Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:25:26 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: NOTE on "NE", + UNITE! Info #61en: {7/9} on Cultural Revolution


NOTE on "NE": The "NE" swindlers have finally been forced (by
me) to state their position on the "RIM"! (They include some
lies of course.) See posting 1/3 to besieged M-G yesterday 06.02
- the whole article is on 'alt.politics.socialism.mao'. Some re-
vealing info they're bringing too. Comments by me later. - RM

NOTE on "NE", + UNITE! Info #61en: {7/9} on Cultural Revolution
[Info to newsgroup 'alt.society.revolution' etc: 01.02.98; this
part of M-G siege version, + NOTE, <10 kB, to list on 07.02.98]

[Continued from part {6/9}]

13. ON THE EVENTS ON TIENANMEN SQUARE, BEIJING,
    ON 05.04.1976, HOW THEY WERE LIED ABOUT
    BY THE STILL SOCIALIST CHINA AT THE TIME
    AND WHAT THEY REALLY SHOWED [ctd.]


[EYEWITNESS REPORT CONTINUES]

"Thousands obeyed, largely because it was time for their evening
meal, they were getting tired and there seemed no hope that the
original wreaths would be returned. Those who remained tended to
form groups of anything from fifty to a hundred people, general-
ly near the monument, a lamp-post or a group of trees. The
groups discussed the situation between bursts of the 'Interna-
tionale' and other patriotic" [writes Ms Hollingworth the Con-
servative correspondent from Great Britain] "songs. They ap-
peared to anticipate that sooner or later the police or the army
would attempt to throw them out of the square."

"I wandered round with a Japanese correspondent and we noted
food and water were being brought in by friends to some of the
groups who were increasingly being isolated by squads of police-
men in the darkness. Suddenly at around 9.30 p.m. all the lights
were turned on, the loudspeakers blared forth loud martial music
as thousands of militia dashed into the square from the Imperial
City, the Great Hall of the People and buildings in the southern
part of the square where I was at that moment. The majority of
foreign diplomats and journalists observing the scene were in
the northern sector."

"Large trucks were driven into the square and people were or-
dered to get into them. It was not clear whether they were to be
arrested or not. Several groups refused to move but as the cold
plus the physical need for a toilet grew, the crowd was gradual-
ly dispersed and the square completely cleared soon after 2.30
a.m. The militia did beat people up, but I did not see any
blood, although some did flow. The following morning scores of
demonstrators returned and although they realised the game was
up they were outspoken enough to tell foreigners that the
'Shanghai radicals' led by Jiang Qing were responsible for the
wreaths being removed and the actions that followed."

[How "radical" the people of Shanghai really thought this group
was would become clear in October the same year. In another pos-
ting, I'll bring an eyewitness account of the events in that
city at that time.] {See Info #22en, part 6/12.}


13 B. THE TWO DECISIONS BY THE CPC PB
      ON 07.04.1976

{On these, the Daily Telegraph correspondent continues:}

"At a meeting of the Politbureau the following day" [07.04.76],
"called to discuss the series of incidents in the square, it was
later disclosed Chairman Mao proposed - although he was not pre-
sent - that Deng Xiaoping should be stripped of all his offices
but remain in the party. Hua Guofeng was then promoted to be
First Vice Chairman of the Party as well as acting Premier."
.........

"It was clear that officially Deng was blamed for the disturban-
ces in Tiananmen Square as well as for having initiated the mas-
sive wreath-laying ceremonies in honour of Premier Zhou. But few
in Peking were taken in by this condemnation as it was already
well-known that Deng was in disgrace and living somewhere in
the south."

[The logic here is not completely correct, of course. Although
Deng Xiaoping was being publicly criticised he still obviously
had at least some supporters in Beijing, as *some* of the poems
referred to above also confirm. It wouldn't have been totally
impossible for them to have engineered at least some smaller
real disturbances. But in the main, clearly it was *not* those
supporters who caused the massive Tiananmen events.] 

{The two decisions by the Politbureau of the Central Committee
of the CPC read as follows, as reproduced e.g. by me, in Info
#22en, from Peking Review No. 15, 1976:}

       "On the proposal of our great leader Chairman Mao, the
	Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Com-
        munist Party of China unanimously agrees to appoint Com-
        rade Hua Kuo-feng First Vice-Chairman of the Central
        Committee of the Communist Party of China and Premier of
        the State Council of the People's Republic of China."  =09

	"Having discussed the counter-revolutionary incident
        which took place at Tien An Men Square and Teng Hsiao-
        ping's latest behaviour, the Political Bureau of the
        Central Committee of the Communist Party of China holds
        that the nature of the Teng Hsiao-ping problem has tur-
        ned into one of antagonistic contradiction. On the pro-
        posal of our great leader Chairman Mao, the Political
        Bureau unanimously agrees to dismiss Teng Hsiao-ping
        from all posts both inside and outside the Party while
        allowing him to keep his Party membership so as to see
        how he will behave in the future."

{Both of these decisions were quite important. And it should be
noted that there *were* two of them, each hitting at one of
the two main anti-proletarian deviations. The first one, appoin-
ting (once again) Hua Guofeng, and for instance *no* 4-gang mem-
ber, hit at the 4-gang's phony"left" deviation, the second of
course at the openly-rightist one of Deng Xiaoping. In July 1977
when Deng was "rehabilitated" - in a completely wrong manner -
the official documents then released "simply forgot" the second
one, as pointed out in an important article by the German Marx-
ists at the time which I've reproduced in translation in Info
#40en. In a debate with me in 1996-97 on the 4-gang, a debate
which shows up in Info #22en and even more in #45en, Jay Miles
of the Detroit Peru Support Committee twice "plain forgot" the
first of the two. In Info #22en I further commented:}

[In a 1979 book by three Swedes who were in Beijing at the time,
whose title in translation is "Great Disorder under the
Heavens", the embassy official Torbj=F6rn Lodén on p. 112 main-
tains that "These decisions contravened the Chinese constitution
of that time, which stipulated that it was the People's National
Congress' due to appoint and dismiss the Premier and other mem-
bers of the State Council (Article 17)". He's probably right. I
doubt that Mao Zedong - who according to Ms Hollingworth was not
present at the meeting - actually proposed circumvening the PNC
in this manner.]

[And I hold, as I've already written in one posting, that al-
though the political line of the Politbureau here was correct in
its repudiating, directly or indirectly, both the deviation of
Deng Xiaoping and that of the Gang of Four, its maintaining that
the events on Tiananmen Square on 05.04.76 in the main were
counter-revolutionary was an error.]

{In fact such a thing, the (supposedly) Marxist-Leninist party
in a (supposedly) socialist country vilifying a just demonstra-
tion by the people in this manner, of course was a *very* se-
rious error. I'm not saying that the CPC or the Chinese state
had already degenerated at that time, but on this point, they
flagrantly did go against the people. In Info #45en (part 6/12),
I wrote on this:}

"Mao himself, Clare Hollingworth writes, was too ill to attend
that meeting. The two decisions proposed by him however were
quite correct, the facts show: Appointment of Hua (a continua-
tion of the February decision i.a. *against* the 4-Gang) and
dismissal of Deng on account of his Rightist wind."

"*But* that direct reason for this dismissal which was at least
implied in that second resolution, there having been a so-called
"counter-revolutionary incident", was a *false* characterization
of the recent events. So Deng in part was "hung" for a "crime"
which he had *not* committed. This, as I already have pointed
out, could not but in fact *help support* his (openly-)Rightist
deviation, make the people less eager to oppose it. Not only
this; the PB had now called an essentially quite just action by
the people "unjust"."

"Clearly, this must have made many among the masses worried, and
wondering what was going on, in the following months. This (al-
though subordinate) part of the second resolution obviously was
a result of the 4-Gang's having managed to sway the PB on this
point. The people in Beijing must have felt a great hatred for
those - whoever they were - who had caused the suppression and
also the vilification of their just demonstration in April.
There had also been similar demonstrations in other cities (la-
ter PR:s)."


13 C. THE FALSE STORY ON THE 1976 TIANANMEN
      EVENTS IN PEKING REVIEW NO. 15, 1976
      [WITH SOME 1996 COMMENTS BY ME]

In the debate I mentioned above, beteween Jay Miles and me on
the 4-gang, Jay at an early stage (May 1996) brought this artic-
le from the Peking Review, as "proof" that I was wrong on the
character of these events on Tiananmen, that they *were* a
"counter-revolutionary incident". I then pointed out how that
article, if read only somewhat carefully - and preferably too of
course together with those reports by foreign (openly-bourgeois)
correspondents which there were - rather clearly demonstrates
precisely the opposite, that "official" China here was *lying*.

[Continued in part {8/9}]



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