From: detcom-AT-sprynet.com
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 03:02:38 -0800
Subject: M-G: Debate on China 4: Right and "Left" Opportunism  Pt. 4



===========================================================================Part 4 of Debate on China,
Right and "Left" Opportunism:  Which is the Main Danger?



Revisionists both in the Soviet Union and in China never really criticized
the Marxist-Leninist line in a theoretical way, even though they opposed it.
They cannot participate in hones theoretical public debate because they are
not on the side of the people.  They must attack Marxism-Leninism covertly.
Have we not all been witness to this?!  Their public attack is not centered
on political line; although they use communist words, their attacks center
on personality.  When Khrushchev attacked Stalin two years after his death,
in a secret report to the 20th Party Congress, was his attack a theoretical
analysis of Stalin's line?  No, of course not, because that would have 
revealed the anti-popular character of his own line.  He called Stalin a 
"coward, an idiot, and a dictator," "a 20th century Ivan the Terrible" and
attacked his "personality cult", his "lust for power", his "dictatorial 
manner" "unfairness," "harshness," and "cruelty."  This attack was not 
principled.  It was anti-Marxist slander, trying to portray the two-line
struggle as a simple power struggle between personalities.  THIS IS THE 
ESSENCE OF THE ATTACK ON THE "GANG OF FOUR".  The revisionists attack 
Chiang Ching for wanting to become "empress Lu," for acting like a "queen,"
for wanting her picture taken, for playing cards, for not caring about
Chairman Mao's health, for being egotistical, conceited and arrogant, for
playing favorites, for being dictatorial, for wearing dresses, etc., etc., etc.

A person's political line may be reflected in the way they live their life
and handle situations.  But this all "evidence" that neither I nor the 
hundreds of millions of Chinese workers and peasants can confirm or deny.
It is superficial and had nothing to do with the mass struggle to criticize
erroneous political lines and fight for communism.  To accept the argument 
of Hua and co., you must first of all accept as true that the "gang of four"
were opportunist, power-hungry careerists and that this was the motive in their
efforts to knock down capitalist-roaders.  If you don't start with that idea,
the attack on the "gang of four" doesn't hold together at all.  Thus the very
essence of the attack on the "gang of four" is based on something which is 
absolutely unverifiable, now or in the future, to any of the Chinese masses
or Marxist-Leninists around the world.  Similarly, their fantastic attempt
to link the "gang of four" to Kuomingtang reactionaries (Peking Review #19,
1977, pp.36-37) before and after the revolution and call them all 
"Kuomingtang secret agents" is also unverifiable for anyone.  Chairman Mao,
intimately connected with them, was also unaware of these "Kuomingtang
connections".  Major struggles in the Party are two-line struggles and are
political in nature.  They represent the struggle between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie.

When Chairman Mao challenged the "Left" opportunist line of Wang Ming in 1935
and became leader of the Chinese Communist Party, this was in no way an
"opportunist, power-hungry careerist" action because Chairman Mao represented
the correct line and Wang Ming the "Left" deviation.  Thus all inner-Party
struggles must be analyzed on the plane of political line.  We must analyze
what political line the four represented and what line those who opposed them
represented.  Political line must be the central aspect of criticism. Chairman
Mao has said; "Statements should be based on facts and criticism should center
on politics."  The fact that the revisionists diverted the central aspect of
criticism to personal attacks, rumors, and unverifiable private conversations
between Chairman Mao and Chiang Ching served as a cover for their real but
covert attack on the correct Marxist-Leninist line.  It revealed their
thoroughly bankrupt revisionist line.

Two documents, Chairman Mao's "On the Ten Major Relationships" and 
Hua Kuo-feng's speech of December 25, 1976 were promoted for study all over
China as the main theoretical documents in the campaign to criticize the
"gang of four" (see Peking Review #1, 1977, p.6).  "On the Ten Major 
Relationships" is a speech that Chairman Mao made to the Political Bureau
on April 25, 1956, at the time the consolidation of the socialist economic
was just being completed.  It is a brilliant speech that outlines ten
principal aspects of building socialism.  However, the class struggle in China
at that time was very different than that of 1970's.  The People's Communes 
had not been built, the Great Leap Forward of 1958-59 had not yet occurred.
No major struggle against capitalist-road tendencies had yet emerged. 
Chairman Mao spoke of counter-revolutionaries that carry out attacks on 
the revolution by killing cattle, burning grain, wrecking factories, stealing
information, and putting up reactionary posters.  With the development and
construction of socialism, the forms that class struggle take had changed
considerably.  In the struggle against the Right deviation in the 1957 
Socialist Education Movement, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and
the struggles to criticize Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-ping, it was clear that 
the main target of the class struggle of the proletariat are now the "PARTY
PERSONS IN AUTHORITY TAKING THE CAPITALIST ROAD."  There are numerous works
of Chairman Mao that profoundly analyze this struggle as well as the problems
of socialist construction and revolution that the proletariat in China faced
later on.  Hua and co. chose instead, to launch a major campaign to study the
1956 work only confirms the fact that the revisionists were unwilling to
accept the magnificent strides forward that the Chinese revolution had 
taken in the 20 years after 1956, particularly the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution.

Chairman Hua's speech, on the other hand, is definitely of the post-Mao era,
but it as well does not tell us anything concrete about the present struggle.
It does more to confuse than to clarify the nature of the struggle.  Anyone
reading only this speech would end up knowing little more than that the 
"gang of four" are an "ultra-Right anti-Party clique" who had been purged.

Although the "gang of four" are called "capitalist-roaders" and 
"ultra-Rightists", the spearhead of the attack was not directed at anything
near the capitalist road or Right deviations.  This was true for two reasons:
(1) Yao Wen-yuan, Chiang Ching, Chang Chun-chiao and Wang Hung-wen did NOT
push a Right revisionist line and did not cling to the capitalist road.  
NEVER in their entire history were any of them characterized by wanting to
hang onto the old ways or pushing to consolidate capitalist relations in
industry or agriculture.  They were among the vanguard of the leaders during
the Cultural Revolution and again in the period to beat back the Right were
constantly arousing the masses in criticism and revolutionary struggle.
(2) The Hua gang are/were revisionists and therefore even if they could,
they would never have launched a campaign to thoroughly study revisionism 
because it would only have helped expose their own revisionist line.

Since the revisionists have been in power, THERE HAS NOT BEEN AND THERE WILL
NEVER BE another major struggle led by the Central Committee against the
capitalist-road tendencies such as putting profits and production in command,
the "theory of productive forces," material incentives, dependence on 
specialists, dependence on foreign technology, promoting irrational rules 
and regulations, increasing the divisions between city and country and 
between mental and manual labour, promoting examinations to exclude peasants
and workers from school and designing schools to train an elite of professional,
encouraging a "professional" army, etc. etc. etc.   The spearhead of their
attack was aimed at the left, and will remain there BECAUSE THEY REPRESENT
THE BOURGEOISIE AND DEFEND THE CAPITALIST ROAD LINE.


Conclusion of Debate on China 4:  Right and "Left" Opportunism
=============================================================================





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