Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  It is the same with divorce. In general there are three conditions to pay attention to when getting married: (1) political purity; (2) both parties should be more or less the same age and comparable in looks; (3) mutual help. Even though everyone is said to fulfill these conditions—as for point one, there are no open traitors in Yan’an; as for point three, you can call anything “mutual help,” including darning socks, patching shoes, and even feminine comfort—everyone nevertheless makes a great show of giving thoughtful attention to them. And yet the pretext for divorce is invariably the wife’s political backwardness. I am the first to admit that it is a shame when a man’s wife is not progressive and retards his progress. But let us consider to what degree they are backward. Before marrying, they were inspired by the desire to soar in the heavenly heights and lead a life of bitter struggle. They got married partly because of physiological necessity and partly as a response to sweet talk about “mutual help.” Thereupon they are forced to toil away and become “Noras returned home.” Afraid of being thought “backward,” those who are a bit more daring rush around begging nurseries to take their children. They ask for abortions and risk punishment and even death by secretly swallowing potions to produce abortions. But the answer comes back: “Isn’t giving birth to children also work? You’re just after an easy life; you want to be in the limelight. After all, what indispensable political works have you performed? Since you are so frightened of having children and are not willing to take responsibility once you have had them, why did you get married in the first place? No one forced you to.” Under these conditions, it is impossible for women to escape this destiny of “backwardness.” When women capable of working sacrifice their careers for the joys of motherhood, people always sing their praises. But after ten years or so, they have no way of escaping the tragedy of “backwardness.” Even from my point of view, as a woman, there is nothing attractive about such “backward” elements. Their skin is beginning to wrinkle, their hair is growing thin, and fatigue is robbing them of their last traces of attractiveness. It should be self-evident that they are in a tragic situation. But whereas in the old society they would probably have been pitied and considered unfortunate, nowadays their tragedy is seen as something self-inflicted, as their just deserts. Is it not so that there is a discussion going on in legal circles as to whether divorces should be granted simply on the petition of one party or on the basis of mutual agreement? In the great majority of cases, it is the husband who petitions for divorce. For the wife to do so, she must be leading an immoral life, and then of course she deserves to be cursed.

  I myself am a woman, and I therefore understand the failings of women better than others. But I also have a deeper understanding of what they suffer. Women are incapable of transcending the age they live in, of being perfect or of being hard as steel. They are incapable of resisting all the temptations of society or all the silent oppression they suffer here in Yan’an. They each have their own past written in blood and tears; they have experienced great emotions—in elation as in depression, whether engaged in the lone battle of life or drawn into the humdrum stream of life. This is even truer of the women comrades who come to Yan’an, and I therefore have much sympathy for those fallen and classified as criminals. What is more, I hope that men, especially those in top positions, as well as women themselves, will consider the mistakes women commit in their social context. It would be better if there were less empty theorizing and more talk about real problems, so that theory and practice would not be divorced, and better if all Communist Party members were more responsible for their own moral conduct. But we must also hope for a little more from our women comrades, especially those in Yan’an. We must urge ourselves on and develop our comradely feeling.

  [Ding, I Myself Am a Woman, pp. 316–321]

  1. A disciple of Confucius. [Note in the original.]

  2. The Great Learning is said to be “a Book handed down by the Confucian school, which forms the gate by which beginners enter into virtue.” [Note in the original.]

  3. The Four Books and the Five Classics are nine classics of philosophy of the Confucian canon as defined in Neo-Confucianism and used in the imperial examination system. [Note in the original.]

  4. By Fan Zhongyan. See ch. 19.

  5. See Lenin, The Party’s Organization and the Party’s Literature. [Note in the original.]

  Chapter 36

  THE MAO REGIME

  ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

  In the early years of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Party unified the country militarily (except for Taiwan) and fought the United States to a standstill in Korea. Domestically, it distributed land to the peasants, accelerated industrialization, revamped education on the Soviet model, and passed a marriage law. After decades of war and chaos, peace reigned. Gangsters and drug pushers were executed; prostitutes and opium addicts were rehabilitated. Health care improved and some serious diseases were eradicated in the countryside. Infant mortality went down and life expectancy gradually rose. Patriotic Chinese educated abroad came home to participate in the reconstruction of the motherland. China became a nuclear power in 1964. In later years many people looked back nostalgically on the early days of the Mao regime, imagining it as a kind of Golden Age.

  Yet there were a number of anomalies in the Communist success. Having operated for twenty years in the countryside, the Party, when it came to power, adopted the Soviet model rather than building a new order based upon peasant experience or the needs of Chinese agriculture. Although the party had ridden to power on the backs of a largely peasant army, it was the urban population that benefited the most from the policies of the new state. The term iron rice bowl described the cradle-to-grave support now enjoyed by a large percentage of the urban population. Many of the comrades who had sacrificed during the long years of struggle believed that now, in this new state, they were entitled to good positions and special privileges. At the same time, the party and government, now ruling the whole country, recruited new cadres on a massive scale. Many such recruits constituted a “new class,” in a position to pass privileged educational, health care, and housing opportunities on to their children. Meanwhile, the party conducted one class-warfare campaign after another against landlords, reactionaries, traitors, and corrupt officials, creating an atmosphere of terror and intimidation. Much of the early goodwill and sense of security began to dissipate.

  By the mid-fifties Mao had become increasingly dissatisfied, as agricultural production, counted on to support heavy industrialization, lagged. Peasants who had been glad to receive land of their own were much less eager to see it collectivized. Against the advice of fellow leaders who favored a more gradual approach, Mao pressed ahead, with the result that all farmland in China became collectivized in a remarkably short time.

  Despite Mao’s efforts to rein in intellectuals during the Rectification Campaign of the early forties, in the mid-fifties he still counted on them to play a role in the modernization of China. By 1957 he believed that the new regime was well established and that the majority of Chinese now accepted the socialist path. Intellectuals, he hoped, could serve as a check on corruption and privilege in the party, a concern that had originally arisen during the Rectification Campaign and now was vented again in the campaign to “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom.” Some leaders had approved the idea of opening up the party to criticism from the outside, but when criticism became vociferous and even turned anti-socialist, Mao turned on the intellectuals he had previously encouraged to speak out, purging at least 300,000 and sending them into internal exile.

  Undeterred by either economic or political setbacks, Mao pressed ahead with the Great Leap Forward in order to jump-start more rapid industrialization. The movement promoted bootstrap efforts in the countryside, typified by “backyard furnaces” to boost steel production. Seeking to decentralize some of the power that had accumulated in Beijing but also to gain greater control over agricultural production, Mao began to turn the c
ountryside into autarkic communes, declaring that China was on the verge of communism, a claim that had not even been made by the Soviet Union. As a result of this and other differences, China had a major falling-out with the Soviet Union by 1960, and the two sides almost went to war at the end of the decade. The Great Leap Forward, too, went awry; agricultural production declined further, distribution was uneven, and famine led to the deaths of tens of millions of peasants.

  At this juncture new leadership under Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping came forward to espouse more-moderate policies: the expansion of private garden plots, the opening up of local markets, and the offering of material incentives for increased production. All notions of achieving full communism were shelved. Mao fumed against Liu and Deng, believing that their policies would lead to a restoration of capitalism in China. After much political maneuvering, Mao managed to launch his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966 and called upon the students of China to lead it, bypassing and outflanking the party and state bureaucracies.

  Ostensibly, the purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to destroy the remnants of past tradition (especially Confucianism) and bourgeois liberalism, but more directly it aimed at opponents in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who were accused of “economism” (i.e., favoring markets and incentives) and of “walking the capitalist road.” Mao singled out individuals in the party who were said to have been corrupted by power and privilege. Liu and Deng, considered the top two “capitalist roaders” in China, were eventually purged from the party, along with thousands of alleged “followers.” No one was immune to attack as a rightist; children were even encouraged to accuse their parents. Students, organized as Red Guards, also attacked intellectuals who, unlike members of the party, had no organization to protect themselves. Liu’s and Deng’s policies were reversed. The struggle between contending factions led to mass chaos and the near collapse of China.

  MAO ZEDONG: “LEANING TO ONE SIDE”

  In Dictatorship of the People’s Democracy (1949) (see chapter 34), besides making the case for Leninist “democratic centralism,” Mao also stated that the Chinese Communist Revolution should be guided by the experience of the Soviet Union and, as an ally of the Soviets, should take part in the world revolutionary movement. Anticipating the objection that this meant “leaning to one side” in favor of the Soviets, he defended the policy as follows:

  “You are leaning to one side.” Exactly. The forty years’ experience of Sun Yat-sen and the twenty-eight years’ experience of the Communist Party have taught us to lean to one side, and we are firmly convinced that in order to win victory and consolidate it we must lean to one side. In the light of the experiences accumulated in these forty years and these twenty-eight years, all Chinese without exception must lean either to the side of imperialism or to the side of socialism. Sitting on the fence will not do, nor is there a third road. . . .

  “Victory is possible even without international help.” This is a mistaken idea. In the epoch in which imperialism exists, it is impossible for a genuine people’s revolution to win victory in any country without various forms of help from the international revolutionary forces, and even if victory were won, it could not be consolidated. This was the case with the victory and consolidation of the Great October Revolution as Stalin told us long ago. This was also the case with the overthrow of the three imperialist powers in World War II and the establishment of the people’s democracies. And this is also the case with the present and the future of People’s China.

  [From Selden, The People’s Republic of China, pp. 176–177]

  MAO ZEDONG: “STALIN IS OUR COMMANDER”

  This speech, actually given in 1939, was published in the People’s Daily, the authoritative organ of the Chinese Communist Party, only after the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. It constituted a reaffirmation by Mao after the more-moderate “New Democracy” phase, of his earlier revolutionary commitments, and of his continuing faith in Stalin as the leader of the world revolution. Of particular significance here is Mao’s assertion that all of Marxism is summed up in “the one sentence: To rebel is justified.” This was later invoked repeatedly at the launching of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

  At the present time, the whole world is divided into two fronts struggling against one another. On the one side is imperialism, which represents the front of the oppressors. On the other is socialism, which represents the front of resistance to oppression. . . . Who is in command of the revolutionary front? It is socialism, it is Stalin. Comrade Stalin is the leader of the world revolution. Because he is there, it is easier to get things done. As you know, Marx is dead, and Engels and Lenin too are dead. If we did not have a Stalin, who would give the orders? . . .

  There are innumerable principles of Marxism, but in the last analysis they can all be summed up in one sentence: “To rebel is justified.” For thousands of years everyone said: “Oppression is justified, exploitation is justified, rebellion is not justified.” From the time when Marxism appeared on the scene, this old judgment was turned upside down, and this is a great contribution. This principle was derived by the proletariat from its struggles, but Marx drew the conclusion. In accordance with this principle, there was then resistance, there was struggle, and socialism was realized. What is Comrade Stalin’s contribution? He developed this principle, he developed Marxism-Leninism and produced a very clear, concrete, and living doctrine for the oppressed people of the whole world. This is the complete doctrine of establishing a revolutionary front, overthrowing imperialism, overthrowing capitalism, and establishing a socialist society.

  The practical aspect consists in turning doctrine into reality. Neither Marx, Engels, nor Lenin carried to completion the cause of the establishment of socialism, but Stalin did so. This is a great and unprecedented exploit. Before the Soviet Union’s two five-year plans, the capitalist newspapers of various countries proclaimed daily that the Soviet Union was in desperate straits, that socialism could not be relied upon, but what do we see today? Stalin has stopped Chamberlain’s mouth,1 and also the mouths of those Chinese diehards. They all recognize that the Soviet Union has triumphed.

  Stalin has helped us from the doctrinal standpoint in our war of resistance against Japan. Apart from this, he has given us material and practical aid. Since the victory of Stalin’s cause, he has aided us with many airplanes, cannons, aviators, and military advisers in every domain, as well as lending us money. What other country in the world has helped us in this way? What country in the world, led by what class, party, and individual, has helped us in this way? Who is there, apart from the Soviet Union, the proletariat, the Communist Party, and Stalin?

  [From Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 426–429]

  GUO MORUO: ODE TO STALIN—“LONG LIVE STALIN” ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, 1949

  This poem to Stalin was written by Guo Moruo (1897–1977), a major intellectual figurehead of the People’s Republic, unofficial poet laureate, and president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before 1949 he was prominent as a writer, historian, and left-wing activist, but not as an open Communist; after 1949 he was a supposedly “non-partisan” representative in the People’s Republic Political Consultative Conference, and later vice president of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress. At his death it was revealed that he had long been a secret member of the Party, but this Ode leaves little doubt where his sentiments lay.

  The “orders of nature” spoken of at the end of the ode is presumably a reference to the Lysenko theory of evolution approved by Stalin in those years.

  Long Live Stalin!

  (Stalin, Banzai!)

  The Great Stalin, our beloved “Steel,” our everlasting sun!

  Only because there is you among mankind, Marx-Leninism can reach its present heights!

  Only because there is you, the Proletariat can have its present growth and strength!

  Only because there is you, the task of liberation can be
as glorious as it is!

  It is you who are leading us to merge into the stream flowing into the ocean of utopia.

  It is you who are instructing us that the West will never neglect the East.

  It is you who are uniting us into a force never before seen in history.

  There is the fortress of peace of the USSR, standing firm, with unparalleled strength.

  There are the new republics of Asia and Europe, side by side, growing more and more prosperous.