9. Cultural Revolutionary Groups, Committees, and Congresses
Many new things have begun to emerge in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The cultural revolutionary groups, committees, and other organizational forms created by the masses in many schools and units are something new and of great historic importance.
These cultural revolutionary groups, committees, and congresses are excellent new forms of organization whereby under the leadership of the Communist Party the masses are educating themselves. They are an excellent bridge to keep our party in close contact with the masses. They are organs of power of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
The cultural revolutionary groups, committees, and congresses should not be temporary organizations but permanent, standing mass organizations. They are suitable not only for colleges, schools, government, and other organizations but generally also for factories, mines, and other enterprises, urban districts, and villages.
It is necessary to institute a system of general elections, like that of the Paris Commune, for electing members to the cultural revolutionary groups and committees and delegates to the cultural revolutionary congress.
[Adapted from Selden, The People’s Republic of China, pp. 550–556]
QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO ZEDONG
Mao replaced Peng Dehuai as defense minister with Lin Biao, another prominent general who had been with Mao since the early days of the revolution. Lin used his position to turn the army into a bastion of Mao loyalism, employing Quotations from Chairman Mao, or the Little Red Book, to inculcate the peasant recruits. When the Cultural Revolution started, the Red Guards adopted this book as their “bible,” memorized it, and waved it in the air at huge rallies at Tiananmen Square.
—Be resolute, fear no sacrifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory. [p. 102]
—Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives for the people; let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path crimson with their blood! [p. 102]
—Whoever wants to know a thing has no way of doing so except by coming into contact with it, that is, by living (practicing) in its environment. . . . If you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. . . . If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. [p. 118]
—Unquestionably, victory or defeat in war is determined mainly by the military, political, economic, and natural conditions on both sides. But not by these alone. It is also determined by each side’s subjective ability in directing the war. In his endeavor to win a war, a military strategist cannot overstep the limitations imposed by the material conditions; within these limitations, however, he can and must strive for victory. The stage of action for a military strategist is built upon objective material conditions, but on that stage he can direct the performance of many a drama, full of sound and color, power and grandeur. [p. 49]
—Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. The basic reason why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies. A revolutionary party is the guide of the masses, and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolutionary party leads them astray. To ensure that we will definitely achieve success in our revolution and will not lead the masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies. To distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective attitudes toward the revolution. [p. 7]
—Historically, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct a last desperate struggle against the revolutionary forces, and some revolutionaries are apt to be deluded for a time by this phenomenon of outward strength but inner weakness, failing to grasp the essential fact that the enemy is nearing extinction while they themselves are approaching victory. [pp. 44–45]
[From Schram, Quotations from Chairman Mao, pp. 7, 44–45, 49, 102, 118]
WHAT HAVE SONG SHUO, LU PING, AND PENG PEIYUN DONE IN THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION?
The big character posters plastered over the walls of campuses, towns, and cities became a ubiquitous form of expression for those attacking the establishment. The most famous of these posters was put up on May 25, 1966, at Beijing University by Nie Yuanzi and six other philosophy instructors attacking the university authorities. Although the government tried to repress it, Mao had it broadcast on June 1 and the Beijing media carried it the next day. The poster’s strident tone characterized writings during the Cultural Revolution.
At present, the people of the whole nation, in a soaring revolutionary spirit that manifests their boundless love for the Party and Chairman Mao and their inveterate hatred for the sinister anti-Party, anti-socialist gang, are making a vigorous and great cultural revolution; they are struggling to thoroughly smash the attacks of the reactionary sinister gang, in defense of the Party’s Central Committee and Chairman Mao. But here in Beijing University the masses are being kept immobilized, the atmosphere is one of indifference and deadness, whereas the strong revolutionary desire of the vast number of the faculty members and students has been suppressed. What is the matter? What is the reason? There is something fishy going on. . . .
Why are you [top Beijing University officials cited in title] so afraid of big character posters and holding of big denunciation meetings? To counterattack the sinister gang that has frantically attacked the Party, socialism, and Mao Zedong’s thought is a life-and-death class struggle. The revolutionary people must be fully aroused to denounce them vigorously and angrily, and to hold big meetings and put up big character posters, is one of the best ways for the masses to do battle. By “guiding” the masses not to hold big meetings, not to put up big character posters, and by creating all kinds of taboos, aren’t you suppressing the masses’ revolution, not allowing them to make revolution, and opposing their revolution? We will never permit you to do this! . . .
All revolutionary intellectuals, now is the time to go into battle! Let us unite, holding high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought, unite around the Party’s Central Committee and Chairman Mao and break down all the various controls and plots of the revisionists; resolutely, thoroughly, totally, and completely wipe out all ghosts and monsters and all Khrushchevian counterrevolutionary revisionists, and carry the socialist revolution through to the end.
Defend the Party’s Central Committee!
Defend Mao Zedong Thought!
Defend the dictatorship of the proletariat!
[Adapted from Benton and Hunter, Wild Lily, Prairie Fire, pp. 105–108]
RED GUARD MEMOIRS
Although portrayed as a spontaneous movement among students, it is clear from the following account that the initiative came from above and surprised many middle-school and college students who were organized into units known as the Red Guards to form the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution. At massive rallies in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Mao sanctioned their role in rooting out the “capitalist roaders” in party and government. These developments are reported by a student participant as recorded many years after the actual events.
At a school assembly the working group announced that we were now in revolution, the Cultural Revolution. We finally knew what was happening in our school. The working group then informed us about our new Revolutionary Committee, and asked each class to elect a Cultural Revolutionary Small Group to lead the campaign. . . . Thus the Cultural Revolution, which lasted ten years, entered my life. Important newspaper articles and Central Party documents were passed to our small group, and we in turn organized the students to study them. We learned that during the seventeen years of Communist Party control, China’s culture, art, and education ha
d been under the dictatorial command of “capitalist and revisionist black gangs.” Later each student was issued a pamphlet, Chairman Mao’s Comments on Educational Revolution.. . .
I was astonished to learn that our country was in such bad shape. Until then I hadn’t suspected that the songs I sang, the movies I watched, and the books I read were unhealthy. I had thought my school a revolutionary one, maybe too revolutionary. Nevertheless, I swallowed what I was told and didn’t raise a single negative question, not even to myself. I had been chosen leader of this revolution in my class. If I had problems in understanding these documents, how could I expect the rest of the class to do so? Besides, what experience and qualifications did I have to judge what Chairman Mao and the Central Committee deemed right and wrong?
My classmates tried to comprehend too. We all considered ourselves progressive youth, and we were determined to follow Chairman Mao and the Party center. If they thought this Cultural Revolution to be necessary, if they wanted us to participate, we would.
[Adapted from Zhai, Red Flower of China, pp. 61–62]
The students quickly ignored the call to refrain from violence in the Sixteen Points, and teachers and intellectuals became one of their main targets. Many were maimed or killed by the students, while others committed suicide rather than face further torture and humiliation. Like the above account, this one was recorded many years after the events described.
The list of accusations grew longer by the day: hooligans and bad eggs, filthy rich peasants and son-of-a-bitch landlords, bloodsucking capitalists and neo-bourgeoisie, historical counterrevolutionaries and active counterrevolutionaries, rightists and ultra-rightists, alien class elements and degenerate elements, reactionaries and opportunists, counterrevolutionary revisionists, imperialist running dogs, and spies. Students stood in the roles of prosecutor, judge, and police. No defense was allowed. Any teacher who protested was certainly a liar.
The indignities escalated as well. Some students shaved or cut teachers’ hair into curious patterns. The most popular style was the yin-yang cut, which featured a full head of hair on one side and a clean-shaven scalp on the other. Some said this style represented Chairman Mao’s theory of the “unity of opposites.” It made me think of the punishments of ancient China, which included shaving the head, tattooing the face, cutting off the nose or feet, castration, and dismemberment by five horse-drawn carts.
At struggle meetings, students often forced teachers into the “jet-plane” position. Two people would stand on each side of the accused, push him to his knees, pull his head back by the hair, and hold his arms out in back like airplane wings. We tried it on each other and found it caused great strain on the back and neck.
[Adapted from Gao Yuan, Born Red, pp. 53–54]
WANG XIZHE, LI ZHENGTIAN, CHEN YIYANG, GUO HONGZHI: “THE LI YI ZHE POSTER,” NOVEMBER 1974
By 1968 it was clear that the Cultural Revolution had spun out of control, and Mao brought in the army to bring it to a halt. Thousands of young people whom Mao had a short time ago called upon to make revolution were now slaughtered by the military; millions more were sent down to the countryside to “learn from the peasants.” Yet in the midst of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution what came to be known as the Thinking Generation had been born. Unable to find reliable guidance in the vague sayings of Mao, some Red Guards turned toward the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin to discover the true nature of socialism. The wall poster put up in Guangzhou in 1974 and excerpted below reflects Marx’s ideas about the role of democracy in a socialist society as well as the original goals of the Cultural Revolution as stated in the Sixteen Points. Notions of the party’s responsibilities to the people expressed here would blossom in the “Democracy Wall” or “Beijing Spring” movement of the late seventies and early eighties. “Li Yi Zhe” is a composite pen name consisting of characters from three of four joint authors, one of whom, Wang Xizhe, went on to play a prominent role in that movement.
Expectations for the Fourth National People’s Congress
How is the soon-to-be-convoked Fourth National People’s Congress going to reflect the Great Cultural Revolution, which people call China’s “second revolution"? Law is the expression of the will of the ruling class. So how is the country’s basic legal system that is to be promulgated—the new constitution—to express the will of the proletariat and the broad masses in China who have experienced the Great Cultural Revolution?
What are the popular masses thinking now? What are their demands? What sort of expectations do they have for the representative congress of the “people of the whole country"?
Legal System, Yes! A “System of Rites,” No!
Our country was born from a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society into socialism. The traditions formed by several thousands of years of feudal despotism stubbornly maintain their strong hold over thought, culture, education, law, and virtually every other sphere of the superstructure. . . .
Under the conditions of proletarian dictatorship, how can the people’s rights, under the centralized leadership of the Party, be protected in the struggle against the capitalist roaders and incorrect lines in the Party? This is the big topic facing the Fourth National People’s Congress.
Needless to say, the Party’s leadership should carefully listen to the masses’ opinions, and it should be needless to note the people’s own rights to implement revolutionary supervision over all levels of the Party’s leadership. It is even more unnecessary to say that rebelling against the capitalist roaders is justified. Even though the masses’ opinion might be incorrect or excessive, or even if they become discontented because of misunderstanding certain Party policies, is it justified to implement a policy of “suppress if persuasion fails and arrest if suppression fails"? Moreover, the fragrant flower and the poisonous weed, correct and incorrect, and revolutionary and counterrevolutionary, are not always easy to distinguish. It takes a long process and has to stand the test of time. Therefore, we should not be frightened by an open and honorable opposition so long as it observes discipline and plays no tricks and engages in no conspiracy.
The Fourth National People’s Congress should enact regulations clearly in black and white that . . . will . . . protect all the democratic rights rightfully belonging to the masses.
Limitation of Special Privileges
We are not utopian socialists. We recognize that in the present stage of our society there exist various types of differences, which cannot be completely destroyed by a decree alone. However, the law of the development of a socialist revolutionary movement should not itself widen these differences but eliminate them, above all prohibit such differences from expanding into economic and political privileges. Special privilege itself is fundamentally in opposition to the interests of the people. Why should we avoid condemning such privileges? . . . The Fourth National People’s Congress should enact, in black and white, clauses limiting special privileges.
Guaranteeing the People’s Right to Manage the Country and Society
“Who has given us our power?” The people have. Our cadres should not become officials and behave like lords, but should be servants of the people. But power can corrupt people most easily. When a person’s status changes, it is most effective to test whether he is working for the interests of the majority or the minority. Whether he can maintain his spirit to serve the people depends, apart from his own diligence, mainly on the revolutionary supervision of the masses. And the mass movement is the richest source of the maintenance of the revolutionary spirit of the revolutionaries.
How should the masses’ right of revolutionary supervision over the Party’s and country’s various levels of leadership be determined? And how should it be clearly established that when certain cadres (especially high-level cadres of the central organs) lose the trust of the broad masses of people, the people “can replace them any time"?
The Fourth National People’s Congress should answer these questions.
[Adapted from Chan, Rosen, and U
nger, On Socialist Democracy, pp. 74–80]
1. A reference to the pact in 1939 between Stalin and Hitler that left the latter free to deal with Chamberlain and Britain.
2. Traditionally regarded as a role model.
PART 7
The Return to Stability and Tradition
Chapter 37
DENG’S “MODERNIZATION” AND ITS CRITICS
The era following the death of Mao and the demise of the so-called Gang of Four is identified with the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and his policies proclaimed under the banner of “modernization.” To the latter concept, problematical and contestable in almost any case, a special irony attaches here, after three decades of Maoist “liberation” and revolutionary struggle had failed to fulfill their modernizing goals. What remained to be done, and how, is the subject of the claims, proposals, and counterproposals put forward in the following by some of the leading actors and activists of this period.
In December 1978, veteran leader Deng Xiaoping and his allies gained control of the Party and government and began repudiating the policies of the Cultural Revolution while rehabilitating many of those purged during the last several decades. The new regime claimed it was returning, after Maoist deviations and distortions of Marxism, to orthodox or scientific socialism. It rejected class conflict and emphasized instead the building of the forces of production through the Four Modernizations of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. The modernization of these four sectors would then create the preconditions for bringing about true socialism, albeit at some vague point in the future. The regime, concurrently, began to emphasize its nationalist as well as socialist credentials, and later to portray itself as the protector of the Chinese cultural heritage.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 72