Cassius Clay
19th October 2003, 19:14
Enver Hoxha
Imperialism and the Revolution
Part Two
III
"MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT"
- AN ANTI-MARXIST THEORY
The present situation in the Communist Party of China, its many zig-zags and wavering, opportunist stands, the frequent changes of its strategy, the policy the Chinese leadership has been and is following to make China a superpower, quite naturally raise the problem of the place and role of Mao Tsetung and his ideas, the so-called Mao Tsetung thought, in the Chinese revolution.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is a "theory" devoid of the features of Marxism-Leninism. All the Chinese leaders, both those who were in power before and those who have seized power today, have always made great play with the "Mao Tsetung thought", in their forms of organization and ways of action, their strategic and tactical aims, in order to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice. Seeing the dubious activity, wavering and contradictory stands, the lack of principles and the pragmatism of Chinese internal and external policy, its deviation from Marxism-Leninism and the use of left phrases to disguise it, we Albanian Communists have gradually formed our opinions and conviction about the danger presented by "Mao Tsetung thought". When our Party was founded, during the National Liberation War, as well as after Liberation, our people had very little knowledge about China. But, like all the revolutionaries of the world, we, too, had formed an opinion that it was progressive: "China is a vast continent. China is fighting, the revolution against foreign imperialism, against concessions is seething in China", etc., etc.
We had some general knowledge about the activity of Sun Yat-sen, about his connections and friendship with the Soviet Union and with Lenin; we knew something about the Kuomintang, about the Chinese people's war against the Japanese and about the existence of the Communist Party of China, which was considered a great party, with a Marxist-Leninist, Mao Tsetung, at the head. And that was all.
Our Party had closer contacts with the Chinese only after 1956. The contacts steadily increased due to the struggle our Party was waging against Khrushchevite modern revisionism. At that time our contacts with the Communist Party of China, or more accurately, with its leading cadres, became more frequent and closer, especially when the Communist Party of China, too, entered into open conflict with the Khrushchevite revisionists. But we have to admit that in the meetings we had with the Chinese leaders, although they were good, comradely meetings, in some ways, China, Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, remained a great enigma to us.
But why were China, its Communist Party and Mao Tsetung an enigma? They were an enigma because many attitudes, whether general ones or the personal attitudes of Chinese leaders, towards a series of major political, ideological, military, and organizational problems vacillated, at times to the right, at times to the left. Sometimes they were resolute and at times irresolute, there were times, too, when they maintained correct stands, but more often it was their opportunist stands that caught the eye. During the entire period that Mao was alive, the Chinese policy, in general, was a vacillating one, a policy changing with the circumstances, lacking a Marxist-Leninist spinal cord. What they would say about an important political problem today they would contradict tomorrow. In the Chinese policy, one consistent enduring red thread could not be found.
Naturally, all these attitudes attracted our attention and we did not approve them, but nevertheless, from what we knew about the activity of Mao Tsetung, we proceeded from the general idea that he was a Marxist-Leninist. On many of Mao Tsetung's theses, such as that about the handling of the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie as non-antagonistic contradictions, the thesis about the existence of antagonistic classes during the entire period of socialism, the thesis that "the countryside should encircle the city", which absolutizes the role of the peasantry in the revolution, etc., we had our reservations and our own Marxist-Leninist views, which, whenever we could, we expressed to the Chinese leaders. Meanwhile, certain other political views an stands of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, which were not compatible with the Marxist-Leninist views and stands of our Party, we considered as temporary tactics of a big state, dictated by specific situations. But, with the passage of time, it became ever more clear that the stands maintained by the Communist Party of China were not just tactics.
By analysing the facts, our Party arrived at some general and specific conclusions, which made it vigilant, but it avoided polemics with the Communist Party of China and Chinese leaders, not because it was afraid to engage in polemics with them, but because the facts, which it had about the erroneous, anti-Marxist course of this party and Mao Tsetung himself, were incomplete, and still did not permit the drawing of a final conclusion. On the other hand, for a time, the Communist Party of China did oppose US imperialism and reaction. It also took a stand against Soviet Khrushchevite revisionism, though it is now clear that its struggle against Soviet revisionism was not dictated from correct, principled Marxist-Leninist positions.
Besides this, we did not have full knowledge about the internal political, economic, cultural, social life, etc. in China. The organization of the Chinese party and state have always been a closed book to us. The Communist Party of China gave us no possibility at all to study the forms of organization of the Chinese party and state. We Albanian communists knew only the general outlines of the state organization of China and nothing more; we were given no possibilities to acquaint ourselves with the experience of the party in China, to see how it operated, how it was organized, in what directions things were developing in different sectors and what these directions were concretely.
The Chinese leaders have acted with guile. They have not made public many documents necessary for one to know the activity of their party and state. They were and are very wary of publishing their documents. Even those few published documents at our disposal are fragmentary.
The four volumes of Mao's works, which can be considered official, are comprised of materials written no later than 1949, but besides this, they are carefully arranged in such a way that they do not present an exact picture of the real situations that developed in China. The political and theoretical presentation of problems in the Chinese press, not to speak of literature, which was in utter disarray had only a propaganda character. The articles were full of typically Chinese stereotyped formulas expressed arithmetically, such as "the Three Goods and the Five Evils", "the Four Olds and Four News", "the Two Reminders and Five Self-controls", "the Three Truths and Seven Falses", etc., etc. We found it difficult to work out the "theoretical." sense of these arithmetical figures, because we are used to thinking, acting and writing according to the traditional Marxist-Leninist theory and culture.
The Chinese leaders did not invite any delegation from our Party to study their experience. And when some delegation has gone there on our Party's request, the Chinese have engaged in propaganda and taken it here and there for visits to cornmunes and factories rather than give it some explanation or experience about the work of the party. And towards whom did they maintain this strange stand? Towards us Albanians, their friends, who have defended them in the most difficult situations. All these actions were incomprehensible to us, but also a signal that the Communist Party of China did not want to give us a clear picture of its situation.
But what attracted our Party's attention most was the Cultural Revolution, which raised a number of major questions in our minds. During the Cultural Revolution, initiated by Mao Tsetung, astonishing political, ideological and organizational ideas and actions came to light in the activity of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state, which were not based on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. In judging their previous dubious actions, as well as those observed during the Cultural Revolution, and especially the events following this revolution up till now, the rises and falls of this or that group in the leadership, today the group of Lin Piao, tomorrow that of Teng Hsiao-ping, a Hua Kuo-feng, etc., each of which had its own platform opposed to the other's, all these things impelled our Party to delve more deeply into the views and actions of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, to get a more thorough knowledge of "Mao Tsetung thought" When we saw that this Cultural Revolution was not being led by the party but was a chaotic outburst following a call issued by Mao Tsetung, this did not seem to us to be a revolutionary stand. It was Mao's authority in China that made millions of unorganized youth, students and pupils, rise to their feet and march on Peking, on party and state committees, which they dispersed. It was said that these young people represented the "proletarian ideology" in China at that time and would show the party and the proletarians the "true" road!
Such a revolution, which had a pronounced political character, was called a cultural revolution. In our Party's opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this "reat proletarian revolution". This grave situation stemmed from Mao Tsetung's old anti-Marxist concepts of underestimation of the leading role of the proletariat and overestimation of the youth in the revolution. Mao wrote: "What role did the Chinese young people begin to play since the 'May 4th Movement'? In a way they began to play a vanguard role - a fact recognised by everybody in our country except the ultra-reactionaries. What is a vanguard role? It means taking the lead...". Mao
Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded. This was a very grave situation.
Our Party supported the Cultural Revolu~ tion, because the victories of the revolution in China were in danger. Mao Tsetung himself told us that power in the party and state there had been usurped by the renegade group of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and the victories of the Chinese revolution were in danger. In these conditions, no matter who was to blame that matters had gone so far, our Party supported the Cultural Revolution.
Our Party defended the fraternal Chinese people, the cause of the revolution and socialism in China, and not the factional strife of anti-Marxist groups, which were clashing and fighting with one another, even with guns, in order to seize power.
The course of events showed that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and in particular, not in the least proletarian. It was a palace Putsch on an all-China scale for the liquidation of a handful of reactionaries who had seized power.
Of course ' this Cultural Revolution was a hoax. It liquidated both the Communist Party of China, and the mass organizations and plunged China into new chaos. This revoltion was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements.
In our press Mao Tsetung has been described as a great Marxist-Leninist, but we never used and never approved the definitions of the Chinese propaganda which described Mao as a classic of Marxism-Leninism, and "Mao Tsetung thought" as its third and higher stage. Our Party has considered the inflation of the cult of Mao Tsetung in China to be incompatible with Marxism-Leninism.
The chaotic development of the Cultural Revolution and its results further strengthened the opinion, still not fully crystallized, that MarxismLeninism was not known and was not being applied in China, that in essence, the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung did not hold MarxistLeninist views, regardless of the faqade and the slogans they used about "the proletariat, its dictatorship, and its alliance with the poor peasantry", and many other such shibboleths.
In the light of these events, our Party began to look more deeply into the causes of the vacillations which had been observed in the stand of the Chinese leadership towards Khrushchevite revisionism, such as the instance in 1962, when it sought reconciliation and unity with the Soviet revisionists, allegedly in the name of a common front against American imperialism, or in 1964, when, continuing the efforts for reconciliation with the Soviets, Chou En-lai went to Moscow to hail the coming to power of the Brezhnev group. These vacillations were not accidental. They reflected the lack of revolutionary principles and consistency. When Nixon was invited to China, and the Chinese leadership, with Mao Tsetung at the head, proclaimed the policy of rapprochement and unity with American imperialism, it became clear that the Chinese line and policy were in total opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Following this, China's chauvinist and hegemonic ambitions began to become clearer. The Chinese leadership started to oppose the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, the world proletariat, and the genuine Marxist-Leninist movement more openly. It proclaimed the so-called theory of the "three worlds", which it was trying to impose on the entire Marxist-Leninist movement as its general line.
For the sake of the interests of the revolution and socialism, and thinking that the mistakes observed in the line of the Communist Party of China were due to incorrect assessments of situations and to various difficulties, the Party of Labour of Albania has tried, more than once, to help the Chinese leadership correct and overcome them. -Our Party has openly expressed its views, in a sincere and comradely way, to Mao Tsetung and other Chinese leaders, and on many of China's actions which directly affected the general line of the Marxist-Leninist movement, the interests of the peoples and revolution, it has made its remarks and disagreement known to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China officially and in writing. welcomed to correct and principled remarks of our Party. It has never replied to them and has never agreed even to discuss them. Meanwhile the anti-Marxist actions of the Chinese leadership at home and abroad became more flagrant and more obvious. All this compelled our Party, like all the other Marxist-Leninists, to reappraise the line of the Communist Party of China, the political and ideological concepts by which it has been guided, its concrete activity and its consequences. As a result we saw that Mao Tsetung thought-, by which the Communist Party of China has been and is being guided, represents a dangerous variant of modern revisionism, against which an all-round struggle on the theoretical and political plane must be waged.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is a variant of revisionism, which began to take shape even before the
Second World War, especially after 1935, when Mao Tsetung came to power. In this period Mao Tsetung and his supporters launched a "theoretical" campaign under the slogan of the struggle against "dogmatism", "ready-made patterns", "foreign stereotypes", etc., and raised the problem of elaboratine a national Marxism, negating the universal character of Marxism-Leninism. Instead Of Marxism-Leninism he preached the "Chinese way" of treating problems, and the Chinese style ".... lively and fresh, pleasant to the ears and eyes of the Chinese people" (Mao), in this way propagating the revisionist thesis that in each country Marxism should have its individual, specific content.
"Mao Tsetung thought" was proclaimed as the highest stage of Marxism-Leninism in the present era. The Chinese leaders have declared that "Mao Tsetung has achieved more than Marx, Engels, and Lenin...". The Constitution of the Communist Party of China, approved at its 9th Congress, which was held under Mao Tsetung's leadership, says that "Mao Tsetung thought is the Marxism-Leninism of the era ... ", that Mao Tse-tung "....has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and has raised it to a newhigher stage". Basing the activity of the party on "Mao Tsetung thought" instead of on the principles and norms of Marxism-Leninism opened the doors even more widely to opportunism and factional struggle within the ranks of the Communist Party of China. "Mao Tsetung thought" is an amalgam of views in which ideas and theses borrowed from Marxism are mixed up with idealist, pragmatic and revisionist principles from other philosophies.
It has its roots in ancient Chinese philosophy, and in the political and ideological past, in the state and militarist practice of China. All the Chinese leaders, those who have taken power at present as well as those who have been in and who have fallen from power, but who have manoeuvred to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice, have had and have "Mao Tsetung thought" as their ideological basis. Mao Tsetung himself has admitted that his thoughts can be exploited by all, both by the leftists and the rightists, as he calls the various groups that comprise the Chinese leadership. In the letter he wrote to Chiang Ching on July 8, 1966, Mao Tsetung affirms, "the rightists in power might use my words to make themselves powerful for a certain time, but the left can use other words of mine and organize itself to overthrow the rightists"(Le Monde dec. '72). This shows that Mao Tsetung was not a Marxist-Leninist, that his views are eclectic. This is apparent in all Mao's "theoretical works" which, although camouflaged with "revolutionary" phraseology and slogans, cannot conceal the fact that "Mao Tsetung thought" has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism.
A critical survey of Mao's writings, even ofpart of them, of the way he treats the fundamental problems concerning the role of the communist party, the questions of the revolution, the construction of socialism, etc., makes the radical difference between "Mao Tsetung thought" and Marxism-Leninism completely clear. Let us first consider the question of the organization of the Party and its leading role. Mao pretended to be for the application of the Leninist principles on the party, but if his ideas on the party and, especially, the practice of the life of the party are analysed concretely, it becomes evident that he has replaced the Leninist principles and norms with revisionist theses.
Mao Tsetung has not organized the Communist Party of China on the basis of the principles of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. He has not worked to make it a party of the Leninist type, a Bolshevik party. Mao Tsetung was not for a proletarian class party, but for a party without class restrictions. He has used the slogan of giving the party a mass character in order to wipe out the distinction between the party and the class. As a result, anybody could enter or leave this party whenever he liked. On this question "Mao Tsetung thought" is identical with the views of the Yugoslav revisionists and the "Eurocommunists".
Besides this, Mao Tsetung has always made the building of the party, its principles and norms dependent on his political stands and interests, dependent on his opportunist, sometimes rightist and sometimes leftist, adventurist policy, the struggle among factions, etc.
There has been and there is no true MarxistLeninist unity of thought and action in the Communist Party of China. The strife among factions, which has existed since the founding of the Communist Party of China, has meant that a correct Marxist-Leninist line has not been laid down in this party, and it has not been guided by Marxist-Leninist thought. The various tendencies which manifested themselves among the main leaders of the party were at times leftist, at times right opportunist, sometimes centrist, and going as far as openly anarchist, chauvinist and racist views. During the whole time Mao Tsetung and the group around him were at the head of the party, these tendencies were among the distinctive features of the Communist Party of China. Mao Tsetung himself has advocated the need for the existence of "two lines" in the party. According to him, the existence and struggle between two lines is something natural, is a manifestation of the unity of the opposites, is a flexible policy which unites in itself both loyalty to principles and compromise. "Thus," he writes, "we have two hands to deal with a comrade who has made mistakes: one hand to struggle with him and the other to unite with him. The aim of this struggle is to uphold the principles of Marxism, which means being principled; that is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is to unite with him. The aim of unity is to offer him a way out, to reach a compromise with him".
These views are diametrically opposed to the Leninist teachings on the communist party as an organized vanguard detachment which must have a single line and steel unity of thought and action.
The class struggle in the ranks of the party, as a reflection of the class struggle going on outside the party, has nothing in common with Mao Tsetung's concepts on the "two lines in the party". The party is not an arena of classes and the struggle between antagonistic classes, it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims. The genuine Marxist-Leninist party is the party of the working class only and bases itself on the interests of this class. This is the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Defending the Leninist principles on the party, which do not permit the existence of many lines, of opposing trends in the communist party, J. V. Stalin emphasized:
" ... the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes." Mao
Mao Tsetung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the "proletarian staff" and the ,"ourgeois staff", which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous. "The entire country," he says, "the whole world knows well that they have made mistakes in the line and the fact that they are well known is precisely the reason for electing them. What can you do about it? They are well known, but you who have made no mistakes or have made only small ones don't have as big a reputation as theirs. In a country like ours with its very large petty-bourgeoisie they are two standards". While renouncing principled struggle in the ranks of the party, Mao Tsetung played the game of factions, sought -compromise with some of them to counter some others and thus consolidate his own positions. With such an organizational platform, the Communist Party of China has never been and never Could be a Marxist-Leninist party. The Leninist principles and norms were not respected in it. The congressof the party, its highest collective organ, has not been convened regularly. For instance, 11 years went by between the 7 th and the 8th congresses. and after the war, 13 years between the 8th and the 9th congresses. Besides this, the congresses which were held were formal, more parades than working meetings. The delegates to the congresses were not elected in conformity with the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the life of the party, but were appolinted by the leading organs and acted according to the system of permanent representation.
Recently, "Renmin Ribao" published an article by a so-called theoretical group oil the "General Directory" of the Central Commitee of the Communist Party of China. (Always Keep in Mind the Teachings of Chairman Mao - Sept. '77) This article says that under the name of the "General Directory", Mao had set up around himself a special apparatus which kept the Political Bureau, the Central Committee of the Party, the caeres of the state, the army, the security service, etc., under surveillance and control. Entry to this Directory and knowledge of its work was forbidden to all, including the members of the CentraI Committee and the Political Bureau. Here plans for the bringing down or elevation of this or that factionalist group were worked out. The men of this Directory were present everywhere, they eaves-dropped, watched, and reported independently, Outside the control of the party. Apart from them, this Directory had at its disposal entire armed detachments, hidden under the name of the "Guard of Chairman Mao". This praetorian guard more than 50,000 strong went into action whenever the chairman wanted "to act with one blow", as has frequently occurred in the history of the Communist Party of China and as occured recently with the arrest of "The Four" and their supporters by Hua Kuo-feng. Under the pretext of maintaining contacts with the masses, Mao Tsetung had also created a special network of informers among the population who were charged with the task of keeping the cadres of the base under surveillance and investigating the conditions and state of mind of the masses, without anybody's knowledge. They reported directly to Mao Tsetung alone, who had severed all means of communication with the masses and saw the world only through the reports of his agents of the "General Directory". Mao said, "For myself, I am a person who does not listen to the radio, either foreign or Chinese, but 1 only transmit". He also said, "I have stated openly that 1 shall no longer read the newspaper 'Renmin Ribao'. I told its Editor-in-chief 'I do not read your paper'". (From Mao conversation with comrades from our Party, Feb. 3, 1967. Central Archivals of the Party of Labour of Albania).
The article of "Renmin Ribao" provides new information which enables one to understand even more clearly the anti-Marxist direction and personal power of Mao Tsetung in the Chinese party and state. Mao Tsetung did not have the slightest respect for either the Central Committee or the congress of the party, let alone the party as a whole and its committees at the base. The party committees, the leading cadres and the Central Committee itself received orders from the "General Directory", this "special staff", which was responsible to Mao Tsetung alone. The party forums, its elected organs, had no authority what~ soever. The article of "Renmin Ribao" says, "no telegram, no letter, no document, no order could be issued by anybody without first going through Mao Tsetung's hands and being approved by him". It turns out that as early as 1953, Mao Tsetung had issued a clear-cut order: "From now on, all documents and telegrams sent out in the name of the Central Committee can be dispatched only after I have gone over them, otherwise they are invalid". (Mao) Under these conditions there can be no talk of collective leadership, democracy within the party, or Leninist norms.
Mao Tsetung's unlimited power was so farreaching that he even appointed his heirs. At one time he had appointed Liu Shao-chi as his successor. Later he declared that his heir to the state and the party after his death would be Lin Piao. This, a thing unprecedented in the practice of Marxist-Leninist parties, was even sanctioned in the Constitution of the party. Again it was Mao Tsetung who designated Hua Kuo-feng to be chairman of the party after his death. Having power in his hands, Mao alone criticized, judged, punished and later rehabilitated top leaders of the party and state. This was the case even with Teng Hsiao-ping, who, in his so-called self-criticism of October 23, 1966, stated: "Liu Shao-chi and I are real monarchists. The essence of my mistakes lies in the fact that I have no faith in the masses, do not support the revolutionary masses, but am opposed to them. I have followed a reactionary line to suppress the revolution. In the class struggle I have been on the side not of the proletariat, but of the bourgeoisie... All this shows that... I am unfit to hold posts of responsibility".(From the self-crityicism of Teng Hsiao-ping). And despite these crimes which this inveterate revisionist has committed, he was put back in his former seat.
The anti-Marxist essence of "Mao Tsetung thought" on the party and its role is also apparent in the way the relations between the party and the army were conceived in theory and applied in practice. Irrespective of the shibboleths of Mao Tsetung about the "party being above the army", "politics above the gun", etc. etc.. in practice, he left the main political role in the life of the country to the army. At the time of the war, he said, "All the army cadres should be good at leading the workers and organizing trade-unions, good at mobilizing and organizing the youth, good at uniting with and training caeres in the newly Liberated Areas, good at managing industry and commerce, good at running schools, newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting stations, good at handling foreign affairs, good at handling problems relating to the democratic parties and people's organizations, good at adjusting the relations between the cities and the rural areas and solving the problems of food, coal and other daily necessities and good at handling monetary and financial problems". (Mao)
So the army was above the party, above the state organs, above everything. From this it emerges that Mao Tsetung's words regarding the role of the party, as the decisive factor of the leadership of revolution and socialist construction, were only slogans. Both at the time of the liberation war and after the creation of the People's Republic of China, in all the never-ending struggles that have been waged there for the seizure of power by one faction or the other, the army has played the decisive role. During the Cultural Revolution, too, the army played the main role; it was Mao's last resort. In 1967, Mao Tsetung said, "We rely on the strength of the army... We had only two divisions in Peking, but we brought in another two in May in order to settle accounts with the former Peking Party Committee". (From the conversation of Mao tsetung with the friendship Delegation of the PRA, dec. 18, 1967).
In order to liquidate his ideological opponents, Mao Tsetung has always set the army in motion. He raised the army, with Lin Piao at the head, against the Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiaoping group. Later, together with Chou En-lai, he organized and threw the army against Lin Piao. Inspired by "Mao Tsetung thought", the army has played the same role even after the death of Mao. Like all those who have come to power in China, Hua Ktio-feng, also, relied on and acted through the army. Right after Mao's death, he immediately roused the army, and together with the armyrnen, Yeh Chien-ying, Wang Tung-lisin and others, engineered the putsch and arrested his opponents. Power in China is still in the hands of the army, while party tails behind it. This is a general characteristic of countries where revisionism prevails. Genuine socialist countries strengthen the army as a powerful weapon of the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to crush the enemies of socialism in case they rise up, as well as to defend the country from an eventual attack by the imperialists and foreign reaction. But, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us, for the army to play this role it must always be under the direction of the party and not the party under the direction of the army.
At present the most powerful factions of the army, the most reactionary ones, which aim to turn China into a social-imperialist country, are making the law in China.
In the future, along with the transformation of China into an imperialist superpower, the role and the power of the army in the life of the country will steadily increase. It will be strengthened as a praetorian guard, armed to the teeth, for the defence of a capitalist regime and economy. It will be the tool of a bourgeois capitalist dictatorship, a dictatorship which, if the people's resistance is strong, may even assume open fascist forms.
By preaching the need for the existence of many parties in the leadership of the country, the so-called political pluralism, "Mao Tsetung thought" falls into complete opposition to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the indivisible role of the communist party in the revolution and socialist construction. As he declared to E. Snow, Mao Tsetung considered the leadership of a country by several political parties, after the American model, the most democratic form of government. "Which is better in the final analysis," Mao Tsetung asked, "to have just one party or several?"And he answered, "As we see it now, it's perhaps better to have several parties. This has been true in the past and may well be so for the future; it means long-term coexistence and mutual supervision". Mao regarded the participation of bourgeois parties in the state power and the governing of the country with the same rights and prerogatives as the Communist Party of China as necessary. And not only this, but these parties of the bourgeoisie, which according to him "were historical", should wither away only when the Communist Party of China also withers away, that is, they will coexist right up till communism.
According to "Mao Tsetung thought", a new democratic regime can exist and socialism can be built only on the basis of the collaboration of all classes and all parties. Sue a concept of socialist democracy, of the socialist political system, which is based on "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision" of all parties, and which is very much like the current preachings of the Italian, French, Spanish and other revisionists, is an open denial of the leading and indivisible role of the Marxis-Leninist party in the revolution and the construction of socialism. Historical experience has already proved that the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist and socialism cannot be built and defended without the indivisible leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party.
"...the dictatorship of the proletariat," said Stalin, "can be complete only when it is led by a party, the party of the communists, which does not and should not share the leadership with other parties". (Stalin)
The revisionist concepts of Mao Tsetung have their basis in the policy of collaboration and alliance with the bourgeoisie, which the Communist Party of China has always applied. This is also the source of the anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist course of "letting 100 flowers blossom and 100 schools contend", which is a direct expression of the coexistence of opposing ideologies.
According to Mao Tsetung, in socialist society, side by side with the proletarian ideology, materialism and atheism, the existence of bourgeois ideology, idealism and religion, the growth of "poisonous weeds" along with "fragrant flowers", etc., must be permitted. Such a course is alleged to be necessary for the development of Marxism, in order to open the way to debate and freedom of thought, while in reality, through this course, he is trying to lay the theoretical basis for the policy of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and coexistence with its ideology. Mao Tsetung says, "... it is a dangerous policy to prohibit people from coming into contact with the false, the ugly and the hostile to us, with idealism and metaphysics and with the thoughts of Confucius, Lao Tze and Chiang Kai-shek. It would lead to mental deterioration, one-track minds, and unpreparedness to face the world...". (Mao) From this Mao Tsetung draws the conclusion that idealism, metaphysics and the bourgeois ideology will exist eternally, therefore not only must they not be prohibited, but they must be given the possibility to blossom, to come out in the open and contend. This conciliatory stand towards everything reactionary goes so far as to call disturbances in socialist society inevitable and the prohibition of enemy activity mistaken. "In my opinion," says he, "whoever wants to provoke trouble may do so for so long as he pleases; and if one month is not enough, he may go on for two, in short, the matter should not be wound up until he feels he has had enoucgh. If you hastily wind it up, sooner or later trouble will resume again". (Mao)
All these have not been academic contributions to a -scientific- discussion but a counterrevolutionary opportunist political line which has been set up in opposition to Marxism-Leninism, which has disorganized the Communist Party of China, in the ranks of which a hundred and one views and ideas have been circulating and today there really are 100 schools contending. This has enabled the bourgeois wasps to circulate freely in the garden of 100 flowers and release their venom.
This opportunist stand on ideological questions has its roots, among other things, also in the fact that throughout the whole period from its foundation up till it achieved the liberation of its country and later, the Communist Party of China has made no effort to consolidate itself ideologically, has not worked to inculcate the theory of Marx, Engels. Lenin and Stalin into the minds and hearts of its members, has not struggled to master the fundamental questions of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and apply them consistently, step by step, in the concrete -conditions of China.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is opposed to the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. In his writings Mao Tsetung makes frequent mention of the role of revolutions in the process of the development of society, but in essence he adheres to a metaphysical, evolutionist concept. Contrary to materialist dialectics, which envisages progressive development in the form of a spiral, Mao Tsetung preaches development in the form of a cycle, going round in a circle, as a process of ebb and flow which goes from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back to equilibrium again, from motion to rest and back to motion again, from rise to fall and from fall to rise, from advance to retreat and to advance again, etc. Thus, upholding the concept of ancient philosophy on the purifying role of fire, Mao Tsetung writes: "It is necessary to 'set a fire going' at regular intervals. How often? Once a year or once every three years, which do you prefer? I think we should do it at least twice in the space of every five years, in the same way as the intercalary month in a lunar leap year turns up once in three years or twice in five". (Mao) Thus like the astrologists of old, on the basis of the lunar calendar, he derives the law on the periodical kindling of fire, on the development which goes from "great harmony" to -great disorder- and again to "great harmony", and thus the cycles repeat themselves periodically.
In this manner, "Mao Tsetung thought" opposes the materialist dialectical concept of development, which, as Lenin says
"...gives us the key to understand the 'selfmovement' of every existing thing;... gives us the key to understand the 'leaps', 'the interruption of graduality', 'the transformation into the opposite', the abolition of the old and the emergence of the new",
with the metaphysical concept which "is lifeless, pale and dry". This becomes even more obvious in the way Mao Tsetung handles the problem of contradictions, to which, according to Chinese propaganda, Mao has allegedly made a "special contribution" and developed materialist dialectics further in this field. It is true that in many of his writings, Mao Tsetung frequently speaks about opposites, contradictions, the unity of the opposites, and even uses Marxist quotations and phrases, but, nevertheless, he is far from the dialectical materialist understanding of these problems. In dealing with contradictions, he does not proceed from the Marxist theses, but from those of ancient Chinese philosophers, sees the opposites in a mechanical way, as external phenomena, and imagines the transformation of the opposites as a simple change of places between them. By operating with some eternal opposites taken from ancient philosophy, such as above and below, backward and forward, right and left, light and heavy, etc., etc., in essence Mao Tsetung negates the internal contradictions inherent in things and phenomena and treats development as simple repetition, as a chain of unchangeable states in which the same opposites and the same relationship between them are observed. The mutual transformation of the opposites into each other, understood as a mere exchange of places and not as a resolution of the contradiction and a qualitative change of the very phenomenon which comprises these opposites, is used by Mao Tsetung as a formal pattern to which everything is subject. On the basis of this pattern, Mao goes so far as to declare that "When dogmatism is transformed into its opposite, it becomes either Marxism or revisionism", "metaphysics is transformed into dialectics, and dialectics into metaphysics", etc. Behind such absurd assertions and this sophistical playing with opposites, lurk the opportunist and anti-revolutionary concepts of Mao Tsetung. Thus, he does not see the socialist revolution as a qualitative change of society in which antagonistic classes and the oppression and exploitation of man by man are abolished, but conceives it as a simple change of places between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. To confirm this "discovery", Mao writes: "If the bourgeoisie and the proletariat cannot transform themselves into each other, how does it come that, through revolution, the proletariat becomes the ruling class and the bourgeoisie the ruled class?... We stand in diametrical opposition to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang. As a result of the mutual struggle and exclusion of the two contradictory aspects with the Kuomintang we changed places...". (Mao)
This same logic has also led Mao Tsetung to revise the Marxist-Leninist theory on the two phases of communist society. "According to dialectics, as surely as a man must die, the socialist system as a historical phenomenon will come to an end some day, to be negated by the communist system. If it is asserted that the socialist system and the relations of production and superstructure of socialism will not die out, what kind of Marxist thesis would that be? Wouldn't it be the same as a religious creed or theology that preaches an everlasting god?" (Mao)
In this way, openly revising the Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism and communism, which, in essence, are two phases of the one type, of the one socio-economic order, and which are distinguished from each other only by the degree of their development and maturity, Mao Tsetung presents socialism as something diametrically opposite to communism.
From such metaphysical and anti-Marxist concepts, Mao Tsetung treats the question of the revolution in general, which he regards as an endless process which is repeated periodically throughout the whole period of the existence of mankind on earth, as a process which goes from defeat to victory, from victory to defeat, and so on endlessly. Mao Tsetung's anti-Marxist concepts, sometimes evolutionist and sometimes anarchist, about the revolution are even more apparent when he deals with the problems of the revolution in China.
As emerges from his writings, Mao Tsetung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory in analysing the problems and defining the tasks of the Chinese revolution. In his speech delivered at the enlarged working conference called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in January 1962, he himself admits: "Our many years of revolutionary work have been carried out blindly, not knowing how the revolution should be, carried out, and against whom the spearhead of the revolution should be directed, without a concept of its stages, whom it had to overthrow first and whom later, etc.". This has made the Communist Party of China incapable of ensuring the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and transforming it into a socialist revolution. The entire development of the Chinese revolution is evidence of the chaotic course of the Communist Party of China, which has not been guided by MarxismLeninism, but by the anti-Marxist concepts of "Mao Tsetung thought" on the character of the revolution, its stages, motive forces, etc.
Mao Tsetung was never able to understand and explain correctly the close links between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution. Contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theory, which has proved scientifically that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, that these two revolutions do not have to be divided from each other by a long period of time, Mao Tsetung asserted: "The transformation of our revolution into socialist revolution is a matter of the future... As to when the transition will take place... it may take quite a long time. We should not hold forth about this transition until all the necessary political and economic conditions are present and until it is advantageous and not detrimental to the overwhelming majority of our people". (Mao)
Mao Tsetung adhered to this anti-Marxist concept, which is not for the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution socialist revolution, during the whole period of the revolution, even after liberation. Thus, in -1940, Mao Tsetung said: "The Chinese revolution must necessarily pass through... the stage A New Democracy and then the stage of socialism. Of these, the first stage will need a relatively long time....". (Mao)
In March 1949, at the plenum of Central Committee of the Party, at which Mao Tsetung submitted the program for China's development after liberation, he says: "During this period all the elements of capitalism, of town and countryside, must be permitted to exist". These views and "theories" brought about that the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung did not fight for the transformation of the revolution in China into a socialist revolution but left a free fild for the development of the bourgeoisie and caipitalist social relations.
On the question of the relationship between the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, Mao Tsetung takes the standpoint of the chiefs of the Second International, who were the first to attack and distort theMarxist-Leninist theory about the rise of the revolution and came out with the thesis that between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, there is a long period, during which the bourgeoisie develops capitalism and creates the conditions for the transition to the proletarian revolution. They regarded the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into socialist revolution, without giving capitalism the possibility to develop further, as something impossible, as skipping stages. Mao Tsetung, too, fully endorses this concept, when he says: "It would be a sheer utopia to try to build socialism on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democratic state, . . . without the development of the private capitalist economy...". (Mao)
The anti-Marxist concepts of "Mao Tsetung thought" about the revolution are even more obvious in the way Mao has treated the motive forces of the revolution. Mao Tsetung did not recognize the hegemonic role of the proletariat. Lenin said that in the period of imperialism, in every revolution, hence, also in the democratic revolution, the anti-imperialist national liberation revolution and the socialist revolution, the leadership must belong to the proletariat. Although he talked about the role of the proletariat, in practice Mao Tsetung underestimated its hegemony in the revolution and elevated the role of the peasantry. Mao Tsetung has said: "....the resistance to Japanese occupiers now going on is essentially peasant resistance. Essentially, the politics of New Democracy means giving power to the peasants". (Mao)
Mao Tsetung expressed this petty-bourgeois theory in his general thesis that the "countryside must encircle the city". "... revolutionary villges", he wrote, "can encircle the cities... rural work should play the primary role in the Chinese revolutionary movement and urban work a secondary role". (Mao) Mao expressed this idea also when he wrote about the role of the peasantry in the state. He has said that all other political parties and forces must submit to the peasantry and its views. "... millions of peasants will rise like a mighty storm, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back...," he writes. "They will put to the test every revolutionary party and group, every revolutionary, so that they either accept their views or reject them".. (Mao) According to Mao, it turns out that the peasantry and not the working class should play the hegemonic role in the revolution.
Mao Tsetung also preached the thesis on the hegemonic role of the peasantry in the revolution as the road of the world revolution. Herein lies the source of the anti-Marxist concept that considers the so-called third world, which in Chinese political literature is also called "the countryside of the world", as the "main motive force for the transformation of present-day society". According to the Chinese views, the proletariat is a secondrate social force, which cannot play that role which Marx and Lenin envisaged in the struggle against capitalism and the triumph of the revolution, in alliance with all the forces oppressed by capital.
The Chinese revolution has been dominated by the petty-and middle bourgeoisie. This broad stratum of the petty-bourgeoisie has influenced the whole development of China.
Mao Tsetung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory which teaches us that the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie in general, is vacillating. Of course, the poor and middle peasantry play an important role in the revolution and must become the close ally of the proletariat. But the peasant class, the petty-bourgeoisie, cannot lead the proletariat in the revolution. To think and preach the opposite means to be against Marxism-Leninism. Herein lies one of the main sources of the anti-Marxist views of Mao Tsetung, which have had a negative influence on the whole Chinese revolution. The Communist Party of China has not been clear in theory about the basic revolutionary guiding principle of the hegemonic role of the proletariat in the revolution, and consequently it did not apply it in practice properly and consistently. Experience shows that the peasantry can play its revolutionary role only if it acts in alliance with the proletariat and under its leadership. This was proved in our country during the National Liberation War.
The Albanian peasantry was the main force of our revolution, however it was the working class, despite its very small numbers, which led the peasantry, because the Marxist-Leninist ideology, the ideology of the proletariat, embodied in the Communist Party, today the Party of Labour, the vanguard of the working class, was the leadership of the revolution. That is why we triumphed not only in the National Liberation War, but also in the construction of socialism.
Despite the innumerable difficulties we encountered on our road we scored success one after another. We achieved these successes, in the first place, because the Party thoroughly mastered the essence of the theory of Marx and Lenin, understood what the revolution was, who was making it and who had to lead it, understood that at the head of the working. class, in alliance with the peasantry, there had to be a party of the Leninist type. The communists understood that this party must not be communist only in name but had to be a party which would apply the Marxist-Leninist theory of the revolution and party building in the concrete conditions of our country, which would begin the work for the creation of the new socialist society, following the example of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of the time of Lenin and Stalin. This stand gave our Party the victory, gave the country the great political, economic and military strength it has today. Had we acted differently, had we not consistently applied these principles of our great theory, socialism could not have been built in a small country surrounded by enemies, as ours is. Even if we had succeeded in taking power for a moment, the bourgeoisie would have seized it back again, as happened in Greece, where before the struggle had been won, the Greek Communist Party surrendered its weapons to the local reactionary bourgeoisie and British imperialism.
Therefore, the question of hegemony in the revolution is a very important matter of principle because the course and development of the revolution depend on who is leading it.
"Renunciation of the idea of the hegemony," stressed Lenin, "is the most vulgar form of reformism".
The negation by "Mao Tsetung thought" of the leading role of the proletariat was precisely one of the causes that the Chinese revolution remained a bourgeois-democratic revolution and did not develop into a socialist revolution. In his. artiele "New Democracy", Mao Tsetung preached that after the triumph of the revolution in China a regime would be established which would be based on the alliance of the "democratic clases", in which, besides the peasantry and the. proletariat, he also included the urban pettybourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. ."Just as everyone should share what food there is," he writes, "so there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group or class". (Mao) This idea has also been reflected in the national flag of the People's Republic of China, with four stars which represent four classes: the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.
The revolution in China, which brought about the liberation of the country, the creation of the. independent Chinese state, was a great victory forthe Chinese people, and for the world anti-imperialist and democratic forces. After the liberation, many positive changes were made in China: the ddmination by foreign imperalism and big landowners was liquidated, poverty and unemploy-ent were combated, a series of socio-economic reforms in favour of the working masses were. carried out, the educational and cultural backwardness was fought against, a series of measures were taken for the reconstruction of the country ravaged by the war, and some transformations of a socialist character were made. In China, where people died by millions in the past, starvation no longer existed, etc. These are undeniable facts, and are important victories for the Chinese people.
From the adoption of these measures and the fact that the Communist Party came to power, it appeared as if China was going to socialism. But things did not turn out that way. Having "Mao Tsetung thought" as the basis of its activity, the Communist Party of China, which after the triumph of the bourgeois-democratic revolution ..Ought to have proceeded cautiously without being leftist and without skipping the stages, proved to be "democratic", liberal, opportunist, and did not lead the country consistently on the correct road to socialism.
The non-Marxist, eclectic, bourgeois political ,and ideological views of Mao Tsetung gave liberated China an unstable superstructure, a chaotic ,organization of the state and the economy which never achieved stability. China was in continuous .disorder, even anarchic disorder, which was encouraged by Mao Tsetung himself with the slogan "things must first be stirred up in order to clarify themm". In the new Chinese state Chou En-lal played .a special role. He was an able economist and organizer, but was never a Marxist-Leninist politician. As the typical pragmatist,t, he knew how to implement his non-Marxist views and adapt them perfectly to each group that took power in China. He was a poussah, tiao always managed to stay .on his feet, although he always rocked from the centre to the right, but but never to the left. Chou En-lai was a pastmaster of unprincipled compromises. He las supported and condemned Chiang Kai-shek, Kao Gang, Liti Shao-chilh, Teng Hsiao-ping, Mao Tsetung, Lin Piao, "The Four", but he has sever supported Lenin and Stalin, Marxism-Leninism. After liberation, as a result of the views and stands of Mao Tsetung, Chou En-lai and others, many waverings in alldirections were observed in the political line if the Party. The tendency advocated by "Mao Tsetung thought" that the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution had to continue for a long time, was kept alive in China. Mao Tsetung insisted that in this stage the remises for socialism would be created parallel with the development of capitalism, to which he priority. Also linked with this, is his thesis on the coexistence socialism with the bourgeoisie for a very long time, presenting this as something beneficial both to socialism and to the bourgeoisie. Replying to those who opposed such a policy and who brought up the experience of the October Socialist Revolution as an argument, Mao Tsetung says:"The bourgeoisie in Russia was a counterrevolutionary class, it rejected state capitalism at that time, organized slow-downs and sabotage and even resorted to the gun. The Russian Proletariat had no choice but to finish it off. This infuriated the bourgeoisie in other countries, and they became abusive. Here in China we have been relatively moderate with our national bourgeoisie who feel a little more comfortable and believe they can also find some advantage". (Mao) According to Mao Tsetung such a policy has allegedly improved China's reputation in the eyes of the international bourgeoisie, but in reality it has done great harm to socialism in China.
Mao Tsetung has presented his opportunist stand towards the bourgeoisie as a creative implementation of the teachings of Lenin on the New Economic Policy (NEP). But there is a radical difference between the teachings of Lenin and the concept of Mao Tsetung on allowing unrestricted capitalist production and maintaining bourgeois relations in socialism. Lenin admits that the NEP was a step back which allowed the development of elements of capitalism for a certain time, but he stressed:
"... there is nothing dangerous to the Proletarian state in this so long as the proletariat keeps political power firmly in its hands, so long as it keeps transport and big industry firmly in its hands". (Lenin)
In fact, neither in 1949 nor in 1956, when Mao Tsetung advocated these things, did the proletariat in China, have political power or big industry in its owm hands.
Moreover, Lenin considered the NEP as a temporary measure which was imposed by the concrete conditions of Russia of that time, devastated by the long civil war, and not as a universal law of of socialist construction. And the fact is that one year after the proclamation of the NEP Lenin stressed that the retreat was over, and launched the slogan to prepare for the offensive against private capital in the economy. Whereas in China, the period of the preservation of capitalist production was envisaged to last almost eternally. According to Mao Tsetung's view, the order established after liberation in China had to be a bourgeois-democratic order, while the Communist Party of China had to appear to be in power. Such is "Mao Tsetung thought".
The transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution can be realized only when the proletariat resolutely removes the bourgeoisie from power and expropriates it.
As long as the working class in China shared power with the bourgeoisie, as long as the bourgeoisie preserved its privileges, the state power that was established in China, could not be the state power of the proletariat, and consequently, the Chinese revolution could not grow into a socialist revolution.
The Communist Party of China has maintained a benevolent opportunist stand towards the exploiting classes, and Mao Tsetung has openly advocated the peaceful integration of capitalist elements into socialism. Mao Tsetung said: "Actually all ultra-reactionaries of the world are ultrareactionaries, and they will remain such tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, they will not remain such unto death, and in the end they change... Essentially, ultra-reactionaries are die-hards but not stable... It may happen that ultra-reactionaries may change for the better... they come to see their mistakes and change for the better. In short, ultra-reactionaries do change". (Mao)
In his desire to provide a theoretical basis for this opportunist concept, and playing on the "transformation of the opposites", Mao Tsetung said that through discussion, criticism and transformation, antagonistic contradictions are transformed into non-antagonistic contradictions, the exploiting classes and the bourgeois intelligentsia can turn into their opposite, that is, become revolutionaries. "However, given the conditions of our country," Mao Tsetung wrote in 1956, "most of the counterrevolutionaries will eventually change to a greater or lesser extent. Thanks to the correct policy we have adopted towards counterrevolutionaries, many have been transformed into persons no longer opposed to the revolution, and a few have even done some good to it".
Proceeding from such anti-Marxist concepts, according to which with the lapse of time the class enemies will be corrected, he advocated class conciliation with them and allowed them to continue to enrich themselves, to exploit, to speak, and to act freely against the revolution. To justify this capitulationist stand towards the class enemy, Mao Tsetung wrote: "We have a lot to do now. It is impossible to keep on hitting out at them day in day out for the next fifty years. There are people who refuse to correct their mistakes, they can take them into their coffins when they go to see the King of Hell". (Mao) Acting in practice according to these views of conciliation with the enemies, the state administration in China was left in the hands of the old officials. Chiang Kai-shek's generals even became ministers. Indeed, even Pu Yi, the emperor of Manchu-kuo, the puppet emperor of .the Japanese occupiers, was protected very carefully and turned into a museum
Imperialism and the Revolution
Part Two
III
"MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT"
- AN ANTI-MARXIST THEORY
The present situation in the Communist Party of China, its many zig-zags and wavering, opportunist stands, the frequent changes of its strategy, the policy the Chinese leadership has been and is following to make China a superpower, quite naturally raise the problem of the place and role of Mao Tsetung and his ideas, the so-called Mao Tsetung thought, in the Chinese revolution.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is a "theory" devoid of the features of Marxism-Leninism. All the Chinese leaders, both those who were in power before and those who have seized power today, have always made great play with the "Mao Tsetung thought", in their forms of organization and ways of action, their strategic and tactical aims, in order to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice. Seeing the dubious activity, wavering and contradictory stands, the lack of principles and the pragmatism of Chinese internal and external policy, its deviation from Marxism-Leninism and the use of left phrases to disguise it, we Albanian Communists have gradually formed our opinions and conviction about the danger presented by "Mao Tsetung thought". When our Party was founded, during the National Liberation War, as well as after Liberation, our people had very little knowledge about China. But, like all the revolutionaries of the world, we, too, had formed an opinion that it was progressive: "China is a vast continent. China is fighting, the revolution against foreign imperialism, against concessions is seething in China", etc., etc.
We had some general knowledge about the activity of Sun Yat-sen, about his connections and friendship with the Soviet Union and with Lenin; we knew something about the Kuomintang, about the Chinese people's war against the Japanese and about the existence of the Communist Party of China, which was considered a great party, with a Marxist-Leninist, Mao Tsetung, at the head. And that was all.
Our Party had closer contacts with the Chinese only after 1956. The contacts steadily increased due to the struggle our Party was waging against Khrushchevite modern revisionism. At that time our contacts with the Communist Party of China, or more accurately, with its leading cadres, became more frequent and closer, especially when the Communist Party of China, too, entered into open conflict with the Khrushchevite revisionists. But we have to admit that in the meetings we had with the Chinese leaders, although they were good, comradely meetings, in some ways, China, Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, remained a great enigma to us.
But why were China, its Communist Party and Mao Tsetung an enigma? They were an enigma because many attitudes, whether general ones or the personal attitudes of Chinese leaders, towards a series of major political, ideological, military, and organizational problems vacillated, at times to the right, at times to the left. Sometimes they were resolute and at times irresolute, there were times, too, when they maintained correct stands, but more often it was their opportunist stands that caught the eye. During the entire period that Mao was alive, the Chinese policy, in general, was a vacillating one, a policy changing with the circumstances, lacking a Marxist-Leninist spinal cord. What they would say about an important political problem today they would contradict tomorrow. In the Chinese policy, one consistent enduring red thread could not be found.
Naturally, all these attitudes attracted our attention and we did not approve them, but nevertheless, from what we knew about the activity of Mao Tsetung, we proceeded from the general idea that he was a Marxist-Leninist. On many of Mao Tsetung's theses, such as that about the handling of the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie as non-antagonistic contradictions, the thesis about the existence of antagonistic classes during the entire period of socialism, the thesis that "the countryside should encircle the city", which absolutizes the role of the peasantry in the revolution, etc., we had our reservations and our own Marxist-Leninist views, which, whenever we could, we expressed to the Chinese leaders. Meanwhile, certain other political views an stands of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, which were not compatible with the Marxist-Leninist views and stands of our Party, we considered as temporary tactics of a big state, dictated by specific situations. But, with the passage of time, it became ever more clear that the stands maintained by the Communist Party of China were not just tactics.
By analysing the facts, our Party arrived at some general and specific conclusions, which made it vigilant, but it avoided polemics with the Communist Party of China and Chinese leaders, not because it was afraid to engage in polemics with them, but because the facts, which it had about the erroneous, anti-Marxist course of this party and Mao Tsetung himself, were incomplete, and still did not permit the drawing of a final conclusion. On the other hand, for a time, the Communist Party of China did oppose US imperialism and reaction. It also took a stand against Soviet Khrushchevite revisionism, though it is now clear that its struggle against Soviet revisionism was not dictated from correct, principled Marxist-Leninist positions.
Besides this, we did not have full knowledge about the internal political, economic, cultural, social life, etc. in China. The organization of the Chinese party and state have always been a closed book to us. The Communist Party of China gave us no possibility at all to study the forms of organization of the Chinese party and state. We Albanian communists knew only the general outlines of the state organization of China and nothing more; we were given no possibilities to acquaint ourselves with the experience of the party in China, to see how it operated, how it was organized, in what directions things were developing in different sectors and what these directions were concretely.
The Chinese leaders have acted with guile. They have not made public many documents necessary for one to know the activity of their party and state. They were and are very wary of publishing their documents. Even those few published documents at our disposal are fragmentary.
The four volumes of Mao's works, which can be considered official, are comprised of materials written no later than 1949, but besides this, they are carefully arranged in such a way that they do not present an exact picture of the real situations that developed in China. The political and theoretical presentation of problems in the Chinese press, not to speak of literature, which was in utter disarray had only a propaganda character. The articles were full of typically Chinese stereotyped formulas expressed arithmetically, such as "the Three Goods and the Five Evils", "the Four Olds and Four News", "the Two Reminders and Five Self-controls", "the Three Truths and Seven Falses", etc., etc. We found it difficult to work out the "theoretical." sense of these arithmetical figures, because we are used to thinking, acting and writing according to the traditional Marxist-Leninist theory and culture.
The Chinese leaders did not invite any delegation from our Party to study their experience. And when some delegation has gone there on our Party's request, the Chinese have engaged in propaganda and taken it here and there for visits to cornmunes and factories rather than give it some explanation or experience about the work of the party. And towards whom did they maintain this strange stand? Towards us Albanians, their friends, who have defended them in the most difficult situations. All these actions were incomprehensible to us, but also a signal that the Communist Party of China did not want to give us a clear picture of its situation.
But what attracted our Party's attention most was the Cultural Revolution, which raised a number of major questions in our minds. During the Cultural Revolution, initiated by Mao Tsetung, astonishing political, ideological and organizational ideas and actions came to light in the activity of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state, which were not based on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. In judging their previous dubious actions, as well as those observed during the Cultural Revolution, and especially the events following this revolution up till now, the rises and falls of this or that group in the leadership, today the group of Lin Piao, tomorrow that of Teng Hsiao-ping, a Hua Kuo-feng, etc., each of which had its own platform opposed to the other's, all these things impelled our Party to delve more deeply into the views and actions of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, to get a more thorough knowledge of "Mao Tsetung thought" When we saw that this Cultural Revolution was not being led by the party but was a chaotic outburst following a call issued by Mao Tsetung, this did not seem to us to be a revolutionary stand. It was Mao's authority in China that made millions of unorganized youth, students and pupils, rise to their feet and march on Peking, on party and state committees, which they dispersed. It was said that these young people represented the "proletarian ideology" in China at that time and would show the party and the proletarians the "true" road!
Such a revolution, which had a pronounced political character, was called a cultural revolution. In our Party's opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this "reat proletarian revolution". This grave situation stemmed from Mao Tsetung's old anti-Marxist concepts of underestimation of the leading role of the proletariat and overestimation of the youth in the revolution. Mao wrote: "What role did the Chinese young people begin to play since the 'May 4th Movement'? In a way they began to play a vanguard role - a fact recognised by everybody in our country except the ultra-reactionaries. What is a vanguard role? It means taking the lead...". Mao
Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded. This was a very grave situation.
Our Party supported the Cultural Revolu~ tion, because the victories of the revolution in China were in danger. Mao Tsetung himself told us that power in the party and state there had been usurped by the renegade group of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and the victories of the Chinese revolution were in danger. In these conditions, no matter who was to blame that matters had gone so far, our Party supported the Cultural Revolution.
Our Party defended the fraternal Chinese people, the cause of the revolution and socialism in China, and not the factional strife of anti-Marxist groups, which were clashing and fighting with one another, even with guns, in order to seize power.
The course of events showed that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and in particular, not in the least proletarian. It was a palace Putsch on an all-China scale for the liquidation of a handful of reactionaries who had seized power.
Of course ' this Cultural Revolution was a hoax. It liquidated both the Communist Party of China, and the mass organizations and plunged China into new chaos. This revoltion was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements.
In our press Mao Tsetung has been described as a great Marxist-Leninist, but we never used and never approved the definitions of the Chinese propaganda which described Mao as a classic of Marxism-Leninism, and "Mao Tsetung thought" as its third and higher stage. Our Party has considered the inflation of the cult of Mao Tsetung in China to be incompatible with Marxism-Leninism.
The chaotic development of the Cultural Revolution and its results further strengthened the opinion, still not fully crystallized, that MarxismLeninism was not known and was not being applied in China, that in essence, the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung did not hold MarxistLeninist views, regardless of the faqade and the slogans they used about "the proletariat, its dictatorship, and its alliance with the poor peasantry", and many other such shibboleths.
In the light of these events, our Party began to look more deeply into the causes of the vacillations which had been observed in the stand of the Chinese leadership towards Khrushchevite revisionism, such as the instance in 1962, when it sought reconciliation and unity with the Soviet revisionists, allegedly in the name of a common front against American imperialism, or in 1964, when, continuing the efforts for reconciliation with the Soviets, Chou En-lai went to Moscow to hail the coming to power of the Brezhnev group. These vacillations were not accidental. They reflected the lack of revolutionary principles and consistency. When Nixon was invited to China, and the Chinese leadership, with Mao Tsetung at the head, proclaimed the policy of rapprochement and unity with American imperialism, it became clear that the Chinese line and policy were in total opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Following this, China's chauvinist and hegemonic ambitions began to become clearer. The Chinese leadership started to oppose the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, the world proletariat, and the genuine Marxist-Leninist movement more openly. It proclaimed the so-called theory of the "three worlds", which it was trying to impose on the entire Marxist-Leninist movement as its general line.
For the sake of the interests of the revolution and socialism, and thinking that the mistakes observed in the line of the Communist Party of China were due to incorrect assessments of situations and to various difficulties, the Party of Labour of Albania has tried, more than once, to help the Chinese leadership correct and overcome them. -Our Party has openly expressed its views, in a sincere and comradely way, to Mao Tsetung and other Chinese leaders, and on many of China's actions which directly affected the general line of the Marxist-Leninist movement, the interests of the peoples and revolution, it has made its remarks and disagreement known to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China officially and in writing. welcomed to correct and principled remarks of our Party. It has never replied to them and has never agreed even to discuss them. Meanwhile the anti-Marxist actions of the Chinese leadership at home and abroad became more flagrant and more obvious. All this compelled our Party, like all the other Marxist-Leninists, to reappraise the line of the Communist Party of China, the political and ideological concepts by which it has been guided, its concrete activity and its consequences. As a result we saw that Mao Tsetung thought-, by which the Communist Party of China has been and is being guided, represents a dangerous variant of modern revisionism, against which an all-round struggle on the theoretical and political plane must be waged.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is a variant of revisionism, which began to take shape even before the
Second World War, especially after 1935, when Mao Tsetung came to power. In this period Mao Tsetung and his supporters launched a "theoretical" campaign under the slogan of the struggle against "dogmatism", "ready-made patterns", "foreign stereotypes", etc., and raised the problem of elaboratine a national Marxism, negating the universal character of Marxism-Leninism. Instead Of Marxism-Leninism he preached the "Chinese way" of treating problems, and the Chinese style ".... lively and fresh, pleasant to the ears and eyes of the Chinese people" (Mao), in this way propagating the revisionist thesis that in each country Marxism should have its individual, specific content.
"Mao Tsetung thought" was proclaimed as the highest stage of Marxism-Leninism in the present era. The Chinese leaders have declared that "Mao Tsetung has achieved more than Marx, Engels, and Lenin...". The Constitution of the Communist Party of China, approved at its 9th Congress, which was held under Mao Tsetung's leadership, says that "Mao Tsetung thought is the Marxism-Leninism of the era ... ", that Mao Tse-tung "....has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and has raised it to a newhigher stage". Basing the activity of the party on "Mao Tsetung thought" instead of on the principles and norms of Marxism-Leninism opened the doors even more widely to opportunism and factional struggle within the ranks of the Communist Party of China. "Mao Tsetung thought" is an amalgam of views in which ideas and theses borrowed from Marxism are mixed up with idealist, pragmatic and revisionist principles from other philosophies.
It has its roots in ancient Chinese philosophy, and in the political and ideological past, in the state and militarist practice of China. All the Chinese leaders, those who have taken power at present as well as those who have been in and who have fallen from power, but who have manoeuvred to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice, have had and have "Mao Tsetung thought" as their ideological basis. Mao Tsetung himself has admitted that his thoughts can be exploited by all, both by the leftists and the rightists, as he calls the various groups that comprise the Chinese leadership. In the letter he wrote to Chiang Ching on July 8, 1966, Mao Tsetung affirms, "the rightists in power might use my words to make themselves powerful for a certain time, but the left can use other words of mine and organize itself to overthrow the rightists"(Le Monde dec. '72). This shows that Mao Tsetung was not a Marxist-Leninist, that his views are eclectic. This is apparent in all Mao's "theoretical works" which, although camouflaged with "revolutionary" phraseology and slogans, cannot conceal the fact that "Mao Tsetung thought" has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism.
A critical survey of Mao's writings, even ofpart of them, of the way he treats the fundamental problems concerning the role of the communist party, the questions of the revolution, the construction of socialism, etc., makes the radical difference between "Mao Tsetung thought" and Marxism-Leninism completely clear. Let us first consider the question of the organization of the Party and its leading role. Mao pretended to be for the application of the Leninist principles on the party, but if his ideas on the party and, especially, the practice of the life of the party are analysed concretely, it becomes evident that he has replaced the Leninist principles and norms with revisionist theses.
Mao Tsetung has not organized the Communist Party of China on the basis of the principles of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. He has not worked to make it a party of the Leninist type, a Bolshevik party. Mao Tsetung was not for a proletarian class party, but for a party without class restrictions. He has used the slogan of giving the party a mass character in order to wipe out the distinction between the party and the class. As a result, anybody could enter or leave this party whenever he liked. On this question "Mao Tsetung thought" is identical with the views of the Yugoslav revisionists and the "Eurocommunists".
Besides this, Mao Tsetung has always made the building of the party, its principles and norms dependent on his political stands and interests, dependent on his opportunist, sometimes rightist and sometimes leftist, adventurist policy, the struggle among factions, etc.
There has been and there is no true MarxistLeninist unity of thought and action in the Communist Party of China. The strife among factions, which has existed since the founding of the Communist Party of China, has meant that a correct Marxist-Leninist line has not been laid down in this party, and it has not been guided by Marxist-Leninist thought. The various tendencies which manifested themselves among the main leaders of the party were at times leftist, at times right opportunist, sometimes centrist, and going as far as openly anarchist, chauvinist and racist views. During the whole time Mao Tsetung and the group around him were at the head of the party, these tendencies were among the distinctive features of the Communist Party of China. Mao Tsetung himself has advocated the need for the existence of "two lines" in the party. According to him, the existence and struggle between two lines is something natural, is a manifestation of the unity of the opposites, is a flexible policy which unites in itself both loyalty to principles and compromise. "Thus," he writes, "we have two hands to deal with a comrade who has made mistakes: one hand to struggle with him and the other to unite with him. The aim of this struggle is to uphold the principles of Marxism, which means being principled; that is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is to unite with him. The aim of unity is to offer him a way out, to reach a compromise with him".
These views are diametrically opposed to the Leninist teachings on the communist party as an organized vanguard detachment which must have a single line and steel unity of thought and action.
The class struggle in the ranks of the party, as a reflection of the class struggle going on outside the party, has nothing in common with Mao Tsetung's concepts on the "two lines in the party". The party is not an arena of classes and the struggle between antagonistic classes, it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims. The genuine Marxist-Leninist party is the party of the working class only and bases itself on the interests of this class. This is the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Defending the Leninist principles on the party, which do not permit the existence of many lines, of opposing trends in the communist party, J. V. Stalin emphasized:
" ... the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes." Mao
Mao Tsetung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the "proletarian staff" and the ,"ourgeois staff", which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous. "The entire country," he says, "the whole world knows well that they have made mistakes in the line and the fact that they are well known is precisely the reason for electing them. What can you do about it? They are well known, but you who have made no mistakes or have made only small ones don't have as big a reputation as theirs. In a country like ours with its very large petty-bourgeoisie they are two standards". While renouncing principled struggle in the ranks of the party, Mao Tsetung played the game of factions, sought -compromise with some of them to counter some others and thus consolidate his own positions. With such an organizational platform, the Communist Party of China has never been and never Could be a Marxist-Leninist party. The Leninist principles and norms were not respected in it. The congressof the party, its highest collective organ, has not been convened regularly. For instance, 11 years went by between the 7 th and the 8th congresses. and after the war, 13 years between the 8th and the 9th congresses. Besides this, the congresses which were held were formal, more parades than working meetings. The delegates to the congresses were not elected in conformity with the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the life of the party, but were appolinted by the leading organs and acted according to the system of permanent representation.
Recently, "Renmin Ribao" published an article by a so-called theoretical group oil the "General Directory" of the Central Commitee of the Communist Party of China. (Always Keep in Mind the Teachings of Chairman Mao - Sept. '77) This article says that under the name of the "General Directory", Mao had set up around himself a special apparatus which kept the Political Bureau, the Central Committee of the Party, the caeres of the state, the army, the security service, etc., under surveillance and control. Entry to this Directory and knowledge of its work was forbidden to all, including the members of the CentraI Committee and the Political Bureau. Here plans for the bringing down or elevation of this or that factionalist group were worked out. The men of this Directory were present everywhere, they eaves-dropped, watched, and reported independently, Outside the control of the party. Apart from them, this Directory had at its disposal entire armed detachments, hidden under the name of the "Guard of Chairman Mao". This praetorian guard more than 50,000 strong went into action whenever the chairman wanted "to act with one blow", as has frequently occurred in the history of the Communist Party of China and as occured recently with the arrest of "The Four" and their supporters by Hua Kuo-feng. Under the pretext of maintaining contacts with the masses, Mao Tsetung had also created a special network of informers among the population who were charged with the task of keeping the cadres of the base under surveillance and investigating the conditions and state of mind of the masses, without anybody's knowledge. They reported directly to Mao Tsetung alone, who had severed all means of communication with the masses and saw the world only through the reports of his agents of the "General Directory". Mao said, "For myself, I am a person who does not listen to the radio, either foreign or Chinese, but 1 only transmit". He also said, "I have stated openly that 1 shall no longer read the newspaper 'Renmin Ribao'. I told its Editor-in-chief 'I do not read your paper'". (From Mao conversation with comrades from our Party, Feb. 3, 1967. Central Archivals of the Party of Labour of Albania).
The article of "Renmin Ribao" provides new information which enables one to understand even more clearly the anti-Marxist direction and personal power of Mao Tsetung in the Chinese party and state. Mao Tsetung did not have the slightest respect for either the Central Committee or the congress of the party, let alone the party as a whole and its committees at the base. The party committees, the leading cadres and the Central Committee itself received orders from the "General Directory", this "special staff", which was responsible to Mao Tsetung alone. The party forums, its elected organs, had no authority what~ soever. The article of "Renmin Ribao" says, "no telegram, no letter, no document, no order could be issued by anybody without first going through Mao Tsetung's hands and being approved by him". It turns out that as early as 1953, Mao Tsetung had issued a clear-cut order: "From now on, all documents and telegrams sent out in the name of the Central Committee can be dispatched only after I have gone over them, otherwise they are invalid". (Mao) Under these conditions there can be no talk of collective leadership, democracy within the party, or Leninist norms.
Mao Tsetung's unlimited power was so farreaching that he even appointed his heirs. At one time he had appointed Liu Shao-chi as his successor. Later he declared that his heir to the state and the party after his death would be Lin Piao. This, a thing unprecedented in the practice of Marxist-Leninist parties, was even sanctioned in the Constitution of the party. Again it was Mao Tsetung who designated Hua Kuo-feng to be chairman of the party after his death. Having power in his hands, Mao alone criticized, judged, punished and later rehabilitated top leaders of the party and state. This was the case even with Teng Hsiao-ping, who, in his so-called self-criticism of October 23, 1966, stated: "Liu Shao-chi and I are real monarchists. The essence of my mistakes lies in the fact that I have no faith in the masses, do not support the revolutionary masses, but am opposed to them. I have followed a reactionary line to suppress the revolution. In the class struggle I have been on the side not of the proletariat, but of the bourgeoisie... All this shows that... I am unfit to hold posts of responsibility".(From the self-crityicism of Teng Hsiao-ping). And despite these crimes which this inveterate revisionist has committed, he was put back in his former seat.
The anti-Marxist essence of "Mao Tsetung thought" on the party and its role is also apparent in the way the relations between the party and the army were conceived in theory and applied in practice. Irrespective of the shibboleths of Mao Tsetung about the "party being above the army", "politics above the gun", etc. etc.. in practice, he left the main political role in the life of the country to the army. At the time of the war, he said, "All the army cadres should be good at leading the workers and organizing trade-unions, good at mobilizing and organizing the youth, good at uniting with and training caeres in the newly Liberated Areas, good at managing industry and commerce, good at running schools, newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting stations, good at handling foreign affairs, good at handling problems relating to the democratic parties and people's organizations, good at adjusting the relations between the cities and the rural areas and solving the problems of food, coal and other daily necessities and good at handling monetary and financial problems". (Mao)
So the army was above the party, above the state organs, above everything. From this it emerges that Mao Tsetung's words regarding the role of the party, as the decisive factor of the leadership of revolution and socialist construction, were only slogans. Both at the time of the liberation war and after the creation of the People's Republic of China, in all the never-ending struggles that have been waged there for the seizure of power by one faction or the other, the army has played the decisive role. During the Cultural Revolution, too, the army played the main role; it was Mao's last resort. In 1967, Mao Tsetung said, "We rely on the strength of the army... We had only two divisions in Peking, but we brought in another two in May in order to settle accounts with the former Peking Party Committee". (From the conversation of Mao tsetung with the friendship Delegation of the PRA, dec. 18, 1967).
In order to liquidate his ideological opponents, Mao Tsetung has always set the army in motion. He raised the army, with Lin Piao at the head, against the Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiaoping group. Later, together with Chou En-lai, he organized and threw the army against Lin Piao. Inspired by "Mao Tsetung thought", the army has played the same role even after the death of Mao. Like all those who have come to power in China, Hua Ktio-feng, also, relied on and acted through the army. Right after Mao's death, he immediately roused the army, and together with the armyrnen, Yeh Chien-ying, Wang Tung-lisin and others, engineered the putsch and arrested his opponents. Power in China is still in the hands of the army, while party tails behind it. This is a general characteristic of countries where revisionism prevails. Genuine socialist countries strengthen the army as a powerful weapon of the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to crush the enemies of socialism in case they rise up, as well as to defend the country from an eventual attack by the imperialists and foreign reaction. But, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us, for the army to play this role it must always be under the direction of the party and not the party under the direction of the army.
At present the most powerful factions of the army, the most reactionary ones, which aim to turn China into a social-imperialist country, are making the law in China.
In the future, along with the transformation of China into an imperialist superpower, the role and the power of the army in the life of the country will steadily increase. It will be strengthened as a praetorian guard, armed to the teeth, for the defence of a capitalist regime and economy. It will be the tool of a bourgeois capitalist dictatorship, a dictatorship which, if the people's resistance is strong, may even assume open fascist forms.
By preaching the need for the existence of many parties in the leadership of the country, the so-called political pluralism, "Mao Tsetung thought" falls into complete opposition to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the indivisible role of the communist party in the revolution and socialist construction. As he declared to E. Snow, Mao Tsetung considered the leadership of a country by several political parties, after the American model, the most democratic form of government. "Which is better in the final analysis," Mao Tsetung asked, "to have just one party or several?"And he answered, "As we see it now, it's perhaps better to have several parties. This has been true in the past and may well be so for the future; it means long-term coexistence and mutual supervision". Mao regarded the participation of bourgeois parties in the state power and the governing of the country with the same rights and prerogatives as the Communist Party of China as necessary. And not only this, but these parties of the bourgeoisie, which according to him "were historical", should wither away only when the Communist Party of China also withers away, that is, they will coexist right up till communism.
According to "Mao Tsetung thought", a new democratic regime can exist and socialism can be built only on the basis of the collaboration of all classes and all parties. Sue a concept of socialist democracy, of the socialist political system, which is based on "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision" of all parties, and which is very much like the current preachings of the Italian, French, Spanish and other revisionists, is an open denial of the leading and indivisible role of the Marxis-Leninist party in the revolution and the construction of socialism. Historical experience has already proved that the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist and socialism cannot be built and defended without the indivisible leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party.
"...the dictatorship of the proletariat," said Stalin, "can be complete only when it is led by a party, the party of the communists, which does not and should not share the leadership with other parties". (Stalin)
The revisionist concepts of Mao Tsetung have their basis in the policy of collaboration and alliance with the bourgeoisie, which the Communist Party of China has always applied. This is also the source of the anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist course of "letting 100 flowers blossom and 100 schools contend", which is a direct expression of the coexistence of opposing ideologies.
According to Mao Tsetung, in socialist society, side by side with the proletarian ideology, materialism and atheism, the existence of bourgeois ideology, idealism and religion, the growth of "poisonous weeds" along with "fragrant flowers", etc., must be permitted. Such a course is alleged to be necessary for the development of Marxism, in order to open the way to debate and freedom of thought, while in reality, through this course, he is trying to lay the theoretical basis for the policy of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and coexistence with its ideology. Mao Tsetung says, "... it is a dangerous policy to prohibit people from coming into contact with the false, the ugly and the hostile to us, with idealism and metaphysics and with the thoughts of Confucius, Lao Tze and Chiang Kai-shek. It would lead to mental deterioration, one-track minds, and unpreparedness to face the world...". (Mao) From this Mao Tsetung draws the conclusion that idealism, metaphysics and the bourgeois ideology will exist eternally, therefore not only must they not be prohibited, but they must be given the possibility to blossom, to come out in the open and contend. This conciliatory stand towards everything reactionary goes so far as to call disturbances in socialist society inevitable and the prohibition of enemy activity mistaken. "In my opinion," says he, "whoever wants to provoke trouble may do so for so long as he pleases; and if one month is not enough, he may go on for two, in short, the matter should not be wound up until he feels he has had enoucgh. If you hastily wind it up, sooner or later trouble will resume again". (Mao)
All these have not been academic contributions to a -scientific- discussion but a counterrevolutionary opportunist political line which has been set up in opposition to Marxism-Leninism, which has disorganized the Communist Party of China, in the ranks of which a hundred and one views and ideas have been circulating and today there really are 100 schools contending. This has enabled the bourgeois wasps to circulate freely in the garden of 100 flowers and release their venom.
This opportunist stand on ideological questions has its roots, among other things, also in the fact that throughout the whole period from its foundation up till it achieved the liberation of its country and later, the Communist Party of China has made no effort to consolidate itself ideologically, has not worked to inculcate the theory of Marx, Engels. Lenin and Stalin into the minds and hearts of its members, has not struggled to master the fundamental questions of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and apply them consistently, step by step, in the concrete -conditions of China.
"Mao Tsetung thought" is opposed to the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. In his writings Mao Tsetung makes frequent mention of the role of revolutions in the process of the development of society, but in essence he adheres to a metaphysical, evolutionist concept. Contrary to materialist dialectics, which envisages progressive development in the form of a spiral, Mao Tsetung preaches development in the form of a cycle, going round in a circle, as a process of ebb and flow which goes from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back to equilibrium again, from motion to rest and back to motion again, from rise to fall and from fall to rise, from advance to retreat and to advance again, etc. Thus, upholding the concept of ancient philosophy on the purifying role of fire, Mao Tsetung writes: "It is necessary to 'set a fire going' at regular intervals. How often? Once a year or once every three years, which do you prefer? I think we should do it at least twice in the space of every five years, in the same way as the intercalary month in a lunar leap year turns up once in three years or twice in five". (Mao) Thus like the astrologists of old, on the basis of the lunar calendar, he derives the law on the periodical kindling of fire, on the development which goes from "great harmony" to -great disorder- and again to "great harmony", and thus the cycles repeat themselves periodically.
In this manner, "Mao Tsetung thought" opposes the materialist dialectical concept of development, which, as Lenin says
"...gives us the key to understand the 'selfmovement' of every existing thing;... gives us the key to understand the 'leaps', 'the interruption of graduality', 'the transformation into the opposite', the abolition of the old and the emergence of the new",
with the metaphysical concept which "is lifeless, pale and dry". This becomes even more obvious in the way Mao Tsetung handles the problem of contradictions, to which, according to Chinese propaganda, Mao has allegedly made a "special contribution" and developed materialist dialectics further in this field. It is true that in many of his writings, Mao Tsetung frequently speaks about opposites, contradictions, the unity of the opposites, and even uses Marxist quotations and phrases, but, nevertheless, he is far from the dialectical materialist understanding of these problems. In dealing with contradictions, he does not proceed from the Marxist theses, but from those of ancient Chinese philosophers, sees the opposites in a mechanical way, as external phenomena, and imagines the transformation of the opposites as a simple change of places between them. By operating with some eternal opposites taken from ancient philosophy, such as above and below, backward and forward, right and left, light and heavy, etc., etc., in essence Mao Tsetung negates the internal contradictions inherent in things and phenomena and treats development as simple repetition, as a chain of unchangeable states in which the same opposites and the same relationship between them are observed. The mutual transformation of the opposites into each other, understood as a mere exchange of places and not as a resolution of the contradiction and a qualitative change of the very phenomenon which comprises these opposites, is used by Mao Tsetung as a formal pattern to which everything is subject. On the basis of this pattern, Mao goes so far as to declare that "When dogmatism is transformed into its opposite, it becomes either Marxism or revisionism", "metaphysics is transformed into dialectics, and dialectics into metaphysics", etc. Behind such absurd assertions and this sophistical playing with opposites, lurk the opportunist and anti-revolutionary concepts of Mao Tsetung. Thus, he does not see the socialist revolution as a qualitative change of society in which antagonistic classes and the oppression and exploitation of man by man are abolished, but conceives it as a simple change of places between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. To confirm this "discovery", Mao writes: "If the bourgeoisie and the proletariat cannot transform themselves into each other, how does it come that, through revolution, the proletariat becomes the ruling class and the bourgeoisie the ruled class?... We stand in diametrical opposition to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang. As a result of the mutual struggle and exclusion of the two contradictory aspects with the Kuomintang we changed places...". (Mao)
This same logic has also led Mao Tsetung to revise the Marxist-Leninist theory on the two phases of communist society. "According to dialectics, as surely as a man must die, the socialist system as a historical phenomenon will come to an end some day, to be negated by the communist system. If it is asserted that the socialist system and the relations of production and superstructure of socialism will not die out, what kind of Marxist thesis would that be? Wouldn't it be the same as a religious creed or theology that preaches an everlasting god?" (Mao)
In this way, openly revising the Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism and communism, which, in essence, are two phases of the one type, of the one socio-economic order, and which are distinguished from each other only by the degree of their development and maturity, Mao Tsetung presents socialism as something diametrically opposite to communism.
From such metaphysical and anti-Marxist concepts, Mao Tsetung treats the question of the revolution in general, which he regards as an endless process which is repeated periodically throughout the whole period of the existence of mankind on earth, as a process which goes from defeat to victory, from victory to defeat, and so on endlessly. Mao Tsetung's anti-Marxist concepts, sometimes evolutionist and sometimes anarchist, about the revolution are even more apparent when he deals with the problems of the revolution in China.
As emerges from his writings, Mao Tsetung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory in analysing the problems and defining the tasks of the Chinese revolution. In his speech delivered at the enlarged working conference called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in January 1962, he himself admits: "Our many years of revolutionary work have been carried out blindly, not knowing how the revolution should be, carried out, and against whom the spearhead of the revolution should be directed, without a concept of its stages, whom it had to overthrow first and whom later, etc.". This has made the Communist Party of China incapable of ensuring the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and transforming it into a socialist revolution. The entire development of the Chinese revolution is evidence of the chaotic course of the Communist Party of China, which has not been guided by MarxismLeninism, but by the anti-Marxist concepts of "Mao Tsetung thought" on the character of the revolution, its stages, motive forces, etc.
Mao Tsetung was never able to understand and explain correctly the close links between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution. Contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theory, which has proved scientifically that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, that these two revolutions do not have to be divided from each other by a long period of time, Mao Tsetung asserted: "The transformation of our revolution into socialist revolution is a matter of the future... As to when the transition will take place... it may take quite a long time. We should not hold forth about this transition until all the necessary political and economic conditions are present and until it is advantageous and not detrimental to the overwhelming majority of our people". (Mao)
Mao Tsetung adhered to this anti-Marxist concept, which is not for the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution socialist revolution, during the whole period of the revolution, even after liberation. Thus, in -1940, Mao Tsetung said: "The Chinese revolution must necessarily pass through... the stage A New Democracy and then the stage of socialism. Of these, the first stage will need a relatively long time....". (Mao)
In March 1949, at the plenum of Central Committee of the Party, at which Mao Tsetung submitted the program for China's development after liberation, he says: "During this period all the elements of capitalism, of town and countryside, must be permitted to exist". These views and "theories" brought about that the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung did not fight for the transformation of the revolution in China into a socialist revolution but left a free fild for the development of the bourgeoisie and caipitalist social relations.
On the question of the relationship between the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, Mao Tsetung takes the standpoint of the chiefs of the Second International, who were the first to attack and distort theMarxist-Leninist theory about the rise of the revolution and came out with the thesis that between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, there is a long period, during which the bourgeoisie develops capitalism and creates the conditions for the transition to the proletarian revolution. They regarded the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into socialist revolution, without giving capitalism the possibility to develop further, as something impossible, as skipping stages. Mao Tsetung, too, fully endorses this concept, when he says: "It would be a sheer utopia to try to build socialism on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democratic state, . . . without the development of the private capitalist economy...". (Mao)
The anti-Marxist concepts of "Mao Tsetung thought" about the revolution are even more obvious in the way Mao has treated the motive forces of the revolution. Mao Tsetung did not recognize the hegemonic role of the proletariat. Lenin said that in the period of imperialism, in every revolution, hence, also in the democratic revolution, the anti-imperialist national liberation revolution and the socialist revolution, the leadership must belong to the proletariat. Although he talked about the role of the proletariat, in practice Mao Tsetung underestimated its hegemony in the revolution and elevated the role of the peasantry. Mao Tsetung has said: "....the resistance to Japanese occupiers now going on is essentially peasant resistance. Essentially, the politics of New Democracy means giving power to the peasants". (Mao)
Mao Tsetung expressed this petty-bourgeois theory in his general thesis that the "countryside must encircle the city". "... revolutionary villges", he wrote, "can encircle the cities... rural work should play the primary role in the Chinese revolutionary movement and urban work a secondary role". (Mao) Mao expressed this idea also when he wrote about the role of the peasantry in the state. He has said that all other political parties and forces must submit to the peasantry and its views. "... millions of peasants will rise like a mighty storm, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back...," he writes. "They will put to the test every revolutionary party and group, every revolutionary, so that they either accept their views or reject them".. (Mao) According to Mao, it turns out that the peasantry and not the working class should play the hegemonic role in the revolution.
Mao Tsetung also preached the thesis on the hegemonic role of the peasantry in the revolution as the road of the world revolution. Herein lies the source of the anti-Marxist concept that considers the so-called third world, which in Chinese political literature is also called "the countryside of the world", as the "main motive force for the transformation of present-day society". According to the Chinese views, the proletariat is a secondrate social force, which cannot play that role which Marx and Lenin envisaged in the struggle against capitalism and the triumph of the revolution, in alliance with all the forces oppressed by capital.
The Chinese revolution has been dominated by the petty-and middle bourgeoisie. This broad stratum of the petty-bourgeoisie has influenced the whole development of China.
Mao Tsetung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory which teaches us that the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie in general, is vacillating. Of course, the poor and middle peasantry play an important role in the revolution and must become the close ally of the proletariat. But the peasant class, the petty-bourgeoisie, cannot lead the proletariat in the revolution. To think and preach the opposite means to be against Marxism-Leninism. Herein lies one of the main sources of the anti-Marxist views of Mao Tsetung, which have had a negative influence on the whole Chinese revolution. The Communist Party of China has not been clear in theory about the basic revolutionary guiding principle of the hegemonic role of the proletariat in the revolution, and consequently it did not apply it in practice properly and consistently. Experience shows that the peasantry can play its revolutionary role only if it acts in alliance with the proletariat and under its leadership. This was proved in our country during the National Liberation War.
The Albanian peasantry was the main force of our revolution, however it was the working class, despite its very small numbers, which led the peasantry, because the Marxist-Leninist ideology, the ideology of the proletariat, embodied in the Communist Party, today the Party of Labour, the vanguard of the working class, was the leadership of the revolution. That is why we triumphed not only in the National Liberation War, but also in the construction of socialism.
Despite the innumerable difficulties we encountered on our road we scored success one after another. We achieved these successes, in the first place, because the Party thoroughly mastered the essence of the theory of Marx and Lenin, understood what the revolution was, who was making it and who had to lead it, understood that at the head of the working. class, in alliance with the peasantry, there had to be a party of the Leninist type. The communists understood that this party must not be communist only in name but had to be a party which would apply the Marxist-Leninist theory of the revolution and party building in the concrete conditions of our country, which would begin the work for the creation of the new socialist society, following the example of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of the time of Lenin and Stalin. This stand gave our Party the victory, gave the country the great political, economic and military strength it has today. Had we acted differently, had we not consistently applied these principles of our great theory, socialism could not have been built in a small country surrounded by enemies, as ours is. Even if we had succeeded in taking power for a moment, the bourgeoisie would have seized it back again, as happened in Greece, where before the struggle had been won, the Greek Communist Party surrendered its weapons to the local reactionary bourgeoisie and British imperialism.
Therefore, the question of hegemony in the revolution is a very important matter of principle because the course and development of the revolution depend on who is leading it.
"Renunciation of the idea of the hegemony," stressed Lenin, "is the most vulgar form of reformism".
The negation by "Mao Tsetung thought" of the leading role of the proletariat was precisely one of the causes that the Chinese revolution remained a bourgeois-democratic revolution and did not develop into a socialist revolution. In his. artiele "New Democracy", Mao Tsetung preached that after the triumph of the revolution in China a regime would be established which would be based on the alliance of the "democratic clases", in which, besides the peasantry and the. proletariat, he also included the urban pettybourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. ."Just as everyone should share what food there is," he writes, "so there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group or class". (Mao) This idea has also been reflected in the national flag of the People's Republic of China, with four stars which represent four classes: the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.
The revolution in China, which brought about the liberation of the country, the creation of the. independent Chinese state, was a great victory forthe Chinese people, and for the world anti-imperialist and democratic forces. After the liberation, many positive changes were made in China: the ddmination by foreign imperalism and big landowners was liquidated, poverty and unemploy-ent were combated, a series of socio-economic reforms in favour of the working masses were. carried out, the educational and cultural backwardness was fought against, a series of measures were taken for the reconstruction of the country ravaged by the war, and some transformations of a socialist character were made. In China, where people died by millions in the past, starvation no longer existed, etc. These are undeniable facts, and are important victories for the Chinese people.
From the adoption of these measures and the fact that the Communist Party came to power, it appeared as if China was going to socialism. But things did not turn out that way. Having "Mao Tsetung thought" as the basis of its activity, the Communist Party of China, which after the triumph of the bourgeois-democratic revolution ..Ought to have proceeded cautiously without being leftist and without skipping the stages, proved to be "democratic", liberal, opportunist, and did not lead the country consistently on the correct road to socialism.
The non-Marxist, eclectic, bourgeois political ,and ideological views of Mao Tsetung gave liberated China an unstable superstructure, a chaotic ,organization of the state and the economy which never achieved stability. China was in continuous .disorder, even anarchic disorder, which was encouraged by Mao Tsetung himself with the slogan "things must first be stirred up in order to clarify themm". In the new Chinese state Chou En-lal played .a special role. He was an able economist and organizer, but was never a Marxist-Leninist politician. As the typical pragmatist,t, he knew how to implement his non-Marxist views and adapt them perfectly to each group that took power in China. He was a poussah, tiao always managed to stay .on his feet, although he always rocked from the centre to the right, but but never to the left. Chou En-lai was a pastmaster of unprincipled compromises. He las supported and condemned Chiang Kai-shek, Kao Gang, Liti Shao-chilh, Teng Hsiao-ping, Mao Tsetung, Lin Piao, "The Four", but he has sever supported Lenin and Stalin, Marxism-Leninism. After liberation, as a result of the views and stands of Mao Tsetung, Chou En-lai and others, many waverings in alldirections were observed in the political line if the Party. The tendency advocated by "Mao Tsetung thought" that the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution had to continue for a long time, was kept alive in China. Mao Tsetung insisted that in this stage the remises for socialism would be created parallel with the development of capitalism, to which he priority. Also linked with this, is his thesis on the coexistence socialism with the bourgeoisie for a very long time, presenting this as something beneficial both to socialism and to the bourgeoisie. Replying to those who opposed such a policy and who brought up the experience of the October Socialist Revolution as an argument, Mao Tsetung says:"The bourgeoisie in Russia was a counterrevolutionary class, it rejected state capitalism at that time, organized slow-downs and sabotage and even resorted to the gun. The Russian Proletariat had no choice but to finish it off. This infuriated the bourgeoisie in other countries, and they became abusive. Here in China we have been relatively moderate with our national bourgeoisie who feel a little more comfortable and believe they can also find some advantage". (Mao) According to Mao Tsetung such a policy has allegedly improved China's reputation in the eyes of the international bourgeoisie, but in reality it has done great harm to socialism in China.
Mao Tsetung has presented his opportunist stand towards the bourgeoisie as a creative implementation of the teachings of Lenin on the New Economic Policy (NEP). But there is a radical difference between the teachings of Lenin and the concept of Mao Tsetung on allowing unrestricted capitalist production and maintaining bourgeois relations in socialism. Lenin admits that the NEP was a step back which allowed the development of elements of capitalism for a certain time, but he stressed:
"... there is nothing dangerous to the Proletarian state in this so long as the proletariat keeps political power firmly in its hands, so long as it keeps transport and big industry firmly in its hands". (Lenin)
In fact, neither in 1949 nor in 1956, when Mao Tsetung advocated these things, did the proletariat in China, have political power or big industry in its owm hands.
Moreover, Lenin considered the NEP as a temporary measure which was imposed by the concrete conditions of Russia of that time, devastated by the long civil war, and not as a universal law of of socialist construction. And the fact is that one year after the proclamation of the NEP Lenin stressed that the retreat was over, and launched the slogan to prepare for the offensive against private capital in the economy. Whereas in China, the period of the preservation of capitalist production was envisaged to last almost eternally. According to Mao Tsetung's view, the order established after liberation in China had to be a bourgeois-democratic order, while the Communist Party of China had to appear to be in power. Such is "Mao Tsetung thought".
The transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution can be realized only when the proletariat resolutely removes the bourgeoisie from power and expropriates it.
As long as the working class in China shared power with the bourgeoisie, as long as the bourgeoisie preserved its privileges, the state power that was established in China, could not be the state power of the proletariat, and consequently, the Chinese revolution could not grow into a socialist revolution.
The Communist Party of China has maintained a benevolent opportunist stand towards the exploiting classes, and Mao Tsetung has openly advocated the peaceful integration of capitalist elements into socialism. Mao Tsetung said: "Actually all ultra-reactionaries of the world are ultrareactionaries, and they will remain such tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, they will not remain such unto death, and in the end they change... Essentially, ultra-reactionaries are die-hards but not stable... It may happen that ultra-reactionaries may change for the better... they come to see their mistakes and change for the better. In short, ultra-reactionaries do change". (Mao)
In his desire to provide a theoretical basis for this opportunist concept, and playing on the "transformation of the opposites", Mao Tsetung said that through discussion, criticism and transformation, antagonistic contradictions are transformed into non-antagonistic contradictions, the exploiting classes and the bourgeois intelligentsia can turn into their opposite, that is, become revolutionaries. "However, given the conditions of our country," Mao Tsetung wrote in 1956, "most of the counterrevolutionaries will eventually change to a greater or lesser extent. Thanks to the correct policy we have adopted towards counterrevolutionaries, many have been transformed into persons no longer opposed to the revolution, and a few have even done some good to it".
Proceeding from such anti-Marxist concepts, according to which with the lapse of time the class enemies will be corrected, he advocated class conciliation with them and allowed them to continue to enrich themselves, to exploit, to speak, and to act freely against the revolution. To justify this capitulationist stand towards the class enemy, Mao Tsetung wrote: "We have a lot to do now. It is impossible to keep on hitting out at them day in day out for the next fifty years. There are people who refuse to correct their mistakes, they can take them into their coffins when they go to see the King of Hell". (Mao) Acting in practice according to these views of conciliation with the enemies, the state administration in China was left in the hands of the old officials. Chiang Kai-shek's generals even became ministers. Indeed, even Pu Yi, the emperor of Manchu-kuo, the puppet emperor of .the Japanese occupiers, was protected very carefully and turned into a museum