thar intimidating the seamen, has had the effect of solidarising them® and wide layers of the labour movement.
The Wilson. government seems determined to press ahead | and try to defeat the seamen, and is making plans to have the navy help in strikebreaking efforts. As more and more British ships are tied up for lack of crews, this will mean that the ports will become. jammed with idle ships, and foreign vessels will not be able to use them. There seem to be plans afoot to bring the navy into move these ships and so keep the ports open. If this happens | there is no doubt that the dockers will take action. :
William Hogarth, general secretary of the National Union of Seamen, said in a speech on May 18 that if the government intervened it could mean the strike developing into a major conflict, and had the possibility of escalating into a general strike. Just how serious the possibility is, is a little difficult to estimate at the moment. It is true a number of known opponents of the incomes policy have declared for the seamen, but it is also true that a large number of other union officials are ardent supporters of this policy and it is difficult to see them sanctioning strikes in support of the NUS. However, rank-and-file opposition to the incomes policy is growing, and there ‘could very well develop a series of unofficial strikes in support of the seamen, along with official ones.
The present strike is a very important one for setting the pattern in the coming period. Revolutionary Marxists have said that the question of an incomes policy would be crucial this year and | that the possibility of a confrontation between the Labour government and the trade-union movement existed because of this. However, it was difficult to predict what sector would move into the lead. The present strike may indicate that the tempo of the class struggle in Britain is speeding up.
A victory for the seamen will open up a period of crisis for Social Democracy in Britain. On the other hand, if the Wilson government were to win, this would constitute a major victory in its attempts to shackle the working class. Thus the outcome of the present strike can prove to be decisive for the working class for the coming period.
4 cotets, 25 . > SOME