MEANING OF THE SHANGHAI EVENTS
By Pierre e Frank
{The following article has been translated by World Outlook from the February. issue of La_Quatriéme Internationale published in Paris by the Parti Communiste Internationaliste, French section of the Fourth International
* ee
In our October 1966 issue we said with regard to the "great cultural revolution" in China that "unexpected turns," “surprises," were still possible and that in reaching certain conclusions, we kept an open mind. At the time it had been suggested to the Red Guards that they go backhome, the demonstrations, it appeared, would not resume until spring. But the Red Guards did not disperse, mass demonstrations occurred and the scope of things broadened extraordinarily. .
‘For many reasons it is difficult, most certainly, to find one's way in all this. All the Chinese who make public pronouncements -- even when they argue among themselves and violently denounce. each other -- invoke "Mao's thought." Others, among the accused, are not permitted to speak; moreover, if they could speak, it is probable that they. too would invoke "Mao's thought." This "thought," the "little red book," is a kind of talisman which everyone claims to abide by. We are offered a ritualistic formula, without much content, after which each one introduces his own program. The situation is not clarified by the fact that the foreign correspondents relay official news that has been manipulated by Mao's men, send reports about bulletins consisting of. propaganda in -which the truth is butchered by everyone and in which the declarations are often. interpreted literally without understanding the nuances of the language so that more than ever the saying traduttore tradittore (translators are traitors] is seen ‘to be true. .
It should be emphasized in connection with this that the Stalinist press -—- 1'Humanité seeks to hold first place in this -- vies with the bourgeois journals in scandalmongering and refraining from any attempt to understand or help others understand what:is happening in China, presenting the facts and the dispatches in the most extravagant way to serve the grossest of factional aims.
Mao Was in a Minority in the Central Committee
We said that the "cultural revolution" was in the first place the expression of a big factional struggle with the leadership of. the Chinese party and state. All the serious information.not only confirms this as the point of départure but enables us to likewise say that Mao found himself and probably still finds himself in a minority in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party.
The January 25 Le Monde reproduced an.article by a Yugoslav journalist which appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review of Hong Kong giving many details that must correspond rather closely to the reality. According to other reports that have reached us, Mao did not have with him more than about a quarter of the members of the Central’
Committee. In addition, the declarations and the appeals of the Maoists themselves against the "tiny handful" that took the road to the "restoration of capitalism," indicate implicitly.and at times explicitly that this "tiny handful" holds the majority” in many leading bodies.
A second point is likewise now certain; namely, that there are not just two but. various. factions and subfactions in conflict with each other. The Maoist documents ~-' call for making distinctions, for condemning some and not condemning others who made honest mistakes, etc. In addition, more than nuances are apparent in the. utterances of Chou. En-lai, Mao's wife and others.
On the other hand it is not known how long it has been that Mao was no longer actually at the helm of the party, what measures he opposed and what measures he advocated. The lineaments of the factions and their programs are not known, even approximately. We doubt that the masses and even the militants in China are better off than we are in trying to thread this labyrinth.
An Appeal to the Masses Against the Party
Nevertheless, in all this confusion some very important events have occurred. We noted from the beginning that the Mao faction had appealed to the masses to mobilize, first of all the school-age youth assembled in the Red Guards. During January the Mao faction appealed to the workers in the plants, and now, it appears, to the army and to the peasants. This warrants some comments.
First of all, such appeals show that those who thought more or less that the whole business was designed as a diversion from internal difficulties were mistaken. That bureaucratic factions could resort to this, going against their natural inclinations as bureaucrats, can be explained only by the intensity of the crisis tearing apart a leadership that is now the oldest in any Communist party, and this, close to twenty years after seizing power. It is to be noted that the post-Stalinists, and, of course 1l'Humanité in the first place, denounce as unforgivable this crime of appealing to the masses against the party! According to Stalin's successors, the masses can be appealed to only to enthusiastically ratify the decisions taken at the very top, particularly after the settling of accounts among the bureaucrats. ~
It goes without saying that we do not at all approve the slanders picturing the differences as being between partisans and opponents of the "reestablishment of capitalism, instead of as they really are. It likewise goes without saying that we condemn the violence, the brutality, the disgraceful. actions, but we cannot at all condemn an appeal to the masses against a bureaucratized party and apparatus, even if this appeal originates from a wing of the bureaucracy. We condemn all the less the appeals that resulted in consequences of the greatest importance. We already noted the possibility that certain appeals of the Maoists along the lines of equalitarian demands, even if they were demagogic, would not fail to have consequences. This is what occurred.
The Shanghai Events
The first appeals and the first demonstrations were addressed to the youth in the schools and universities. The results could only be relatively minimum. They marched by the millions, waving the little red book of Mao's thought. These aphorisms, more often moral than genuinely political, could in these circles, aside from noisy demonstrations, give rise only to abstract theorizing. But when appeals are directed to the workers, as soon as they begin moving, they give their action a substantial content.
The Shanghai events, even on the basis of the limited information at our disposal, are of considerable significance in this respect. First of all, it should be recalled that Mao went to Shanghai last year and that it was from there where he has the firmest support in the party institutions and other bodies that he left to try to regain the leadership in Peking and the Central Committee.
The Shanghai workers responded to the appeals to support the "cultural revolution." But how? They demanded wage increases, they occupied lodgings, without doubt better than the ones in which they had been living. They sent delegations to Peking, demanding that the trips be paid like those of the Red Guards. In certain plants they elected committees. mo
More occurred. The situation brought about an open division in the Shanghai leadership, that is, among the Maoists. Some of them joined the workers; others resisted, forming groups of "revolutionary rebels," invoking against the workers' demands inspired by equalitarian tendencies the phrases against "economism," for "politics in command," against "material stimulants," etc. A social difference openly emerged between a current
that lined up with the workers and one dominated by bureaucratic concerns.
: - Things didn't stop there. In fact,. for four or five days, the headquarters of the “Mao faction in Peking said nothing. And it was. ‘only after some time, which in view of the events. was extremely, long that they came out in favor of the "rebels" and proceeded to alter the leadership in Shanghai, particularly in the newspaper which in November 1965, had launched the “cultural revolution" by attacking the leaders in Peking. Like- “wise. to be noted is the-caution with which the Mao faction operated under the circumstances. They condemned "people who want to go too far," who "camouflage themselves behind Mao's thought,” the. "left opportunists, "the "left extremists"; it was indicated that "not all were to be condemed," since they had been “hoodwinked by the enemy," etc. The Mao leadership also stated, and this was, particularly significant, that the concessions and. the: strikes, were to be. condemned and that only the Central Committee could decide in the question of wage increases.
The contradictions in Mao's positions could not have been expressed more eevealingly. To beat down the majority in the Central Committee, he turned to the masses. But when the workers went into action, taking seriously the declamations that had been made in order to gain a mass base in the factional struggle, he told them: "That's far enough!" And he referred them to the Central Committee where he is battling against the majority. ;
An explanation for this obviously cannot be found in the red book of Mao's . thoughts. What had appeared were the limits of the Mao faction, limits resulting from ats bureaucratic character. ; . ;
“The Bureaucracy and the ‘Proletariat -
Once again the events in China are notable, among other things, for their turns, their ups and downs, their surprises, and it is necessary to be cautious about drawing definitive conclusions too quickly, particularly with regard to episodes in the struggle going on within the bureaucracy. ‘The attitude of Mao, who took the initiative in starting this struggle within the bureaucracy, who conducted it with extraordinary | intensity, only to suddenly back down in face of certain consequences resulting from his appeals, speaks eloquently enough. But the Shanghai events must not be considered as a mere incident.
Shanghai is the biggest industrial center in the whole mainland of Asia, and it was. there, more than forty years ago, that the Chinese revolution began. It was probably not by chance that Mao turned to this city first in appealing to revolutionary feélings. Without doubt he wanted to use the workers for his own ends; but, at least for a few days, he lost control of the Shanghai workers. This was a historic event ‘that will not be without a sequel. The struggle that is being waged in China under the name of the great cultural revolution" has considerably weakened the apparatus, the entire apparatus (party, unions, army, police, etc.). This permitted the proletariat in Shanghai, and, it seems in other big industrial centers in the Northeast, to intervene as an autonomous social force. Even-if this Tasted only a few days, even if Mao or a different faction of the bureaucracy regains control over the workers due to the fact that no organized political force exists capable of clearly and powerfully. expressing proletarian aspirations and ° ‘guiding, the working class, it is no less. true that a new element has appeared, and. that the former "order" can never be reinstated. Neither the “forms nor the rates can be predicted. -- it would be difficult to do this even in China and: still more so at a. distance --" “but ‘the’ gigantic ° significance of this cevent stands ‘out ‘in the jumble. of reports now. coming out of China. _—
This.event answers those who, like the pro-Yugoslav magazine Sous le Drapeau du Socialisme, see only a repetition of Stalinism’in China, and those like the- Socialist Labour League in England, who after not having written a single line on China for over a year, suddenly called. tor. all-out support to the Red Guards , labelling | those who offer a critical analysis, "White Guards." —
“In the Soviet Union, beginning with 1923 and on up to. the war, ‘we witnéssed a virtually uninterrupted growth of the “bureaucracy. It exterminated ‘the revolutionary _ Marxist vanguard and all the Communist wings of the Bolshevik party, including the right. wing, and transformed the. party into a mere political instrument of the bureaucracy. This growth occurred against a background of apathy, of passivity, in‘ the working class. In China, we are at present witnessing such deep-going rents in the apparatus, extending. into the highest circles, that the working class feels able to begin intervening as an autonomous force. This stands’ in complete contrast to the process of Stalinization that occurred in the Soviet Union in its time; but it is still too early to see a political revolution in this.
* * *
We leave aside in this article various questions which the events in China could not help but raise. What effect, for example, will they have on the economic situation, either in industry or agriculture, particularly if the struggle extends into the countryside? And above all, what will be the consequences in‘ the field of aid to -the Vietnanese fighters? There is almost a total lack of the facts needed to offer an ‘answer.
Chinese society has its own dynamism with a potential of considerable power. Our first duty is to try to understand what is happening and to combat the odious anti-” Chinese campaigns that seek to exploit the current difficulties either to the advantage of imperialism or the Soviet bureaucracy. It is likewise requisite to seek to politically help the vanguard elements that have begun to appear. It is necessary, too -and. this.by. far is the field where the most can be done to help the progression of the permanent revolution in China -- to organize the maximum support for the Vietnamese revolution. A victory in Vietnam would bring relief to China-.on. the level of military defense where the cost runs very high, adding to. the enormous difficulties China is now experiencing.
February 1, 1967
HO CHI MINH,