THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION" AND
TROTSKYISM
By Pierre Frank
[The following article has been translated by World Outlook from the April issue of La_Quatrieme Internationale, published in Paris by the Parti Communiste Internationaliste, French section of the Fourth International. ]
*x* *
The “cultural revolution" has obviously entered a new phase. It seems that the Mao faction, having met with strong resistance in the party and state apparatus, is trying to overcome this resistance. Its current formula is the establishment of a "triple alliance" to direct the movement. This "triple alliance" is constituted in the first place by the army, then by the "revolutionary rebels" (that is to say, by those who have responded to Mao's appeals), and finally by the cadres, including those who have committed errors, on condition that they really want to follow the movement. This apparently means that Mao is seeking to break up his opponents and establish some kind of new leadership. The prime mover in the present phase is Chou En-lai who, even while following Mao's group, did not sever relations with the other factions.
This "triple alliance" is therefore a sort of combination between bureaucratic factions or subfactions and is far from the type of organization represented by the Paris Commune, where diverse working-class and socialist tendencies counterposed their programs and democratically submitted to the votes of the workers. Moreover, the term "commune" is scarcely to be found any more in the Chinese press.
Now the blows are delivered more against the “left opportunists," against those Red Guards who have committed "“excesses" by attacking privileged bureauerats, etc. Despite Mao's “infallibility" he has seen the campaign he launched at the end of 1965 unfold in an unexpected fashion. He went on from there to embark upon a kind of "escalation" of the struggle against his opponents until around mid-January when, following the entry of such masses as the Shanghai workers on the arena, he began to maneuver to curb the menacing outbreaks. While many surprises can still be expected, we can be sure that henceforth China will not revert to the condition that prevailed when the "cultural revolution" began. The bureaucracy has been weakened, the leadership dislocated, and all those carrying it on and participating in it have lost prestige.
Leaving aside for the moment the political analysis of the events, it will be useful to make some theoretical observations about them. Scientific thought advances especially through the definition and concretization of categories: in the domain of the natural sciences, for example, the atom, the electron, etc. In the domain of the social sciences, labor value, surplus value, the class, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the specific field of political thought, the Trotskyist movement has enriched Marxism with theories pertaining to the development of Soviet society which were concretized in several categories: the bureaucratically degenerated workers state, Stalinism and the political revolution. Let us see what the Chinese events have contributed to clarify these concepts.
The bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union had only to be mentioned for the Soviet bureaucracy to cry out "Trotskyism." Let us recall that, about three years ago, when the Sino-Soviet conflict was essentially restricted to ideological controversies, Suslov, in the name of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, denounced the Chinese as guilty of "Trotskyism" when they criticized the degeneration in the Soviet Union. Now we see Mao denounce phenomena of degeneration in the party and state apparatus of China itself. To be sure, Mao's views on this subject (the reestablishment of capitalism, etc.) are, as we have already had occasion to demonstrate, an expression of the bureaucracy's incapacity to understand the real nature of the phenomenon; they belong to false consciousness and "ideology" rather than to scientific thought. Nevertheless, they testify to the necessity of recognizing that the phenomenon of degeneration applies not only to the USSR but also to other workers' states.
The Trotskyist movement analyzed Stalinism as a unique form of bureaucratization of the Soviet Union and an entire wing of the revolutionary workers movement owing to a confluence of exceptional circumstances (the backwardness of the Soviet Union, its isolation and the recession of the world revolution) and deduced from this that all other forms of bureaucratization would be very different from Stalinism. From the beginning of the "cultural revolution," and even from the beginning of the Sino- Soviet conflict, we emphasized this capital difference and each successive event confirms it. In the Soviet Union Stalin
ceaselessly resorted to the police to stifle the opposition and the masses. In the struggle between the bureaucratic factions in China, one of them, and very likely several of them, have appealed to different sections of the masses. Moreover, anyone can ascertain that the pres-— tige of the Chinese revolution has not involved any manifestation of the international scale comparable to the Stalinization of the Communist party. The pro- Chinese groups who follow the "thought of Mao" are extremely weak. While there is no question of a return or an aspiration on the part of the Chinese bureaucracy to proletarian democracy, the differences with the development in the Soviet Union and the rest of the world are so great that the peculiarity of Stalinism has incontestably been established.
The political revolution was undoubtedly the most audacious of all the categories of political thought introduced by Trotsky and the one which raised the most problems. For years it remained unverified and seemed to many a flight of fancy or pure hypothesis. Berlin in 1953, Poland and Hungary in 1956, witnessed mass movements which began to give flesh and blood to this category of political revolution. The events in China are not the political revolution. Nonetheless, it can be said that these developments, just like the "de-Stalinization" effected by the Soviet bureaucracy which
Mao so fiercely denounces, constitute a
preparatory stage of such revolution.
What should be emphasized is the
fact that to’justify its campaign, the
Mao leadership has been led to explain
the "cultural revolution" as “a revolu-
tion within the framework of the dicta-
torship of the proletariat," that is to
say, to evoke a notion close to that of
political revolution. Moreover, very re-
cently in Cuba, where the problem of
bureaucracy and the struggle against it
is seriously regarded, they are talking
about "a revolution within the revolu-
tion."
Thus, on three essential points of
Trotskyist theory, the latest events
contribute such striking verification
that the Chinese leaders on one hand and
the Cuban leaders on the other are forced
to think about these events in terms
which, although certainly not those of
our movement, clearly approximate then,
even if this is done in a more or less
distorted manner.
This is a theoretical victory for
Trotskyism. The paths to political vic-
tory will still be protracted, tortuous
and harsh. But there can be no doubt of
the outcome since our movement alone
possesses the theoretical arsenal which
can facilitate a correct understanding of
the gigantic events which are now con-
vulsing the worid.
HUGO BLANCO BEATEN BY GUARDS
[Continued from page 457.]
zilez, sought to help Blanco to his feet.
Several more guards came up and the captain ordered them to beat Creus, too. The two prisoners sought to defend themselves but caught sight of several soldiers lined up with machine guns ready to fire.
Blanco and Creus realized that a provocation was probably involved and tried to calm down the guards.
They eventually succeeded in getting out of their clutches.
It was immediately after this that the authorities announced that Blanco is "eravely i11." But no one is allowed to see him and it is not known whether he is actually receiving medical attention.
In the opinion of the French Conmmittee of Solidarity with the Victims of Repression in Peru, it could well be that the military authorities would now like to get rid of Hugo Blanco. In view of the worldwide publicity in the case, it can be highly embarrassing for them when the
hearing opens before the Supreme Council
of Military Justice. From their viewpoint
it would be very convenient if Blanco
were to die before the council sits.
This was what happened to Maximo
Velando, who was reported by the author-
ities to have taken "poison" in his cell
when in reality he was beaten to death.
Daniel Mayer, president of the
League of Human Rights, at once went to
the Peruvian embassy in Paris to protest
the beating of Hugo Blanco.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Laurent
Schwartz cabled immediately to the Mili-
tary Council.
Friends of Hugo Blanco in Lima are
urging immediate action everywhere as they
are in great fear that the military author-
ities are planning to have the famous
prisoner killed.
Protests should be sent to the Con-
sejo Supremo de Justicia, and to President
BelaGnde Terry, Lima, Peru.
Copies of the protests should be
filed with local consulates and embassies.
ALBANIA COPIES THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Albania, Peking's sole steadfast ally in the Communist world, has been somewhat slow and hesitant about giving its customary all-out endorsement of the developments in China. Now it appears that its leaders have decided to venture on a miniature "cultural revolution" of their own.
Following upon preliminary steps taken in March a year ago, the campaign was launched on February 6 by the Conmmunist party's first secretary, Enver Hoxha,in a major speech, entitled "The Further Revolutionizing of the Party and the Government." It was given before a collective meeting of the basic party organization of the city and district of the capital Tirana.
The general directives contained in this address coincided with the publication in the party theoretical journal Rruge e Partise of an article headed ‘Tong Live the Great Chinese Cultural Proletarian Revolution" which hailed the Chinese events as "historic lessons for all true Marxist-Leninists of the world."
Hoxha concentrated on two topics. One concerned the shortcomings in the performance of the party organization and concluded with the demand that "if these Communists have failed to allow themselves to be educated and corrected, then they must be expelled."
The other took up the struggle against bureaucracy in the state apparatus. The party secretary harked back to the "Open Letter" issued on March 4, 1966 which resulted in the reduction of the state apparatus by 15,000 functionaries and the replacement of numerous others; the sending to the countryside of 40 authors, artists and painters; the abolition of military ranks and the introduction of political commissars in the military units.
He called for reinforcement of this "back-to-the-masses movement" and said "it would be a mistake to imagine that the struggle against bureaucracy has come to an end." He emphasized this point as follows: "We may reduce the personnel of an institution from 100 people to 50 people; this, however, does not save us from bureaucracy if those remaining 50 people do not profoundly understand the meaning of bureaucracy and how to fight like real revolutionaries."
Hoxha, who rules over the most monolithic party and regime in Communist East Europe, took "democracy" as the theme of his speech. He attacked the elements that violate democracy by suppress-— ing criticism, by degrading party and
government authority, by behaving pa-
tronizingly toward the masses, by dam-
aging the economy and by acting subjec-
tively.
He called for the abolition of the
"currently highly ridiculous wall news-
papers" and the dismissal of their ed-
itorial boards as “opportunistic scrib-
blers who preserve the prestige and
authority of the director and of then-
selves." In imitation of the Chinese
example, he urged everyone to write fear-
lessly and in big letters about anyone
who failed to perform their tasks prop-
erly.
This speech immediately unloosed
a torrent of criticisms directed against
officials at all levels (except the very
top). These were vented in the press,
among the youth and in the production
centers. The two main dailies, Zeri i
Populitt and Bashkimi, did not hesitate
to censure government ministers who had
to admit their errors and promise to
correct them. Many party and government
functionaries have lost their jobs.
Thus on February 12 Zeri i Popu-
litt criticized the first secretary of
the district of Tirana, who is also an
alternate Central Committee member, for
bureaucratic behavior in delaying the
dismissal of the manager of a coal mine
who had been unwilling to go down into
the mine.
In an editorial two days later the
same paper said that "the bureaucrats are
ignorant people; they beat their breasts
about their past merits, about the fact
that they have been holding executive
positions for many years, or that these
jobs have been assigned to them." It as-
serted that "these bureaucrats must be
identified and eliminated above all in
the state and economic apparatus, in the
key positions of economic enterprises,
in farm collectives, and in educational-
cultural institutions."
Young “Red Guards" have set about
to criticize old customs, office-holders
and other negative phenomena through slo-
gans, bulletins, caricatures and wall
newspapers. Typical were the actions
taken by the students at the Naim Fra-
sheri school in the port of Durres under
the guidance of the city's party orga-
nization. Their posters criticized par-
ents for calling their friends "Mr." and
"Mrs."; the city's Executive Committee
was condemned for wasting money to move
a church and its cemetery to another
location; and posters were placed on the
homes of people who allegedly still have
bourgeois mentalities.
Students in Davaje decided to change the label of a popular brand of cigarettes from its present format of a camel in front of a mosque to a picture of a yet-to-be-selected industrial project of the Five Year Plan. High-schoolers in Tirana covered the door of the director's office with a poster condemning his "arrogance, his misbehavior, his rude language, in fact for not being a true educator but a bureaucrat." They also censured the faculty for failing to participate in the criticisn.
Wall posters in the machinepbuilding plant "Dinamo" in Tirana reprimanded the plant's chief engineer who also held the post of party secretary of the plant. He was charged with irresponsibility and abuse of party authority for getting rid of the wall posters criticizing hin.
As in China, this officially
inspired antibureaucratic campaign has
enabled diverse sectors of the popula-
tion to get back at certain hated offi-
cials who mistreated them. It also set
into motion forces which, in some cases
and places, threaten to act on their own
account and pass beyond the limits set by
the initiators of the campaign. Thus in
an article on February 11 Zeri i Populitt
warned against "those people who try to
take advantage of the situation in order
to create anarchy" and said they "will be
fought mercilessly."
Interestingly, Hoxha has not yet
invoked Mao Tse-tung as the inspirer of
his program. While the Albanian first
secretary occupies the same position of
eminence as Chairman Mao, he does not
confront the same deep divisions in his
party leadership and regime and can pro-
ceed with greater assurance in imple-
menting his "cultural revolution."
KUPFERMAN ASKS CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
By Arthur Maglin
The controversy over the Kennedy assassination proceeds unabated in. the United States. On April 13 Theodore Kupferman, a New York liberal Republican, made the following remarks in Congress:
"Mr. Speaker, I am today reintroducing my concurrent resolution for a joint congressional committee to determine the necessity for reinvestigating the assassination of President Kennedy.
"In the 89th Congress on Septemper 28, 1966, the second anniversary of the Warren Commission Report...I introduced House Concurrent Resolution 1023, pointing out that the official report, with respect to the assassination of President Kennedy, had created more doubts than it had settled. Subsequent polls proved that this was so...
"The alleged truths of the Warren Commission Report can no longer, if ever, be considered self-evident.
"The reason the Congress must now act is that the executive branch, in the most obvious areas of doubt, has engaged in a conspiracy of silence and inaction, when clearly there is need for sound action and high-level investigation.
"The refusal of the executive branch to take necessary action has been demonstrated in the situation involving the X-rays and the photographs of the autopsy of the late President Kennedy. It has become increasingly clear to me, throughout the rising controversy subse-
quent to President Kennedy's assassina~
tion and the publication of the Warren
Report, that this material, which the
Warren Commission as a matter of nonfea-
sance had failed to examine, should be
officially examined."
Kupferman went on to describe how
he attempted to view these items in the
company of scientific experts and how it
turned out to be "an exercise in bureau-
eracy and futility" involving the imme-
diate representatives of both President
Johnson and the Kennedy family.
Meanwhile, the investigation of
New Orleans District Attorney Jim
Garrison into the Kennedy assassination
continues. The April issue of Ramparts
magazine reports:
"About all that is certain [of
Garrison's theory of how the assassi-
nation took place] is that Garrison's
suspects include Cubans as well as
Americans.
"When the Cuban angle first be-
came evident, Garrison was besieged by
right wingers and anti-Castroites who
assumed he had detected the hand of
Castro in the affair. Now they have
packed off, since it is palpable that he
is on the spoor of anti-Castro fanatics.
His sleuths have spent considerable time
in Miami, another center of émigré ac-
tivity. One theory attributed to Garrison
is that Oswald was importuned by an anti-
Castro faction to get a Cuban visa in
Mexico City in order to assassinate
Castro and, failing that, was turned on Kennedy, whose lack of overt action against Castro made him unpopular among the more volatile émigrés. This theory necessarily renders Oswald a phony leftist, which is not a far-fetched idea."
Another intriguing development is indicated in the following short item which appeared in the April 21 New York Post: "Manila, April 21 (Reuters) -- Philippines police today produced at a press conference here a 24-year-old Puerto Rican who they think could have been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.
"They said that, while under the influence of a truth serum, the Puerto ~479-
Rican, handsome Imis Angel Castillo, said he was one of a group of about 15 men assigned to kill 'the President.'
"He was given a rifle and put ina high building with instructions to shoot a man who could be in an open car in a motorcade together with a woman and another man.
"Castillo told them that another man had dismantled his rifle after they heard that somebody called Joe had already 'got the man.' Then he had driven to the airport and flown to Chicago.
"Questioned by reporters, Castillo who never raised his eyes, said that he had lost his memory apparently because he had been given drugs while in the U.S."
THE KIND OF LITERATURE THE GREEK GENERALS HATE AND FEAR
One of the objectives of the military coup d'état in Athens is to prevent the Greek people from reading certain kinds of literature.
A good example is the pamphlet, War and Revolution in Vietnam. The place of origin of this piece of socialist literature, however, is not the Soviet Union, not the People's Republic of China, not nearby Albania or Yugoslavia, not Cuba or even the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It was written by Doug Jenness, one of the leaders of the Young Socialist Alliance, an American youth organization that believes in Trotskyisn.
The pamphlet was translated into Greek and published some months ago in Athens as an exposé of the U.S. role in the Vietnam war.
The Greek edition was dedicated to Leo Bernard, a young member of the Socialist Workers party, who was murdered by an ultrarightist in Detroit, Michigan, last year.
Bernard is described in the dedication as “a fighter against the war of terror in Vietnam."
A prologue commends the struggle of American youth against the Vietnam war in the following way:
"Greek workers and youth can learn a great deal about Johnson and the war in Vietnam from this pamphlet as’ well as the widespread and courageous struggle of a large part of the American people, led by the worker and student youth, against this war."
The publishing house which translated and printed this pamphlet has made available many other revolutionary socialist works, including The Sino-Soviet Dispute by E. Germain, The Professional Dangers of Power by Christian Rakovsky, Revolution or Reform by Rosa Luxemburg, and the following by Leon Trotsky: Their Morals and Ours, The October Revolution, The Moscow Trials, Whither France 1934, The Crimes of Stalin, Diary in Exile, Lenin, Science and Philosophy, and What Is National Socialism?
The same publishers have sponsored a monthly publication O Logos Mas [Our Word], a journal that deals with current events as well as fundamental problems of interest to the Greek workers and the socialist movement.
Nothing directly has been heard from the editorial board of this interesting publication since the coup d'état. It is quite likely that they were among those caught in the nationwide raids staged by the reactionary generals who seized power. ;
The most recent issues of O Logos Mas have not yet been received in New York. The February issue dealt with the Greek elections which the generals have now decided to quash, the Sinto-Soviet dispute, the war in Vietnam and the Aspida trial.
It carried an extensive review of Marxism vs. Existentialism, the book by the American socialist scholar and leader of the Socialist Worker party, George Novack which was published in New York last year.
EUROPEAN VERDICT ON HUMPHREY -- PERSONA NON GRATA
Brussels
Vice-president Humphrey's tour of Europe is still being weighed in the various capitals that were granted the dubious honor of serving as his host.
The outstanding fact wherever he appeared was the vigorous protests directed against him besides many other indications of popular dislike for the Johnson administration, which he was attempting to "sell" to the European public.
The press in most cities has recognized that these barometers accurately reflect the prevailing attitude toward U.S. aggression in Vietnam.
The reception given Humphrey in this city April 9 was typical.
The crowds that turned out to see Johnson's emissary pass by in a limousine were thin. They were heavily reinforced by riot police and mobile gendarmes.
Still there were not enough of them to block rather active demonstrators from shouting anti-Johnson slogans and emphasizing them with eggs and tomatoes.
At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier