VOL wy Sig NO. 5 February 43, 1967
A TROTSKYIST CURRENT. AMONG THE CONTENDING FORCES IN CHINA?
A few meager words in a January 22 Agence France Presse dispatch from Peking offer striking evidence of the difficulties facing those seeking to determine the variety of currents involved in the political crisis in China, their real objectives and the social forces they represent.
Wall posters, pasted up the previous night, attacked various officials. "One," said the dispatch, "was Kang Sheng, a man who was hoisted to the top of the power pyramid by the cultural revolution. He was made a member of the Standing Committee of the party's Politburo only last August. He was accused of protecting a Trotskyite student, Tan Li-fu, arrested in December."
Among the puzzling questions raised by this report, the most interesting involve the possible reasons as to why Kang Sheng was singled out as a target. Despite the dispateh it is not known for certain that he is a member of the Standing Committee although this seems highly likely in view of his prominence. But. the list of members of this body has not yet been announced. In any case, Kang Sheng is one of the architects of the "cultural revolution." Does this attack mean that he is now being purged?. What is the source of the fire being directed at him? Is a new group in the Red Guards making itself felt in this way? Or was the wall bulletin the work of Liu Shao-chi's followers, part of an effort to discredit Kang Sheng by starting a rumor that he is guilty of maintaining "Trotskyite" connections?
An even more interesting question is the identity of the student Tan Li-fu. Is he a real Trotskyist? , Y
The Trotskyist movement in China, which began when some of the founders of the Chinese Communist party assessed the lessons of the revolution of 1925-27, was deeply rooted in the working class, particularly in cities like Shanghai. With the victory of the revolution in 1949 under the impact of the vast peasant upheaval, the Chinese
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Trotskyists: sought to. work with the new regime. Mao's policy, however, was to liquidate then. They. were rounded up. wherever they.could be found and imprisoned. The. fate.of most of them is unknown. Some who were reportedly released have not been heard from since. Others are still in prison.
As a political tendency the :Chitiese Trotskyist movement has been compelled to remain underground. Whether their small forces have begun to expand on any scale is not known. Their program is to defend the conquests of the revolution by opposing bureaucratic privileges and excesses, by: fighting for proletarian democracy, and by extending the revolution internationally.
But "Trotskyism". has, also cropped up occasionally ‘in the Sino-Soviet dispute, each of the two sides accusing the other of being guilty of "Trotskyism" or of playing into the hands of Trotskyisn.
Thus the student Tan Li-fu may not be a genuine Trotskyist but only a student on whom this label was attached. However, if this is the case, it does not settle the matter. What are his views? Why was he smeared with the most terrible epithet in the lexicon of the Maoists, Khrushchevists and all those formed in the school of Stalinism?
If the answers to these and similar questions could be found, much would become clarified about the "cultural revolution." But the chances of getting correct answers at present are not very good in view of the censorship, the monopoly of the press by Mao's faction and the deliberate obscuring of issues that has been characteristic of all sectors of the ruling circle under the antidemocratic Mao regime.
The episode involving the "Trotskyite student, Tan Li-fu, arrested in December" for unknown reasons remains a tantalizing mystery as does the report that he was protected by a high official, one of the initiators of the "cultural revolution."
Despite Mao's policy of maintaining tight secrecy over the real course of events, his own press has been compelled to indicate a number of revealing facts. The wall bulletins that appeared in Peking January 7 reporting that disturbances had broken out in Shanghai at the end of December of such sharp nature as to cause suspension of all rail traffic to Nanking have been officially confirmed. The turmoil in Shanghai did not recede until around January 15, when Hung Chi claimed in an editorial that the opposition had been crushed in Shanghai and a new turning point had been reached in the "cultural revolution. .
s The most recent dispatches sent out by Hsinhua, the official Chinese news agency, -have provided fresh material on what motivated the workers in opposing the sectors of the Red Guards under Maoist control or in taking the propaganda about the "cultural revolution" at face value and going into action to carry it out through strikes, demonstrations and sending delegations to Peking.
A January 19 dispatch from Shanghai indicates that considerable panic occurred at one point. We are told that "landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, rightists and some other people with ulterior motives spread rumours to create confusion among the public, resulting in rush buying of daily necessities and abnormal pressure on the supply of commodities."
A “big drain of state finances" occurred when local officials allegedly "tried to shift the general orientation of struggle" (meaning that misunderstandings spread among the people as to the true aims of the "cultural revolution"). A "handful of persons — encouraged promotions, pay increases and the granting of other material benefits in an attempt to demoralise the revolutionary workers and turn their serious political struggle into an economic struggle. "
From this it is clear that the workers thought the "cultural revolution" meant they could advance their own economic demands; or, at least, that it was easy for a "handful" to convince them that this was the case.
A January 21 Hsinhua dispatch from Shanghai quotes a message issued by various Maoist bodies that has more along the same lines. "They tried to sabotage production, sabotage the great cultural revolution and shift the general orientation of the revolutionary struggle by increasing wages, raising the level of material benefits, altering the enterprises' administrative systems, merging factories and changing the nature of the ownership." The dispatch does not indicate how the "nature of the ownership" was changed but the rest is clear enough.
: The same message indicates difficulties with the peasants. The "very few diehards" are “attempting to hold onto their positions in the countryside by deflecting the evil
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wind of counter-revolutionary economism from the cities to the villages, further increas-— ing the differences between workers and peasants and between the urban and rural districts, trying their utmost to create contradictions between the workers and peasants, and to incite the peasants to oppose the workers..." The peasant standard of living is clearly involved. "As to the question of rural income, it is necessary fully to mobilise the masses [in various ways]...and oppose resolutely any decision not to set aside funds for production and collective accumulation, or to reduce the funds set aside for this purpose and to pursue a one- -sided policy aimed purely at increasing immediate distribution."
A January 21 Hsinhua dispatch from Peking speaks even less guardedly. Paraphrasing an editorial that appeared the previous day in the Shanghai Wen Hui Pao, Hsinhua says that a handful of persons in the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the party “blew the evil wing of economism across the rural areas, instigated a large number of peasants to leave their posts of production in an influx into the city, made unjustified economic and welfare demands; widened the gap between workers and peasants and between town and countryside,” and so on.
The editorial, says Hsinhua, "exposes the deceitful nonsense...that the peasants should earn more money and have more welfare facilities." The theory of "immediate elimination" of the differences between town and countryside and between workers and peasants is "'left' in form but right in content." Instead, "We should work enthusiastically to create the conditions for gradually reducing and eliminating such differences." This is the ultimate aim. "However, the present conditions are not yet ripe to eliminate the differences between town and countryside and between workers and peasants and it is impossible to achieve ‘immediate elimination. '"
Whether justified or not, this line is scarcely equalitarian. It tells the peasants that it is reactionary and utopian for them to hope to better their lot in the immediate future or to close the gap between their income and that of the workers.
The Mao regime is now claiming that the worst is over and that big victories are marking the drive of the cultural revolution. One of the more interesting items isa . report about the success of the Shanghai committee allegedly constructed on the model of the Paris Commune, in accordance with the directives of the August plenum. A January 20 Hsinhua dispatch from Shanghai says, "The revolutionary workers and cadres of the Shanghai Glassmaking Machinery Plant have elected a ‘revolutionary production committee' on the principles of the Paris Commune. The members of the committee, who regard themselves as servants of the people, work with those in the workshops and consult them on all questions. The workers give each other revolutionary support in production and have often topped their daily output quotas." The same dispatch reports similar successes in "a vigorous new production drive" in other plants where no "Paris Commune" committees have yet been set up.
Despite the successes, the battle is far from won, according to the Maoist press. A January 22 Hsinhua dispatch, quoting an editorial in the People's Daily of that day, mentions that when the first attack was made on the "bourgeois reactionary line, there occurred incidents of the masses struggling against the masses on a larger scale and even struggling by force and bloodshed." The revolution suffered "setbacks."
In passing, the editorial gives us a fresh insight into what a broad meaning terms like "bourgeois" can have when employed by the Maoists. The editorial speaks of . "overthrown class enemies" still remaining in China who "are not reconciled to their defeat." (The truth is that some 300,000 capitalists have been deliberately maintained by the regime.) In addition, "new pourgeois elements appear in the ranks of the proletariat and the small producers. "The "new bourgeois elements" among the proletariat are probably just workers who want an improvement in their standard of living.
The editorial stresses the importance of the struggle for power in the "cultural revolution." "He who has power has everything; he who is without power has nothing. Of all important things, the possession of power is the most important!"
Further on, the editorial exclaims: "Seize power! Powert! And more power!!!" And again, "they" (apparently the masses) have rightly said, "The proletarian revolutionaries, the real revolutionary left, have their eye on seizing power, think of séizing power, and act to seize power!" ;
It now appears that the army, which stood behind the Red Guards from the beginning, is now being openly brought into play. Some of its moves appear aimed at mere intimidation. In these, displays of force are combined with propaganda activities. In other areas, clashes have been reported. This stage could prove to be decisive in the SbrUugere - One of the unknown elements is possible differences within the armed forces themselves.
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