A Concise History of the Communist Party of China (Hu Sheng)

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A Concise History of the Communist Party of China
Author	Hu Sheng
Written in	1994
Publisher	Foreign Languages Press
Type	Book
Source	Internet Archive

Seventy years have passed since the Communist Party of China came into being. Over these seventy years, the Party has rallied the Chinese people around it and waged an unremitting and heroic struggle for national liberation, social progress and the people's well-being. The struggle has never been easy. To make a victorious revolution and build a new society in a poor and backward country comprising a quarter of the earth's population, the Communist Party of China performed feats that astonished the world, encountering seemingly overwhelming difficulties and at times suffering major setbacks. But difficulties or setbacks of any kind could never hold back its advance; they only made the Party more steadfast and more mature. The Chinese people have gained historic victories in revolution and socialist construction under the leadership of the Communist Party, and today they are forging confidently ahead towards the great goal of socialist modernization. The record of the past shows that the Party serves the people heart and soul and that it can provide the leadership that will enable them to master their own destiny and to make the country strong and prosperous. Looking back over the past seventy years, the Chinese people are more convinced than ever that their choice of socialism as their goal and of the Communist Party to lead them there has been correct. Indeed, it is the inevitable product of China's modern historical development. The rich store of experience embodied in these last seventy years of history was accumulated by pioneers who sought the truth under the most difficult circumstances with no precedent to guide them, and it was paid for in the blood of innumerable martyrs. They deserve our ever enduring remembrance.

The Founding of the Communist Party of China

The Success and Failure of the Revolution of 1911

In the middle of the 19th century, China was plunged in untold suffering and humiliation under the oppression of foreign capitalist and imperialist powers and of domestic feudal forces. The country was deprived of its sovereignty, and its economic lifelines were in the hands of foreigners. Faced with aggression by the Western powers, the feudal and autocratic Qing Dynasty, which had reigned over China for two hundred years, took no effective measures to defend the country. On the contrary, it suppressed all trends towards political and social' progress and let the imperialist powers carve the country up at will. The Qing regime at its final stage, traitorous and corrupt, was detested by the people, because it strangled the country's vitality and kept them in misery. The Chinese entered the 20th century with the national humiliation of seeing their capital city, Beijing, occupied by the Eight-Power Allied Forces sent by Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy and Austria. The Chinese nation seemed to be on the verge of extinction. The Chinese people, who had created a glorious and ancient civilization, could not endure such humiliation for long. In 1902, when the great writer Lu Xun was studying in Japan, he wrote these lines expressing the grief and indignation that filled the hearts of a great many Chinese patriots: "My heart cannot evade the arrow of the god of love. "A great storm is sweeping over my homeland in the darkness standmeCe ^ ^ ^ ^ stars' but d° not nnder I offer my heart's blood to my dear homeland " It was the double oppression of imperialism and feudalism that misery ofThern SUffT"8 of lhe Chinese nation and The mtsery of the Chinese people. That is what hindered all social development and political progress. How could the country commnld fhg" aggressi011 and wi" ""(""a! independence' How ed bv ; efe' Td f0m *he darkness and France perpetuated by the feudal, autocratic regime? How could it be lifted out of poverty and backwardness and made prosperous and strong' These were the principal questions that confronted semi-colonial semi-feudal China, the principal questions that the Chinese progressives kept turning over in their minds. Many brave men and women devoted themselves to the cause of b °rC thC foUnding of the Communist Party 1118 fhlnese bad ^ver ceased trying to change the destiny of then motherland. However, their repeated struggles the wars of resistance against foreign aggression the peasants' Klngdom in middle of the TV . century the Reform Movement of 18981 and the Boxer Upnsmg (the Yi He Juan Movement) at the turn of the century which started from the lower strata of society and grew into a large-scale anti-imperialist patriotic movement—had all ended Sufd not bfattaiPnedn0tS that ,he" ideats Nevertheless, the wheel of history rolled on, constantly bringing new developments. As the national crisis deepened and new social forces, especially modern capitalist industry, began to grow in Chinese society, a new revolutionary movement was started Chfn^ eadership of Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the Chinese democratic revolution. wn™uYat:S",WaS .f great Patriot as well as a great democrat When he established the small revolutionary group Society for he Revival of China (Xing Zhong Hui) in Honolulu in 1894 he issued a clarion call for "the revival of China." In 1905' he sponsored the founding of the Chinese Revolutionary League (Zhongguo Tong Men Hui). The League put forward a comprehensive political programme for the establishment of a bourgeois democratic republic and worked hard to carry it out by revolutionary means. It pledged to "drive out the Tartars, revive the Chinese nation, establish a republic and equalize ownership of land." The immediate objective of the revolution was to overthrow the government of the Qing Dynasty, which had already become a tool of the imperialist powers for the domination of China. Thus, the revolution was essentially anti-imperialist It called for the overthrow of the feudal monarchy that had reigned in China for two thousand years. Before this time, some people had been so influenced by European and American ideas that they questioned the monarchy, but they had never dared envisage its overthrow and the dismantling of the social system it represented. Sun Yat-sen, however, held up the ideal of a democratic republic and set a new objective for the Chinese people. From then on, they began to struggle consciously for the establishment of an independent, democratic state. In Mao Zedong's words Strictly speaking, China's bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism was begun by Dr. Sun YatRecalling it in 1924, the Manifesto of the 1st National Congress of the Kuomintang of China stated: "The objective of the revoluuon was not merely to overthrow the Manchus, but to carry out the transformation of China after their overthrow," that is, "to achieve in the political domain the transition from an autocractic system to a democratic system and in the economic domain the transition from handicraft production to capitalist production."3 t is important to note that while many Chinese were eager to learn from the West, Sun Yat-sen had become aware of certain drawbacks in the capitalist system of the Western countries. His conclusion was that "Europe and America are strong, but their people are impoverished" and that "a social revolution will take place before long." Influenced by the socialist movement rising in the West, Sun Yat-sen tried to add some colour of socialism to his programme, but whatever his intent, his proposal to "equalize "He"" ^ " the dCTCl°pme"1 «PiFor several years following its establishment, the Chinese Revoluuonary League, together with other organizations under its influence, earned out revolutionary propaganda and agitation. Wi ifa8u? alhe]d Itself Wlth secret societies (especially the Triad Society and similar organizations in southern China ) and with the New Army (a modernized force organized by the government of 894095?and'!aSty IT ^ ddeat *" the Sin°-JaPancse War of 4 95) and launched a series of armed uprisings. The failure of each uprising expanded the influence of revolutionary ideas hatred ,hr0ughout the »nd deepened their hatred of the Qmg government. A revolutionary situation was taking shape across the country. The outbreak of the Revolution of 1911 and the success it attamed proved that the imperialist powers could not arb Si* control the destiny of China after all. The revolution was signifT cant not only because it overthrew the Qing Dynasty, but because t put an end to the autocracy that had reigned in China for "dtS of years and awakened the people to the concept of a democratic repubhe. One should never underestimate the role Chimf byithe ^V0lutI0n of 191 1 in Promoting social progress in China and in liberating the thinking of the Chinese people The Qing Dynasty had been not only the chief representative of the domestic feudal forces but also a tool employed by the foreign imperiahsts to dominate China. The people's triumph over this teudal monarchy that had betrayed them destroyed the old reactionary order and paved the way for revolutionary struggles in the days to come. In this sense, the victory achieved in the Revolution of 1911 was tremendous. However, the Revolution of 191 1 also had obvious weaknesses, it 1 ailed to set forth an explicit and comprehensive political programme to combat foreign imperialist aggression and the weUreaihe0Cr! ? arouse lhe lab°uring masses who h t r ^ maJ°nty °f the Chinese Population; and it failed to form a strong revolutionary party that could success fully lead it to its logical conclusion. This was because the bourgeoisie in China was too feeble. It had ties with the imperialist and feudal forces that could not be completely severed, and it was almost totally divorced from the labouring masses. The bourgeois revolutionaries therefore had neither the courage nor the strength to carry the struggle against imperialism and feudalism to the end. The Revolution of 1911 ended in a compromise with the old forces. The imperialist forces in China were as strong as ever, and there was no great social upheaval in the countryside. The Republic of China was founded, but the fruit of revolution fell into the hands of the Northern warlords headed by Yuan Shikai, who was favoured by the imperialists. China was still a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, still a country of dire poverty and backwardness. Sun Yat-sen said bitterly, "The political and social darkness and the corruption of every description are even worse than in the Qing Dynasty, and the people are becoming increasingly impoverished."4 The revolution had not attained its desired goal, so in that sense it was a failure. Nevertheless, the Revolution of 1911 holds an honoured place in modern Chinese history. As historical materialists who uphold Marxism, members of the Communist Party of China will never torget the contributions made by all the revolutionary pioneers before the founding of the Party and as a matter of fact, the Revolution of 1911 was the most important revolution preceding the people's revolution led by the CPC. Looking back over the entire course of China's modern revolutionary history, we can see that the Revolution of 1911 did bear fruit after all. The success of that revolution encouraged the Chinese people to keep up their struggle. On the other hand, its failure taught the progressives among them that it was impossible to build a bourgeois republic under the historical conditions of the time. They came to realize that to win the independence and prosperity of the country and the freedom and happiness of the people, they had to explore a new path. Mao Zedong made clear the importance of the Revolution of 191 1 when he said, "While studying the history of the Communist Party of China, wc should study materials concerning the Revolution of 1911 and the May 4lh Movement before the founding of history1"^ °thcrwise' we cannot understand the development It was only ten years between the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Communist Party of China A most all of the first generation of CPC revolutionaries had taken part in the Revolution of 1911 or been deeply influenced y it. These veteran Communists and many democrats who later cooperated with the Communist Party took that revolution as their point of departure. Recalling his own ideological evolution the Communist Lin Boqu wrote: Before the Revolution of 1911, 1 believed that there would be peace and tranquillity across the land if only we overthrew the monarchy. But after I took part in the revolution and experienced setbacks over and over again, the goal of democracy I had been trying to attain was still far away. It was through bitter experience that I gradually came to realize I was in a blind alley and that I finally chose communism. This is not the experience of only one PerSL°n4?uany Pte0pie like me can be fouild in the revolutionary ranks. Thus, the victories of the new-democratic revolution and , socialism in China can be regarded as the continuation and development of the Revolution of 1911

The Early Stage of the New Cultural Movement and the Initial Dissemination of Marxism

After the failure of the Revolution of 1911, Chinese progressives were in despair, at a loss what to do. Their dreams were shattered, because the founding of the Republic of China did not ring about the desired national independence, democracy and social progress. In 1915, when World War I was at its height Japan seized the opportunity to put forward "Twenty-One Demands" in a bid to obtain exclusive control of China. Yuan Shikai, the chief of the Northern warlords, restored the monarchy and proclaimed himself emperor. Zhang Xun, a former senior official of the Qing Dynasty, supported an attempt by the dethroned Emperor Xuantong to stage a comeback. While the imperialist powers were in bitter rivalry in China, the domestic warlords were intensifying their internecine warfare to set up separatist regimes. Going against the trend of the times, certain intellectuals advocated the worship of Confucius and the study of the Confucian canon. One after another, dramatic events succeeded each other on the Chinese stage. Describing the circumstances of the time in broad outline, Mao Zedong wrote: "Their repeated struggles, including such a country-wide movement as the Revolution of 191 1, all ended in failure. Day by day, conditions in the country got worse, and life was made impossible. Doubts arose, increased and deepened."7 The reality was grim. The people carried out hard struggles and made great sacrifices, but they did not obtain what they had anticipated. A bourgeois democratic republic was not a panacea for all the ills of China. Multiple political parties, the parliamentary system and other institutions copied from the West were tried out in the early years of the Republic of China, but they failed to solve any practical problems and only became instruments employed by different factions of warlords, bureaucrats and politicians in their scramble for power and profit. Utter despair replaced the previous hopes. Yet this bitter experience had its positive side for the progressives. Since they found the old road impassable, they began to look for a new way out. A greater revolutionary storm was brewing and would soon descend upon the land. The early stage of the new cultural movement—the period before the May 4th Movement of 1919—presaged the coming storm. In September 1915 Chen Duxiu, who had participated in the Revolution of 1911, founded the magazine Youth (later renamed New Youth ) in Shanghai, touching off a new cultural movement. In January 1917 Cai Yuanpei became the President of Beijing University. He advocated the assimilation of all schools of thought, engaged Chen Duxiu as the Dean of Liberal Arts and invited many scholars with new ideas to join the faculty. The editorial board of New Youth moved to Beijing, and Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Qian Xuantong and Liu Bannong became members of the board and principal contributors. Thus Beijing University and New Youth became the main bastions of the new cultural movement. The ideologists active at the beginning of the movement summed up the experience of the Revolution of 191 1 and reflected on its failure. They came to the conclusion that the struggles tor national salvation waged by earlier revolutionaries had all ended in failure simply because the Chinese people, as the saying goes, had looked on indifferently as the house across the river went up in flames. Accordingly, they believed that to establish a republic worthy of the name, it was necessary to thoroughly remould the national character, and that if problems of ethics were not solved, politics and academic learning would be of no avail hey put forward the slogan, "Do away with superstitions!", calling on the people to "break through the net of history," "cast off the yoke of outworn doctrines" and "emancipate their thinking." The ideologists of those days directed their main attack against the doctrines of Confucius, which had been the orthodox beliefs of feudalism. Rallying around New Youth and using the theories of evolution and individual emancipation as their major weapons, they mounted an assault on the "sages of the past," represented by Confucius, and vigorously advocated a new ethics and a new literature. Since the leaders of the Reform Movement of 1898 had departed from the classics and 'rebelled against orthodoxy under the cloak of Confucianism, and the revolutionaries of 1911 had never struck a direct blow against it, the ideologists of the new cultural movement were the first to consciously challenge feudal ethics. They had their own weaknesses. For instance, they believed that it was possible to thoroughly remould the national character through struggle in the ideological and cultural fields alone, without transforming the social environment that engendered feudal ideas. They failed to reveal the social roots of Confucianism and the necessity of transforming China's basic social system. They did not express genuine sympathy for the misery of the workers and peasants who were the overwhelming majority of the population or wait patiently until they had been aroused to revolutionary action. And they followed a formalistic methodology that led them to affirm or negate everything absolutely. Nevertheless, their criticism of Confucianism shook the dominant position of the orthodox feudal ideas. It lifted the sluice gate that had checked the current of new ideas, releasing a tide of mental emancipation in Chinese society. This tide was vigorous, progressive and revolutionary. The cardinal slogan of the new cultural movement was, "Democracy and science." At a time when feudalism was dominant in society, it was historically progressive to advocate democracy as opposed to dictatorship and science as opposed to blind faith. However, according to Chen Duxiu, the proponent of the slogan, democracy referred to the bourgeois democratic system and bourgeois democratic ideas, and science referred to "natural sciences in a narrow sense and social sciences in a broad sense."8 He emphasized the need to study society with the same scientific spirit and methodology applied to the study of the natural sciences. However, he also regarded as science the ideological system of idealism (with certain borrowings from the natural sciences), including William James's pragmatism, Henri Bergson's theory of creative evolution and Bertrand Russell's new realism.9 He advocated democracy and science because he believed that "in order to survive in the present world," China had to "build a new state of the Western type and organize a new society of the Western type"—that is, to build a bourgeois republic and develop capitalism.10 This showed that during its first stage the new cultural movement was essentially a struggle of the new culture of the bourgeoisie against the old culture of the feudal class. The proponents of the movement emphasized the "independent personality" and "equal human rights," striving only for the liberation of the individual instead of for the liberation of the working people as a whole. They were therefore unable 12 to show the Chinese people the real way out of their misery. In fact, the defects of capitalist civilization were becoming increasingly apparent. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Chen Duxiu wrote that when capitalism had replaced feudalism, "political inequality turned into social inequality, and monarchical and aristocratic repression turned into capitalist repression." There was no denying these defects of modern Western civilization.11 World War I disclosed the inherent contradictions of capitalism in an incisive way. The unprecedented brutality of the war and the social chaos that followed shocked the world and cast doubts on the value of Western civilization. It was the first time that the general public felt that the capitalist system no longer had bright prospects and had lost its original attraction. Towards the end of the war, Li Dazhao said, "The war threw much doubt on the authority of European civilization, and the Europeans themselves have to reflect on its true value."12 In May 1916 he said: "Representative government is still the subject of experiments. It is difficult to ascertain whether it is good or not and to predict whether it will survive or change."13 In August 1917 Mao Zedong also said it was true that Oriental ideas did not conform to reality, but that Western ideas did not necessarily do so either. He concluded that most Western ideas should be remoulded along with Oriental ideas.14 These doubts on the part of Left-wingers in the new cultural movement led them to seek a new means of national salvation and prepared the ground for their acceptance of Marxism. Why did the October Revolution that broke out in Russia in 1917 call forth such vigorous response in China? Basically, it was because of the changes taking place in Chinese society. At a time when the Chinese people were groping desperately in the dark, the Russian revolution illuminated a path for them, furnishing new and reasonable replies to the questions they were so anxiously studying. Earlier, even before the Revolution of 1911, certain Chinese intellectuals had begun to talk about socialism. However, some of them only indulged in empty talk about anarchism, talk that even 13 they themselves did not believe had any connection with reality. Others held that the theory of socialism was of no practical significance outside the developed capitalist countries. They were of the view that certain "socialist" measures could be adopted in the course of developing capitalism in China so as to "prevent" a socialist revolution. At the same time, there were also people who introduced Marxism into China as a school of socialist thought. After a British missionary made the first mention of Marx and his theories in the Globe Magazine in Shanghai in 1899, both bourgeois reformists like Liang Qichao and revolutionaries like Zhu Zhixin wrote about them. However, until the October Revolution, Marxism was not correctly interpreted in China, and it was not considered important. Conditions were not yet ripe for Chinese society to embrace Marxism, and its influence was negligible. It was the October Revolution that for the first time turned the theories of socialism in books into a living reality. The Russian revolution held particular interest for the Chinese people because it had taken place in a country where conditions were very similar to those in China: severe feudal oppression combined with economic and cultural backwardness. This demonstrated that "a low level of material civilization could in no way hold back the progress of socialism,"15 and that when capitalism offered no solution, one could turn to socialism. The October Revolution was also a call to resist imperialism, a call that sounded "especially penetrating and especially significant"16 to the Chinese people, who had been so bullied and humiliated by the imperialist powers. This gave a powerful impetus to those Chinese progressives who were inclined towards socialism, encouraging them to make a serious study of the theories of Marxism that had guided the revolution. Furthermore, the mobilization of the Russian worker and peasant masses under the banner of socialism and the historic victory they had gained inspired the Chinese progressives to try new methods of revolution. In short, the October Revolution aroused a new hope of national liberation in China. Under these circumstances, a group of intellectuals who supported the Russian revolution and embraced the rudiments of communist ideas came14 into prominence in China. ,hf.Lo^ahha°DWaS,the firSt *° hold aloft in China 'he banner of he October Revolutjon. In 1918 he became professor and chief librarian at Beijing University and emerged as a prominent be! lTlTaftlr .t* T h"'"1™1 m0vement' In July and Novem1 18, after shrewd observation of the October Revolution and careful reflection upon it, he published a series of articles whh such titles as A Comparative Study of the French and Rushan Revolutions, The Victory of the Common People" and "The ODments°h ^ W"h keen insight int0 historical develpments he declared that the victory of the October Revolution a revolution based on socialism, a social revolution known to the world tor its revolutionary colours, was a triumph for the labour movement a harbinger of world revolution in the 20th century and a new dawn for all mankind. He predicted that the tide set in motion by the October Revolution was irresistible and that the future would surely see "a world of red flags " In an article entitled "The New Era," published on New Year's Day 1919 he wrote that the October Revolution had opened a new era in uman history, that it would bring forth a new life a new take TheT ^ the Chinese should take the same road as the Russians. While radica1 changes were taking place in the thinking of the hinese ideologists, profound changes were also quietly taking place in China s social structure. During World War I the country s national capitalist economy developed rapidly, because the estern imperialist countries, busy fighting at close quarters on e European battlefield, had temporarily slackened their economic aggression against China. (Japan and the United States were exceptions, continuing to expand their economic influence 1919 antao*°l In the six years froi" 1914 through 1919 a total of 379 factories and mines were built, or an average of 63 a year. In connection with this development, the Chinese working dass and national bourgeoisie grew in strength On the nib 7 £y 4th M°Vement °f ,919' the Industrial workers numbered about two million and were becoming an increasingly important social force. All sorts of social problems incTudh'g 15 contradictions between labour and capital, caused ever greater popular concern, providing an objective basis for the acceptance of Marxism. The rapid increase in the number of students enrolled in various new types of schools and the emergence of many teachers in such schools and of journalists helped to form a larger contingent of intellectuals than there had been in the period of the Revolution of 1911. The anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution of the bourgeoisie had a new and much stronger body of supporters. The rise of a great new people's revolution was inevitable.

The May 4th Movement and the Rise of Socialist Ideas

It was China's diplomatic failure at the "peace conference" in Paris that touched off the May 4th Movement. In the first half of 1919, the Allied countries held a "peace conference in Paris. Actually, the conference was manipulated by a few powers that had emerged victorious from World War I. Since China had joined the Allies during the war, it too sent delegates. However, the conference rejected its seven demands (including the liquidation of the foreign spheres of influence in China and the withdrawal of foreign troops) and its call for the annulment of Japan's "Twenty-One Demands" and of the related notes exchanged between the two countries. Moreover, the conference ruled that Germany should transfer to Japan all the privileges it had obtained in Shandong Province. The "peace conference gave China nothing but some astronomical instruments that had been seized by Germany when the Eight-Power Allied Forces had stormed into Beijing in 1900. Nevertheless, the delegates from China's Northern warlord government were prepared to sign the "peace treaty." When the news reached home, it aroused the indignation of people of all social strata. The patriotic May 4th Movement, pioneered by the students, erupted like a volcano. On May 3 students from Beijing University, together with16 representatives of students from other universities and secondary schools in Beijing, held a rally and decided to send a telegram to the special envoys in Paris, demanding that they refuse to sign the "peace treaty." One of the students cut his finger and wrote in blood the four Chinese characters Huan Wo Qing Dao (Return Qingdao to China).17 On May 4 more than 3,000 students from a dozen universities and schools assembled in front of the Tian'anmen gate-tower and held a demonstration. They shouted such slogans as "Annul the Twenty-One Demands!", "Return Qingdao to China!" and "Punish the traitors Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu!" (three pro- Japanese bureaucrats in the Northern warlord government). They wrote in a declaration: "The land of China may be conquered, but it must not be forfeited! The people of China may be killed, but they must not bow their heads! The country has been subjugated! Compatriots, arise!" When the demonstrators reached the west entrance of the foreign embassy quarter their way was blocked, so they changed course, marching towards the residence of Cao Rulin. There they found Zhang Zongxiang and beat him black and blue. Unable to find Cao Rulin, they set his house on fire. The government called out troops and police to suppress the students, thirty-two of whom were arrested. Closing ranks in the struggle, the university and middle-school students established a federation. Twenty-five thousand of them staged a general strike. They also made patriotic speeches in the streets, calling on the public to boycott Japanese merchandise and buy Chinese-made goods. Under the brutal repression of the reactionary authorities, the students' struggle ebbed for a time. Then on June 3, as the government openly commended Cao Rulin and once again strictly banned any patriotic movement, they resumed their campaign in the streets. The students spoke tearfully, while the audiences sobbed, their hands covering their faces. Some 170 students were arrested on the first day, and some 700 on the second. On the third day, when more than 2,000 students turned out into the streets, they were attacked by mounted troops and police. It was at this juncture that an important event took place: the 17 Chinese working class entered the political arena as an independent force. On June 5 in Shanghai, while students were kneeling down along the streets to appeal to the shopkeepers to go on strike, about 70,000 workers spontaneously began a sympathy strike. They were followed by workers in Beijing, l'angshan, Hankou, Nanjing, Changsha and other places. Shopkeepers in many large and medium-sized cities joined the strikers. Like a prairie fire, the struggle spread to more than twenty provinces and over a hundred cities across the country. Ihe May 4th Movement was no longer restricted within the narrow limits of the intelligentsia: it had turned into a nationwide revolutionary movement with the participation of the working class, the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie. The focus of the struggle shifted from Beijing to Shanghai, and the workers gradually replaced the students as the main force. On June 10, under the pressure from the people, the Northern warlords were compelled to release the arrested students and to announce the dismissal of Cao, Zhang and Lu. On June 27 in Paris hundreds of Chinese—workers, students and other residents—went to the hospital where Lu Zhengxiang, the chief Chinese delegate, was staying for medical treatment and demanded that he refuse to sign the "peace treaty." The following day, the Chinese delegation did not attend the ceremony for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The May 4th Movement was an epoch-making event in the history of the Chinese revolution, marking the great beginning of the new-democratic revolution. Looking back on it, Mao Zedong wrote, "Its outstanding historical significance is to be seen in a feature which was absent from the Revolution of 1911, namely, its thorough and uncompromising opposition to imperialism as well as to feudalism."18 And according to Zhang Wentian, another prominent leader of the CPC, "The greatest merit of the May 4th Movement lay in arousing the political consciousness of the masses and achieving the unity of the revolutionary forces."19 In the beginning of the movement, the students emerged in the vanguard of the struggle, while at a later stage the working class18 became the main force, displaying its special sense of organization and discipline and its staunch revolutionary spirit. In the words of Deng Zhongxia, an outstanding leader of the workers' movement, "Thus the Chinese working class began a political strike. Later, it managed to develop independent strength and an independent struggle of its own, on which this strike obviously exercised a great influence."20 As they witnessed the great strength displayed by the working class in the struggle, "some of the student leaders in the May 4th Movement set out to ‘join the public ,' running schools for workers and organizing trade unions. Later they became the backbone of the newly founded Communist Party of China. Around the time of the May 4th Movement, the Chinese progressives came to realize from the experience of the Paris "peace conference" that the imperialist forces had joined together to oppress the Chinese people. This was the main cause of the further dissemination of socialist ideas in China. Qu Qiubai a prominent Communist and writer, wrote, "The cutting pain of imperialist oppression awakened the public from the nightmare of vague democracy.... Therefore, the students' movement swiftly turned to socialism."22 The study and propagation of socialism gradually became the main concern of the progressives. This was a salient feature of the new cultural movement after the May 4th Movement. It took time for people to understand socialism. At first they felt an obscure yearning for it, as if, Qu Qiubai continued, "they viewed the morning mist through a screened window. The different schools of socialism were confusing and its meaning was not clear."23 For the time being, people could hardly distinguish between scientific socialism and other schools of socialism. Magazine articles reflected every variety of socialist thinking—anarchism, utopian socialism, cooperativism, pan-labourism, guild socialism, social democracy and so on. It was only after repeated comparison and judgement that the Chinese progressives chose Marxist scientific socialism. Li Dazhao played a major role in the early stage of the Marxist movement in China. He was the chief editor of a special issue of 19 New Youth devoted to Marxism in May 1919. In his own article, "My Marxist Outlook," he gave a comprehensive and systematic introduction to Marxism. Marxism, he wrote, was the integration of the study of history, economics and politics; that is, historical materialism, economic theory and socialist doctrine, and "class struggle [ran] through all three, like a gold thread." Unlike the vague and fragmentary explanations of Marxist theories that had appeared earlier, Li Dazhao's introduction to Marxism was relatively precise and complete. Certain young people who had come into contact with Marxist theories while they had been studying in Japan also played an important role in the early propagation of Marxism in China. For example, in November and December 1919, Yang Pao'an published in New China Daily in Guangdong Province a series of articles entitled "Marxism (Also Known as Scientific Socialism)" in which he gave a systematic account of Marxist historical materialism, economic theory and scientific socialism. Li Da, another student back from Japan, published his translations of such books as Explanations of Historical Materialism, A General Survey of Social Problems, and Marxist Economic Theory. He also wrote articles for the press, including "What is Socialism?" and "The Objectives of Socialism." Before the May 4th Movement, many intellectuals of different ideological persuasions had participated in the new cultural movement, but since they concentrated their criticism on Confucianism and promoted science and democracy, their differences of opinion were not very evident. Now that Marxism was being widely disseminated, however, distinct splits began to appear in the movement. Hu Shi, for example, had a passion for the bourgeois civilization of the West, believed in pragmatism and advocated reformism. He had declared his determination "not to talk about politics for twenty years." At this juncture, however, he felt he "could no longer keep his eyes closed and hold his tongue." In an article entitled "More Discussions on Questions, Less Talk about ‘Doctrines'!" published in July 1919, he stated that "every doctrine is a remedy applied by men of high ideals at a given time and place for a society at that time and place,"20 ^!Zin! tkf !*ai?iSm WaS applicable t0 China. Instead, he advod gradual reform and maintained that the search for "a ^ anient3! solution" was "absolute proof of the bankruptcy of logical circles in China." He asserted that he had "tried to -how people the correct path so that they would not be misled" nd to prevent them from being "led by the nose" by Marx and Lenin.24 In other words, he did his utmost to discourage the Chinese from embracing Marxism-Leninism and from trying to make a revolution. y s Jo meet the challenge from Hu Shi, the following month Li Doctrine, He ied an article entitled "More on Questions and Doctrines. He pointed out that socialism was a banner of the hmes and that the propagation of doctrines and the study of prac ical questions were not conflicting endeavours but rather upplemented each other. On the one hand, he said, the study of practical questions must be guided by a doctrine. On the other hand a socialist, if his doctrine is to have some influence in the world must study how to apply his ideal, insofar as possible to hi real surroundings.*' "As long as we apply a doctrine as a toS or an actual movement, ' he continued, "it will bring about changes that will be suited to the surroundings in accordance with the time, the place and the nature of the matter." In this wav Li 3 prellminary "Position of the idea that the general tenets of Marxism must be integrated with the actual conditions of the country and developed in the course of this integration He also rebutted Hu Shi's arguments for reformism. In view of the would65 °! Ch T 3t the tlme' hC declared' Piecemeal reform ° d work and fundamental social problems had to be solved before specific issues could be addressed. The debate on "questions and doctrines" had tremendous retrCUv.SSi°uS' Many y°Ung people in different parts of the country who had begun to embrace Marxist ideas wrote magazine articles expressing their support for Li Dazhao's views. m„ThM f°vlctR.f 1 sian Government issued a declaration renouncng al! the privileges formerly enjoyed by Czarist Russia within the borders of China. During March and April of 1920, The East and other journals made this declaration known to the Chinese 21 public, breaking the news blockade imposed by the reactionaries. When the Chinese people, who had been bullied by the capitalist powers for so long, learned the content of the declaration, they were overjoyed. New Youth carried comments from its readers and stated that the declaration embodied the spirit of the Constitution of Russia, that it demonstrated the will to eradicate capitalist aggressiveness and that the Chinese should study and uphold the doctrines of the worker-peasant government in Russia. The Soviet declaration gave a fresh and powerful impetus to the further dissemination of Marxism in China. Under these circumstances, many progressive intellectuals of different backgrounds came to Marxism by different routes, after careful consideration of the alternatives. As an ideological leader during the initial stage of the new cultural movement, Chen Duxiu declared after the May 4th Movement that since militarism and money-worship had caused endless crimes, it was high time to discard them. He said he had come to realize that republican politics was manipulated by the bourgeoisie, which was in the minority, and that it was an illusion to think it could be used to achieve happiness for the majority. He warned that China should not take the path followed by Europe, the United Sates and Japan. In his article "On Politics" published in September 1920, Chen stated explicitly that it was the prime necessity for a modern society to establish a stale of the labouring classes (the productive classes), by means of revolution, and to institute politics and laws that would prohibit plundering at home and abroad. At this juncture, a group of prominent young Left-wingers who had emerged from the May 4th Movement also began to turn towards Marxism. In the Xiangjiang Review, of which he was the editor-in-chief, Mao Zedong, then a well-known leader of the student movement in Hunan Province, enthusiastically praised the victory of the October Revolution, declaring that it would spread worldwide and that the Chinese should follow its example. After he came to Beijing for the second time, he eagerly sought out books about communism and about conditions in Russia and these helped to establish his faith in Marxism. Many years 'later22 he recalled, "By the summer of 1920 I had become, in theory and to some extent in action, a Marxist."25 Other noted student leaders, such as Deng Zhongxia, Cai Hesen and Zhou Enlai, one after another, set out on the same road. As has been said above, some veteran members of the Chinese Revolutionary League also began to turn to proletarian socialism. Many years later, Dong Biwu recalled how he and others had joined Sun Yat-sen in the revolution. "The revolution forged ahead, but Sun Yat-sen failed to get hold of it and, as a result, it was snatched by others. We therefore began to study the Russian pattern" and to read Marxism.26 Wu Yuzhang, another veteran revolutionary, said that at that time, from what he had experienced since the Revolution of 1911, he had come to realize that "the old methods of revolution used in the past must be changed." "In the light shed by the October Revolution and the May 4th Movement," he added, "the idea that we must rely on the people of the lower social strata and take the path of the Russians became increasingly clear in my mind."27 That these men with different experiences came to Marxism by different routes indicates that it was the historic choice of a considerable number of Chinese progressives to abandon the capitalist programme for national construction and to take the road illuminated by Marxist scientific socialism. This was the most essential feature of the new cultural movement after the May 4th Movement. It is important to note that the first group of Marxists in China had been fervent fighters for bourgeois democracy. They forsook their faith in bourgeois democracy and turned to Marxism. They made this choice of their own accord, in light of their own experiences and after careful consideration. This was because Marxism, as a well-knit scientific theory, was more convincing to them than any other doctrine and because, as Shi Cuntong put it, "it can solve our problems and bring us benefits."28 After they accepted Marxism, the Chinese progressives did not discard the respect for science and democracy fostered by the May 4th Movement. On the contrary, under the guidance of Marxism they infused those concepts with fresh and more pro 23 found content. Democracy no longer meant narrow bourgeois democracy but democracy for the majority; that is, for the labouring classes. For this reason they stressed the need to root out the class privileges of the minority and, in the words of Chen Duxiu, to change the state of "the majority of proletarian labourers, who live in hardship, without freedom," which did not conform to democracy.29 Science includes both natural and social sciences, but the Chinese Marxists believed that the study of society could become a true science only when it was based on historical materialism. As far as science was concerned, therefore, prime importance should be given to the Marxist scientific world outlook, methodology and theory of social revolution. The dissemination of Marxism did not negate the ideological struggle against feudalism. On the contrary, it provided an even sharper weapon for that struggle. Applying historical materialism, the first group of Marxists in China revealed the social causes of feudal ideology and culture. They set a higher goal for their struggle against feudalism, elevating the struggle for liberation of the individual to a struggle for liberation of the masses. As for the form of the struggle, propagation of the new ideas by a small number of people changed into revolutionary practice by the masses, thus deepening their ideological liberation. From the very beginning, the Chinese progressives looked upon Marxism not simply as a doctrine but as an instrument for studying the destiny of the country. Although they were not adequately prepared theoretically, they took the basic principles of Marxism as their guide and participated enthusiastically in the mass struggle. At the beginning of 1920, a number of revolutionary intellectuals in Beijing, at the urging of Li Dazhao, went to the living quarters of rickshaw men to investigate their miserable conditions. Deng Zhongxia and others went to Changxindian, a locomotive repair centre in the suburbs of Beijing, to conduct revolutionary propaganda among the workers and begin to forge links with them. From the very beginning, the participants in the Marxist ideological movement saw to it that they integrated their revolutionary ideas with practice and joined the masses in their struggle. This was one of the characteristics and strong points of24 the Marxist ideological movement. At first, however, the dissemination of Marxism was confined mainly to a small number of intellectuals. Communist groups in various parts of the country, embryonic organizations of the Communist Party of China, made it their principal task to disseminate Marxism and to integrate it with the workers' movement.

The Founding of the Communist Party of China

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helped the socialists in Tianjin, Tangshan, Taiyuan, Jinan and other cities in northern China to establish Party and Youth League organizations. Between the autumn of 1920 and the spring of 1921, Dong Biwu, Chen Tanqiu, Bao Huiseng and others in Wuhan; Mao Zedong, He Shuheng and others in Changsha; Wang Jinmei, Deng Enming and others in Jinan; and Tan Pingshan, Tan Zhitang and others in Guangzhou also established Communist groups, propagating communist ideas and carrying out organizational activities. Most such groups were established in key cities, where the new cultural movement and the patriotic May 4th Movement had had a profound influence, where large communities of industrial workers were located and where there were the first groups of intellectuals who believed in Marxism. Communist organizations were also formed by progressives among the Chinese students in Japan and France. These early organizations had different names. The Shanghai group, for example, was known as the Communist Party of China from the very beginning. The Beijing group called itself the Beijing Branch of the Communist Party of China. In later years all these local organizations, which were soon to form the Communist Party of China, were commonly known as Communist groups. Work of the Communist Groups Once established, the Communist groups in various parts of China disseminated Marxism in a planned way, doing propaganda and organizational work among the workers and promoting the integration of Marxism with the workers' movement. This was ideological and organizational preparation for the founding of the Communist Party of China. Their main activities were as follows. 1. Studying and propagating Marxism. In September 1920 New Youth became the organ of the Shanghai Communist group and began to propagate Marxism openly. The new column "Study of Russia" in the magazine dealt with the experience of the October Revolution and of Soviet Russia. In November of the same year, the group launched The Communist Party , a semi-clandestine monthly, to spread elementary knowledge about a potential Communist Party and to give news of the Communist International and of Communist parties in other countries, thus preparing the ground for the founding of such a party in China. The Communist groups in various parts of the country propagated Marxism through newspapers and periodicals, including those published by themselves, such as Awakening , a supplement to the Republican Daily in Shanghai, the Wuhan Weekly Review in Hubei, the fortnightly Encourage the New in Jinan and the Mass Journal in Guangdong. Thanks to these journals, scientific socialism became a strong trend of thought in China. The Communist groups in Shanghai and Beijing also published many translations of Marxist works. The Chinese translation, by Chen Wangdao, of The Communist Manifesto was published in August 1920. About one thousand copies were printed for the first edition, and the work was reprinted in many other cities. The same month saw the publication of the Chinese translation of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels. Also translated and published were writings on Marxism such as The ABC of " Capi taC by Marx , An Explanation of Historical Materialism, Class Struggle and The History of Socialism. The publication of these books made it possible for the progressives in China to have a systematic understanding of Marxism. In their initial propagation of Marxism, the Communist groups gave paramount importance to the theories of scientific socialism and class struggle, and these theories had widespread influence in ideological circles. In the original or newly established Marxist societies and other organizations, some of the Communist groups organized progressive young people to learn the basic theories of Marxism and study the practical problems of China. In this way they created the earliest backbone force of the future Party. In particular, the Society for the Study of Marxist Theories in Beijing University, under the guidance of Li Dazhao, served this function: many of its members and corresponding members were revolutionary young people who later became Communists. 2. Conducting polemics against anti-Marxist trends of thought.

While the influence of Marxist ideology was spreading, some factions that supported bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology were also propagating their political views under the name of socialism. At this time, not all progressives who were seeking the truth were able to see the essential distinction between Marxism and these other forms of socialism. The Communist groups had to struggle to make a clear distinction between scientific socialism and other forms of socialism and to win over persons who were patriotic and inclined towards progress but who had been influenced by other schools of thought. At the end of 1920, Zhang Dongsun and Liang Qichao launched a debate about socialism. Although they stated that capitalism was bound to fall and socialism was sure to rise, they emphasized that since China was industrially backward, there was no ground for the founding of a political party representing the labouring classes and that a real worker-peasant revolution would never take place. They believed that poverty was the major problem in China and that the solution was for the gentry and mercantile class to vitalize industry and commerce and develop capitalism. They called for "a rectified attitude toward capitalists" in order to "bring about sound, gradual development under the present economic system." They expressed their faith in the guild socialism advocated by Bertrand Russell, a British scholar,—bourgeois reformism under the guise of socialism. These views were firmly rejected by the first group of Marxists in China. The Marxists declared that one could not think about ways to solve China's problems without taking into account the conditions of the times, and that judging from international conditions and the state of society at home, it was impossible for the country to develop capitalism independently. "The Chinese people's position in the world economy," they pointed out, "has been secured in the mounting tide of the labour movement, and it is theoretically impermissible and practically impossible to institute a system that protects capitalists." It was necessary, they felt, for China to develop education and industry, but it should do so by means of socialism so as to "uproot the plundering classes at home and resist international capitalism," instead of "following the wrong path taken by Europe, the United States and Japan." They added that the existence of the proletariat in China was an undeniable fact and that "the Chinese proletariat is suffering even greater misery than the proletariat in Europe, the United States and Japan." "This state of affairs," they concluded, "cannot be remedied unless the Chinese labourers unite and form revolutionary organizations to transform the system of production." The first group of Marxists were not aware that, for the revolution in semi-colonial, semi-feudal China, the first step had to be democracy, with socialism only as the second step. But from the very beginning they stressed that capitalism was an impasse in China, that socialism was the only solution and that it was necessary to found a party of the working class to lead the Chinese people in revolution. This understanding was absolutely correct and of far-reaching significance. They expounded their views on a theoretical plane and tested them against the actual circumstances of Chinese society. This showed that scientific socialism could take root in China. Among the various trends of socialist thought, anarchism was dominant for a period of time. Proceeding from ultraindividualism, the anarchists preached absolute freedom of the individual in his opposition to power, to any form of organization and discipline, to any authority and to any type of government, including the dictatorship of the proletariat. They also attacked private ownership and advocated absolute egalitarianism. China was a country with a large petty bourgeoisie. In essence, the proposals of the anarchists, which centred around the interests of the individual and seemed to be immensely radical and thoroughgoing, echoed the sentiments of the small producers, who were dissatisfied with the status quo because they had been reduced to bankruptcy, and of the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, who had been reduced to despair politically. A number of young people who were discontent with the old society and looking for a way out, were also influenced by this ideology because they knew little about socialism. Before the May 4th Movement, Shi Fu and others had preached anarchism in China. During the period of the movement, anarchism had found many adherents, especially in Guangdong Province, and more than 70 periodicals and books were published to propagate their ideas. As anarchism was essentially antagonistic to Marxism, they increasingly directed their attacks at Marxism, which was being disseminated on an everwider scale. Huang Lingshuang and others wrote articles with such titles as "Criticism of Marxist Theories" and "We Are Against ‘Bolshevism,' " posing an open challenge to Marxism. It became an important task for the Marxists to expose the true nature of this school of petty-bourgeois socialist ideology. During the polemics against the anarchists, the Marxists argued that while the power of the bourgeoisie should undoubtedly be opposed, the power of the proletariat should not. Revolutionary means must be adopted to seize political power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. That was the only way to protect the interests of the labourers and ultimately to eliminate classes and make the state wither away. Advocating absolute freedom of the individual, the Marxists said, would only make it impossible for the working class to close ranks and become a powerful combat force, and it would therefore make it easier for the bourgeoisie to destroy the workers' movement. Social and economic chaos would result if the principle of distribution "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" were put into effect before the productive forces were highly developed. In reality, the social contradictions in modern China were so acute that only great unity and unremitting struggle could overthrow the old forces. Yet while the anarchists expressed opposition to power, they called for absolute freedom of the individual and urged the elimination of all discipline and of any restraint by the collective. In the end, however, this was all empty talk. The anarchists could form only small, loosely organized groups with a tiny total membership, and they were unable to play an important role in political life. Accordingly, when they encountered scathing criticism from the Marxists, their influence quickly waned. The Marxists also rejected the revisionism of the Second International. Denouncing the assertion that "parliamentary tactics 31 should be employed for the elevation of the workers' status and the shift of political power" in China, they pointed out that "social democrats try to make use of the parliament as a means of transformation, but in reality, parliamentary legislation invariably protects the propertied classes." They also declared that as a result of the misrepresentations of the Second International, the "cream" of Marxist socialism had disappeared completely. The social democrats' socialism, they said, had degenerated into liberalism, and their revolutionism had degenerated into reformism. This revisionist thinking, they continued, found little support in China, because the class contradictions were extremely acute and the Chinese parliament had long since become a toy in the hands of the warlords. The Marxists' criticism of the position taken by the Second International indicated that from the very beginning the communist movement in China adhered to a revolutionary orientation. Actually, the polemics against the anti-Marxist trends of thought were a struggle to win over the masses. They helped progressives who were inclined to socialism to distinguish between scientific socialism and the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schools of socialism and to embrace Marxism. Many progressive young people who had been influenced by anarchistic ideas became staunch Marxists later on. 3. Conducting propaganda and organizing the workers. Once formed, the Communist groups in various parts of the country took a direct and energetic part in the labour movement, organizing and educating the workers. This was something no other political party had ever done in China. The Chinese working class displayed great strength in the later stage of the May 4th Movement, but it was still young, and a great many of its members came from among the impoverished peasants and urban vagrants, devoid of class consciousness. Originally they had had guilds and secret societies; later they had had so-called trade unions, which were only organizations manipulated by hooligans or by employers. To propagate Marxism among the workers and awaken their class consciousness, the Communist groups launched publications addressed to them. These included Labour in Shanghai, The Voice of Labour and the Workers' Weekly in Beijing and the Jinan Labour Monthly in Jinan. At the same time, they established various types of workers' schools, the most well-known of which were the school for continuing education in Changxindian in suburban Beijing, established by Deng Zhongxia and others of the Beijing group, and a similar one in western Shanghai established by Li Qihan and others of the Shanghai group. Running such schools was the Party's way of "starting its work among the workers and of coming into contact with the masses to organize trade unions."30 As a result of these efforts at propaganda and education, the politically awakened workers demanded organization. In November 1920 the Shanghai Machine-building Trade Union, the first trade union led by a Communist group, was founded with an initial membership of about 370. Soon after that, the Shanghai Printing Trade Union came into existence, with a membership of more than 1,300. On May 1, 1921, more than a thousand workers in Changxindian took part in a parade to mark International Labour Day, and to announce the establishment of a "workers' club" (trade union). One after another, trade unions were organized by industrial workers and handicraftsmen in Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Jinan. These trade unions began to call upon the workers to strike. Most of the members of the Communist groups were intellectuals. In order to carry out effective propaganda and organizational work among the workers, they put on workers' clothes, learned to speak their language and joined in their labour, doing everything possible to become one with them. Yu Xiusong, for example, wrote to a friend that he had "changed his name and changed his clothes" to take a job at the Housheng Iron Works, where he gave lectures to the workers.31 Li Zhong, a student from Hunan No. One Normal School and a member of the Socialist Youth League, worked as a blacksmith at the Jiangnan Shipyard and helped Chen Duxiu and others organize the Machinebuilding Trade Union.32 So it was that from the very outset the Marxist ideological movement in China was one in which the intellectuals were integrated with the workers. 4. Founding the Socialist Youth League. As a vigorous social force receptive to new ideas, young people were, of course, highly valued by the Marxists. On the other hand, they were generally inexperienced and needed good leadership. To meet this need, in August 1920 the Shanghai Communist group founded the Socialist Youth League. Yu Xiusong became the secretary. After that, Youth League organizations were established in Beijing, Tianjin, Wuchang, Hankou, Changsha and other cities, where they organized their members to study Marxism and take part in labour struggles, creating a reserve force for the future Party. These four activities of the Communist groups gave a powerful impetus to the dissemination of Marxism and to its integration with the workers' movement. In the process, those intellectuals who had only recently come to believe in communism gradually underwent profound changes in their thinking and in their attitude toward workers. At the same time, a number of workers learned something about Marxism and raised their class consciousness, becoming advanced elements of the proletariat. All this helped prepare the ground for the founding of a communist party. The 1st National Congress of the Communist Party of China In March 1921, Li Dazhao wrote an article calling for the founding of a political party of the working class. "In China today," he said, "there is no organization that can really represent the people. If friends of Faction C | the Communists] can establish a solid and well-knit organization and see to the collective training of its members, there will be support for a great, thoroughgoing reform in China."33 In March of the same year, representatives of Communist organizations throughout the country held a meeting at which they issued a common statement of objectives and principles and worked out a provisional programme.34 On July 23, 1921, the 1st National Congress of the Communist Party of China was convened at No. 106 Wangzhi Road (now. No.76 Xingye Road), in the French concession in Shanghai. As the meeting place caught the eye of plainclothes detectives and was searched by foreign policemen, the delegates had to go to Jiaxing County in Zhejiang Province, where they held their final session on a pleasure boat on Lake Nanhu. Attending the 1st Party Congress were twelve delegates representing fifty-three Party members in seven localities. They were: Li Da and Li Hanjun (Shanghai), Zhang Guotao and Liu Renjing (Beijing), Mao Zedong and He Shuheng (Changsha), Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu (Wuhan), Wang Jinmei and Deng Enming (Jinan), Chen Gongbo (Guangzhou) and Zhou Fohai (residing in Japan). Bao Huiseng, designated by Chen Duxiu, who was then in Guangzhou, also attended the congress. Two representatives of the Communist International, G. Maring and Nicolsky, attended as observers. The congress decided that the name of the new party would be "the Communist Party of China" and that its programme would be "to overthrow the bourgeoisie by means of the revolutionary army of the proletariat ... to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to attain the objective of class struggle, that is, the elimination of classes ... to abolish private ownership of capital" and to ally itself with the Third International. From the day of its founding, the Communist Party of China set itself the goal of socialism and, ultimately, communism, and advocated the attainment of that goal by revolutionary means. Thus it made a clear distinction of principle between itself and the social democrats of the Second International, who worshipped bourgeois democracy and parliamentarianism. The congress called for "cooperation with other political parties in the struggle against the common enemy"—that is, the warlords but it failed to work out an explicit programme for the stage of democratic revolution. The newborn Communist Party of China had set socialism and communism as its goal and was firmly determined to make a revolution, but it had little understanding of the specific conditions of the country and did not see the difference and connections between democratic revolution and socialist revolution. Under the social circumstances of semi-colonial and semi-feudal China, with poorly developed cap 35 italism and ruthless oppression by foreign imperialists, the Communist Party of China could not clearly understand such questions as whether it was possible to make socialist revolution immediately and directly and what steps should be taken to realize socialism and then communism. When the congress discussed the plan for practical work, it became clear that because the Party's membership was so small, it would be difficult to organize the peasants and armed forces. Accordingly, it decided to concentrate the Party's energy on organizing factory workers. The Party's first resolution adopted by the congress provided that the basic task of the Party at the time would be "the establishment of trade unions of industrial workers," that "the Party should imbue the trade unions with the spirit of class struggle" and that it should send members to work in them. As the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party of China did not simply concern itself with propagating Marxism but paid great attention to establishing close ties with the working class. This was one of its chief merits. To ensure that the CPC would be an advanced party, the congress sought to guarantee the quality of Party members. It decided to "admit new members only with particular caution and after strict examination," and since the Party was then composed almost entirely of intellectuals, to "make special effort in organizing the workers and educating them in the spirit of communism." The programme adopted by the congress also stipulated that persons who applied for Party membership must not have any inclination toward non-communist ideas. Before they were admitted, "they must sever relations with any other party or group which [was] opposed to the Communist Party programme." Furthermore, it was stipulated that "the views of the Party and the identity of Party members should be kept secret until such time as conditions are ripe for them to be brought into the open." At a time when the Party had just been born, however, its ranks could hardly be totally pure. The twelve delegates to the 1st Party Congress split up later on. Most of them adhered unswervingly to their faith in socialism and communism and upheld the cause of the Chinese revolution, for which some of them gave their lives.People like Chen Gongbo and Zhou Fohai, however, were not genuine Communists, and they were expelled from the Party soon after its founding. Others quit the Party, and some even betrayed the revolution. This was not surprising in a party that had only just come into being. Even when the CPC grew into a mass party composed for the most part of fine, staunch Communists, it was inevitable that waverers, dissidents and turncoats should appear in its ranks. The congress elected Chen Duxiu and two others to form the Central Bureau, the leading organ of the Party. Chen Duxiu was to serve as secretary, while Li Da and Zhang Guotao were to be in charge of propaganda and organizational work respectively. The 1st National Congress of the Party proclaimed the founding of the Communist Party of China. The birth of the CPC was an inevitable outcome of the development of the revolutionary movement in China. Almost at the same time a number of progressives who had no links with the Shanghai group, which initiated the founding of the CPC, were also preparing to found a party. In July 1920 a number of Chinese students who were on a work-study programme in France gathered at a meeting in College de Montargis. According to Li Weihan, one of those present, Cai Hesen "called for making a radical revolution, organizing a Communist party and enforcing the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is, following the path of the October Revolution in Russia." He also consulted Li Weihan and others about how to prepare for the establishment of a Communist party. This was never accomplished, however, Li recalled, "because Cai was busy leading the Chinese students' struggle to secure opportunities to study."35 In the summer of 1921, members of the Liqun Study Society met in Huanggang, Hubei Province, expressing support for the formation of a party of the Bolshevik type and proposing that the organization be named "Bo She" (for Bolshevik). Upon hearing of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Yun Daiying, founder of the society, immediately called on its members to disband it and join the CPC.36 In the winter of 1923, more than twenty people in Sichuan Province, including Wu Yuzhang and Yang Angong, secretly organized the Chinese Youth Communist Party and began to publish Chixin Pinglun (Sincere Review) as its organ. Later this party abolished itself and urged its members to join the CPC as individuals.37 These facts show that the establishment of a political party of the working class to lead the Chinese people in their struggle had become the common demand of the most conscious revolutionaries in China and was an outcome of the development of the objective situation. That the Communist Party of China was founded in the early 1920s was by no means accidental. The CPC is a revolutionary Marxist party and the vanguard of the Chinese working class. It came into being under specific social and historical circumstances. On the one hand, it was founded after the October Revolution in Russia had been crowned with victory and after the social-democratic trend of thought espoused by the Second International had been discredited during World War I. It embraced Marxism, which was composed of a complete scientific world outlook and the theory of social revolution; Leninism, which was Marxism developed in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution; and scientific socialism, which was clearly distinguished from bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schools of socialism in the course of struggle. On the other hand, it was founded on the basis of the workers' movement in semicolonial and semi-feudal China. The social contradictions in modern China were extremely acute. The working class was relatively new, and many workers had been small producers in the past, but it cherished a fierce desire for revolution, because it was subject to ruthless oppression and exploitation by the foreign imperialists and by the domestic bourgeoisie and feudal forces. Within this class there was no stratum of labour aristocracy such as could be found in Europe, and no solid economic foundation for reformism. China had not passed through a stage of "peaceful" development of capitalism as Europe had done, so the Chinese working class could not carry out peaceful parliamentary struggles and could have no illusions about bourgeois democracy. Therefore, the Party was not influenced by the Second International. It was, from the outset, a party with Marxism-Leninism asits theoretical basis, a new type of revolutionary party of the working class. Being different from the political parties of the past, the Communist Party of China took a clear stand, analyzing problems in China from the Marxist point of view of class struggle and carrying out mass work among the workers. By so doing, the Party, despite its small size, threw all the decadent forces of the old society into a panic. When the communist movement in China was only just stirring, it was criticized as "extremist" and repressed jointly by the reactionaries at home and abroad. In April 1920 the Northern warlord government, basing itself on a reporter's despatch in the American newspaper The Chicago Sun that spoke of the need to guard against extremist preaching, sent telegrams to the military inspectors, governors and superintendents of all provinces and regions, instructing them to keep a sharp lookout for "extremists."38 In December, at the request of Wang Huaiqing, commander-in-chief of the infantry, the State Council of the Northern warlord government sent a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs instructing it to draft special provisions for punishing "extremists." In his letter of request, Wang cried out in alarm that the "scourge" of the propagation of communism was "worse than fierce floods or savage beasts" and "should be strictly guarded against so as to nip the trouble in the bud."39 Under these circumstances, which lasted many years, the CPC had to operate as an outlawed and clandestine party, whose members were always in danger of being tracked down, arrested and executed by the reactionary troops and police. Rarely had a political party in China had to function under such difficult conditions. As the political party of the working class, the most advanced class in the country, the CPC represented the interests not only of that class but of the vast masses of the people and the nation as a whole. Using Marxism to clarify its own understanding, the Party was able to illumine for the Chinese people the goal of their struggle and the path to victory. That is why it was able gradually to take root in Chinese soil and to grow into an invincible force. The founding of the Communist Party brought light and hope to the disaster-ridden Chinese people. A revolutionary party of 39 the working class was the first requirement for the victory of the Chinese revolution. With the birth of the CPC, the Chinese revolution took on an entirely new complexion. The Party had to operate in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country with a vast territory, a huge population, complicated conditions and a backward economy and culture. It had to integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, a daunting undertaking for which its forerunners provided no experience to draw on. Inevitably, a period of time would be required for the Party to grope its way in the darkness and accumulate experience in the struggle. It would be a slow hard task for the Party to gain strength and to work out a Marxist line, guiding principles and policies that were suited to the conditions of China.

Formulating the Programme of Democratic Revolution

Before the founding of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people had waged protracted struggles against foreign aggressors and domestic feudal rulers. Yet these struggles had two fundamental weaknesses. First, those who took part in them did not see clearly the targets of revolution, and they failed to unite with their real friends to attack their real enemies. The slogan "Support the Qing and exterminate the foreigners!" adopted by the Yi He Tuan movement (the Boxers) and the actions they took showed that the peasants did not understand the true nature of the foreign aggressors and the ties between them and the feudal rulers at home. When the Chinese Revolutionary League, the predecessor of the Kuomintang, had overthrown the monarchy of the Qing Dynasty, it believed that it had accomplished its task and as a result, "the revolutionary army prospered while the revolutionary party waned." For more than ten years after the Revolution of 1911, the Kuomintang only sought to preserve the Provisional Constitution promulgated in the first year of the Republic of China (the so-called pro-Constitution campaign). It failed to take a firm stand against imperialism and allied itself with the local warlords to counter the Northern warlords, thus proving that the bourgeois democrats, too, were incapable of identifying the goal for which the Chinese people should struggle. This was the main reason why little had been achieved in the revolutionary struggles of the past. Second, the earlier revolutionaries did not arouse the people on a broad scale and, in particular, did not go deep among the workers and peasants to launch organized, sustained mass movements. The activities of the Chinese Revolutionary League were conducted mainly by a small number of revolutionaries in alliance with some secret societies or the New Army. They did not integrate themselves with the peasants in the rural areas, and their activities were divorced from the peasants' spontaneous struggles. Neither did they integrate themselves with the workers in the cities. After the Revolution of 1911, although the Kuomintang waged a struggle against Yuan Shikai and opposed the Northern warlord government, it did little mass work. As Zhou Enlai remarked years later, the ordinary workers and intellectuals "were not deeply impressed" by the Kuomintang.40 This was another main reason why little had been achieved in the revolutionary struggles of the past. Shortly after the founding of the Communist Party of China, radical changes took place in these two respects. The CPC took an active part in revolutionary activities and learned, in the course of the struggle, to apply the Marxist method in observing and analyzing the problems China was faced with. In January 1922, the introduction to The Pioneers, a magazine, declared that the first task should be "to study assiduously the objective conditions of China so as to find the most appropriate solution to the country's problems." The Washington Conference convened by the imperialist powers towards the end of 1921 served as a practical lesson for the young Communist Party of China. At the conference a treaty was adopted by the nine nations—the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and China (i.e., the warlord government in Beijing). This treaty 41 approved the principle of "equal opportunity in China for the commerce and industry of all nations" and the principle of the "Open Door," which had been proposed by the United States in a bid to curb Japan's exclusive domination of China and to confirm the imperialist powers' joint control of the country. Manipulated by the imperialists, the warlords of various factions in China intensified their rivalry and fought each other again and again in large-scale wars such as the Zhili-Anhui War and the Zbili-Fengtian War, throwing the political situation in China into utter chaos. These events made it clear to the CPC that what the Chinese people suffered from most was not ordinary capitalist exploitation but oppression by imperialists and rule by feudal warlords. In January 1922 the Party sent representatives to Moscow to attend the first congress of representatives from Communist parties and national revolutionary organizations of the Far Eastern countries, convened by the Communist International. The congress expounded Lenin's theories on the national and colonial questions and stated that, so far as China was concerned, the first thing to do at the time was to "free the country from the shackles of foreign countries, overthrow the military governors" and establish a democratic republic. These ideas were of direct assistance to the CPC in working out a revolutionary programme for that period. The 2nd National Congress of the Communist Party of China The programme of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution in China was formulated at the 2nd National Congress of the CPC, held in Shanghai in July 1922. Twelve delegates attended the congress, representing 195 Party members (21 of whom were workers) from various parts of the country. The congress analyzed China's economic and political conditions and brought to light the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of the society. On the one hand, the congress stated, China had been placed under the control of the imperialist powers both politically and economically and, indeed, had become "a semi independent country under the domination of international capitalist-imperialist forces." On the other hand, it said, China remained under the political domination of the warlord and bureaucratic feudal system, which constituted an immense obstacle to the development of the rising Chinese bourgeoisie. It concluded that the democratic revolutionary movement against the imperialist and feudal forces was of paramount importance. While the Party's maximum programme was to realize socialism and communism, the programme for the present stage should be to overthrow the warlords, to cast off oppression by world imperialism and to unify the country as a genuine democratic republic. Given present conditions, the congress believed, this was a stage that could not be skipped over. The congress went on to say that in order to attain the goal of the revolutionary struggle against the imperialists and warlords, it was imperative to form a democratic, united front. After making an elementary analysis of the conditions of all classes in Chinese society, it noted that the masses of Chinese peasants, with their tremendous revolutionary enthusiasm, were "the greatest essential factor in the revolutionary movement." A large section of the petty bourgeoisie would also join the revolutionary ranks, because they were suffering untold misery. To free themselves from economic oppression, the emerging bourgeoisie would have to rise and struggle against world capitalist imperialism. As for the working class, it was a great force that would steadily grow into a revolutionary army that would overthrow imperialism in China. Thus, for the first time, the 2nd National Party Congress proposed for the Chinese people a clearly defined programme of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution. For a long time, the participants in that revolution, launched in the previous century, had had no clear idea of its targets and motive force and had never come out openly against the imperialist and feudal forces. But just a year after the Communist Party of China was founded, these questions had been clarified. Only the CPC, armed with Marxism, could point the way for the Chinese revolution. After the declaration of the 2nd Party Congress was made public, 43 Hu Shi published in the weekly Endeavour an article entitled "International China," ridiculing the Party's scientific thesis that the imperialists were sponsoring the feudal warlords as "a tall story told by country bumpkins." He held that the major problem of the time was to form "a good government" composed of "good people," and that it was not necessary to "involve any problem of world imperialism at this time." However, it was impossible to establish any really good government or to achieve any economic and political progress unless imperialist oppression and the warlords' regime were overthrown. What the Communist Party stated in scientific language was precisely what the Chinese people had dimly perceived from the realities of their own lives. For this reason, the Party's programme quickly spread far and wide and was accepted by the public. "Down with the imperialist powers! Down with the warlords!" became the demand of the people. Nevertheless, the Communist Party also had some mistaken views regarding the Chinese revolution. It believed that the success of the democratic revolution would only bring the proletariat some freedoms and rights. In other words, the victory of the democratic revolution would be a victory for the bourgeoisie. The Chinese Communists reached this conclusion by judging from what had happened in Western countries, but the Western model was not applicable to the Chinese revolution. The Party had understood the difference between democratic revolution and socialist revolution, but not the difference between old democratic revolution and new democratic revolution. And it did not realize that under the new historical conditions, the democratic revolution should be a new democratic revolution led by the proletariat. Besides formulating an explicitly anti-imperialist and antifeudal revolutionary programme, the Communist Party adopted a brand-new method that had never been, and could never be, adopted by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois political parties and groups—the method of arousing the masses and relying on them to carry out the revolution. As the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party of China was different from other parties. All its activities were undertaken to serve the interests of the working class and the masses and to achieve their liberation. It dared therefore to trust the people and rely on them. In its declaration, the Second Party Congress stated: "Our Communist Party is neither a Marxist academic society organized by intellectuals nor a utopian revolutionary organization of a few Communists who are divorced from the masses .... Since ours is a party fighting for the proletariat, we should go among the masses and form a large mass party." It went on to say that the Party should have the organization and training that would fit it for the revolution and that "all the Party's activities should be conducted in the depths of the masses" and "must never be divorced from the masses." The upsurge of the Chinese workers' movement in the early stage of the Party's existence was an initial manifestation of the might of the Party's mass line. The Upsurge of the Labour Movement To promote the labour movement, the Communist Party established the Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization as a headquarters openly directing the movement. The head office was set up in Shanghai and later moved to Beijing. The director was Zhang Guotao, who was later replaced by Deng Zhongxia. Branches of the organization were established in Beijing, Wuhan, Hunan, Guangdong, Shanghai and other places. The Secretariat published the journal Labour Weekly, ran workers' schools, formed industrial workers' trade unions and organized strikes. These included strikes of workers at British and American cigarette factories in Shanghai, of workers on the Wuchang-Changsha section of the Guangzhou-Hankou Railway and of rickshaw men in the foreign concessions in Hankou. The political influence of the Party was growing among the workers and in society as a whole. In May 1 922 the Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization convened the First National Labour Conference in Guangzhou to discuss a number of questions, including ways of strengthening the unity of workers all over the country. Present at the conference were 45 162 representatives from trade unions in different parts of the country who belonged to different political parties and groups. "Because the Communist Party enjoyed extremely high prestige at the conference," wrote Deng Zhongxia, "the different parties and groups expressed no objections" to the three slogans put up at the conference hall—"Down with imperialism!", "Down with the warlords!" and "Long live the Communist Party of China!" "The conference adopted the proposal that until an all-China federation of trade unions was established, the Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization should serve as the general liaison office for the workers' organizations throughout the country, and, actually, it was acknowledged as the only leader in this field." This was a confirmation of the leading position of the Party in the labour movement. The success of the conference "led the working class onto the road to national unity."41 Around the time of the 1st National Labour Conference, there came a first upsurge of the Chinese workers' movement. It began with a strike by seamen in Hong Kong in January 1922 and culminated in a strike by the Beijing-Hankou Railway workers in February 1923. Within those thirteen months, more than a hundred strikes of different dimensions were staged in various parts of the country, with the participation of more than 300,000 workers. The seamen's strike in Hong Kong was the first organized battle of the Chinese working class against the imperialist forces. It started in Hong Kong and spread to the Yangtze River Valley, lasting about four months. In January 1922 seamen in Hong Kong went on strike, demanding higher wages. Under the leadership of Su Zhaozheng, Lin Weimin and others, the strikers persisted in their struggle for 56 days, overcoming every sort of obstruction and sabotage by the Hong Kong British authorities. The strike paralyzed all shipping, urban traffic and production in Hong Kong, and the authorities were compelled to cancel the order declaring the seamen's union illegal and to increase their wages by 15-30 percent. In the words of Deng Zhongxia, "The British imperialists, who had been self-assured and awe-inspiring for seventy years, yielded to the power of Chinese seamen at last."42 The anti-imperialist strike won the support of Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang. The Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization also helped the striking sailors along the Yangtze. The victory of the strike strengthened the courage and confidence of the working class in their struggle and fostered the growth of the labour movement all over the country. Another of the major strikes staged in southern China in this upsurge of the labour movement was the strike of the workers of the Anyuan Coal Mines in Jiangxi Province and of the railway leading from the mines to Zhuzhou in neighbouring Hunan Province. There were more than 17,000 workers at the Anyuan mines and on the railway. Mao Zedong went to Anyuan on a fact-finding mission and then Li Lisan went there to organize the workers. On May 1, International Labour Day, 1922, the Anyuan Mine and Railway Workers' Club (trade union) was established. Early in September, Mao Zedong returned to Anyuan to organize a strike; he was followed by Liu Shaoqi. On September 14, to press the authorities for recognition of the club and a wage increase, the workers went on strike. They put forward seventeen demands, including protection of their political rights and improvement of their material benefits. The mine and railway authorities tried to buy over the workers' leaders and to assassinate Li Lisan, but their schemes ended in failure. Then they sent a telegram to the local warlords, asking them to set up a martial law enforcement headquarters in Anyuan. When Liu Shaoqi walked to the headquarters to negotiate with the authorities, thousands of workers encircled the building to ensure the safety of their representative. The Communist Party employed good tactics in this strike. Liu Shaoqi said, "We should tell the cadres and Party members beforehand that the aim of the revolution is to seize political power. The workers cannot be thoroughly liberated before we gain political power. Therefore we can only put forward limited demands in the strike. The results of negotiations will surely be limited, too. So long as wages are raised and the workers' club is recognized, we should declare the strike victorious and end it."43 Thanks to the valiant struggle of the workers and the sympathy and support they gained from people of all walks of life, the mine and railway authorities were compelled to 47 meet most of the workers' demands, so the three-day strike at Anyuan came to a victorious conclusion. The membership of the workers' club, which had been 700 before the strike, grew rapidly to more than 10,000. Shortly thereafter, a major strike took place in northern China. On October 23, the workers at the Kailuan Coal Mines near Tangshan in Hebei Province struck for higher wages and recognition of their workers' club. Fifty thousand miners at Kailuan joined in the strike, placing pickets to keep order. The Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization appointed Peng Lihe and others to assume command of this struggle. Several miners were killed and fifty others were wounded in front of the office of the mine administration by troops and police who had been called out to suppress the strikers. This bloodshed did not dampen the morale of the strikers, and none of them returned to work. After more than twenty days, considering that the strike had been going on for quite a long time and that it was difficult to keep it up any longer, the strikers accepted mediation and, when the mine authorities increased their wages somewhat, reluctantly returned to work. The strike of the Beijing-Hankou Railway workers was designed to win recognition of the General Beijing-Hankou Railway Trade Union. Zhang Guotao, Luo Zhanglong and other Communists were the principal leaders. The Beijing-Hankou Railway, a major north-south artery, was controlled by Wu Peifu, chief of the warlords of the Zhili faction, for whom it was an important source of revenue with which to finance his troops. The inaugural meeting of the General Beijing-Hankou Railway Trade Union was scheduled for February 1, 1923, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Wu Peifu, who in an open telegram had promised to "protect the workers," suddenly turned hostile and ordered his troops to prevent the meeting from being held. On February 1 the troops and police took control of the entire city of Zhengzhou and cordoned off the union headquarters. Representatives of the workers broke through the lines and crowded into the hall, shouting "Long live the General Beijing-Hankou Railway Trade Union!" and other slogans. However, the meeting could not be held because the hall had been wrecked and the temporary residence of some of the representatives was under siege. The union called on workers all along the railway to go on strike "to fight for freedom and human rights." On February 4, thirty thousand workers held an orderly general strike. Within three hours, the entire 1,000 kilometre-long Beijing-Hankou railway was shut down. On February 7, Wu Peifu, with the support of the imperialist forces, assembled troops and police to shoot down the striking workers in cold blood. In Hankou the reactionaries tied Lin Xiangqian, president of the Hankou Branch of the union (a Communist Party member), to an electricity pole and tried to force him to call the strikers back to work. Lin refused to surrender and died a hero's death. Shi Yang, legal consultant to the General Beijing-Hankou Railway Trade Union (also a Communist Party member), who had gone to Zhengzhou to attend the inaugural meeting of the union and had now returned, was murdered in nearby Wuchang. Struck by three bullets, he shouted "Long live the workers!" three times before he died. During this massacre, 52 people were killed and more than 300 were wounded. Afterward, some 40 were thrown into prison, and more than 1,000 others were dismissed or went into exile. After the February 7th massacre, trade union organizations in all parts of the country, except those in Guangdong and Hunan provinces, were banned. The workers were demoralized, and for some time the labour movement across the country remained at a low ebb. During this period, the workers' struggles were organized mainly under the leadership of the Communist Party. These struggles demonstrated the revolutionary steadfastness and combat capability of the Chinese working class and expanded the political influence of the Party as the vanguard of that class. This provided favourable conditions for cooperation between the Party and other revolutionary forces and for the launching of a great nationwide revolution. Through the struggles of this period, the Communist Party forged closer ties with the working class and increased its own strength. In June 1922 the Party's Central Committee planned to 49 recruit more members from among the workers. With the growth of the labour movement, a number of outstanding figures emerging from the ranks—such as Su Zhaozheng, Shi Wenbin, Xiang Ying, Deng Pei and Wang Hebo—joined the Party one after another. Grassroots organizations of the Party were also established in industrial and mining enterprises. For example, a Party branch was set up in the area of the Anyuan mine and railway in February 1922, and by May 1924 it already had more than 60 members. The struggles of this period provided important lessons. First, the enemies of the Chinese revolution were extremely strong. To defeat such formidable enemies, it was not sufficient for the proletariat to fight alone, and every opportunity had to be used to win over all potential allies. Second, in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China, the workers were not permitted any democratic rights whatsoever, and almost all their large-scale struggles were suppressed by the reactionary troops and police. It was therefore impracticable to rely on strikes and legal battles to bring about victory, without waging revolutionary armed struggles. In a statement issued after the February 7th massacre, the Secretariat of the Chinese Labour Organization made this point when it asked, "Would the workers have let themselves be slaughtered like this if they had had weapons?"44 Bearing these lessons in mind, the young Communist Party of China entered a period of great revolution based on cooperation with the Kuomintang. NOTES 1. The leaders of the movement tried to use the Emperor's authority to adopt reforms to save the nation from extinction and develop capitalism without basically changing the feudal system. 2. "The Orientation of the Youth Movement," Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Eng. ed., Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1975, Vol. II, p. 243. 3. Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Chin, ed., Zhonghua Book Company, Beijing, 1981, Vol. I, pp. 288-89. 4. Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Chin, ed., Zhonghua Book Company, Beijing, 1986, Vol. IX, p. 99. 5. Mao Zedong, "How to Study the History of the Communist Party of China,"

In the Torrent of the Great Revolution

The Establishment of the First Period of Cooperation Between the KMT and the CPC

From 1924 to 1927, a great revolutionary movement swept across the country. This movement was unprecedented in modern Chinese history, because vast numbers of people were mobilized to participate in it. In China it is known as the "Great Revolution." As expressed in the lyrics of a popular song of the lime, the aim of this revolution was to "overthrow the great powers and eliminate the warlords." "The great powers" was a reference to the imperialist powers, and of course, even if the revolution were successful, that would not rid the world of them. But this slogan expressed the people's determination to combat the invasion and oppression by the imperialist powers, to liberate the country from their rule and to gain independence. The imperialists governed China indirectly through the feudal warlords, of which the Northern warlords were the most powerful at this time. Accordingly, the objective of the Great Revolution was to overthrow the regime of the imperialists and the Northern warlords; thus, it was to be a national democratic revolution. The Great Revolution gave vent to the people's pent-up hatred and rage against the imperialists and feudal warlords. That it took place in the mid-1920s can be attributed to the existence of the Communist Party of China. Although the CPC was still small and 53 weak, it clearly articulated the goal of a national democratic revolution and, moreover, waged a courageous struggle for that goal. The initial victories in this revolution resulted from political cooperation between the Kuomintang and the CPC. The outbreak of the Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic of China had kindled hope in the hearts of many Chinese. However, their hope had been quickly extinguished, and now they were anxiously groping in the dark, seeking a way out of their intolerable situation. By the early 1920s, the people were confronted with two major problems. First, after the European powers and the United States had gone through the economic crisis following World War I, they had staged a comeback and were now redoubling their efforts to plunder China. They played out their conflicts and alliances on Chinese soil and controlled the country politically and economically. The conditions under which the national industries had expanded successfully during the war no longer existed, and most people were directly experiencing, great pressure from the imperialist powers, so that there was widespread resentment against them. Second, fighting between the warlords, each backed by a different imperialist power and each trying to control the whole country, had become a salient feature of the socio-political landscape. At this lime the Northern warlords, who controlled the central government in Beijing, were divided into three principal factions in three different provinces: the Zhili (present-day Hebei) clique, the Anhui clique and the Fengtian (present-day Liaoning) clique. These factions engaged in constant warfare. In 1920 war broke out between the Zhili and Anhui warlords. In 1922 and 1924 there were two wars between the Zhili and Fengtian warlords. Some of the warlords in southern China cooperated with or maintained ties with the Kuomintang, which was led by Sun Yat-sen. A constant state of war persisted between them and the Northern warlords. In 1917 the number of soldiers involved in this internecine fighting was about 55,000. By 1924 it had reached 450,000. Military expenditures rose sharply, placing an unbearable tax burden on the people. The nation was disintegrating. In provinces that had experienced several years of continuous civil war, the lives and property of the people could hardly be guaranteed. People of all social strata were hoping for a great revolution that would change these conditions. However, it would be extremely difficult to fulfil such hopes. The imperialist powers and the feudal warlords were deeply entrenched, and it would be impossible for an isolated minority or scattered individuals to overthrow them. From the failure of the Beijing-Hankou Railway workers' strike, the Communists had learned that in semi-colonial, semi-feudal China, although the working class was resolutely revolutionary, it was too small to prevail alone. The only way for the Communist Party to ensure the victory of the revolution would be to form the broadest possible united front. The peasant masses were naturally the most reliable allies for the working class. The national bourgeoisie and the urban petty bourgeoisie were also potential participants in the united front, because they too had felt the bitterness of imperialist and feudal oppression. The alliance of all these classes would be an important characteristic of the Chinese national democratic revolution. Basing itself on this judgement, the Communist Party decided to form an alliance with the Kuomintang. On the whole, the Kuomintang led by Sun Yat-sen represented the interests of the bourgeoisie and the urban petty bourgeoisie. Having experienced setbacks over the years, it was quite weak. Moreover, its members came from different backgrounds and were divorced from the masses. Nevertheless, the Kuomintang had strengths that could not be overlooked. First, it still enjoyed widespread prestige, thanks to Sun Yat-sen, who had led the Revolution of 1911 that had overthrown the government of the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic. Afterwards, under extremely difficult circumstances, Sun had continued to fight relentlessly against foreign aggressors and domestic warlords. He had become a symbol of national democratic revolution. Second, the KMT had already established a valuable revolutionary base area in southern China. In February 1923 armed forces loyal to Sun Yat-sen drove general Chen Jiongming, who had betrayed Sun, out of Guangzhou [Canton]. Sun Yat-sen returned to Guangdong Province and established his headquarters there as 55 generalissimo of the army and navy. He also gained control of the rich Pearl River Delta and central Guangdong and secured the loyaty of tens of thousands of soldiers. Although most of these soldiers were commanded by local warlords, they supported the national revolution in the areas controlled by Sun s government and permitted the revolutionary forces to be active openly. In no other place in China was this allowed. Third, having experienced setbacks over and over again. Sun Yat-sen had become keenly aware that many members of the Kuomintang were increasingly corrupt and that new tactics had to be adopted tor the Chinese revolution. So he began to establish contacts with the CPC with a view to cooperation between the two parties. He also welcomed the Soviet Union's offer to support the national revolution in China. In June 1922, the CPC issued a statement on the current situation, in which it pointed out that "among the many political parties in China today, only the Kuomintang is comparatively revolutionary and democratic and is relatively sincere in its commitment to democracy, but there is a real need to change its vacillating policy." Thus, when the CPC prepared to establish a united front, naturally it first considered reaching out to the KMT. The 3rd National Congress of the Communist Party of China In July 1922 the 2nd National Party Congress had tentatively raised the possibility of "extra-party" cooperation as one form of a united front. Another proposal they had discussed was for "intra-party" cooperation, under which Communist Party and Youth League members would join the KMT, turning it into an alliance of the revolutionary classes. This proposal had been made by G. Maring, the representative in China of the Communist International, and had its support. In August of the same year, several leaders of the Central Committee of the CPC had met in Hangzhou. When Maring made his proposal at this meeting, most of the participants had at first opposed it, but it was evenually accepted. In January 1923, the Executive Committee of the Communist International had adopted a "Resolution on the Relationship between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang" that was based on Maring's proposal. During June 12-20, 1923, the CPC held its 3rd National Congress in Guangzhou and made a formal decision on policies and methods for cooperation between the CPC and the KMT. The participants at the congress correctly assessed Sun Yatsen's revolutionary stance and the possibility of reorganization of the KMT. They decided that the best way to establish cooperation between the two parties was for CPC members to join the KMT in their individual capacity. This was the only form of cooperation acceptable to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang at the time. When Sun Yat-sen's wife Soong Ching Ling asked, "Why do we need to have Communist Party members join the Kuomintang?" her husband replied, "The Kuomintang is degenerating; to save it, we need an infusion of new blood."' When Communists joined the Kuomintang, it helped both parties develop and advanced the Chinese revolution. In this way, the CPC was able to have more influence over the policies of the Kuomintang, promote its regeneration and encourage the bourgeois and petty bourgeois who were under its influence to join the revolutionary ranks. In addition, by taking advantage of the Kuomintang organizations, the CPC was able to mobilize the workers and peasants and secure mass support for the KMT, giving it a new lease on life. This also gave the Communist Party an opportunity to expand its previously limited operations, to be tempered in revolutionary struggles on a broader scale and to bring about an upsurge in the Great Revolution. The decision adopted at the 3rd National Congress of the CPC was therefore of major historical significance. The congress made it clear that while Party members were to join the Kuomintang as individuals, the Party itself should maintain its political, ideological and organizational independence. It emphasized that the interests of the workers and peasants could never be forgotten, that it was the special responsibility of the Party to organize them and carry out propaganda among them, and that encouraging the workers and peasants to participate in the national revolution was the Party's central task. All this was 57 quite right. However, the congress was wrong in some respects. For example, it failed to point out that the democratic revolution should be led by the working class. It stated that the Kuomintang should provide the main impetus for the national revolution, and should occupy the position of leadership in it. Furthermore, the congress underestimated the complexity of the Kuomintang's internal situation, and it did not foresee that relations between the KMT and CPC would change in the years to come. To some degree, these oversights were later responsible for Chen Duxiu's Right opportunist deviation. They also reflected the inexperience and immaturity of the Party at this early stage. The Establishment of Cooperation Between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party After the 3rd National Congress of the CPC, cooperation between the KMT and the CPC progressed rapidly. Communist Party organizations at all levels did much propaganda work, mobilized Party members and revolutionary youth to join the Kuomintang and actively promoted the national ^ revolution throughout China. In early October 1923, at the invitation of Sun Yat-sen, Soviet representative Mikhail Markovich Borodin arrived in Guangzhou. The Soviet government also provided military and material assistance to the Guangzhou government. As Borodin was a politically experienced and capable organizer, Sun asked him to serve as the Kuomintang's organizational instructor (later as its political adviser). Not long after this, Sun Yat-sen wrote a letter to Chiang Kai-shek in which he categorically stated, "Our party's revolution will never succeed without the guidance of Russia." The Kuomintang soon began a reorganization. During January 20-30, 1924, in Guangzhou, Sun Yat-sen presided over the 1st National Congress of the Kuomintang. Of the 165 delegates who attended to opening ceremony, more than 20 were from the Communist Party. They included: Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, Lin Zuhan (Lin Boqu), Zhang Guotao, Qu Qiubai and Mao Zedong. Sun Yat-sen designated Li Dazhao as a member of the presidium of the congress, and Tan Pingshan delivered a work report on behalf of the Kuomintang Provisional Central Executive Committee. The congress approved a manifesto giving a new, updated interpretation of the Three People's Principles that had been enunciated years before by Sun Yat-sen. "Nationalism" now meant anti-imperialism; "democracy" stressed the democratic rights shared by all the common people, and the "people's livelihood" included the "equalization of land ownership" and the "regulation of capital." Addressing the congress, Sun Yat-sen declared, "Now it is time for us to put forward an explicit revolutionary programme against imperialism and to arouse the masses of the people to fight for the freedom and independence of China! To do otherwise would mean staging an aimless, meaningless revolution, which would never succeed."2 Not long after the congress, Sun Yat-sen also put forth the slogan: "Land to the tiller." The political programme adopted at the 1st National Congress of the KMT was essentially compatible with some of the basic principles in the political programme of the Communist Party at the stage of democratic revolution, and it became the common programme for the first period of KuomintangCommunist cooperation. In fact, the 1st National Congress of the KMT adopted three great revolutionary policies—alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. It also elected a Central Executive Committee. Ten Communists, including Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, Mao Zedong, Lin Zuhan and Qu Qiubai, were elected members or alternate members of the Committee, representing one-fourth of its total membership. After the congress, Communist Party members holding important posts in the headquarters of the Kuomintang included Tang Pingshan, director of the Department of Organization; Lin Zuhan, director of the Department of Peasants; and Mao Zedong, acting director of the Department of Propaganda. The success of the 1st National Congress of the KMT marked 59 the beginning of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

New Developments in the Revolution After the Establishment of Cooperation Between the KMT and the CPC

After cooperation between the two parties was established, the country's revolutionary forces gathered at Guangzhou, quickly creating new prospects for the revolution against the imperialists and the feudal warlords. As soon as Communists began to join the Kuomintang, they worked to help form KMT organizations throughout the country. Until this time, Kuomintang branches had existed in only a few areas, such as Guangdong, Sichuan and Shandong provinces, Shanghai and overseas, and their work had been limited to the upper social strata. Although some progressives within the Kuomintang wanted to change this situation, they had no experience of mass work among the lower classes. The Communists, in contrast, placed great importance on such work and had acquired considerable experience in it. CPC members who joined the Kuomintang made a point of doing propaganda and organizational work among the masses in areas where warlords ruled, encouraging them to support the national revolution. Nineteen years later, looking back on the relations between the two parties, Zhou Enlai said: At that time, the Kuomintang relied on us not only ideologically, to revive and develop its Three People's Principles, but also organizationally, to set up its headquarters and expand its membership in the provinces.... Most of the leading members of the Kuomintang in the provinces at the time were our comrades. ...It was our Party that drew the revolutionary youth into the Kuomintang and it was our Party that enabled it to establish ties with the workers and peasants. Members of the Kuomintang left wing predominated in all its local organizations. The places where the Kuomintang expanded most rapidly were precisely those where the left-wingers were in the dominant position and where there were the largest numbers of Communists.3 In January 1926, after two years of hard work the Kuomintang convened its 2nd National Congress. By this time, it had established twelve provincial headquarters, four special municipal headquarters and nine provisional provincial headquarters. The de facto leading members of many of these provincial or municipal headquarters were Communist Party members. These included Li Dazhao in Beijing, Lin Zuhan in Hankou, Dong Yongwei (Dong Biwu) and Chen Tanqiu in Hubei, He Shuheng and Xia Xi in Hunan, Xuan Zhonghua in Zhejiang, Yu Fangzhou and Li Yongsheng in Hebei and Hou Shaoqiu in Jiangsu. The labour movements led by the Communist Party, like the workers' schools they organized, were all launched in the name of the Kuomintang. Therefore, although conditions in the Kuomintang were quite complicated, it had allied itself with the workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie to fight for democratic revolution. With the establishment of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the CPC, the workers' movement, led by the Communists, revived and progressed. For example, the workers' and peasants' movements were legalized in Guangdong, which was under the jurisdiction of the revolutionary government, and thereafter developed even more rapidly. In July 1924, in the Shamian Concessions in Guangzhou which were inhabited by many foreigners, several thousand workers staged a political strike in protest against a new police regulation, issued by the British and French authorities, denying the Chinese free access to the concessions. Chinese police also participated in the strike, which lasted for more than a month and ended in victory. Deng Zhongxia, a respected early leader of the workers' movement led by the Party, praised this strike, saying, "Ever since the failure of the great strike of February 7, 1923, the workers' movement had been at a low ebb. In 1924 the great July strike in Shamian finally put an end to this. ...This strike caused a stir in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and its influence spread to central and northern China."4 The peasant movement also continued to grow. As early as 1922, Peng Pai had begun to organize peasant associations in Haifeng County, Guangdong Province, mobilizing the peasants to demand reductions in land rents. Now peasants all over Guangdong began organizing associations and self-defence corps to struggle against local tyrants, evil gentry and corrupt officials. To train personnel to form the core of the peasant movement, the KMT Central Executive Committee inaugurated the Peasant Movement Institute in July 1924, at the suggestion of the Communists. At various times Communist Party members, including Peng Pai, Ruan Xiaoxian and Mao Zedong, served as director of the institute. The cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party made it possible to establish a revolutionary military force. Sun Yat-sen had depended on the armies of the old regime to undertake revolutionary action and had suffered repeated defeats as a result. This had taught him a bitter lesson. At the suggestion of the Communists, at its 1st National Congress the Kuomintang decided to found an army academy. The Whampoa Military Academy—it was located on Whampoa Island near Guangzhou—opened in May 1924 with Sun Yat-sen as chairman. To serve as president of the academy, Sun appointed Chiang Kai-shek, chief of staff of the Guangdong Army, who had just returned from a tour of investigation in the Soviet Union. Liao Zhongkai, a well-known Kuomintang left-winger, was named the representative of the KMT. General Vasily Blucher (who assumed the name of Galen during his stay in China) and other generals of the Soviet Red Army were invited to serve as military advisers. In November the chairman of the Guangdong Regional Committee of the CPC, Zhou Enlai, who had just returned from Europe, was appointed director of the academy's political department. The CPC also selected a large number of Communist Party and Youth League members and other revolutionary young people to study there. In the first group of students who registered at the academy were 56 Communist Party and Youth League members, representing one-tenth of the total enrollment. They included Xu Xiangqian, Chen Geng, Jiang Xianyun, Zuo Quan and Xu Jishen. What distinguished the Whampoa Military Academy from all military schools of the old type was that it attached equal importance to military training and political education. It emphasized the cultivation of patriotism and revolutionary spirit among the students. Zhou Enlai and other Communists were particularly instrumental in this. The system of military training combined with political work was later introduced to other military units under the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government. Not long after the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out in 1937, Mao Zedong said: "In 1924-27 the spirit of the Kuomintang troops was broadly similar to that of the Eighth Route Army today.... A fresh spirit prevailed among these forces; on the whole there was unity between officers and men and between the army and the people, and the army was filled with a revolutionary militancy. The system of Party representatives and of political departments, adopted for the first time in China, entirely changed the complexion of these armed forces."5 Thanks to the joint efforts of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, the idea of national revolution spread from south to north and throughout the country. In October 1924, during the second Zhili-Fengtian war, Feng Yuxiang of the Zhili clique staged a coup d'6tat and overthrew the Beijing government controlled by the chief Zhili warlords, Cao Kun and Wu Peifu. Feng Yuxiang thus gained control over the Beijing-Tianjin area. He then reorganized his troops into the National Army and sent a telegram to Sun Yat-sen inviting him to come north to discuss important matters of state. As Feng encountered many difficulties after the coup, he had to invite the veteran chief of the Northern warlords, Duan Qirui, to preside over the discussions. Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin, chief of the Fengtian clique, who was preparing to go to Beijing from the Northeast, also sent separate telegrams to Sun Yat-sen inviting him to go north. In November, Sun left Guangzhou for Beijing. Along the way, he 63 called for the convocation of a national assembly and the abrogation of all unequal treaties with the imperialists. In Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei and other provinces, associations for the convocation of the national assembly were established. Mass organizations everywhere sent him telegrams expressing their support for the assembly. This became a political propaganda movement. At the time, the political climate in China was good. The country seethed with activity and there was a great wave of anti-imperialist and anti-warlord sentiment, but contradictions were becoming apparent within the revolutionary camp. The Kuomintang was a complex organization, and its members included representatives of the big landlord and comprador classes. In June 1924 right-wingers in the KMT ranks, such as Deng Zeru, Zhang Ji and Xie Chi, began hostilities against the CPC by presenting to the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee a "Proposal to Impeach the Communist Party." On the pretext that the Communist Party had its own organizations within the Kuomintang, they declared that the KMT absolutely could not permit "a party within the party" and called for a split with the Communists. To counter this attack, the Central Committee of the CPC issued an inner-Party circular on July 21, asking Party organizations at all levels to expose the reactionary activities of the right-wingers in the Kuomintang. Chen Duxiu, Yun Daiying, Qu Qiubai and Cai Hesen, among others, wrote a stream of articles defending the political programme adopted at the 1st National Congress of the KMT and blasting the Right-wingers for undermining unity in the revolutionary ranks. On August 20, before leaving for Beijing, Sun Yat-sen presided over a meeting of the Political Committee of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee, which forcefully rejected the right-wingers' position. It issued a directive stating: "Those who say that our party has been changed ideologically because the Communists have joined are mistaken and entirely unreasonable. There is no need to debate this point.... Those who say that our party will split because the Communists have joined it are similarly entertaining groundless fears."6 Because of Sun Yat-sen's high prestige in the Kuomintang, his firm support for cooperation between the two parties thwarted the Right-wingers' anticommunist activities and their attempt to split the KMT. As the revolution progressed, the left and right wings of the Kuomintang grew further apart and relations between the KMT and the CPC became increasingly strained. There were many new problems in the revolutionary movement. From January 1 1 to 22, 1925, the Communist Party of China held its 4th National Congress in Shanghai. By this time the Party had 994 members. The historical significance of this congress can be summed up as follows. First, it raised the question of the leadership of the Chinese proletariat in the democratic revolution, declaring that unless the proletariat, which was the most revolutionary class, participated vigorously in the national revolutionary movement and exercised leadership over it, the movement would not succeed. Second, it raised the question of the alliance between workers and peasants, pointing out that the revolution needed the extensive participation of the workers, the peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie. The peasants, it said, were important, since they were the natural allies of the working class. If the proletariat and its party did not mobilize the peasants to participate in the struggle, it would be unable to lead the revolution, and the revolution would fail. Third, the congress added to the content of the democratic revolution, stating that while opposing international imperialism, the Party should simultaneously oppose feudal warlord politics and feudal economic relations. This last statement demonstrated that the Party, having reviewed the events since its founding and particularly since the beginning of its cooperation with the KMT one year earlier, had made major progress in its understanding of the issues involved in the Chinese revolution. They also demonstrated that the Party had already elucidated the basic concept of the new-democratic revolution. Nevertheless, the 4th National Party Congress offered no concrete solution to the complex problem of how the proletariat was to win the struggle with the bourgeoisie for leadership of the revolution. Also, it did not fully understand the vital importance of political power and armed struggle. These weaknesses were to 65 become more apparent as the revolutionary movement progressed. Less than two months after the congress, Sun Yat-sen died of liver cancer in Beijing. In his testament, he wrote: "For forty years I have devoted myself to the cause of the national revolution with the aim of winning freedom and equality for China. My experience during these forty years has convinced me that to achieve this aim we must arouse the masses and unite in a common struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equals." Naturally Sun believed that the Soviet Union would be the first nation to treat China as an equal and that to arouse the masses, the Kuomintang should cooperate with the CPC and assist the peasants and workers. These were the two basic conclusions reached by Sun Yat-sen, a great patriot and revolutionary, as he summed up the political experience of his lifetime. Sun's death caused great sorrow throughout China. The KMT and CPC organized mourning ceremonies involving people from all walks of life, so as to disseminate throughout the country the message of Sun's testament and his revolutionary spirit. The national revolutionary movement rose to a new height.

The May 30th Movement and the Unification of the Guangdong Revolutionary Base Area

The upsurge of the nationwide Great Revolution began in May 1925 with the anti-British and anti-Japanese strike of workers in Shanghai. At this time Shanghai, China's largest industrial city, had 800,000 workers, almost one-third of the national total. The city was an important base for the imperialist powers' aggression in China. There were the "International Settlement," controlled by the British, and the "French Concession," and many Japanese, British and other foreign-owned factories were located in Shanghai. The imperialists cruelly wrung every ounce of sweat and blood out of the Chinese labourers, arousing their hatred. Shanghai was also the seat of the Central Committee of the CPC, and the Party was active among the workers there. Using Shanghai University as their main base, Party members went out to do propaganda and organizing among the workers. They had established night schools for workers in seven districts. In the summer of 1924, under the leadership of Deng Zhongxia, Xiang Ying and others, they had founded the West Shanghai Workers' Club, a mass organization with nearly 2,000 members that did much to advance the workers' movement in Shanghai. In February 1925 the workers at the Japanese-owned Naigai No.8 Cotton Mill had gone on strike because a Japanese overseer had beaten a Chinese woman worker. The ranks of the strikers swelled to more than 35,000, as workers from 20 other Japanese-owned textile mills joined the strike. Victory in this struggle had greatly inspired workers throughout the country. On May 1, the 2nd National Labour Congress opened in Guangzhou, and the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions was formally established. Communist Party members Lin Weimin and Liu Shaoqi were elected president and vice-president of the federation. The Nationwide May 30th Movement On May 15, a Japanese capitalist of the Naigai No.7 Cotton Mill in Shanghai killed Gu Zhenghong, a worker who was a Communist. The Central Committee of the CPC met several times to discuss an appropriate response. Cai Hesen urged that the economic struggle of the workers be turned into a national struggle. On May 28 the Central Committee called an emergency meeting at which it decided to mobilize students and workers to launch a large-scale anti-imperialist demonstration in the International Settlement on May 30. On that day the Shanghai workers and students marched and spoke on street corners in support of the textile workers. Suddenly, the British police in the International Settlement opened fire on the crowd marching along Nanjing Road, killing 13 and wounding many others. The martyrs who sacrificed their lives at this demonstration included Shang 67 hai University student and Communist Party member He Bingyi. For several days after this, there were instances of British and Japanese police killing Chinese civilians in Shanghai and other cities. These incidents enraged the people of Shanghai and throughout the country. All their pent-up fury against the imperialists suddenly poured out. Students, workers and shopkeepers all went on strike. On June 11 more than 200,000 people gathered at a mass rally in Shanghai. Approximately 17 million people participated in this movement nationwide. From the great commercial cities to the most remote areas of the countryside, people cried angrily "Down with imperialism!" and "Abolish the unequal treaties!" The wave of anti-imperialism swept the nation with astounding speed. While leading the May 30th Movement, the Communist Party greatly increased its membership. At the time of the Party's 4th National Congress in January 1925, it had only 994 members. By October of the same year, it had 3,000. By December, the number was 10,000. In one year the Party had grown tenfold. As the movement spread across the country, new Party organizations were established in many provinces where there had been none before, such as Yunnan, Guangxi, Anhui and Fujian. The Parly was tempered well in the struggle. On June 3, after news of the May 30th massacre had reached Guangzhou, people from every section of the city's population took to the streets in a mammoth demonstration. On June 19 members of the seamen's, trolley workers' and printers' unions went on strike. Other unionized workers soon joined them, and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions was established. One slogan of the strike was, "Fight the imperialists to the death!" Within a fortnight the number of strikers swelled to 250,000. Of these, more than 100,000 left Hong Kong and returned to Guangzhou. On June 23, the Hong Kong strikers joined 100,000 people from all walks of life in Guangzhou to hold a rally and a demonstration. Led by Zhou Enlai, 2,000 instructors, cadets and soldiers of the Whampoa Military Academy also participated in the demonstration. As the marchers passed through Shaji, a street on the opposite bank of the Pearl River, the British troops and police from the Shamian Concession suddenly opened fire, killing 52 people and seriously wounding some 170. After the Shaji massacre, the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government immediately severed all economic relations with Britain and blockaded the Guangzhou harbour. Workers from Hong Kong and Shamian convened in Guangzhou a conference of representatives of the Guangzhou and Hong Kong strikers and established a Strike Committee, with Communist Party member Su Zhaozheng as chairman. The committee had subcommittees in charge of armed self-defence, picketing, legal affairs and so on. The strikers managed to blockade the port of Hong Kong. The Guangzhou Revolutionary Government supported them and subsidized the Strike Committee with 10,000 yuan a month. Communist Party members Xu Chengzhang, Chen Geng and others served as chairman of the picketing committee, general instructor and instructors of the armed pickets. The simultaneous strikes in Guangzhou and Hong Kong lasted for 16 months. They were an important component of the May 30th Movement and an unprecedented feat in the history of China's labour movement. They gave a powerful impetus to the Great Revolution, and the several hundred thousand strikers in Guangzhou became a pillar of the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government. The Unification of the Guangdong Revolutionary Base Area The vigorous development of the May 30th Movement created favourable conditions in which the KMT and CPC cooperated to create a revolutionary base area in Guangdong. Although the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government had been established two years earlier, it was internally unstable and had never been able to control all of Guangdong Province. The major threat to the government was Chen Jiongming's hostile troops, who were entrenched along the Dongjiang River in eastern Guangdong. Furthermore, there were government troops who nominally supported national revolution, but who were in fact loyal to the local warlords Yang Ximin (the Yunnan Army) and Liu Zhenhuan (the Guangxi Army). These troops dominated Guangzhou, levying exorbitant taxes and committing outrages. Sun Yat-sen had once sorrowfully told them, "You operate in my name, but you ravage my hometown." Early in 1925, when Sun Yat-sen was away in the north and seriously ill, Chen Jiongming took advantage of the opportunity to attack Guangzhou. The Guangzhou government organized the Eastern Expeditionary Army, which was divided into three columns taking three different routes, and sent it on a punitive expedition against Chen Jiongming. However, the forces that were to take the north and central routes were led by Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhuan and refused to go into battle. Two recently established officers' training regiments from the Whampoa Military Academy and the Guangdong army commanded by Xu Chongzhi took the south route and swiftly routed Chen Jiongming's main force, gaining control of the Dongjiang area. By April, the first eastern expedition had proved victorious. In May, Yang Xiwen and Liu Zhenhuan's troops staged a rebellion in Guangzhou in an attempt to overthrow the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government. Although Yang and Liu commanded a substantial number of troops, their plundering and corruption had turned the people against them and weakened their combat effectiveness. The Eastern Expeditionary Army quickly returned to Guangzhou and quelled their rebellion. The KMT and the CPC then began to reorganize the Guangzhou government and the armed forces. On July 1 the National Government was founded in Guangzhou to replace the former Revolutionary Government. Wang Jingwei, who was regarded as a member of the Kuomintang left, was elected president. M. M. Borodin was invited to serve as senior adviser to the government. However, because the CPC did not fully understand the importance of political power, it decided not to participate directly in the government and instead opted for a supervisory role. After the National Government was established, the army of the Whampoa Military Academy, along with the Guangdong, Hunan and Yunnan armies stationed in Guangdong, were reorganized into six armies of the National Revolutionary Army, with a total of 85,000 troops. The army of the Whampoa Military Academy was expanded to become the First Army. Many Communists were given responsibility for political work in the National Revolutionary Army. Zhou Enlai, Li Fuchun, Zhu Kejing and Luo Han served respectively as deputy Party representative and director of the political department of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Armies, and Lin Zuhan served as Party representative and director of the political department of the Sixth Army. Command over these armies, however, still rested with Chiang Kai-shek and the other members of the old military. A major mistake made by the Communists was to underestimate the importance of military command. It was only in the beginning of 1926 that Communist Party member Ye Ting became commander of the Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. The Independent Regiment was directly under the command of the Communist Party, but it represented only a small fraction of the National Revolutionary Army. On August 20, 1925, Liao Zhongkai, leader of the KMT's Left wing, was assassinated in Guangzhou. This was a heavy blow to cooperation between the KMT and the CPC. Xu Chongzhi, Minister of Military Affairs of the National Government and commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army, was forced out by Chiang Kai-shek. The forces under Xu's command were then taken over and reorganized by Chiang, which further strengthened his power and influence in the military. In September 1925 the remaining troops of Chen Jiongming took advantage of the Eastern Expeditionary Army's return to Guangzhou to reoccupy the Dongjiang area. The National Government decided to launch a second eastern expedition, with Chiang Kai-shek as commander of the expeditionary forces and Zhou Enlai as director of the General Political Department. By the end of November the expeditionary army, with the support of the peasant associations in the Dongjiang area, had wiped out Chen Jiongming's forces, thus bringing to a successful conclusion the second eastern expedition. At the same time, another detachment of the National Revolutionary Army launched a southern expedition and wiped out all the forces commanded by the local 71 warlord, Deng Benyin, that had been entrenched in southern Guangdong and on Hainan Island. In the end, the entire province of Guangdong was unified, which created a solid base for the coming Northern Expedition against the Northern warlords. The Emergence of the New KMT Right Wing and the CPC's Countermove The revolution was progressing rapidly, but at the same time a reactionary faction was emerging within the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang had long been divided, and after the death of Sun Yat-sen, that resolute supporter of KMT-CPC cooperation, the divisions became increasingly apparent. Because the dilferent factions in the KMT represented the interests of different classes, their goals in the forthcoming Northern Expedition were also different. The Left-wingers, who represented the interests of the workers, the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie, wanted to eliminate the imperialist forces and the feudal warlords and establish a state governed by an alliance of all the revolutionary classes. The middle-of-the-roaders, who represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie, sought to overthrow the Northern warlords and then build a state governed by the national bourgeoisie. The Right-wingers, who represented the interests of the landlord and comprador classes, plotted to use the strength of the workers and peasants to overthrow the Northern warlords and then build a regime of the landlord and comprador classes. These three factions were at odds over the political programme laid out at the KMT's 1st National Congress and Sun Yat-sen's "Three Great Policies"—alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. The conflicts within the KMT intensified day by day. In June and July 1925, Dai Jitao, a new Right-winger and a close friend of Chiang Kai-shek, wrote several pamphlets, including "Philosophical Foundations of Sun Yat-senism," and "The National Revolution and the Chinese Kuomintang." In these works he advocated compromise between opposing classes and criticized the Marxist theory of class struggle, while demanding that all Communists who had joined the Kuomintang "separate themselves from all other Party organizations in order to become true members of the Kuomintang." In November of the same year, the old Rightwingers of the Kuomintang, including Zou Lu and Xie Chi, illegally convened the so-called 4th Plenary Session of the 1st Central Executive Committee of the KMT at the Biyun Temple in the Western Hills outside Beijing. They pronounced the expulsion of Communist Party members from the Kuomintang and announced that Borodin would no longer be an adviser. This group of old Right-wingers became known as the "Western Hills clique. Even more ominously, after the two eastern expeditions and the suppression of the rebellion by Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhuan, Chiang Kai-shek expanded his forces and increased his power in the revolutionary ranks. He began to reveal his true anti-Communist character, using the Society for the Study of Sun Yat-sen's Doctrines, controlled by the new KMT Right-wingers, to carry out anti-Communist activities. Chiang Kai-shek was a two-faced careerist. For a time, to strengthen his own position, outwardly he supported alliance with Russia and cooperation with the Communist Party. Inwardly however, he was rabidly anti-Communist, and his ultimate aim was to take the place of the Northern warlords himself. To attain this goal, he needed to use the Communist Party and the workers and peasants under its leadership to bolster his strength and expand his influence. At the same time, however, he was afraid that the workers and peasants might become strong enough to obstruct his climb to power. Therefore, while ostensibly cooperating with the Communist Party, he worked to restrain it, so that the people's forces could not grow substantially and independently. In fact, he protected and organized the Rightist forces. That is, he simultaneously adhered to two policies, cooperating with the Communist Party and at the same time restraining it. After the May 30th Movement, the revolutionary mass movement reached a peak throughout the country. When Chiang Kai-shek saw that the people's forces had grown stronger, he gradually intensified his anti-Communist activities. This situation posed a formidable new problem for the Communist Party. Naturally it was of vital importance to maintain cooperation with the Kuomintang. However, in the face of growing tensions with the old and new Right-wingers in the Kuomintang, the Party needed to find an appropriate response. It was just as Mao Zedong wrote in an article on the united front in 1940: "If unity is sought through struggle, it will live; if unity is sought through yielding, it will perish."7 At this time many Communist Party members believed that since the Kuomintang Right wing (especially the new Right) was openly trying to split the two parties, the Communist Party should fight back vigorously and appropriately so as to maintain KMT-CPC cooperation. In December 1925 Mao Zedong wrote an essay in which he emphasized the importance of distinguishing between friends and enemies of the revolutionary struggle, lo make this distinction, he proceeded to analyse the economic status of various classes in Chinese society and their respective political attitudes. He pointed out that the staunchest and numerically the largest ally of the proletariat was the peasantry, thus solving the major problem of finding allies in the revolution. Moreover, he reminded people that the national bourgeoisie held contradictory and vacillating attitudes: on the one hand, they felt the need for revolution; on the other hand, they were suspicious of it. He predicted that the Right wing of the national bourgeoisie might become the enemy of the revolutionary forces, while its Left wing might become their friend, but concluded that "we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks."8 However, in the face of the combined attack of the imperialists and the warlords, Chen Duxiu, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, felt that the Party's strength was inadequate. He was afraid that struggle against the new Right wing of the Kuomintang would impair the relations between the two parties and lead to the isolation and ultimate failure of the revolution in Guangdong. He hoped that unilateral concessions would help alleviate the contradictions within the camp of the national revolutionary forces. This course of action was supported by the Comintern representatives, and therefore carried the day within From January 1 to 19, 1926, the Kuomintang held its 2nd National Congress in Guangzhou. Among the representatives elected from different parts of the country, the majority were Communists and KMT Left-wingers. As a result, the Kuomintang officially continued to oppose the imperialists and warlord forces, adhering to the Three Great Policies of alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. Furthermore, the congress decided to take disciplinary measures against the old Right-wingers who had attended the Western Hills meeting. In this sense, the congress was a success. When the congress opened, the leaders of the Communist Party organization in Guangdong were in favour of attacking the Right wing of the Kuomintang, isolating the middle-of-the-roaders and expanding the Left wing, while preparing to repel Chiang's attack. However, under the influence of Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao, no action was taken against the new Right wing. The Communists and the KMT Left-wingers were definitely in the minority on the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and its Central Supervisory Committee. As for Chiang Kai-shek, his standing in the Kuomintang was not particularly high to begin with. At the 1st National Congress, he had not been elected to the Central Executive Committee. But at the 2nd congress he became a member of it and soon after a member of its Standing Committee as well. Similarly, at the time of the 1st National Congress, he had been only the commander of one of the six armies in the National Revolutionary Army. At the second congress, he became chief inspector of the NRA. Thus, his status both in the KMT and in the army rose considerably. The concessions made by the Communist Party did absolutely nothing to moderate the conflicts within the revolutionary camp. On the contrary, they only helped encourage the new KMT Right-wingers. For every inch offered, the new Right-wingers seized an ell. On March 20, only two months after the 2nd National Congress of the KMT ended, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly took grave actions against the Communists. He concocted the 75 story that the Communists were secretly moving the Zhongshan Warship to Whampoa near Guangzhou in an attempt to kidnap him and take him out of Guangdong. Using this as a pretext, he enforced martial law in Guangzhou. He put Communist Party members under surveillance or hou~°. arrest and disarmed the picket corps of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Strike Committee. He had troops surround the Soviet consulate and put the Soviet advisers under surveillance. At a meeting on March 22, the Central Executive Committee of the KMT adopted a resolution proposed by Chiang to exclude CPC members from the Whampoa Military Academy and from the First Army of the National Revolutionary Army. Wang Jingwei, president of the National Government and chairman of its Military Commission, was forced to resign on account of "illness," clearing the path for Chiang to advance to the highest and most powerful position in the Kuomintang. This series of events became known as the Zhongshan Warship Incident. The CPC Central Committee was not prepared for such a drastic turn of events, and had no experience as a guide in coping with it. In fact, Chiang Kai-shek still had only limited power and had taken these actions partly to see how the CPC would respond. No sooner had he completed the manoeuvre than he released all those he had arrested and returned the guns he had captured. He apologized for the incident, calling it a "misunderstanding" for which he asked to be "severely punished." Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yannian, among others, called for a counterattack. Because only one of the six armies of the National Revolutionary Army was directly under Chiang's command, and because even in that army there were many who were Communists or who sympathized with the revolution, Chiang's position had not been completely consolidated and such a counter-attack was feasible. However, Chen Duxiu and the Soviet adviser N. V. Kuibishev were overwhelmed by Chiang's display of strength, and they were afraid of a split between the KMT and the CPC. They believed that only further concessions would persuade Chiang to participate in the Northern Expedition. In the end, their yielding stance encouraged Chiang to proceed confidently with his activities to restrain the Communist Party. On May 15 the Kuomintang held the 2nd Plenary Session of its 2nd Central Executive Committee. On pretext of avoiding "disputes" within the KMT and of finding "a concrete method of removing misunderstandings," Chiang Kai-shek proposed a "Resolution on Rectification of Party Affairs." This resolution stipulated that members of the Communist Party must not exceed more than one-third of the members of executive committees of KMT organizations at or above the municipal or provincial level. It also provided that CPC members could not serve as directors of departments of the KMT Central Executive Committee and that the list of all CPC members who had joined the Kuomintang should be made public. The KMT Left-wingers, including Liu Yazi and He Xiangning, all voted against this draft resolution. Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao, however, still believed that the reason for the strained relations between the KMT and the CPC was that the "Communist Party had taken on too many responsibilities" and accordingly advocated further concessions. Thus Chiang's resolution was adopted. At this point, all directors of departments of the KMT Central Executive Committee coming from the CPC had no choice but to resign, and the Communist Party had no further say in the affairs of the Kuomintang. Chiang, on the other hand, was appointed director of the Organization Department of the Central Executive Committee and minister of Military Affairs. He then became chairman of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Executive Committee and commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. Thus, he became the most powerful figure in southern China. The 2nd National Congress of the Kuomintang, the Zhongshan Warship Incident and the adoption of the "Resolution on Rectification of Party Affairs" all took place less than six months before the Northern Expedition was to begin. At this critical moment, Chiang Kai-shek did not hesitate to launch one attack after another against the Communists, gaining positions of leadership as they made concessions. He gathered all available power into his own grip and prepared for an anti-Communist coup. After the Zhongshan Warship Incident, Chiang was already 77 aligned with the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie. In analysing class relations, several leaders of the Communist Party turned a blind eye to this new development. They did not understand that the representatives of each class could change their political stance. While Chiang was openly taking steps to launch an anti-Communist attack, they still did not dare to mount a resolute counter-attack, for fear of a split between the two parties. Nevertheless, Chiang's power was still limited. To achieve victory in the Northern Expedition he still needed the support of the Communist Party of China and the Soviet Union. As a result, he did not immediately split with the CPC publicly. As late as May 1926, he still stated, "Not only am I not opposed to Communism, but I very much approve of it."9 For the time being, the KMT continued to cooperate with the CPC. But the fact that command over the Northern Expeditionary Army was largely in Chiang's hands made it clear that while the revolution was progressing rapidly, it was already in a serious crisis.

The Triumphant Progress of the Northern Expedition and the Rise of the Workers' and Peasants' Movements

The immediate objective of the Northern Expedition was to topple the Northern warlords who were supported by the imperialists. The Northern warlords seemed a colossus far mightier than the Northern Expeditionary Army. For more than ten years they had controlled the internationally recognized central government and possessed vast financial and material resources. They directly commanded an army of 700,000 men, while the National Revolutionary Army had only about 100,000. At the beginning of the Northern Expedition, this total included both the original six armies in Guangdong and two new ones: the Seventh of Guangxi, commanded by Li Zongren, and the Eighth of Hunan, commanded by Tang Shengzhi. However, the Northern warlords had two fatal weaknesses. First, the Chinese people had long felt a deep hatred for their rule and hoped for an early end to their internecine fighting that had lasted for more than ten years. They longed for the day when China would be independent and unified, and thus increasingly placed their hopes in the National Government in the South. The will of the people would surely play a decisive role in the coming struggle. Second, the Northern warlords were internally divided, principally into three factions. The chief of the already declining Zhili faction, Wu Peifu, still controlled Hunan, Hubei and Henan provinces and the area around the city of Baoding in Zhili (now Hebei Province). His forces totalled approximately 200,000 and were still concentrated in the Nankou area of north China, where they were attacking a part of the National Army commanded by Feng Yuxiang whose main forces had already retreated to the Northwest. Sun Chuanfang, whose forces occupied Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, was known as the "commander-in-chief of five provinces." He led 200,000 troops who operated as an independent force and whose combat effectiveness had surpassed that of Wu Peifu's army. The most powerful of the warlords was Zhang Zuolin of the Fengtian clique, who with 300,000 troops at his command controlled the three provinces of the Northeast (present-day Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang), Rehe, Chahar, Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong. Deep contradictions persisted as these three forces intrigued against each other. They were unable to coordinate their military operations, and this made it easier for the Northern Expeditionary Army to destroy them one by one. The Northern Expedition Launched Jointly by the KMT and the CPC It was at the suggestion of the Soviet military advisers led by Galen that the National Revolutionary Army adopted a strategy of massing its forces and annihilating the enemy armies one at a time. First, it would send troops into Hunan and Hubei, quickly wiping out Wu Peifu's main force, the weakest link in the 79 Northern warlords. It would try to keep Zhang Zuolin and Sun Chuanfang neutral for a time; then, after the troops sent to Hunan and Hubei had achieved victory, they would turn east to wipe out Sun Chuanfang's army. Finally, they would move north to attack the most powerful forces, those of Zhang Zuolin. In accordance with this plan, in May 1926, a part of the National Revolutionary Army's Seventh Army and Ye Ting's Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army moved as advance forces to Hunan Province to assist Tang Shengzhi's Eighth Army, which had been defeated by Wu Peifu and was retreating to Hengyang in southern Hunan. On July 9, the National Revolutionary Army took a mass pledge in Guangzhou and formally launched the Northern Expedition. Two days later, after the main body of the Fourth and Seventh Armies joined forces with the Eighth Army, they succeeded in taking Changsha. On August 22, they occupied Yuezhou, and thereafter they entered Hubei Province. The Northern Expedition was enthusiastically supported by the people in both the battle areas and the rear. CPC organizations at all levels did effective work in mobilizing the workers and peasants. At this time, Hunan and Hubei were suffering from severe food shortages, and as construction of the WuhanGuangdong Railway was not yet completed, it was a major problem to keep the troops supplied. Under the leadership of the Guangdong Regional Party Committee, the Hong KongGuangzhou Strike Committee of Guangdong organized 3,000 men into transport, propaganda and medical teams to follow the troops north. The Hunan Regional Party Committee had always been a strong organization. According to statistics compiled in August 1926, the province had 2,699 Party members, a figure second only to Guangdong's. The Party counted 400,000 peasants and 110,000 workers in Hunan under its leadership. When the Northern Expeditionary Army advanced toward Changsha, the Hunan Regional Party Committee mobilized these people to act as guides, deliver letters, serve as scouts, help with transport, sweep mines, carry stretchers, give first aid, bring gifts to servicemen and create disorder in the enemy's rear. They also organized peasant self-defence militias to participate directly in the fighting. Such enthusiasm had rarely been seen in previous wars in China. Knowing that the Northern Expeditionary Army was advancing on Wuhan, Wu Peifu hurriedly recalled his troops from the North. He built defences at two strategic points along the railway, the Tingsi and Hesheng bridges near Wuhan. Wu personally commanded his guards and organized a special corps to force the soldiers at gunpoint to fight at the front. In late August, after an intense and bitter battle, the main force of the National Revolutionary Army's Fourth and Seventh Armies and a part of the Eighth Army finally captured the two railway bridges, routed Wu Peifu's main force and marched on Wuhan. Ye Ting's Independent Regiment fought heroically in the fierce battle. Subsequently the main force of the Eighth Army crossed the Yangtze River and on September 6 and 7 occupied Hanyang and Hankou. On October 10 the main force of the Fourth Army and a part of the Eighth Army captured Wuchang, after laying siege to the city for more than a month. The men of Ye Ting's Independent Regiment were the first to scale the walls. The rest of the armies then entered the city, where they annihilated Wu Peifu's main force. After this, the Fourth Army, of which the Independent Regiment was a part, became known as the "Iron Army." After the great victories of the Northern Expeditionary Army in Hunan and Hubei provinces, Sun Chuanfang abandoned his neutral stand. In late August, he dispatched massive forces from Jiangxi Province, launching a flank attack on Hunan and Hubei in an attempt to cut off the retreat of the Northern Expeditionary Army. During September the National Revolutionary Army's Second, Third and Sixth Armies and the First Division of its First Army, which had been ordered to keep watch on the movements of Sun Chuanfang's army, entered Jiangxi and captured Nanchang for a time. Sun Chuanfang threw his main force into a ferocious counter attack and recaptured Nanchang, inflicting heavy casualties on the First Division of the First Army, which was commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. At this juncture, the Fourth Army and then the Seventh Army entered Jiangxi, joining forces with the other troops there, and in early November 81 launched a fierce offensive along the Nanchang-Jiujiang Railway. Finally, they wiped out Sun Chuanfang's main force and captured Jiujiang and Nanchang. This brought about a complete change in the military situation in Jiangxi. Two divisions of the First Army that had been stationed in the Guangdong-Fujian border area took this opportunity to launch an attack on F ujian Province, and in mid-December they took the city of Fuzhou without a fight. , While the Northern Expeditionary Army was winning these great victories, Feng Yuxiang's National Army troops had withdrawn from Nankou, a strategic point near Beijing, to defend Suiyuan Province (now part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region). On September 17, in Wuyuan County, Suiyuan, these troops took a mass pledge to fight the Northern warlords and started to move south with the help of the Soviet Union and the CPC. Feng Yuxiang, who had just returned from the Soviet Union and joined the Kuom intang, became commander-in-chief of the combined forces of the National Army. Liu Bojian, a Communist Party member, served as deputy director of the army's political department. By November, the combined forces already controlled Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Thus, in six months after launching the Northern Expedition, the National Revolutionary Army had made surprising progress. By late 1926 it had already wiped out the main forces of Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang and gained control of all the southern provinces except Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. Feng Yuxiang's forces controlled the Northwest and were preparing to move east through Tongguan, a county of strategic importance in eastern Shaanxi Province, in coordination with the Northern Expeditionary Army's operation. As most people could clearly see, the victorious conclusion of the Northern Expedition was at hand and it was only a matter of time before the regime of the Northern warlords would finally collapse. Even in the provinces they still controlled, the people cherished new hope. Everywhere the people enthusiastically prepared to welcome the arrival of the Northern Expeditionary Army. In the early stage of the Northern Expedition there were contradictions between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Nevertheless, in the face of a powerful common enemy, the anti-Communist forces within the KMT temporarily ceased their active opposition and by and large, the two parties maintained their alliance. The Northern Expedition was launched under the anti-imperialist and anti-warlord slogans of the Communist Party. In the course of the expedition, Party members made enormous contributions, both by spreading political propaganda in the army and by mobilizing the peasants and workers. Soviet military advisers and material assistance also played an important role. Thanks to cooperation between the KMT and the CPC, the Northern Expeditionary Army was able to achieve major victories in a short space of time. The Mass Movements of Workers and Peasants in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi Provinces As the warlord regime collapsed before the advancing Northern Expeditionary Army, the mass movements of workers and peasants expanded at an unprecedented rate. This was particularly the case in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. In these provinces, the peasant movement was the first to gain momentum. On September 1, 1926, Mao Zedong published an article entitled "The National Revolution and the Peasant Movement," in which he pointed out the overriding importance of that movement: "The peasant problem is the central issue of the national revolution.... A large part of the so-called national revolutionary movement is the peasant movement.... Unless the peasants in the rural areas rise to overthrow the privileges of the patriarchal feudal landlord class, the warlord and imperialist forces will never be brought down." In November of the same year, Mao Zedong became the secretary of the CPC Central Committee's Peasant Movement Committee, which decided to make Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Henan provinces the centres of the movement. In Hunan, for example, from July 1926 when the Northern Expeditionary 83 Army arrived there to January of the following year, the membership of peasant associations rose from 400,000 to two million. A total of ten million people were active under the leadership of the peasant associations; in other words, about half the peasants in Hunan were already organized. In many counties almost all the peasants were members of peasant associations. Once organized, they went into action and brought about an unprecedented revolution in the countryside. Their main targets were local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords. They also attacked patriarchal ideas and institutions, corrupt officials in the cities and bad practices and customs in the countryside. As Mao Zedong put it at the time, "In force and momentum the attack is tempestuous.... [T]he popular slogan ‘All power to the peasant associations' has become a reality."'0 In Hubei, the total membership of the peasant associations swelled to 200,000 by November. In Jiangxi, it reached 50,000 by October. A great rural revolution, unparalleled in Chinese history, was beginning to develop in these two provinces as well. Mao Zedong underlined its significance: "[T]he national revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 did not bring about this change, hence its failure. This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the completion of the revolution."11 As the great rural revolution unfolded, the urban workers' movement also surged forward. In the autumn of 1926 federations of trade unions were formed in Hunan and Hubei. By the following January they had a total of 700,000 members. In Wuhan, union membership had risen tenfold, from about 10,000 before the Northern Expedition to 100,000. Trade unions were also formed in many counties. Shortly after this, a federation of trade unions was established in Jiangxi Province. Following the example of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Strike Committee, the trade unions in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi all formed armed workers' picket corps. In Changsha, Wuhan, Jiujiang and other cities, the workers organized large-scale strikes, demanding higher wages, shorter working hours and better working conditions, and opposing feudal overseers and the indentured labour system under which the workers were exploited by both capitalists and contractors. Most of these struggles were successful. However, in certain cities, particularly Wuhan, there was some "Left" deviation in the labour movement. Some workers and shop assistants demanded wages that were too high and hours that were too short, leaving certain middle- and small-scale industrialists and merchants no profits. Furthermore, some workers took excessive actions against such employers. As the revolution swept over Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi in the South, it also made headway in the North. Under the leadership of the Party, the people struggled to overthrow the Fcngtian warlords and topple Duan Qirui, chief of the Anhui warlords. Major victories were also achieved in the mass struggle against imperialism, in January 1927 British sailors killed or wounded several Chinese civilians in Hankou and Jiujiang. Under the leadership of Communist Party members, including Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan, workers and other residents of Wuhan responded by entering and occupying the British concession in Hankou, while the National Revolutionary Army's Second Independent Division took over the British concession in Jiujiang. On February 9 the Foreign Ministry of the National Government signed an agreement with the British government by which China recovered the two concessions. The CPC Central Committee Falls Behind the Events While the mass movements of the workers and peasants were gaining momentum in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces, the leading bodies of the Central Committee of the CPC stayed in Shanghai, far from the centre of the revolutionary storm. They lagged far behind revolutionary developments in their understanding and action. At the time, it was important to launch mass movements to support the Northern Expedition, but basically it was the army that fought the war. The Party leadership made a major mistake. As Mao Zedong wrote a decade later, "During the Northern Expedition it neglected to win over the army but laid one-sided stress on the mass movement...."12 Before the Northern Expedition began, Soviet adviser Galen 85 asked the CPC Central Committee, through Zhou Enlai, to resolve the political question of whether the Communists should support or weaken Chiang Kai-shek in the course of the expedition. Chen Duxiu had Zhang Guotao hold a meeting on the question, but there was no real discussion. At the meeting Zhang Guotao uttered only one sentence: "Our Party's policy during the Northern Expedition is to both support and oppose Chiang Kaishek." Accordingly, for a long time the Party's policy remained unclear, and objectively this helped strengthen Chiang's position. As the Northern Expedition progressed, Chiang tightened his grip on the military and on political power. The Communists should have, and could have, taken advantage of the favourable situation to control some military units and local organs of political power. This would have made it possible to cope with any eventualities. But with Chen Duxiu as general secretary, the Central Committee did not allow such a course of action. It sent a letter to the members of the Hubei Regional Party Committee instructing them that "From now on, we must use our manpower exclusively in mass work; we must never participate in government work."13 Later, the Central Committee criticized the Hubei Regional Party Committee for allowing Dong Biwu to participate in the Hubei provincial government and asked those Party members who had participated in the Jiangxi provisional provincial government, including Li Fuchun and Lin Zuhan, to leave their posts. It ordered Party members who were magistrates in Jiujiang, Yongxiu and other counties in Jiangxi to resign or be expelled from the Party. It also sent a letter to Liu Bojian, deputy director of the political department of the Combined Forces of the National Army, asking him to see that all Party members and Youth League members serving as Party representatives in the Combined Forces devoted their attention to political propaganda and did not interfere in military and administrative matters.14 Chen Duxiu believed that adopting a concessionary policy would make it clear that the Communists were not scheming to seize power and would case Chiang Kai-shek's concerns. This, in turn, would prevent a rupture between the KMT and the CPC. But Chiang did not slacken his attempt to split the two parties, and when he suddenly launched a full-scale assault on the CPC, the Central Committee was unprepared and unable to organize a forceful resistance. This was a bitter and tragic lesson.

Before and After the Coup of April 12, 1927

The split in the southern revolutionary camp became increasingly apparent after its decisive victory in Jiangxi in November 1926. In the autumn of 1926 the Northern Expeditionary Army had won victories in Hunan and Hubei, but Sun Chuanfang continued to menace its flanks. Sun's forces were more powerful than Wu Peifu's. If they entered Hunan from Jiangxi, the Northern Expeditionary Army might find itself in the dangerous position of being cut off from its rear areas. At the same time, however, actual control over the military forces in Hunan and Hubei was already in the hands of General Tang Shengzhi, and the worker and peasant movements were rapidly expanding there. If Chiang Kai-shek were defeated in Jiangxi, it would be hard for him to survive. Under these circumstances, Chiang had no choice but to proceed cautiously in dealing with the relations between the KMT and the CPC. After Sun Chuanfang's main force was defeated in Jiangxi, however, the situation changed drastically. Chiang, who was stationed at Nanchang, was aware that this was not only a victory in Jiangxi but also the prelude to victory throughout the Southeast. The political and military situation in southern China had totally changed. Reactionary Forces at Home and Abroad Gather Around Chiang Kai-shek At this time, the attitude of the imperialist powers toward Chiang Kai-shek underwent a subtle change. They had not expected that the Northern warlords would collapse so quickly. Having weathered the crisis of post World War I and entered a 87 period of relative stability, they were prepared to intervene in the Chinese revolution. The British, centred in the rich Yangtze valley, had the most special privileges. Not long after the Northern Expeditionary Army entered Hubei, British warships provoked a series of incidents, using them as a pretext to shell the county seat of Wanxian in Sichuan Province on the upper Yangtze. More than a thousand soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded in the Wanxian massacre. Sixty-three foreign warships were stationed on the Yangtze River, and more than twenty thousand foreign troops were mustered in Shanghai. Combined with the international business community and police force, the total number of foreigners in Shanghai was over 30,000. The foreign powers plotted to use violence and threats to prevent the continued advance of the Chinese revolution. At the same time, they saw that the fall of the Northern warlords was already inevitable and intensified their efforts to split the revolutionary camp by supporting new agents. The first to do this were the Japanese. At the end of 1926, the director of the Treaties Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to Wuhan and then Nanchang, where he met with Chiang Kai-shek. He reported back to the Japanese government that there were sharp contradictions between Wuhan and Nanchang and that in the future the rifts would inevitably become more apparent. In January 1927 Chiang met with the Japanese consul in Jiujiang, where he stated clearly that far from planning to abolish the unequal treaties that China had been forced to sign with the imperialist powers after the Opium War of 1840, he would respect them to the greatest possible extent. He also promised to recognize foreign loans to China and to repay them within the specified time. In short, he assured the consul that the special privileges enjoyed by foreigners in China would be completely protected. Thus, the imperialist powers began to view Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of the "moderate" faction within the Kuomintang. They began to court him, maintaining that he and his group were the only forces that could prevent the Communists from controlling the vast area south of the Yangtze River. As the political and military situation was increasingly favourable to the South, many of the military forces formerly loyal to the Northern warlords or to local warlords were incorporated into Chiang's. Thus his strength increased rapidly. Politicians and bureaucrats also came from the North to work for Chiang. One of them was Huang Fu, who had close personal ties to him. When Huang Fu came through Shanghai on his way south, he went to see the vice president of the Bank of China, Zhang Gongquan, who promised him that Chiang would be permitted to overdraw his account by one million yuan. When this incident became known, it gave rise to the popular saying, "In the military there is the Northern Expedition, while in politics there is the Southern Expedition." Against this background, Chiang Kai-shek's anti-Communist stand became more and more evident. Suddenly, he proposed moving the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and the National Government from Guangzhou to Nanchang, where the headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army was located. This would place them under his direct control. On February 21, 1927, he publicly announced his anti-Communist position in a speech at the Nanchang headquarters. He proclaimed himself the "leader of the Chinese revolution" and stated that "when Communist Party members do something wrong or behave improperly, I have the responsibility and the power to intervene and punish them." He began to openly suppress the revolutionary forces of the workers and peasants. On March 6 he ordered the New First Division of the National Revolutionary Army, stationed in Jiangxi, to trap and kill Chen Zanxian, a Communist Party member who was the chairman of the Ganzhou Federation of Trade Unions and vice-chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Federation of Trade Unions. During March 10-17, the 2nd Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang held its 3rd Plenary Session in Wuhan. Because several KMT leaders in Wuhan did not want Chiang Kai-shek to exercise dictatorial rule, participants at this session rejected his proposal to move the capital to Nanchang. They adopted resolutions reaffirming Sun Yat-sen's Three Great Policies, strengthening the party's authority and opposing military dictatorship. 89 Furthermore, by changing the system of leadership, they in effect dismissed Chiang Kai-shek from the chairmanship of the Standing Committee of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee. However, because Chiang controlled most of the military power, the resolution strengthening the party's authority had no effect. Chiang accelerated his anti-Communist activities. Having gone to Jiujiang from Nanchang on March 16, he instigated thugs from the Green Band and the Red Band—secret, Mafia-style organizations—to destroy the Jiujiang KMT headquarters and the offices of the city's Federation of Trade Unions, in which Leftwingers constituted a majority. Three people were killed at the KMT headquarters, and at the federation one was killed and six were injured. Chiang then took a warship east to Anqing. On March 23, at his instigation, a gang of ruffians there destroyed the Anhui KMT headquarters, which was dominated by Leftwingers, and the offices of the Federation of Trade Unions and of the peasant association. Again, many people were wounded. The thugs proudly said: "We have made all the arrangements with our leader. We will attack Red elements everywhere we go." On April 9 the deputy director of the National Revolutionary Army's general political department, Guo Moruo, who had investigated the violence in Anqing and Jiujiang, published a long article entitled "Look at Today's Chiang Kai-shek." After reviewing the facts, he wrote, "Chiang Kai-shek is no longer the commander-in-chief of our National Revolutionary Army. He is the central force behind a broad spectrum of counterrevolutionaries, including thugs and ruffians, local tyrants and evil gentry, corrupt officials and traitorous warlords.... Inside the KMT he is more dangerous than enemies outside it."15 It was only a matter of time before the Chiang clique would openly betray the revolution. Different Opinions Within the Communist Party of China There were two different opinions within the CPC as to how the Party should respond to the grave split that might occur in the revolutionary camp at any time. The members of the Guangdong Regional Party Committee had recognized the impending danger earlier. In November 1926 they had submitted a political report to the Central Committee of the CPC in which they pointed out that there could be no hope of long-term cooperation with the new warlords. Therefore, they advised: "We should prepare our forces, organize the masses and consolidate power of the people.... We should try to avoid pointless struggle and prevent the eruption of large-scale struggle (of course, that is not to say we should avoid struggle completely). At the same time, we should do everything possible to prepare all our forces for a great rebellion, and wc should have such great forces. In the event of a large-scale struggle, they said, they hoped to be victorious."16 On December 11 Zhou Enlai published an article entitled "The Communist Party of China in the Present Political Struggle," in which he stated explicitly: "For if there were conflicts, they would be conflicts between the masses of revolutionary workers and peasants and a bourgeoisie that was compromising with the imperialist enemies; if there were a split, it would be a split between an alliance of the revolutionary Left wing of the Kuomintang and the Communists on the one hand and the Right wing that was abandoning the revolution on the other."17 He also warned that the CPC should prepare, mentally and in practical work, for the divisive activities of the new Right-wingers within the KMT. But the Central Committee of the CPC saw this view as "a major, dangerous, and essential error," one that could "lead to terrible repercussions."18 It demanded that this error be corrected. It was at this crucial juncture that, on December 13, 1926, the Central Committee convened a special meeting. In his political report, Chen Duxiu stated at the outset: "The important issue in the political report to be addressed at this meeting is still the Kuomintang. Since the military victory in Jiangxi, there have been many new changes in the relationship between the CPC and the KMT, and we need to discuss that question again." The resolution adopted by the meeting, in line with Chen Duxiu's report, said: 91 "Of all the dangerous tendencies, the most serious is that as the mass movements gain momentum, the people tend toward the ‘Left' while the military regime, terrified of the mass movements, ends towards the Right. If these ‘Left' and Right tendencies continue to develop, the united front will ultimately rupture, and that will endanger the entire national revolutionary movement." In other words, the Central Committee declared that both the Right tendencies of the military regime and the "Left" tendencies of the mass movements should be prevented. But the first half of the statement was merely empty talk. There was certainly no practical, effective method of countering the rightward swing of Chiang's forces. In fact, the only course of action available was to prevent the "Left" tendencies in the mass movements, that is, to suppress the vigorously expanding workers' and peasants' movements. At a time when the Kuomintang new Right-wingers had already resolved to oppose the Communists and cause a rupture between the KMT and the CPC, and when almost all military and political power was concentrated in their hands, the major force that the Communist Party could rely on was the workers and peasants. If the CPC abandoned the policy of mobilizing and organizing the masses into an effective force, not only would it be unable to counter a coup staged by the new Right wing of the KMT, but it would be unable even to control the vacillations of the upper petty bourgeoisie. Thus, at this special meeting the CPC Central Committee failed to resolve the question of how the Party was to survive and persist in the struggle when faced with imminent danger. Worse, it adopted a mistaken policy toward the mass movements, which led to even more serious consequences. After the meeting, the capitulationist policy of stifling the workers' and peasants' movements in order to appease the Right wing of the KMT began to be carried out in the Party's practical work. Chen Duxiu himself had a talk with the secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, ordering him to put a stop to the "extreme" actions of the peasants. Some Party members opposed this Right capitulationist error. From January 4 to February 5, 1927, Mao Zedong spent thirtytwo days investigating the peasant movement in Hunan. In the report he submitted to the Central Committee of the CPC, he wrote: "The masses are now shifting to the Left. Our Party has in many respects indicated that it is out of step with the revolutionary mood of the masses. The Kuomintang is even further out of step. This is something we should pay close attention to." In March, an article entitled "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" began to be published in the weekly magazine Soldier. In this report, Mao sharply rejected the skepticism and criticisms heaped on the peasant movement from both inside and outside the Party. He explained the great significance of the revolution in rural areas and pointed out that all revolutionary comrades ought to march at the head of the peasants and lead them, not trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing or worse, stand in their way and oppose them. He emphasized that the Party should rely on the poor peasants, who were the "vanguard of the revolution" and should unite also with the middle peasants and other forces that could be won over. The Party should work to establish peasant associations and peasant armed forces so that the associations could take all power in the countryside. Then they should reduce rent for land and interest on loans and redistribute the land, and so on. This report was the most important Marxist document of the Communist Party of China on leading the peasant movement. In February, Qu Qiubai wrote an article entitled "A Controversy over the Chinese Revolution," in which he criticized the Right capitulationist mistakes that had emerged in the Party, and emphasized the need for the Chinese revolution to be led by the proletariat. At this time. Sun Chuanfang's forces had already collapsed, and Chiang Kai-shek had already essentially taken possession of the rich regions of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. On March 21, when the Northern Expeditionary Army was advancing from Zhejiang to the suburbs of Shanghai, the workers in Shanghai, led by a special committee that included Chen Duxiu, Luo Yinong, Zhou Enlai and Zhao Shiyan, organized a general strike and then staged an armed uprising. (The Shanghai workers had already launched two armed uprisings, both of which had ended in failure because of incomplete preparations and bad timing.) After more 93 than thirty hours of fighting, they defeated the troops of the Northern warlords stationed in Shanghai and occupied all districts of the city except the foreign concessions. This was a heroic feat of the working class during the period of the Great Revolution. It was only after the victorious workers had occupied Shanghai that the Northern Expeditionary Army, which had been stationed in the southern suburbs of Shanghai, finally entered the city under the command of Bai Chongxi. Three days later, on March 24, the Sixth and Second Armies of the National Revolutionary Army moved east from Anhui Province and occupied the city of Nanjing. In the afternoon of the same day, British and American warships cruising on the Yangtze River, on pretext of protecting their nationals, suddenly bombarded Nanjing, killing and wounding many Chinese soldiers and civilians. The Nanjing Incident hastened Chiang Kai-shek's decision to ally himself with the imperialist forces. The Anti-Communist Coup of April 12, 1927 Chiang Kai-shek had resolved to oppose the Communists. But if he was to make a major move against them, he would have to have the support of the imperialist powers and financial assistance from the Zhejiang and Jiangsu plutocrats. He would also need to rely on the gangs of Shanghai thugs. Having hurried from Anhui to Shanghai by warship on March 26, Chiang held a series of secret meetings with the imperialists, plutocrats and gang leaders. He sent representatives to the Shanghai consulates of the five countries involved in the Nanjing Incident (Britain, the United States, France, Japan and Italy), making an apology and telling them that the incident would be resolved immediately, that the workers' armed forces in Shanghai would be disarmed and that action would be taken to foil any attempt to recover the foreign concessions in Shanghai by armed force and rebellion. The imperialists urged him to act quickly and decisively. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang tycoons gave him generous financial support totalling several million yuan. Huang Jinrong, Du Yuesheng and other Shanghai gang leaders promised to use the thugs of the Green Band and Red Band to disarm the worker's armed picket corps on his behalf. Chiang also transferred all military units not completely under his control away from Shanghai and brought his own troops into the Shanghai-Nanjing area. In early April he held a secret meeting in Shanghai with Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Huang Shaohong, Li Jishen, Zhang Jingjiang, Wu Zhihui, Li Shizeng and other KMT right-wingers and pro-Chiang warlords, at which they decided to "purge the party" by force, thus completing Chiang's preparations for a surprise attack on the Communists. The Central Committee of the CPC and the Shanghai Regional Party Committee were aware of some of Chiang Kai-shek's plot, and tried to strengthen the workers' picket corps to secure the gains of the revolution. But at that time the Comintern's hopes still rested with Chiang Kai-shek, and it refused to support a split with him. In late March Chen Duxiu sent a letter to the Shanghai Regional Party Committee in which he declared that they should "stop opposing Chiang."19 On April 1 Wang Jingwei returned to Shanghai from overseas and soon afterward had secret talks with Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang advocated the immediate separation of the Communist Party from the KMT. Concerned that such a separation would enable Chiang to arrogate too much power to himself, Wang proposed that a plenary session of the Central Executive Committee of the KMT be called to discuss his proposal. He also suggested that Chen Duxiu be notified of the session and asked to order Communist Party members nationwide to "temporarily suspend their activities and await the decision of the session." On April 5 Chen Duxiu and Wang Jingwei released a joint declaration dismissing as rumours the assertions that the "KMT leaders would expel the CPC and crack down on the trade unions and the workers' picket corps" and asking everyone to "forget their suspicions, ignore the rumours, respect each other and sincerely discuss all their concerns." This declaration led some Communist Party members to relax their vigilance, thinking that the tension had been dissipated. After this, Chen Duxiu and Wang Jingwei left for Wuhan together. The Central Commit 95 tee of the CPC also moved its headquarters from Shanghai to Wuhan. A few days later, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly staged a counterrevolutionary coup in Shanghai. At dawn on April 12, a large number of well-prepared, well-armed thugs of the Green Band and the Red Band rushed out of the foreign concessions and launched a surprise attack on the workers' picket corps stationed at the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions and elsewhere. The pickets immediately rose to resist them. At this time, the Twentysixth Army of the National Revolutionary Army (the former forces of the warlord Sun Chuanfang, which had been reorganized by Chiang) arrived, claiming that they were going to mediate and would first disarm the thugs. The workers' pickets believed this lie and opened the gates. Caught completely unprepared, they were forced to hand over their arms. Some of the workers resisted, but because of the great disparity in numbers, they were defeated. Wang Shouhua, a Communist Party member who was chairman of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, had been tricked and murdered by Du Yuesheng the day before. On the morning of April 13, over 100,000 Shanghai workers and other citizens held a mass rally and a protest march, demanding the release of those who had been arrested and the return of the weapons of the workers' picket corps. When the marchers reached Baoshan Road, a unit of the Twenty-sixth Army, lying in ambush, suddenly opened fire on the crowd, killing more than one hundred people and wounding countless others. After the coup of April 12 in Shanghai, in the name of "purging the party" large numbers of Communists and other revolutionary people were killed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi. In Guangdong alone, more than 2,000 people were arrested and executed, including outstanding Communist Party members such as Xiao Chunti and Xiong Xiong. On April 18, Chiang Kai-shek established in Nanjing a "National Government" representing the interests of the big landlord class and the big bourgeoisie, in opposition to the National Government in Wuhan. Yan Xishan, the warlord of Shanxi, and Liu Xiang, the warlord of Sichuan, also began to "purge the party" in their domains and expressed their support for the Nanjing government. At the same time, the Fengtian warlord, Zhang Zuolin, executed a large number of Communists and other revolutionary people in northern China. On April 28 Li Dazhao, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, was hanged in Beijing. The Great Revolution suffered a major setback. The counter-revolutionary coup of April 12 was proof that Chiang Kai-shek had already become the rallying point for the anti-Communist forces dependent on the imperialists and consisting of big landlords and the big bourgeoisie. Outwardly, however, he continued to espouse bourgeois reformism in order to deceive the public. Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary coup won the support of the big bourgeoisie and of certain individuals from the upper strata of the national bourgeoisie. The Shanghai Federation of Commerce sent a telegram expressing its "backing for the government authorities' effort to purge the party." Individual representatives of the bourgeoisie were drawn to Nanjing to participate in the government and became ornaments of the counterrevolutionary military dictatorship of the big landlord class and the big bourgeoisie. The angry people denounced the coup staged by the Chiang Kai-shek clique. On April 14 seven prominent persons in Shanghai, including Hu Yuzhi, Zheng Zhcnduo and Wu Juenong, signed a letter sharply criticizing the military brutality. In Wuhan, Changsha and other cities, rallies of several hundred thousand people were held to express opposition to the imperialists and denounce Chiang. On April 20 the Central Committee of the CPC issued a delcaration on Chiang's massacre of the people, exposing him as the "public enemy of the national revolution" and calling on the revolutionary people to overthrow the new warlords and the military dictatorship. On April 22, thirty-nine members and alternate members of the KMT Central Executive Committee, and its Central Supervisory Committee, including Soong Ching Ling, Deng Yanda, He Xiangning, Tan Pingshan, Wu Yuzhang, Lin Zuhan and Mao Zedong, signed an open 97 telegram denouncing Chiang. "If," they wrote, "our people and comrades, especially those in the military, do not want the revolution to be destroyed by Chiang, they must act in accordance with the orders of the Central Executive Committee and overthrow this traitor to Sun Yat-sen, the party and the people. All forces of the National Revolutionary Army should erase this deep disgrace."20 At this time, the KMT was still cooperating with the CPC m Wuhan. The KMT leadership there, including Wang Jingwei, did not wish to see all power in Chiang's hands. On April 17, the Central Executive Committee of the KMT in Wuhan issued an order expelling Chiang from the party and stripping him of all posts.

The Failure of the Great Revolution

After the coup of April 12, the political situation in China underwent a fundamental change. There were now three centres of power: two counter-revolutionary governments—one in Beijing led by Zhang Zuolin and one in Nanjing led by Chiang Kai-shek—and one revolutionary government—the National Government in Wuhan, which still maintained cooperation between the KMT and the CPC. The Wuhan National Government had direct control over the provinces of Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi. It faced threats from two directions: the new warlord Chiang Kai-shek to the east and the old warlord Zhang Zuolin to the north. After the armies of Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang were defeated, Zhang Zuolin had transferred his troops south. His main force was stationed along the Beijing-Hankou Railway and controlled Henan, thus posing a major threat to the Wuhan government. Also, the situation within the Wuhan government was extremely complex. Wang Jingwei, who had recently arrived in Wuhan and was acting under the pretence of opposing Chiang, quickly assumed leading positions in the Central Executive Committee of the KMT and in the National Government. At this time, he was posing as a leader of the Left wing. He called on those who wanted to participate in revolution to come to the Left and those who did not to go away at once. At heart, however, he was eager to expel the Communists; the time, he wrote, was not yet right, but "people must make the necessary preparations."21 Wang Jingwei joined forces with Tang Shengzhi, who controlled the KMT troops in the area of Wuhan. Together they began to restrict the activities of the workers' and peasants' movements, manoeuvred to take control of the situation in Wuhan and waited for the right moment to betray the revolution. After moving to Wuhan, the CPC Central Committee continued to cooperate with Wang Jingwei's faction of the Kuomintang. The tasks the Communists faced were even more complex than before. How should they deal with their enemies outside the Wuhan government? How should they deal with their unreliable allies within the government? Should they and could they prepare for the possibility of another sudden change? These were the problems the Party had to consider. The 5th National Congress of the Party Convened at a Critical Moment Two heated disputes arose within the Party at this time: one was about "deepening vs. broadening," the other about "the eastern expedition vs. the northern expedition." "Deepening" meant initiating an agrarian revolution in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces in order to consolidate the existing revolutionary base areas and then expand them. "Broadening" meant expanding into other areas and taking Beijing before launching an agrarian revolution. Advocates of an eastern expedition supported a punitive expedition against Chiang, while advocates of a northern expedition supported a military campaign against the troops of the Fengtian warlords in Henan. These disputes were resolved in favour of a plan put forward by Borodin and Chen Duxiu, which called for a northern expediCH AFTER TWO IN THE TORRENT OF THE GREAT REVOLUTION 99 tion against the Fengtian warlords. This was in accord with the intentions of Wang Jingwei's National Government in Wuhan. There were four reasons that Borodin and Chen Duxiu proposed this plan. First, the Comintern and the CPC Central Committee naively trusted the combined forces of the National Army commanded by Feng Yuxiang, who at the time was preparing to move his troops from Shaanxi east into Henan. They believed that he was a reliable ally and that by cooperating with him in a punitive expedition against the Fengtian warlords and joining forces at Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, they could build a solid base in the Northwest, open up an international route between China and the Soviet Union and then advance to the east. Second, they believed that the imperialist powers were too strong in the Southeast. They feared that if they launched an eastern expedition immediately, they would come into direct conflict with the imperialists and would surely be defeated. Third, since the area of Wuhan was surrounded on four sides by enemy forces, commerce and banking could not function normally and goods were in short supply. Borodin and Chen believed that if they did not fight their way out, they would be unable to surmount the economic difficulties. Outward expansion, they thought, was the key to survival. Fourth, they believed that since the leaders of the National Government in Wuhan represented the upper petty bourgeoisie, their support for the revolution tended to waver. If the Communists initiated an agrarian revolution, it would drive them to abandon the revolution and make a compromise with Chiang Kai-shek. This line of reasoning was known at the time as the "Northwest doctrine." The advocates of the "Northwest doctrine" were afraid to launch a thoroughgoing agrarian revolution and arm the masses of workers and peasants. Instead, they tried to keep the revolution within the limits imposed by Wang Jingwei so as to stabilize the Kuomintang government in Wuhan. It was just as Zhou Enlai later analysed it: "The central idea of the ‘go north' group was to steer clear of the peasant movement in Hunan and Hubei...."22 Those who supported this plan thus expressed their lack of faith in the people's forces and their fear of the enemy. They placed their hopes primarily on an alliance with Feng Yuxiang and not on the mobilization of the workers and peasants. On April 19 the National Government in Wuhan held a meeting and pledged to continue the Northern Expedition. Its main army marched north into Henan. Thus, there would be no eastern expedition against Chiang and no thoroughgoing agrarian revolution. At this critical moment in the Chinese revolution, the Communist Party held its 5th National Congress in Wuhan. There were now many more Party members than before the Northern Expedition: nearly 58,000. The 5th National Party Congress was convened on April 27, 1927, just two weeks after the coup of April 12. The entire Party expected this congress to make a sober assessment of the situation and to answer the most pressing question: how to save the revolution. It did not do so. The congress declared that although the bourgeoisie had already betrayed the revolution, the revolution had entered the stage of a democratic dictatorship of the workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie. The Party, it said, should use a programme of agrarian revolution and democratic government to mobilize the peasants and the petty bourgeois; it should make the revolution skip over the capitalist stage of development. But statements like that were only empty talk, far removed from the actual situation of the time. The congress viewed Chiang's betrayal of the revolution as a betrayal by the national bourgeoisie as a whole. This view was unrealistic and later led to ultra-Left actions against the bourgeoisie. It saw Wang Jingwei as a representative of the petty bourgeoisie and his Wuhan government as a reliable ally an alliance of the workers, peasants and petty bourgeois. This misconception led to the adoption of Right concessionary policies towards Wang and the Wuhan government. Furthermore, because of it, the Party did not anticipate their possible betrayal and consequently failed to prepare for it. The proposal for agrarian revolution was sound, but the emphasis on winning the support of the petty bourgeoisie—or, in effect, the support of Wang Jingwei and his clique—rendered it meaningless. At the congress there was no talk of expanding revolutionary 101 troops directly under the leadership of the CPC. Under these dangerous circumstances, when the entire Party expected emergency measures to save the revolution, talk of "skipping over the capitalist stage of development" was simply irrelevant and unrealistic. The congress criticized the Right opportunist errors, but proposed no measures to correct them. Moreover, it reelected Chen Duxiu general secretary. As a result, while the CPC hovered on the brink of disaster, the congress failed to determine an appropriate course of action and provide powerful leadership for the Party. Furthermore, having let this opportunity slip, it watched passively as the overall situation continued to deteriorate. The Right Capitulationism of the CPC Central Committee After the 5th National Party Congress, the situation in the area under the jurisdiction of the National Government in Wuhan became increasingly critical. Because this area was surrounded and blockaded by reactionary forces, business stagnated, factories closed, everyday necessities became extremely scarce, prices skyrocketed and currency depreciated. The government ran up a huge deficit. Many workers and shop assistants lost their jobs. Local tyrants, evil gentry and reactionary officers fished in the troubled waters. Wang Jingwei and his government increasingly spoke and acted in ways destructive to the workers' and peasants' movements. On May 13, 1927, Xia Douyin, commander of the Fourteenth Independent Division of the National Revolutionary Army, stationed in Yichang, sent an open telegram denouncing the Wuhan government. On the 17th, he attacked Zhifang, near Wuchang. The attack was repulsed by Ye Ting, commander of the Wuchang garrison. On May 21 Xu Kexiang, commander of the 33rd Regiment of the National Revolutionary Army's 35th Army, which had been reorganized from warlord troops, staged a counter-revolutionary coup in Changsha. His troops disarmed the workers' pickets and arrested and killed more than one hundred Communists and other revolutionaries. The city of Changsha was overwhelmed by White terror. On June 6 Zhu Peide, the governor of Jiangxi Province and commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army's Fifth Front Army, expelled a large number of Communists and Kuomintang Leftwingers from the province. He began to close down revolutionary organizations and to arrest leaders of the workers' and peasants' movements. Under these circumstances, Borodin and Chen Duxiu, among others, still pinned their hopes on the junction of the National Revolutionary Army carrying on the Northern Expedition and Feng Yuxiang's troops. The National Revolutionary Army's troops marching north fought bloody battles, suffering 14,000 casualties. (The Fourth and Eleventh Armies, which had the most Communists, lost the most men, including the talented commander and Party member Jiang Xianyun.) The National Revolutionary Army routed the Fengtian warlords' main force in Henan, enabling Feng Yuxiang's troops, who had marched east through Tongguan, to capture Zhengzhou on May 31. From June 10 to 12, the leaders of the Wuhan National Government, including Wang Jingwei, Tan Yankai and Sun Ke, held talks with Feng Yuxiang in Zhengzhou. They decided to give Feng complete military and political control in Henan and the Northwest and to send the Northern Expeditionary Army back to Wuhan. Feng's political attitude had changed substantially: he now proposed putting an end to the conflict between the Wuhan and Nanjing governments. On June 20 he went to Xuzhou to hold talks with Chiang Kai-shek and openly sided with him. After this he sent a telegram to the National Government in Wuhan demanding that Borodin be removed from his post and sent back to the Soviet Union. He further demanded that all Communist Party members and large numbers of political officers in the combined forces of the National Revolutionary Army be dismissed. Consequently, the "Northwest doctrine" advocated by Borodin and Chen Duxiu came to nothing, and the Wang Jingwei clique intensified its anti-Communist activities. The situation was growing more ominous. Chen Duxiu and the Soviet advisers, lacking confidence and afraid of provoking Wang Jingwei and Tang Shengzhi, were unable to offer any practical 103 solutions. They continued to pursue a concessionary policy, believing that in this way they could avoid providing Wang and Tang with further pretexts for a split. They cancelled the plan to stage an armed uprising in Hunan and disbanded the workers' picket corps in Wuhan. These actions did nothing to stabilize the National Government in Wuhan and only encouraged further displays of arrogance by the reactionary forces. A.B. Bakulin, a Soviet adviser, wrote in his diary: "Wuhan is becoming more and more like Nanjing."23 A counter-revolutionary coup in Wuhan was becoming increasingly likely. At this critical juncture, the Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted a resolution on China, and issued a directive (known as the "May Directive") to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This directive urged the CPC to transform the Kuomintang by encouraging large numbers of workers and peasants to join it; to turn the peasant associations into organs of village government and confiscate the land held by the landlords; and to organize an army of 70,000 men, of which 20,000 should be Communist Party members. Although the Comintern had made a series of errors in its advice to the Chinese revolutionaries, this particular directive correctly addressed the crucial question of the time: how to save the revolution. Of course, this is not to say that the revolutionaries could have easily achieved victory, but if the CPC had resolutely followed these recommendations, it would have been well prepared to struggle effectively against the Wang Jingwei clique and in a stronger position to confront the reactionaries in all eventualities. Thus it could have prevented a crushing defeat. However, the Central Committee of the CPC believed that it would be too difficult to accomplish the tasks proposed in the Comintern's "May Directive," and it still hoped that at the last minute its capitulationist tactics would succeed in winning over the Wang Jingwei clique. Dissatisfaction with Chen Duxiu's Right capitulationist errors was growing within the Party. Ren Bishi, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, wrote a letter criticizing Chen Duxiu. Chen Duxiu ripped the letter to shreds in front of him. On July 4 the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting at which Mao Zedong proposed that the peasant armed forces go to the mountains or join military units connected to the Party. "Unless we preserve our own armed forces," he said, "we shall be helpless to cope with emergencies." In mid-July, the Central Committee of the CPC was reorganized in accordance with an instruction of the Comintern Executive Committee. Its Provisional Standing Committee was now composed of Zhang Guotao, Li Weihan, Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan and Zhang Tailci. On July 13 the Central Committee issued a statement declaring that China had reached a critical moment when the revolution was at stake. It condemned the KMT Central Executive Committee and the National Government in Wuhan for "recently and publicly preparing for a coup," for "acting against the interests of the vast majority of the Chinese people and against the basic principles and policies of Dr. Sun Yat-sen" and for "destroying the national revolution." It therefore decided to recall all Communist Party members serving in the National Government. At the same time, it proclaimed that it would continue to support the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism and that it wished to continue to cooperate with revolutionary elements in the Kuomintang. Even though this announcement was released rather late, it helped heighten the revolutionary spirit within the Party. On July 14 Soong Ching Ling (Mme. Sun Yat-sen), a prominent representative of the left wing of the KMT, wrote a "Statement Issued in Protest Against the Violation of Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Principles and Policies," which was later published in Hankou. In this statement she said: "Sun Yat-sen's policies are clear. If leaders of the party [the KMT] do not carry them out consistently, then they are no longer Sun's true followers, and the Party is no longer a revolutionary party, but merely a tool in the hands of this or that militarist." "Feeling thus," she declared, "I must disassociate myself from active participation in the carrying out of these new policies of the party."24 On July 15 in Wuhan, Wang Jingwei called an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Execu 105 tive Committee at which a formal decision was made to break off relations with the CPC. This action definitively ended the first period of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC and marked the failure of the Great Revolution of 1924-1927. Launched during the first period of cooperation between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, the Great Revolution was an unprecedented revolutionary movement in which workers and peasants played the major role. Essentially, it overthrew the rule of the hated Northern warlords and struck heavy blows against the imperialist and feudal forces. Through this movement people came to have their first understanding of the meaning of revolution. Even though it failed, it exerted an enduring influence. It marked a new starting point for subsequent advances in the Chinese revolution. There were two reasons for the failure of the Great Revolution. First, at that time the strength and political experience of the combined imperialist and feudal forces far surpassed those of the revolutionary camp. Furthermore, the Kuomintang suddenly betrayed the revolution and launched a surprise attack on the Communist Party and on the workers' and peasants' movements under its leadership. Second, the CPC Central Committee, represented by Chen Duxiu, committed Right capitulationist errors. During the early stages of the Great Revolution, the Party's line was by and large correct. Party members, both cadres and rank and file, all played active roles and as a result achieved great successes. However, the Party was still immature and inexperienced and did not fully understand either Chinese history and society or the special characteristics and laws of the Chinese revolution. Moreover, it still lacked a deep understanding of Marxist-Leninist theory and of the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution. Therefore, its leading bodies vacillated on certain key questions, and at the later stage of the Great Revolution they failed to lead the Party in taking appropriate action. Instead, they were tricked by the counter-revolutionary forces, and this led to the failure of the Great Revolution. As a branch of the Communist International, the Communist Party of China received direct guidance from it. While actively contributing to the Great Revolution, the Comintern and its representatives in China ultimately failed to understand the actual conditions in China. Some of their ideas were correct, but others were wrong, and these were partly responsible for the Right capitulationist errors made by the leadership of the CPC. It was difficult for the immature Chinese Party to reject the mistaken guidance of the Comintern. Although the Great Revolution failed, it still had enormous significance. Through this revolution, the anti-imperialist, antifeudal programme put forward by the CPC came to be resoundingly supported by the masses. The Party rapidly spread its political influence among the people and greatly expanded its organizations. Millions upon millions of workers and peasants were organized under the leadership of the Party, and the Party began to control part of the troops. In addition, the ordeals the Party went through during this period served to temper it, and its victories and defeats provided it with valuable experience. All of this helped to prepare the ground for the next stage, when, with the leadership of the Party, the Chinese people would push their struggle to a higher plane.

The Agrarian Revolution

The Revolution at a Low Ebb and Armed Resistance by the Communists

Following the betrayal of the revolution by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, the political situation in China took a sharp turn for the worse. The Great Revolution came to a premature end. The southern part of the country, where the revolutionary movement had been vigorous, descended into bloodshed. The Communist Party of China was subjected to the severest test since its founding. According to incomplete statistics provided by the 6th National Congress of the Party, during the period from March 1927 to June 1928, some 310,000 people had been killed, of whom more than 26,000 were Parly members. Chen Yannian, Zhao Shiyan, Luo Yinong, Xiang Jingyu, Chen Qiaonian, Xia Minghan, Guo Liang and other respected Party activists who had been much loved by the people were killed by the Kuomintang reactionaries. Communist organizations had no choice but to go underground, and the Party suffered great losses. Many local Party organizations were broken up, and many members lost contact with the Party. Those without firm commitment quit the Party or the Youth League, some openly announcing their departure in the press and expressing their repentance for having joined, some even leading the way for enemy agents in their search for Communists. Party membership, which had reached nearly 60,000 at the height of the Great Revolution, dropped to 10,000. Those who remained in the Party were at a 109 loss what to do. Trade unions and peasant associations, which had thrived throughout the country, were outlawed or disbanded. Under the White terror, the worker-peasant movement sank to a low ebb. A great number of people took a middle course, constantly shifting their political allegiance. When the revolution was developing successfully, they would turn to the Left; when it suffered setbacks or was in decline, they would turn to the Right. In these dark days, although some political activists outside the Party and other persons of integrity persisted in their revolutionary stand and refused to side with the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, many of those taking the middle course distanced themselves from the Communist Party. Some of them were frightened by the KMT's bloody slaughter and had been driven to despair; others still had unrealistic hopes for the KMT, seeing it as a party that had a revolutionary history, that was still flying the banner of Sun Yal-sen and that was continuing the Northern Expedition. The stark reality was that the Chinese revolution was at a very low ebb. The counter-revolutionary forces far surpassed the revolutionary forces led by the Party, and the Party itself was in danger of disintegrating or of being wiped out. In this time of savage repression, when the future of the revolution seemed so bleak, when to be a revolutionary meant risking death, it was not easy to remain steadfast in one's belief and to carry on the struggle. Yet the Communist Party of China was indomitable. As Mao Zedong said more than ten years later, "The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people were neither cowed nor conquered nor exterminated. They picked themselves up, wiped off the blood, buried their fallen comrades and went into battle again."1 Unlike those who left the Party in the time of danger, some staunch revolutionaries, including Peng Dehuai, He Long and Xu Teli, chose this moment to join it. Many workers and peasants rallied around the Party again and continued the fight. When the reactionaries hung Guo Liang's head at the gate of the city wall of Changsha, Lu Xun, a true friend of the Party, said, "Revolutions have seldom been defeated by hanging a head.... It was precisely because there was darkness and no future that the revolution was begun."2 Faced with the reactionaries' policy of butchering all revolutionaries, the Communists had only one choice. If they were not simply to wait for death and allow the whole country to be plunged into darkness, they must hold high the revolutionary banner and carry out armed resistance. But the question remained: under such difficult circumstances, how was that to be done? The Nanchang Uprising, the August 7th Meeting, the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the Guangzhou Uprising The Nanchang Uprising represented the Party's first unequivocal reply. Because when the Great Revolution was forging ahead, the CPC Central Committee had failed to recognize the vital importance of controlling armed forces, the overwhelming majority of the troops in the South were in the hands of the Kuomintang. Those that the Party could control or influence were mainly among the Second Front Army of the Fourth Group Army led by Zhang Fakui of the Kuomintang, including the units under the command of He Long and Ye Ting, which at this time were stationed in northern Jiangxi Province. These forces attracted the attention of both the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary sides. On July 15, 1927, the Wuhan government officially adopted the policy of "separating from the Communists" and immediately sent troops to encircle this area. Also Zhang Fakui declared that "senior officers, like Ye Ting, who are Communists must withdraw from the army or leave the Communist Party." The situation had become so critical that the slightest hesitation would bring about the doom of the small revolutionary armed forces. Under these circumstances, the Central Committee of the CPC decided in mid-July to stage an armed uprising in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. A Front Committee was formed, headed by Zhou Enlai. On August 1 Zhou Etilai, He Long, Ye Ting, Zhu De and Liu Bocheng, leading twenty thousand troops of the Northern charter three the agrarian revolution in Expeditionary Army under the control or influence of the Party, declared an armed uprising in Nanchang. After four hours of fierce fighting, the insurgent forces took the city. Then, they promptly pulled out and headed for the Chaozhou-Santou area of Guangdong Province via southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, as planned. The purpose of this move was to join forces with the militant peasants of the Dongjiang area of Guangdong, which had a revolutionary tradition, so as to start the agrarian revolution. Then the plan was to march to Guangzhou, re-establish the Guangdong revolutionary base area, occupy an outlet to the sea to obtain assistance from the Communist International and continue with the Northern Expedition. By the end of September the revolutionary forces had occupied Chao'an County and Shantou City in Guangdong Province, and the main units had marched to Jieyang County and then westward to Tangken Town in the same province. Their numbers were now greatly reduced because of battlefield casualties, desertions and the fatigue of constant marching under a blazing summer sun. In early October the troops stationed in the Chaozhou-Santou area and those heading west were encircled, attacked and eventually defeated by a superior enemy force. Some of the remaining troops made their way to the Haifeng-Lufeng area, where they joined forces with the local armed peasants; others, led by Zhu De and Chen Yi, moved to southern Hunan, by way of southern Jiangxi and northern Guangdong, and started guerrilla warfare there. The Nanchang Uprising of August 1, 1927, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the Communist Party of China. Zhou Enlai said later that the August 1st uprising led by the Communist Party had fired the first shot at the Kuomintang reactionaries and that overall, it had been a correct move. For millions of revolutionary people, after repeated defeats, this uprising was a torch held aloft in the darkness. I he people's armed forces under the leadership of the CPC were born during this uprising. However, there were important lessons to be learned trom the Nanchang Uprising. As Zhou Enlai put it, at that time the purpose of the armed uprising was not to go straight into the surrounding countryside, mobilize and arm the peasants, start the agrarian revolution and establish rural base areas. Rather, the plan was to go south to Guangdong, rely on foreign aid and attack the big cities in the name of a national revolutionary government of the Left. This, said Zhou, was the basic policy mistake. Such a mistake was natural enough. Up until this time the CPC had only had experience of regular battles to occupy key cities during the Northern Expedition, when revolutionary armed forces in the rural areas were considered merely supplementary. In the history of the international Communist movement, there had been no precedent for taking the rural areas first. It was inevitable that the Party should handle new problems according to the experience it had already had. At this time it was imperative for the Party to criticize and rectify the serious mistakes of the past and to decide on new lines and policies. Six days after the Nanchang Uprising, the CPC Central Committee held a secret emergency meeting in Hankou, Hubei Province, to deal ith the problem. B. Lominadze, a Russian who was the newly arrived representative of the Communist International, made a report entitled "The Past Mistakes and New Line of the Party." Qu Qiubai delivered a work report on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee. A number of resolutions were adopted, including a "Message from the CPC Central Executive Committee to Members of the Whole Party," and a new Provisional Political Bureau was elected, headed by Qu Qiubai. At the August 7th Meeting, the mistakes of the Right opportunist line represented by Chen Duxiu in the later stage of the Great Revolution were unequivocally criticized. One of the resolutions adopted at the meeting stated that in handling relations with the Kuomintang, the opportunist leaders abandoned the independent political stand of the CPC and made one concession after another. The resolution criticized these leaders who had never thought of arming the workers and peasants and forming them into a truly revolutionary army. It also pointed out that intimidated by the leaders of the KMT, the Right opportunists had proposed no programme of revolutionary action to solve the 113 oroblem of land. Of course, Chen Duxiu alone could not be blamed for the failure of the Great Revolution, and not all the criticism of past policies that was made at the August 7th Meeting was justified. However, without that shrewd criticism, it would not have been possible to rapidly reinvigorate the whole Party and to bring about a fundamental change of guiding ideology. It was at this meeting that the Central Committee formulated the general principle of agrarian revolution and armed resistance to the Kuomintang reactionaries. The Party had arrived at the correct conclusion at the cost of much blood. Speaking at the meeting, Mao Zedong emphasized the importance of military affairs. "From now on," he said, "we must be aware that political power is to be obtained by the gun."3 Thus, the August 7th Meeting pointed out a new road tor the CPC, which had been mired in ideological contusion and organizational disintegration, making a great contribution to saving the Party and the revolution. It was the historic turning point from the failure of the Great Revolution to the rise of the agrarian revolutionary war. Nevertheless, owing to the "Left" ideas of the Communist International and its representatives and to the "Left" tendency within the CPC, while the Central Committee corrected Right mistakes at this meeting, it did nothing to prevent ‘ Left mistakes. On the contrary, adventurism and commandism were allowed and even encouraged. Although the "Left" tendency within the Party was only of secondary importance at the meeting, its later development was to cause enormous damage to the Chinese revolution. . , „ „ After the August 7th Meeting, the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee dispatched many cadres to different places to disseminate the decisions taken at the meeting and to reestablish and rebuild the Party organizations. Earlier on August 3, the Central Committee had already drawn up a Plan for the Autumn Harvest Uprising of the Peasants in the Provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Jiangxi," where the peasant movements had been well organized during the Great Revolution. As soon as the meeting ended, Mao Zedong was sent to Hunan as a special envoy of the Central Committee to reorganize the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and to lead the uprising there. At a meeting of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee held in Changsha, two main subjects were discussed: the question of the uprising and the question of land. Mao Zedong made important remarks on both questions. So far as staging an uprising was concerned, he argued that it was not enough to rely on the peasants alone; they must have help from the military. "One of the Party's mistakes in the past," he said, "was that it neglected the military. Now we must pay sixty per cent of our attention to the military movement. We must seize and build political power by means of the gun." As for the question of land, he held that the needs of the peasants could not be met by confiscating the land of big landlords alone. "We must confiscate the land of all the landlords," he said, "and give it to the peasants."4 The Provincial Party Committee decided that instead of staging an uprising in the whole province as originally planned, it would do it in the seven counties around Changsha in central Hunan. A Front Committee was established with Mao Zedong as its secretary. The main forces to take part in the Autumn Harvest Uprising included two sections. One was the former Guards Regiment of the General Headquarters of the Second Front Army of the Fourth Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army. This unit had not been able to participate in the Nanchang Uprising, but it included many Communists. The other was the First Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, composed of armed peasants from Pingjiang and Liuyang counties in Hunan and from Chongyang and Tongcheng counties in southern Hubei, and workers' armed forces from the Anyuan Coal Mines in Jiangxi Province, totalling about five thousand. Thus, the Autumn Harvest Uprising was to differ from the Nanchang Uprising in that it was to be an action involving not only the military but also a huge number of armed workers and peasants. For the first time, the flag of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army was to be publicly raised. However, the objective of the uprising was still to take Changsha, the central 115 city of Hunan Province. The key elements of the plan were as follows: the regiments were to set off separately and join with the local peasant forces to encircle Changsha; then, when all the detachments were in place, they were to capture Changsha in a single attack, combined with a simultaneous rising of the workers within the city. The uprising was launched on September 9. At one point the revolutionary forces took over some towns, including the county seats of Liling and Liuyang. But as the reactionary forces were far superior, the different columns of insurgents approaching the city by different routes suffered major setbacks one after another. It was then that Mao Zedong showed his outstanding ability to learn from practice. Realizing that Changsha could not be captured, he promptly decided to change the plan. On September 19 the Front Committee held a meeting in Wenjiashi, Liuyang County, at which, after heated debate, the idea of attacking Changsha via Liuyang was rejected. At Mao Zedong's urging, it was decided to withdraw immediately from Pingjiang and Liuyang, enter Jiangxi Province and move south through the Luoxiao Mountains. The revolutionary forces would seek a foothold in the mountain areas, where the enemy's control was relatively weak, in order to preserve their strength for future development. This was another decisive turning point in the history of the people's revolution: the change from attacking big cities to advancing into the rural areas. After the revolutionary forces arrived at the village of Sanwan in Yongxing County, Jiangxi, the tamous "Sanwan reorganization" was accomplished under the leadership of Mao Zedong. The Front Committee reorganized the former division, which now had fewer than one thousand men, into a regiment, established a Party branch for every company and founded soldiers' committees at various levels, so that the officers and men were politically equal and democratic management was practised. This was the beginning of a new type of people's army under the leadership of the proletariat. Mao Zedong also sent men to contact the peasant armed forces under Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo in the Jinggang Mountains. On October 7 he led the Workers' and Peasants' evolutionary Army to Maoping in Ninggang County at the north foot of the Jinggang range and began the struggle to set up a revolutionary base area in the mountains. Following the Nanchang Uprising and the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the CPC launched an uprising in Guangzhou. At this time the lorces led by Zhang Fakui had already come south and were stationed in Guangzhou. They included the Training Regiment led by Ye Jianying, an undercover Communist. The worker-peasant movement in Guangzhou and the surrounding area had built a good foundation during the upsurge of the Great Revolution. In November, a war broke out between Zhang Fakui on one side, and Li Jishen and Huang Shaohong on the other lor control of Guangdong. Zhang sent most of his troops to fight in Zhaoqing and Wuzhou, leaving only a few in Guangzhou. The Training Regiment and other revolutionary units in Guangzhou had already aroused the suspicion of the enemy. Unless they took immediate action, they were likely to be disbanded or wiped out. On December 1 1, on the instructions of the CPC Central Committee, the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee launched an uprising. 1 his uprising was led by Zhang Tailei, secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Ye Ting and Ye Jianying. The forces participating were the Training Regiment and part of the Guards Regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, seven detachments of the Guangdong Workers' Red Guards and some groups of armed peasants from the suburbs of Guangzhou. After more than ten hours of heavy fighting, the insurgent forces occupied most of the urban area of Guangzhou, where they set up the Guangzhou Soviet Government—the Russian word soviet means a council of representatives—with Su Zhaozheng as chairman. (As Su was ill and did not assume office, Zhang Tailei served as acting chairman). They put forward such political slogans as "Down with imperialism!", "Down with warlords!" and "Suppress landlords and despotic gentry!", and announced that an eight-hour day would be instituted for workers and that all land distributed among the peasants. At this time, however, the main forces under Zhang Fakui hurried back to Guangzhou. Because of the great disparity in strength between the enemy and the insurgents, it was impossible for the latter to hold on in Guangzhou. Ye Ting argued that the revolutionary forces should withdraw from the city before Zhang Fakui's troops arrived. But this wise proposal was severely criticized by Heinz Neumann, the German representative of the Communist International, who held that the uprising could only centre around cities, that the insurgent forces had to "attack, attack and attack again" and that any retreat represented "wavering." As a result, the insurgents lost the chance of evading an attack by superior enemy forces. Greatly outnumbered, they were defeated on the third day of the uprising. Zhang Tailei and many other revolutionaries died a heroic death. The Guangzhou Uprising was another valiant counterattack against the Kuomintang reactionaries' policy of butchery. The insurgent forces took full advantage of the internecine warfare among the new warlords of the Kuomintang. But, once again, events showed that the enemy armies were too strong for the revolutionaries to achieve victory by staging armed urban uprisings or trying to take big cities. When the insurgent forces were outnumbered by the enemy, even if they gained control of the big cities, they would be unable to hold on to them and would suffer crushing defeat. Besides these large-scale uprisings, by early 1928 the CPC had initiated quite a few smaller armed uprisings in other parts of the country. The major ones were as follows: —In Guangdong, the Dongjiang Uprising, centred around Haifeng and Lufeng, and the Qiongya Uprising; —in Jiangxi, the Southwestern Jiangxi Uprising, centred around Donggu in Ji'an County, the Northeastern Jiangxi Uprising, centred around Yiyang and Hengfeng, and the Wan'an Uprising; —in Hunan, the Southern Hunan Uprisings led by Zhu De and Chen Yi, who had brought the surviving forces of the Nanchang Uprising from Guangdong into the area and who, with the cooperation of the CPC Southern Hunan Special Committee and local peasant armed forces, succeeded in occupying seven counties including Yizhang and Chenxian;—in the Honghu Lake area of Hubei and the Sangzhi area of Hunan, the Western Hunan-Hubei Uprising led by Zhou Yiqun and He Long;—in the Hubei-Henan border region, the Huang'an and Macheng Uprising led by the CPC Huang'an-Macheng Special Committee;—in Fujian, the Western Fujian Uprising led by Guo Diren, Deng Zihui and Zhang Dingcheng; —in Henan, the Queshan Uprising led by Ma Shangde (Yang Jingyu); and—in Shaanxi, the Weinan and Huaxian Uprising led by Liu Zhidan. All these uprisings demonstrated that the fire of revolution could never be put out by military suppression by the counterrevolutionaries, because the uprisings were just and corresponded to the demands of the people. Many of them were organized by Communists and other revolutionaries who had gone through the storms of the Great Revolution, adhered to their political belief and returned to their hometowns where the reactionary regime was relatively weak. Making use of their former social connections, they mobilized the oppressed masses of workers and peasants, gradually building forces for the uprisings. Some of these uprisings soon failed, either because wrong policies were followed or because the enemy forces were far superior. Others were continued, mainly in areas bordering several provinces, or in mountain areas remote from the key cities under Kuomintang rule. In such places, the insurgent forces conducted guerrilla warfare on a growing scale, laying the foundation for the later large-scale development of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the establishment of rural revolutionary bases. Left Putschism The revolution had virtually come to a standstill. The key cities were under the powerful economic, political and military control of the imperialists and of the reactionary Kuomintang regime. In those places, which had never experienced the Great 119 Revolution, it was not easy for uprisings to take place or to survive for any length of time. In the rural areas, however, where the reactionary forces were relatively weak, and especially in places where the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers had been actively involved in the Great Revolution, there was still room for the Communists to manoeuvre. At this time there could be no question of their launching another movement like the Northern Expedition, that is, of attempting to take key cities and areas, which would immediately bring about a revolutionary situation all over the country. Instead, they had to withdraw to the rural areas that did not attract much attention, so as to preserve and nourish the sparks of revolution. The peasants wanted a revolution, but it was not easy to organize them into fighting units because they were reluctant to leave their homes, and because the villages were widely scattered. Still, the revolutionary forces could survive and gradually develop, as long as they relied closely on the suffering people and pursued correct policies. Because of the realities of semi-colonial, semi-feudal China, if they had not kept firmly to this road, the revolution would have failed. At the time, the members of the CPC Central Committee did not have a correct assessment of the situation and failed to identify tasks appropriate for the struggle. They held that as the fundamental contradictions in Chinese society had not been resolved, the tide of revolution could only continue to rise. They did not take into consideration the political and economic realities of Chinese society and the uneven development of the revolution. They made no effort to distinguish between places where there were conditions for staging an armed uprising and places where it was only possible to organize an orderly retreat. Instead, they ordered Party members, who were few in number, and the masses to organize armed rebellion everywhere, regardless of the strength of the enemy or the discouragement of the people after the failure of the Great Revolution. They even staged hopeless uprisings in some areas that were strictly controlled by the enemy, hoping to astonish and hearten the whole nation. They claimed that the idea of refraining from any rash move so as to preserve the Party's forces was "a manifestation of opportunism that would eventually obstruct the development of rebellion among the masses."5 Disciplinary action was taken against cadres who were accused of such opportunism. The representative of the Communist International, B. Lominadze, who did not know much about the realities in China, gave much misguided advice of this nature and put forward the proposition of "uninterrupted revolution," which confused democratic revolution with socialist revolution. Through an enlarged meeting of the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in November 1927, "Left" putschism came to dominate the Party for a period of time. In the resolution adopted at that meeting the Bureau declared that "the present situation of China is a situation ready for direct revolution." On the basis of this assessment, it formulated the general strategy of a nationwide armed uprising, with urban uprisings as the "central and guiding element." Further, the Bureau predicted that "the present revolutionary struggle will certainly go beyond a democratic revolution and develop rapidly." At the meeting, leaders of the Nanchang Uprising and the Autumn Harvest Uprising, including Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, were accused of having made opportunist mistakes and were disciplined. Both before and after this meeting, reckless actions were undertaken in places where the Party organization was weak and where the enemy was militarily strong. Ill-considered armed uprisings were staged, for example, in Wuxi and Yixing. Most of them were quickly suppressed. Thus, the limited revolutionary forces that had survived after the failure of the Great Revolution again suffered heavy losses. Nevertheless, it was clear that although none of the fundamental contradictions in Chinese society had been resolved, the reactionary forces could not establish a lasting and stable rule, and that the people would not give up fighting. But there was another side of the story. After the failure of the Great Revolution, the reactionary forces were strengthened, while the revolutionary forces were seriously weakened. In view of the overall situation 121 of the country, the revolutionary tide, far from rising, had come to a low ebb. How was it, then, that at such a time the Party could make the mistake of "Left" putschism? It was wonderful that so many Communists were able to carry on the struggle under extremely difficult conditions, but they did not have enough experience to deal with complex problems. Their outrage at the massacres perpetrated by the enemy, their desire for revenge and their abhorrence of Right opportunism, like a fire burning in their hearts, drove them to desperate acts. They could see only one side of the picture and went to extremes, mistaking the awareness of advanced elements for the awareness of the masses. These "Left" attitudes were very common among revolutionaries at the time. Indeed, they were a historical phenomenon that could not have been completely avoided. Nevertheless, the dismal failure of the premature uprisings had a sobering effect and led the Party to give second thought to the problems. In February 1928 the 9th Enlarged Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted a resolution on China that criticized putschism and Lominadze's mistakes. In April the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee issued a circular endorsing that resolution and admitting that "Left" mistakes of putschism had been made. By this time, most of those mistakes had been eliminated in the Party's practical work throughout the country. The 6th National Congress of the Communist Party of China With the help of the Comintern, the CPC held its 6th National Congress in Moscow from June 18 to July 11, 1928. This congress was of major historical significance. It reviewed the Party's experience since the failure of the Great Revolution and gave basically correct answers to a series of essential questions concerning the Chinese revolution over which there had been heated controversies. Thus, by and large, the congress unified, the thinking of the whole Party, which had been in ideological chaos. The line of the 6th National Congress was basically correct. It stated that since China was still a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country and since none of the basic contradictions that had given rise to the revolution had been resolved, it was still a bourgeoisdemocratic revolution. At the time, quite a number of Party members believed that since the bourgeoisie had already withdrawn from the revolution, it was no longer a bourgeoisdemocratic revolution. Addressing this question, the congress decided that the nature of the revolution was determined by its mission rather than by its motive force. The congress also made a correct assessment of the situation of the Chinese revolution and the tasks ahead. The first wave of revolution, it said, had passed with the failures, and the new wave had not yet come. The forces of counter-revolution were stronger than those of the workers and peasants, and the Party's general line at this stage must be to win over the masses. Putschism and commandism were identified as the most dangerous tendencies, as either of them would divorce the Parly from the people. In short, at the 6th National Congress the Party decided to shift its efforts from organizing uprisings by every possible means to undertaking patient, long-term work among the masses, while guarding against "Left" tendencies. These were major changes in the work of the Party, and when the congress's resolution was made known to all members for implementation, it produced far-reaching effects. The 6th National Congress elected a new Central Committee. Xiang Zhongfa, a dock worker from Wuhan, was selected to be chairman of the Political Bureau and of its Standing Committee, while Zhou Enlai was elected member and secretary-general of the Standing Committee and head of the Central Committee's Organization Department. The election of Xiang Zhongfa as the principal leader of the Party was due to the influence of the Communist International, which in selecting cadres put undue emphasis on the workers' class status. In reality, Xiang Zhongfa did not have the ability to play the principal role in the Central Committee. For a period of time after this, the actual leader of the Party was Zhou Enlai. There were other shortcomings in the work of the congress, especially the following. First, the congress still placed primary 123 emphasis on work in the cities, without taking into account how long and complex the revolution would be or recognizing the special importance of the rural areas. Second, because it did not correctly assess the important role played by the middle-of-theroaders and the internal contradictions among the reactionary forces, it continued to regard the national bourgeoisie as an enemy of the revolution. Thus, the Party lost the opportunity to win over another force and gain its cooperation. At this time the CPC was in a period of major historical change, a period in which it was faced with many complicated problems new to Marxism. In the early stage of the revolution, it was not possible for the Party to reach a correct understanding of all these problems at once. The problem of the relations between urban and rural areas was an example. In the classic works of Marxism, the focus of revolutionary activity had always been the urban proletariat. But China was a country in which the overwhelming majority of the population were peasants. Class contradictions were very acute in the rural areas, and it was impossible for the reactionary rulers to maintain tight control over every part of the vast countryside. Under these circumstances, the Party had to shift the focus of its revolutionary activity first to the rural areas. Only through repeated trial and error in concrete practice could the Party come to a clear understanding of the special rules of the Chinese revolution, and only then could it begin to resolve the problems one by one.

From the Struggle in the Jinggang Mountains to the Gutian Meeting

After the failure of the Great Revolution, the struggle in the Jinggang Mountains revolutionary base area, under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, represented the correct orientation of the Chinese revolution. How was it that in the Jinggang Mountains an independent revolutionary regime, although surrounded by areas under White terror, was able not only to survive but to expand greatly? In a report to the Central Committee dated November 25, 1928, Mao Zedong gave the answer: "We find on analysis that one reason for this phenomenon lies in the incessant splits and wars within China's comprador and landlord classes. So long as these splits and wars continue, it is possible for an armed independent regime of workers and peasants to survive and grow. In addition, its survival and growth require the following conditions: (1) a sound mass base, (2) a sound Party organization, (3) a fairly strong Red Army, (4) terrain favourable to military operations, and (5) economic resources sufficient for sustenance."6 The Establishment of the Revolutionary Base Area in the Jinggang Mountains The Jinggang Mountains are situated at the middle section of the Luoxiao Mountains in the border region between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. Mao Zedong had chosen this place to set up the first revolutionary base area for a number of reasons, including the following:—There was a good mass base. During the Great Revolution, Party organizations and peasant associations had been established in various counties in the border region. —Local peasant forces of the old type led by Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo were ready to unite with the worker-peasant revolutionary army. —It was strategically located, easy to defend but hard to attack. —The self-supporting agricultural economy in the surrounding counties made it easy for the army to raise funds and grain.—It was relatively far from the centre of the Kuomintang regime. Also there were contradictions between the warlords of the two provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi, and their control over the area was fairly weak. When Mao Zedong arrived in the border region with his forces, 125 new splits were occurring within the ruling class. In southern China, Li Zongren's forces were at war with those of Tang Shengzhi. Warlord forces in the locality were busy moving north, leaving the border region between Hunan and Jiangxi empty. Mao took advantage of the situation, doing everything possible to build up the Party, the army and political power there. In early November 1927, chairing a meeting of leading Party members from the various border counties, he urged them to establish or reestablish Party organizations as soon as possible. The previously existing ones had all been destroyed after the May 21st Incident; only some Party members had survived, gone into hiding and were living dispersed. Without an organized Party leadership, it would not be possible to open up a revolutionary base area. After three months of work, Party organizations in the region were gradually restored. Mao Zedong called on the worker-peasant revolutionary army to change the old tradition of undertaking only military operations. The army, he said, must not only fight the enemy, but also expropriate funds from the local tyrants and do propaganda work among the people. In this way, the army would be able not only to win battles, but also to mobilize the masses and to solve the problem of economic resources. After reviewing the army's experience in doing mass work, Mao Zedong set down Three Rules of Discipline and Six Points for Attention. The three rules were: 1. Obey orders in your actions. 2. Don't take anything from the workers and peasants. 3. Turn in all things taken from local tyrants. The six points for attention were: 1. Put back the doors you have taken down for bed-boards. 2. Put back the straw you have used for bedding. 3. Speak politely. 4. Pay fairly for what you buy. 5. Return everything you borrow. 6. Pay for anything you damage. Later two more points were added: Don't bathe within sight of women, and don't search the pockets of captives. These regulations demonstrated the nature of the people's army, and because they were strictly enforced, the army was able to establish close ties with the local people and to win their trust and support. The revolutionary army also reorganized the peasant armed forces led by Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo and helped organize the Red Guards and other local units for the border counties and townships. It defeated the "suppression campaign" of the Kuomintang army units sent against it and took the county seats of Chaling, Suichuan and Ninggang counties, setting up worker-peasant-soldier governments there. Thus, the revolutionary base area in the border region of Hunan and Jiangxi began to lake shape with Ninggang as its centre. Just at this time, the less than ten thousand troops that had survived the Nanchang Uprising, led by Zhu De and Chen Yi, were moving towards the Jinggang Mountains after the Southern Hunan Uprising. In late April of 1928 the troops under Zhu De and Mao Zedong joined forces in the Jinggang Mountains and were reorganized into the Fourth Army of the Chinese WorkerPeasant Revolutionary Army (shortly thereafter renamed the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army), with Zhu De as commander and Mao Zedong as Party representative and secretary of the Army Committee. This joining of forces was a momentous event. It raised the number of troops in the Jinggang Mountains revolutionary base area from two thousand to over ten thousand. The backbone of the forces that had survived from the Nanchang Uprising, now under the leadership of Zhu De and Chen Yi, was the Independent Regiment led by Ye Ting, a well-armed, well-trained unit that had distinguished itself during the Great Revolution. Tan Zhenlin, a senior officer who had taken part in the joining of forces, recalled it in these words: "With the joining of the forces led by Zhu De and Mao Zedong, the army was expanded, and we were then able to take Yongxing County. Of course, we had already attacked Chaling and Suichuan counties and occupied the seat of Ninggang County. But we had not dared to go too far afield, as we would not have been able to win if the Kuomintang had sent two regiments against us. We became much stronger after Zhu and Mao joined 127 forces."7 After this, the CPC established a Special Committee for the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region and a Worker-Peasant-Soldier Soviet Government of the Border Region. At this time there was a temporary lull in the war between the new Kuomintang warlords. The reactionary rule in the South was relatively stable. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Kuomintang troops in Hunan and Jiangxi to mount one "suppression campaign" after another against the base area in the Jinggang Mountains. In response, the Special Committee of the Border Region and the Army Committee of the Fourth Red Army laid down the following policies: —The army should stand firm against the enemy and not flee; —The Party should deepen the agrarian revolution in the border region;—The Party organizations in the army should help develop Party organizations in the localities, and the regular army should help develop local armed forces; —The army should take a defensive position toward the comparatively strong ruling forces in Hunan and an offensive position toward the comparatively weak ruling forces in Jiangxi; —The army should concentrate its forces to fight the enemy, confronting him when the time is opportune, and not divide its forces, lest they be destroyed one by one; and —The base area should be expanded by advancing in a series of waves and not by making adventuristic thrusts. Thanks to these proper tactics, to the terrain of the border region, which favoured the operations of the revolutionaries, and to the inadequate coordination between the different Kuomintang forces invading from Hunan and Jiangxi, the Red Army, in four months of fighting, was able to break up three successive "suppression campaigns," despite the fact that the superior enemy forces numbered from eight to 18 regiments. The biggest victory was won in the Battle of Longyuangou on June 23, when one enemy regiment was wiped out and two more were routed. After this victory, the revolutionary base area in the Jinggang Mountains was extended to cover all of Ninggang, Yongxing and Lianhua counties and parts of Ji'an, Anfu, Suichuan and Lingxian counties. This was the period of greatest expansion of the base area. The Front Committee attached great importance to the building of the revolutionary army. Members of the Fourth Red Army were drawn mainly from two sources: the peasants and the old army. The first concern was to strengthen Party-building and political work among the new troops in order to turn them into a people's army of a new type under the leadership of the Communist Party. The Party organization was divided into four levels: the company branch, with a group in each squad; the battalion committee; the regimental committee; and the army committee. The number of Party members rose until they represented about a quarter of the army. In his November report to the Central Committee, Mao Zedong summed up the results of this policy: "After receiving political education, the Red Army soldiers have become class-conscious, learned the essentials of distributing land, setting up political power, arming the workers and peasants, etc., and they know they are fighting for themselves, for the working class and the peasantry. Hence they can endure the hardships of the bitter struggle without complaint."8 Such men took every opportunity to serve the masses and were ready to sacrifice their lives for the revolution. Another means of building the Red Army was to ensure democracy in the ranks. In the same report, Mao explained the importance of this policy: "Apart from the role played by the Party, the reason why the Red Army has been able to carry on in spite of such poor material conditions and such frequent engagements is its practice of democracy. The officers do not beat the men; officers and men receive equal treatment; soldiers are free to hold meetings and to speak out; trivial formalities have been done away with; and the accounts are open for all to inspect. The soldiers handle the mess arrangements and, out of the daily five cents for cooking oil, salt, firewood and vegetables, they can even save a little for pocket money, amounting to roughly six or seven coppers per person per day, which is called ‘mess savings.' All this gives great satisfaction to the soldiers. The newly captured soldiers in particular feel that 129 our army and the Kuomintang army are worlds apart. They feel spiritually liberated, even though material conditions in the Red Army are not equal to those in the White army. The very soldiers who had no courage in the White army yesterday are very brave in the Red Army today; such is the effect of democracy."'' So far as military operations were concerned, Mao Zedong and Zhu De summed up the Red Army's practice as follows: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." These were the simple and basic principles for guerrilla warfare. They corresponded to the circumstances of the time and proved an excellent guide for the Red Army's operations. The military struggle could not be separated from the agrarian revolution. The Jinggang Mountains base area was situated in an agricultural region cut off from other parts of the country, where the overwhelming majority of the residents were peasants. Their fundamental interest lay in the land, and the land question was their primary concern. In the Hunan-Jiangxi border region, over 60 percent of the land was in the hands of the landlords, while the peasants owned less than 40 percent. The peasants who had no land, or very little, had to rent land from the landlords to survive. They had to turn over more than half of the harvest to the landlords as rent, in addition to providing them with various corvfee services and suffering from exploitation by tradesmen and usurers. This land system was the very foundation of the feudal system in China. For generations it had been the dream of poor peasants to acquire land. In the new-democratic revolution there would be no agrarian revolution without victory in the armed struggle, and there could be no victory in the armed struggle without an agrarian revolution to secure the full support of the peasants. In the early stage of the founding of the Jinggang Mountains base area, the masses were mobilized to strike down local tyrants and evil gentry, while the distribution of land was carried out in only a few places on a trial basis. From May to July 1928, when the situation in the base area had become more stable, a movement for general distribution of land swept across the counties in the border region. At this time, the method of distributing land was as follows. Land committees composed of poor peasants at the county, district and township levels were established to take charge of the process. Officers of the Red Army were also sent to help in the villages. In general, the township was taken as the basic unit, but in a few hilly places where there was little farmland, three or four townships were taken as one unit. All the inhabitants, men or women, old or young, were given equal shares of land, and fertile and less fertile land was equally apportioned. Then the distribution was examined to ensure that it had been done fairly. The title deeds for land owned by the landlords were burned in public. Bamboo slips with names were set up along the demarcation lines of the various households' plots, and a land tax was then levied. In December 1928 a Land Law was promulgated in the Jinggang Mountains. This was of greal significance, because it was the CPCs first experiment in land rclorm in so large an area as several counties. This first Land Law, however, had some weaknesses. First, it provided that all the land was to be confiscated and redistributed, not just that of the landlords. This encroached upon the interests of the middle peasants. Second, it provided that the land was to be owned by the government, not by the peasants, who had only the right to use it and were forbidden to sell it' Nevertheless, since they were given the land, the poor peasants became aware that the Red Army was struggling on their behalf, and they began to support it enthusiastically. This was the social foundation for the survival and development of the revolutionary base area in the Jinggang Mountains. If the revolutionary forces were to wage a long-term struggle it was essential for them to have a reliable base area and to build the people's political power. The slogan for the rural areas put forward by the Central Committee at its meeting of August 7, ^^'„was Political power belongs to the peasant associations." Later, Party documents called for the establishment of revolutionary committees or of worker-peasant Soviets. Soviet governments were set up in Lufeng and Haifeng counties in Guangdong. On November 28, 1927, after the Jinggang Mountains base area was founded, a worker-peasant-soldier Soviet 131 government was established in Chaling County, with Tan Zhenlin as chairman. In May 1928 a worker-peasant-soldier Soviet government of the Hunan-Jiangxi border region was set up at Maoping in Ninggang County. At the time of greatest expansion there were six such county governments in the border region. These governments enjoyed high prestige among the people. In a report to the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, Du Xiujing, the Committee's representative, wrote: "Since the toppling of the local tyrants, the people believe in Commander Mao, and since the distribution of land, they believe in the Party and the Soviet." There was one setback in the development of the Jinggang Mountains revolutionary base area. In June 1928, the Provincial Party Committee of Hunan, under the influence of putschism, sent a representative to the Jinggang Mountains instructing the Fourth Red Army to go immediately to southern Hunan. Now, it happened that the 29lh Regiment of the Fourth Red Army was composed mainly of peasants from Yizhang County in southern Hunan. While they had proved resolute in the Southern Hunan Uprising, they still had the weaknesses of small peasant producers who felt a great nostalgia for their home villages and were not used to the hard life in the Jinggang Mountains. When these peasants learned of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee's instructions, they insistently demanded to return to southern Hunan and, despite persistent opposition by Mao Zedong and repeated attempts by Zhu De and Chen Yi to dissuade them, prepared to move off on their own. Fearing that if they moved independently they would be wiped out by the enemy, Zhu De and Chen Yi had no choice but to lead the 28th Regiment on the march to southern Hunan along with them. By this time the reactionary rule in that area had become relatively strong. When the Red Army took Chenxian County, the enemy started a counterattack. At this juncture, the soldiers of the 29th Regiment deserted and returned to their home villages. The surviving forces were led by Zhu De and Chen Yi to eastern Guangxi, where they were met by Mao Zedong, who had arrived at the head of part of the 31st Regiment; then they all returned to the Jinggang Mountains base area. During this operation, the Fourth Red Army and the Jinggang Mountains base area suffered heavy losses. The whole episode, known as the "August defeat," showed that it was not easy to transform peasant armed forces into a new type of people's army under the leadership of the CPC. It was inevitable that such losses should occur in the early days of the people's army. After the main forces of the Fourth Red Army returned to the Jinggang Mountains, they won several battles in succession, recovering most of the territory they had lost. They defeated the enemy's "suppression campaigns" and largely restored the base area. The CPC Central Committee decided to reestablish a Front Committee, with Mao Zedong as secretary, to take charge of the work of the Border Region Special Committee and the Army Committee of the Fourth Red Army. In October 1928 the Second Party Congress of the Hunan- Jiangxi Border Region was convened. The congress adopted a resolution drafted by Mao Zedong, the first part of which dealt with the question of why it was possible for Red political power to exist in China. Mao analysed the conditions under which a small, independent worker-peasant regime had been able to emerge and survive, discussed its significance and answered the question, which had been raised by some people in the Red Army, of how long such a regime could last. In November, in his report to the CPC Central Committee, Mao pointed out the importance of proletarian leadership: "The Party organizations in the border area counties," he wrote, "which are composed almost exclusively of peasants, will go astray without the ideological leadership of the proletariat."10 This showed that the leaders of the Fourth Red Army clearly understood the distinction between the people's revolution led by the CPC and peasant warfare of the old type. At a time when the revolution throughout the country was at a low ebb, the establishment of the Jinggang Mountains revolutionary base area represented a remarkable achievement. By founding a revolutionary army, by advancing the agrarian revolution and by building a political power, the area not only set an example and provided comprehensive experience for insurgent forces elsewhere, but also kindled new hope among the masses of revolutionaries. 133 Nevertheless, the Jinggang Mountains area had disadvantages as a revolutionary base. First, although easy to defend and difficult to attack, the area had fewer than two thousand people and produced less than 500 tons of grain a year. As the Red Army grew rapidly in numbers, and as the Kuomintang army carried out repeated "suppression campaigns" and tightly blockaded the region, economic difficulties became so serious that even daily requirements of the army and the people for food, clothing and other necessities could not be met. Second, the Jinggang Mountains were situated in a long, narrow strip of land between the Xiangjiang River to the west and the Ganjiang River to the east, both of which were too deep to be forded. And it was not easy to expand toward the north or south, so the army did not have enough room for manoeuvre. These disadvantages were not so prominent in the beginning, but as the Red Army grew, they became increasingly evident. During July 1928, part of the Kuomintang troops staged a rebellion in Pingjiang County, Hunan, under the leadership of Peng Dehuai, Teng Daiyuan and Huang Gongliie, and formed the Fifth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. For several months the troops of this new branch of the Red Army fought the enemy in the border region of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi, east of Pingjiang. Then, on December 11, Peng Dehuai and Teng Daiyuan led more than seven hundred of them to the Jinggang Mountains and joined forces with the Fourth Army of the Red Army. Before long, six brigades of the KMT army in the two provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi, totalling about 30,000 men, started to attack the Jinggang Mountains by five different routes. A joint meeting of the Front Committee, the Special Committee of the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region, the Army Committee of the Fourth Army and the Army Committee of the Fifth Army was held at Bailu Village in Ninggang County. At this meeting it was decided that a part of the Red Army, led by Peng Dehuai and Teng Daiyuan, should stay to defend the Jinggang Mountains, while the main forces of the Fourth Army, led by Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Chen Yi, should march to southern Jiangxi to launch an attack there. The March to Southern Jiangxi and Western Fujian and the Gutian Meeting Conditions in southern Jiangxi were much better for the Fourth Red Army. The undulating hills and thick forests of the area were favourable for guerrilla warfare, it was rich in natural resources and it was linked to the mountainous regions of western Fujian and northern Guangdong, providing a large space for manoeuvre. Party organizations had a good foundation there, and the masses were politically aware. After the failure of the Great Revolution, the 2nd and 4lh Independent Regiments of the Red Army of Jiangxi were formed under the leadership of Li Wenlin and others, and a small, secret Soviet area was established in Donggu, Ji'an County. The reactionary troops stationed there were weak and did not have much fighting capability. In particular, most of them came from other provinces and therefore had no close links with the local landlords and despotic gentry. The area was remote and far from big cities, transportation was poor and it would be hard for enemy troops to concentrate there. These were favourable conditions for developing guerrilla warfare. On January 14, 1929, the main forces of the Fourth Red Army, numbering 3,600, came down from the Jinggang Mountains. They encountered great difficulties in the beginning. On more than one occasion they were in danger, because they had left the original base area and were being pursued and attacked by strong enemy forces. On February 11, however, they laid an ambush at Dabaidi in Ruijin County in southern Jiangxi and at one stroke wiped out most of the enemy brigade led by Liu Shiyi, which was following closely. This great victory enabled them to regain the initiative. They went north to Donggu, where they joined forces with the 2nd and 4th Independent Regiments of the Red Army of Jiangxi, led by Li Wenlin and others, and began to gain a foothold in southern Jiangxi. The leaders of the Fourth Red Army analysed the situation and used their forces in a flexible way. First, they took advantage of the enemy's weakness in western Fujian to make a swift move 135 there. On March 14, at Changlingzhai, they wiped out Guo Fengming's brigade of the KMT's Fujian Provincial Defence Army and occupied the important town of Changting, capturing large quantities of arms and supplies. After that, they returned to southern Jiangxi and on April 1 in Ruijin joined up with the main forces of the Fifth Red Army, which had broken out of an encirclement in the Jinggang Mountains. From May to October, when the main forces of the local warlord army of Fujian had gone to participate in the war between the warlords of Guangdong and Guangxi, the Fourth Red Army made two more sorties into western Fujian. There, with the support of the local workers' and peasants' armed forces, it eliminated the two brigades led by Chen Guohui and Lu Xinming. Soviet governments were established successively in southwestern Jiangxi and in western Fujian, and the local armed forces of the two regions were greatly expanded. Thus, a foundation was laid for the establishment of a central revolutionary base area. At this time, a difference of opinion appeared in the Fourth Red Army's Party organizations and among the leaders. On June 22 at the 7th Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army, held in Longyan, Fujian, an argument broke out regarding the establishment of an Army Committee. Jiang Hua, who was then secretarygeneral of the Political Department of the Fourth Red Army later recalled the outcome: "Although the argument as to whether an Army Committee should be set up was resolved, the difference of opinion on the relationship between the Party and the army, which was behind the argument, was not finally settled.... During the argument, certain elements of non-proletarian thinking, such as the purely military viewpoint, the ideology of roving rebel bands, ultrademocracy and vestiges of warlordism gained some ground in the army."11 These ideas persisted because most members of the Red Army had come from the peasantry and from old armies. It would take time and effort to change their old concepts and habits. Since no agreement was reached on these questions at the 7th Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army, Mao Zedong, who had originally been appointed secretary of the Front Committee by the CPC Central Committee, was not reelected to that post; nevertheless, he remained a member. Then he left for Jiaoyang in Shanghang County, where the Special Committee of Western Fujian was located, to help guide the Party's work there. On August 21 the CPC Central Committee sent to the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army a letter, drafted by Zhou Enlai, in which it criticized the 7th Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army. The Central Committee emphasized that the Red Army was not only a fighting organization but also had a great role to play in propaganda and politics. It pointed out that the Red Army must have a relatively centralized leadership, that it was by no means patriarchal for the Party secretary to have more responsibilities, and that demanding that everything be discussed within the Party branch was an expression of ultra-democracy.12 Soon, Chen Yi went to Shanghai to report in detail to the Central Committee on the work of the Fourth Army. On September 28 the Central Committee again sent a directive to the Front Committee. "Now we have the Red Army in the countryside," the Central Committee wrote, "and later we will have political power in the cities. This is the characteristic of the Chinese revolution. It is a product of the Chinese economic base." The directive went on to list the basic tasks of the Red Army: ( 1 ) lo mobilize the masses in struggle, accomplish the agrarian revolution and establish Soviet regimes. (2) To carry on guerrilla warfare, arm the peasants and expand the Red Army. (3) To extend guerrilla areas and our political influence throughout the country.13 The directive analysed conditions within the Party organizations of the Fourth Red Army and pointed out that "the only way to combat peasant ideology [among the soldiers was] to build up proletarian ideology and make it predominate."14 The reason for the combat effectiveness of the Party and the peoples army was that ideological and political unity was guaranteed by a strong sense of organization and discipline. The directive stressed that all the Party's power must be centralized in the Front Committee as the leading organ, and 137 that the charge of "patriarchalism" must not be made indiscriminately to weaken it and to serve as a cover for ultra-democracy. At the same time, it said, the Front Committee should not concern itself with everyday administrative affairs, which should be handled by the administrative organs. Thus, the Central Committee put an end to the argument within the Party organizations of the Fourth Red Army. It also urged the Front Committee and all officers and men to support the leadership of Zhu De and Mao Zedong and asked that Mao Zedong be reinstated as secretary of the Front Committee. In late December the 9th Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army was held in Gutian, Shanghang County, Fujian Province. At the meeting, Mao Zedong delivered a report, and a number of resolutions were adopted. The most important of these was one drafted by Mao on correcting mistaken ideas in the Party. This resolution stated that the Chinese Red Army was "an armed body for carrying out the political tasks of the revolution" and that it must subject itself to the absolute leadership of the Party. It criticized Party members who were exclusively concerned with military affairs and who argued that military affairs and politics were opposed to each other. It reiterated that the Red Army must be integrated with the people and take up the combined tasks of fighting, raising funds and doing propaganda and organizational work among the masses. It criticized those who wanted only to move from city to city to seek an easy life and engage in roving guerrilla actions, refusing to do the hard work of building revolutionary political power. It also criticized manifestations of ultra-democracy and the disregard of organizational discipline, pointing out that its root causes were petty-bourgeois individualism and aversion to discipline. The danger of ultra-democracy, the resolution said, was that it could weaken or even completely undermine the Party's fighting capacity, rendering the Party incapable of fulfilling its fighting tasks and thereby causing the defeat of the revolution. The resolution emphasized the importance of strengthening ideological education in the Party, analysed the various expressions of non-proletarian ideas in the Fourth Red Army's Party organizations and insisted that the Party and the army must be built on proletarian ideas. The resolution of the Gutian meeting was a programme for the building of the Communist Party of China and the Red Army. It answered the fundamental question of how to turn a revolutionary army that was mainly composed of peasants and operating in an environment of rural warfare into a people's army of a new type. Never in the history of China had there been such an army. The resolution of the Gutian meeting was implemented not only by the Fourth Red Army but also by other units of the Red Army to some extent in other parts of the country. It was a milestone in the history of the people's army of China. At the Gutian meeting a new Front Committee was elected with Mao Zedong as secretary. In June 1930 the Red Army units in southwestern Jiangxi and western Fujian were merged into the First Army Group of the Red Army, with Zhu De as commanderin-chicl and Mao Zedong as political commissar and secretary of the Front Committee. The new First Army Group comprised more than 20,000 troops and was thus the strongest Red Army force in the country. In the revolutionary base areas in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, the agrarian revolution loo developed to a new stage. In April 1929 Mao Zedong, who was in charge of drafting the Land Law lor Xingguo County, Jiangxi, initiated a major change of principle. While the Land Law for the Jinggang Mountains had stipulated that "all the land" was to be confiscated and redistributed, in the new law this provision was changed to read "all the public land and the land of the landlord class." In July the 1st Party Congress of Western Fujian adopted a resolution providing that land held by peasants was not to be confiscated and that the principle of "taking from those who have a surplus and giving to those who have a shortage" was to be introduced. After this congress, land distribution was carried out in an area of nearly 40,000 square kilometers in western Fujian. As a result, more than 600,000 poor peasants received land. Following the Gutian meeting in December, the main forces of the Fourth Red Army returned to southern Jiangxi. On February 7, 1930, the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army called a meeting in Ji'an, 139 Jiangxi with the local authorities at which it was decided that the agrarian revolution must be deepened in Jiangxi as well. Accordingly, land distribution was carried out in the whole area of Xingguo and five other counties and in parts of Yongfeng and other counties. A year later, following a decision by the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong directed governments at different levels to issue a proclamation making it clear that, once the land had been distributed (according to the principles of "taking from those who have a surplus and giving to those who have a shortage, and taking from those who have better and giving to those who have worse"), the distribution was final. Anyone who had been given land was to manage it himself. The land belonged to him, other people must not encroach upon it and he could rent it out or sell it as he pleased. Produce from the land belonged to the peasant, except that he was expected to pay a land tax to the government. This policy represented a reversal of the Land Law of the Jinggang Mountains, which had provided that land belonged to the government and not to the peasant, who had the right to use it but not to sell it. Through repeated trial and error, the Party gradually developed a complete programme for land reform that corresponded to the realities of the Chinese countryside. Following the land reform in the revolutionary base areas of southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, a fundamental change took place in the social structure and the relations between classes. In October 1930 Mao Zedong conducted a one-week survey of the rural areas in Xingguo, after which he concluded that the situation with regard to the struggle for land throughout southern Jiangxi was more or less the same as in Xingguo. In his report on this survey he wrote that the poor peasants had benefited from the land reform in twelve respects: 1. They had been given farmland, which was the fundamental benefit. 2. They had been given the hills. 3. The grain of the landlords and counter-revolutionary rich peasants had been distributed to them. 4. All the debts owed before the revolution had been cancelled. Rice was cheaper. 6. It was no longer necessary to have money in order to take a wife. 7. It was no longer necessary to pay funeral expenses to bury the dead. 8. The price of an ox was lower than before. 9. They no longer needed money for ritual gift-giving and superstitious practices, as both had been done away with. 10. Drugs, gambling, thieves and bandits had disappeared. 11. They could now afford meat. 12. Most important, political power was now in their hands. The middle peasants too, Mao wrote, had benefited from the agrarian revolution both economically and politically. Most of them had received land, and they were no longer under the rule of the landlords and rich peasants, ordered about in everything. Now they too had the right to speak out, along with the poor peasants and farm labourers. Thus, the overwhelming majority of the peasants supported the agrarian revolution and the Communist Party. Everywhere their enthusiasm for the revolution ran high, and major successes were being achieved in the struggle against feudalism. At about this time, the agrarian revolution was also begun in other revolutionary base areas, one after another. The agrarian revolution was one of the basic components of the Chinese democratic revolution. Without changing the feudal land system it would be impossible to dismantle feudalism. In China there was no political party that represented solely the peasants. The political parties of the national bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie and their representatives either were not concerned with the peasants' land problem or only talked about it and did nothing. Only the Communist Party took practical, resolute action. Only the Communist Party led the masses of poor peasants in a fierce struggle to overthrow the feudal system that had ruled Chinese society for thousands of years. The peasants were realistic about their own interests. The fact that the CPC was leading the agrarian revolution helped them understand the difference between it and the Kuomintang. By the 141 same token, it greatly mobilized their support for the revolutionary war and their eagerness to defend and build the revolutionary base areas. As small producers, the peasants naturally had weaknesses, such as short-sightedness and aversion to discipline; therefore, they had to be educated and remoulded. However, they had a vast reservoir of hatred for imperialism and feudalism, far exceeding the resentment of other classes in society. It would be a mistake to stress the negative aspects of the peasantry at that time without recognizing its positive aspects. After the failure of the Great Revolution, the national bourgeoisie withdrew from the revolution, and the urban petty bourgeoisie wavered a great deal. If the Chinese revolution was to continue to develop into an irresistible force, it was essential for the Communist Party to rely firmly on the peasants, who accounted for the overwhelming majority of the population, winning their support through a thoroughgoing agrarian revolution. The people's revolution led by the Communist Party followed a unique strategy: to encircle the cities from the countryside and seize state power by armed force. This unique strategy, developed by the collective efforts of the Party and the people, took shape only after serious setbacks, through repeated trial and error and constant reviewing of experience. Mao Zedong made the most outstanding contribution to this process. He was the first to advocate shifting the focus of armed struggle to the countryside and to insist on developing rural revolutionary base areas; moreover, it was he who explained the theoretical basis for the strategy of the Chinese revolution. He criticized the idea that there was a contradiction between adhering to the leadership of the proletariat and relying on the peasants as the main force of revolution. "For in the revolution in semi-colonial China," he wrote, "the peasant struggle must always fail if it does not have the leadership of the workers, but the revolution is never harmed if the peasant struggle outstrips the forces of the workers."15 He emphasized the importance of persisting in the struggle in rural revolutionary base areas: "Only thus is it possible to build the confidence of the revolutionary masses throughout the country, as the Soviet Union has built it throughout the world. Only thus is it possible to create tremendous difficulties for the reactionary ruling classes, shake their foundations and hasten their internal disintegration. Only thus is it really possible to create a Red Army which will become the chief weapon for the great revolution of the future. In short, only thus is it possible to hasten the revolutionary high tide."16 A few years later, Mao pointed out in more explicit terms that in semi -colonial, semi-feudal China, the Communist Party had to proceed differently than communist parties in capitalist countries. "Basically," he said, "the task of the Communist Party here is not to go through a long period of legal struggle before launching insurrection and war, and not to seize the big cities first and then occupy the countryside, but the reverse."17 After the decision was made at the meeting of August 7, 1927, to resist the murderous policies of the Kuomintang reactionaries with armed struggle, the Party was faced with the fundamental question of how to win that struggle. For a time the Party continued to focus its work on the cities. The first three famous insurrections in key cities after the defeat of the Great Revolution had failed to achieve their goals. But the idea of trying first to gain control of the cities did not quickly disappear. Instead, as will be seen, it continued to emerge, bringing repeated losses to the revolution. If the Chinese Communists, instead of turning to the rural areas, where the reactionary forces were weak, had merely adhered to the dogma in books, blindly copied the model of other countries and continued to concentrate on the cities, the revolution would have soon failed. But the Chinese Marxists represented by Mao Zedong persisted in proceeding from the realities in the country and in learning through practice and from the masses. Thus, displaying admirable initiative at a critical moment when the revolution was at stake, they were able to determine the correct strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside and seizing state power with armed force, something that had never been done before.

The "Left" Mistakes During the Resurgence of Revolution and the Red Army's Victory in the Counter-Campaigns Against "Encirclement and Suppression"

During the two years immediately following the 6th National Congress of the CPC in 1928, the revolution revived across the country. Through arduous struggle, the CPC, which seemed to have fallen into hopeless straits after the failure of the Great Revolution, reemcrged as an important political force. There were both objective and subjective reasons for this. The objective reasons were as follows. A period of relative stability prevailed after the founding of the KMT government in Nanjing, but after war broke out between Chiang Kai-shek and the Guangxi clique in March 1929, the country relapsed into incessant tangled warfare between the new warlords. Many of the troops that had previously been engaged in attempts to encircle and suppress the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army were moved to other battlefields to take part in that warfare, leaving a vacuum in certain areas and an opportunity for the Red Army to grow. Moreover, under the rule of the KMT government, the national crisis was aggravated. Every one of the fundamental contradictions in Chinese society became intensified, and the Nanjing government grew increasingly fascist. The ordinary workers and peasants and even the national bourgeoisie had won not an iota of emancipation, political, economic or ideological. Discontent was growing even among those who had cherished illusions about the KMT. The subjective reason for the revival of the revolution at this time was that the CPC Central Committee adhered to a basically correct line and did a great deal of fruitful work by proceeding from the actual conditions in the country. The Resurgence of Revolution in 1929 and Early 1930 In its political resolution, the 6th National Congress of the CPC wrote: "Since the revolution has suffered serious defeats, it is essential to shift from direct armed uprisings on a broad scale to the day-to-day work of organizing and mobilizing the masses.... The general line of the Party is to win over the masses." A sharp change in the Party's work was effected in the wake of the congress. The Party faced a grim situation in the areas under KMT rule. The "Left" putschism that had emerged in November 1927 brought further heavy losses to the forces that had managed to survive the failure of the Great Revolution. For a time, the Central Committee regarded Hunan, Hubei and Guangdong provinces as centres from which to relaunch struggles, but it was precisely those areas that suffered the heaviest losses. Local Party organizations were ill adapted to the new and perilous environment, since they had mushroomed when the revolutionary activity was at its height and had had only two kinds of experience. Either they had engaged in open or semi-open activities during the period of the Great Revolution, or following the instructions of putschist leaders, they had relied only on a small number of people who acted recklessly, without regard for consequences or even for their own lives. Things had begun to change around the time of the 6th Party Congress, but there was no fundamental turn for the better. Most of the key Party members were concentrated in provincial Party committees, special committees and certain major cities and townships, forming a huge secret organization. The Party was estranged from the masses. Many Party branches had become inactive and existed in name only. Under these difficult conditions, many outstanding Party members immersed themselves in hard, solid work. After the 6th Party Congress, the Central Committee laid down the following principles for the Party's work. First, it was essential to go into the midst of the masses and start work from the grassroots. Only when the organizations at lower levels had been consolidated and become active could organizations at higher levels be set up. Second, secret work should be integrated with open work. Party 145 organizations in every locality should use all means (including legal and semi-legal means) to get in touch with workers and peasants, so as to truly understand their hardships and demands and to patiently mobilize them and lead them in daily struggles. Thus gradually, over a long period of time, the Party would accumulate strength and fulfil its objective of "winning over the masses." Third, Party cadres should have regular jobs and social relations with people in different milieus, so as to be able to make full use of the cover provided by their professional and social connections. While endeavouring to rectify the "Left" mistakes, the Party also struggled resolutely against the Right views and actions. At this time Chen Duxiu and others, despairing of the future of the revolution, gradually turned liquidationist. Embracing Trotskyite views, they held that after the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927, the Chinese bourgeoisie had triumphed over the imperialist and feudal forces and stabilized its rule over the people; capitalism had gained the upper hand in Chinese society and would enjoy peaceful development. They concluded that since the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China had ended, the Chinese proletariat could not bring about a "socialist revolution" until some time in the future. Meanwhile, it could only engage in a legal movement, which would centre around the call for a national conference, attended by representatives from all walks of life, to seek a political solution to the country's problems. They advocated abolishing revolutionary movements and slandered the Red Army's military operations as the actions of "roving rebel bands." Instead of accepting criticism, they tried to split the Party by secretly setting up small opposition factions. This led to their expulsion from the Party. In the face of the cruel White terror, the arrests and massacres in the vast areas under the reactionary KMT regime, it was extremely hard to keep the Party organizations there intact, let alone to consolidate and expand them. It took not only courage and tenacity but also resourcefulness and correct guidance. After a year's preparation, the 2nd Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee of the CPC was held in June 1929. It made the following judgement on the condition of the Party: "The Party has been rescued from weakness and inactivity and has regained its unity. At the same time, the Party has made progress in its work, gaining ground in its relations with the people, increasing its political influence among the masses and expanding its capacity to lead struggles."18 According to statistics, Party membership grew from a little over 40,000 in July 1928, at the time of the 6th Party Congress, to 69,000 in June 1929, at the time of the 2nd Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee, and to 100,000 in March 1930. In spite of some grave setbacks during this time,, the Party gained much valuable experience in underground work in areas strictly controlled by the reactionary forces. This experience was of great importance for the Party's future work in such areas. More important, the strengthening of the CPC Central Committee's leadership of the Red Army and the rural base areas brought about a tremendous expansion of the revolutionary forces. By March 1930, the Red Army had grown to 13 armies with over 62,000 men. And in addition to the base areas in southwestern Jiangxi and western Fujian led by Mao Zedong and others, there were major bases in the border regions of western Hunan-Hubci, Hubei-Henan-Anhui, Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi, Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi and Hunan-Jiangxi, as well as in certain areas of Guangxi and Guangdong. Early in 1928, He Long, Zhou Yiqun and others arrived in the Honghu Lake area of Hubei and the Sangzhi area of Hunan. Using his social connections in his hometown of Sangzhi, He Long built a new revolutionary force by merging several peasant guerrilla units and reorganized them into the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. On March 19, 1929, the CPC Central Committee wrote to He Long and the other leaders of the Front Committee of the Fourth Army, instructing them to concentrate on mobilizing the rural population to deepen the agrarian revolution, rather than on taking big cities. In July 1930 the newly formed Fourth Army joined forces in Gong'an County, Hubei Province, with the Sixth Red Army, which had been established by expanding the Western Hubei Guerrilla Corps. Together, the two armies formed the Second Red Army Group, totalling more than 10,000 men, with He Long as commander-in-chief and Zhou Yiqun as political commissar. Soon after that, a Soviet government was set up in the western Hunan-Hubei base area. The Red Army guerrilla forces also grew rapidly in the HubeiHenan-Anhui base area. At first they were divided into three parts, one in the Hubei-Henan border base area, formed after the Huang'an-Machcng Uprising; one in the southeastern Henan base area, formed after the Southern Shangcheng Uprising; and one in the western Anhui base area, formed after the Lu'an-Huoshan Uprising. The Military Commission of the Central Committee assigned Xu Xiangqian to command the Hubei-Henan border base area. In January 1930, seeing the necessity of unifying the leadership of the Party organizations and the command of the Red Army units, the Central Committee decided to set up a Special Committee for the entire Hubei-Henan-Anhui border base area and appointed Guo Shushen as secretary. It also merged the three separate units into the First Army of the Red Army with Xu Jishen as commander, Xu Xiangqian as deputy commander and Cao Dajun as political commissar. The Special Committee and the First Army were the predecessors of the HubeiHenan-Anhui Bureau of the Central Committee and the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army. Having returned to the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi border region from southern Jiangxi, the Fifth Army of the Red Army, led by Peng Dehuai and Teng Daiyuan, joined with local guerrilla forces to form the Third Army Group of the Red Army. Peng Dehuai became commander-in-chief of the group and secretary of its Front Committee, and Teng Daiyuan was named political commissar. This army group opened up the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Revolutionary Base Area. In the western part of Guangxi Province, Deng Xiaoping, representative of the CPC Central Committee, and Zhang Yunyi, Wei Baqun and others led part of the Guangxi army and local peasant forces influenced by the Party in the Bose Uprising of December 1929 and the Longzhou Uprising of February 1930. They founded the Seventh and Eighth armies of the Red Army, with Li Mingrui as commander-in-chief and Deng Xiaoping as political commissar of both armies, and established the Zuojiang and Youjiang Rivers Revolutionary Base Area. Thanks to these events, the Chinese revolutionary movement soon took on a very different aspect. In an article written in April 1930, Zhou Enlai declared: "Peasant guerrilla warfare and the agrarian revolution are the main features of the Chinese revolution today."19 This was a highly important new assessment, based on the Party's practice during the nearly two years since its 6th Congress. The Emergence of "Left" Adventurism As the situation improved, "Left" impetuosity gradually grew within the Communist Party. The renewal of the warfare between new warlords representing various KMT factions, triggered by the war between Chiang Kai-shek and the Guangxi clique, and the Chinese Eastern Railway Incident20 led the CPC Central Committee to a wrong assessment of the situation and encouraged a resurgence of "Left" thinking. More important, in 1929 the Communist International sent the CPC Central Committee a series of four letters stressing the "struggle against Right tendencies." The most influential of these, dated October 26, asserted that the time was ripe for decisive action: "China has entered a period of profound national crisis. ...It is now possible and necessary to prepare the masses for the revolution that will overthrow the political power based on the alliance between the landlord class and the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the workers and peasants in the Soviet form, to engage energetically in the revolutionary forms of class struggle (political strikes by the masses, revolutionary demonstrations, guerrilla warfare, etc.) and to keep expanding them." The letter added that by and large, the putschist mistakes had been corrected. On January 1 1, 1930, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee adopted a resolution concurring with the view of the Communist International that the country was in profound crisis. 149 "The pace at which the revolution develops," the resolution went on, "depends on the pace at which the reactionary regime is overthrown directly through armed rebellion.... We should act on the instructions of the Communist International, start at once to prepare the masses to fulfil this task and energetically initiate and expand revolutionary forms of class struggle." In 1928, when the revolution had suffered grave setbacks, it had been easy to see that the "Left" tendencies in the Party were wrong and to quickly put an end to putschist mistakes. But at this time, when the KMT warlords of different factions were fighting among themselves, and when the revolutionary movement appeared to be reviving, many Party members overestimated revolutionary developments, and this fostered a more intense and sustained growth of "Left" impetuosity. The war in the Central Plains that broke out in May 1930 between Chiang Kai-shek on one side and Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang on the other marked a struggle between new warlords on an unprecedented scale. At the time, Zhou Enlai was in the Soviet Union reporting to the Communist International. Li Lisan and others, who were actually in charge of the work of the Central Committee, considered that the revolutionary crisis had come to a head nationwide. On June 11 the Political Bureau adopted a resolution, drafted by Li Lisan, entitled "The New Revolutionary High Tide and Winning Victory First in One or More Provinces." "Left" adventurism (later known as the Li Lisan line) thus became dominant in the Central Committee. In this resolution "Left" adventurism manifested itself in several ways. First, the Political Bureau made a totally incorrect assessment of the situation, maintaining that the decisive battle not only for the Chinese revolution but for the world revolution was just around the corner. "The fundamental economic and political crisis in China," the Bureau wrote, "continues to sharpen in an identical manner in every part of the country without the slightest essential difference.... The general situation shows that a new revolutionary upsurge in China is upon us.... The situation for direct revolution is already in existence on a national basis and is very likely to be turned into nationwide victory of the revolution." Moreover, the outbreak of the Chinese revolution, it said, would immediately "set off a great revolution worldwide and give rise to the possibility of the final decisive class battle the world over." Second, the Political Bureau argued that it was no longer necessary to gradually accumulate and prepare the subjective forces of revolution, since the masses, who aspired to large-scale action, would be content with nothing less than a nationwide armed uprising. Third, the Political Bureau continued to espouse the mistaken "city centre theory." "The great struggle of the proletariat is the decisive force," the resolution declared. "Without an upsurge in working class strikes and without armed uprisings in key cities, it is absolutely impossible to achieve victory in one or more provinces." It rejected "encircling the cities from the countryside" as a grossly incorrect concept and called for "a drastic change in the guerrilla tactics of the past." Fourth, the Political Bureau again confused the bounds of the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. It maintained that the bourgeoisie had become part of the reactionary alliance and that if the revolution succeeded fixst in one or more provinces, "the factories, enterprises and banks owned by the Chinese bourgeoisie should be confiscated" and "the workers' and peasants' dictatorship must be turned into the dictatorship of the proletariat." Guided by this sort of thinking, Li Lisan and his followers formed an adventuristic plan to launch armed uprisings in all the key cities of China with Wuhan as the centre and to concentrate all the Red Army forces to attack major cities. The plan emphasized the importance of uprisings in Wuhan and Nanjing and of a general strike in Shanghai, and instructed all Red Army units to "join forces in Wuhan" and "water their horses in the Yangtze River." In late July the lhird Red Army Group, taking advantage of the enemy's weak defence, captured Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, and occupied it for a time (pulling out on August 5). Li Lisan was so delighted with this victory that he considered it a vindication of his views and plan. In early August 151 a National General Action Committee was set up as the supreme commanding body for the armed uprisings and the general strike. The leading bodies of the CPC, the Youth League and the trade unions were merged into action committees at various levels, and the normal activities of those organizations were suspended. A detailed plan was put forward to prepare for nationwide uprisings, and appeals for cooperation were sent to Mongolia, which was asked to send troops, and to the Soviet Union, which was asked to prepare for war. Although the mistaken "Left" line held sway for only a little more than three months (from June to September 1930), the Party paid dearly for it. In the areas under KMT rule, many local Party organizations, impatient to organize uprisings, exposed their few members in open actions. This led to the destruction of eleven provincial Party committees and to nearly total disintegration of the Party organizations in Wuhan, Nanjing and other cities. In addition, the Red Army suffered huge losses during its attacks on large cities. An important feature of "Left" adventurism was that its adherents were divorced from reality—that is, they proceeded purely from subjective thinking or imagination and were impatient for success. Naturally, this attitude was resisted by those Party cadres who knew the actual situation and looked the facts in the face. For example, He Mengxiong, a member of the standing committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, at a meeting sharply criticized Li Lisan's mistake of neglecting both subjective and objective conditions; he was silenced and attacked. In June the Central Committee ordered the First Army Group of the Red Army, led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De, to attack Nanchang and Jiujiang. As they approached Nanchang, however, recognizing that their forces were greatly outnumbered by the enemy, they decided against an attack. By this time, the Third Army Group had already pulled out of Changsha. The First and Third Army Groups joined forces and formed the First Front Army of the Red Army, totalling over 30,000 men. Zhu De became the commander-in-chief and Mao Zedong the general political commissar and secretary of the General Front Committee. They were ordered to retake Changsha but failed after fierce fighting. Flexibly changing tactics according to circumstances, Mao Zedong decided to withdraw from Changsha and enter Jiangxi. In other revolutionary base areas, some leaders of the Party and the Red Army were also doubtful about the Li Lisan line and resisted it in varying degrees. Thus, it was not implemented in an all-round way in practical work, especially in the army and the base areas. Li Lisan's "Left" adventurism had also gone beyond the tolerance of the Communist International. In late July, the Executive Committee of the Comintern adopted a resolution on the question of China stating, "For the time being, we have not yet achieved an objective situation of revolution throughout China." Zhou Enlai and Qu Qiubai were sent home to rectify Li Lisan's mistake, which they started to do as soon as they returned. During September 24-28, 1930, in Shanghai, the CPC held the Enlarged 3rd Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee. In his report transmitting the resolution of the Communist International, Zhou Enlai pointed out the uneven development of the Chinese revolution and concluded that "the present situation is not yet a situation for direct armed uprising throughout the country." He criticized Li Lisan for having made the mistake of "Left" adventurism in planning the Party's work. Li Lisan made a self-criticism, and Qu Qiubai delivered a summary of the political discussion at the session. The 3rd Plenary Session corrected the ultra-Left assessment of the revolutionary situation in China made by Li Lisan and others, and after the meeting Li left his leading position. The programme for urban uprisings was canceled, and after the failure of the second attack on Changsha, the Red Army discontinued its attacks on big cities. Action committees for the central and local levels were dismantled, and the Party, Youth League and trade union organizations were rehabilitated. Work in the rural revolutionary base areas and the Red Army was given an increasingly important position. Nevertheless, the 3rd Plenary Session failed to make a thorough ideological and theoretical criticism of the "Left" mistake, represented by Li Lisan. It tolerated his thinking 153 to an extent and wrongly criticized He Mengxiong who had opposed Li Lisan. Still, those mistakes, which were the main reflection of the Li Lisan line in practical work, were rectified, the problem was basically solved and the work as a whole gradually returned to normal. But soon there was a sudden change. In October the Communist International wrote a letter to the CPC Central Committee declaring that the Li Lisan line was opposed to that of the International. At this time, Wang Ming (Chen Shaoyu) and Bo Gu (Qin Bangxian) had just returned from Moscow, where they had been studying and where they had won the confidence of Pavel Mif, deputy head of the Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau. Through abnormal channels, Wang and Bo learned the contents of the letter before the Central Committee did. They immediately called for "opposing conciliation" and violently attacked the Central Committee as constituted at the 3rd Plenary Session. Wang Ming also distributed his programmatic pamphlet TwoLine Struggle (later revised and renamed Strive to Make the CPC More Bolshevik). He and Bo Gu exaggerated the proportion of capitalism in the Chinese economy and the importance of struggling against the bourgeoisie and the rich peasants at the present stage of the revolution, and they denied the existence of a camp of intermediate forces. They insisted that there was a nationwide revolutionary upsurge and, eager for quick victory in one or more major provinces with key cities, urged that the Party launch nationwide attacks. A "true" Red Army and a government formed by a conference of workers, peasants and soldiers, they said, should already have been established in China, and the main dangers within the Party were Right opportunism in its line, and in its practical work and the defence of the interests of rich peasants. They called on Party members to form a provisional central leading organ and demanded that leading organs at different levels be transformed, consolidated and staffed with "militant cadres" who vigorously supported and implemented their line. The statements and activities of Wang Ming and Bo Gu threw the Party into ideological disarray. Some local Party cadres and organizations that had been criticized by Li Lisan and the 3rd Plenary Session demanded that the Central Committee be reorganized. With the National Federation of Trade Unions in their hands, Luo Zhanglong and others manoeuvred to split the Party. Amid this chaos, the Central Committee found it impossible to carry out its normal work. The 4th Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee of the CPC was convened in Shanghai on January 7, 1931. It was dominated by Pavel Mif, who had come to China. The main theme of the session was criticism of the 3rd Plenary Session's so-called conciliatory attitude towards the Li Lisan line. "Right deviation" was identified as the chief danger within the Party, and it was decided that "leading organs at different levels should be transformed and consolidated." Qu Qiubai, Zhou Enlai and others were severely criticized at the meeting. With the support of Mif, Wang Ming, although he was only 26 and had little experience in struggle, was elected not only to the Central Committee but also to the Political Bureau. Nothing positive came out of the 4th Session of the 6th Central Committee. For four long years afterwards, the Central Committee was dominated by the "Left" dogmatism represented by Wang Ming. How was it that Wang Ming was able to gain such ascendancy? There were several reasons. Ever since the August 7th Meeting, there had been heavy "Left" tendencies in the Party, which had never been eliminated from its guiding ideology. Many Party cadres were enthusiastic about revolution but ill prepared with theory and practice. When Wang Ming and his followers tried to intimidate them with a lot of Marxist terms and received full support from the representative of the Communist International, many of them were unable to judge his position correctly and resist it. Wang Ming and his faction argued that the Li Lisan line was not a "Left" deviation but a Right deviation that denied the possibility of winning victory first in one or more provinces. Wang Ming had written in his pamphlet, "At present we have not yet achieved a situation of direct revolution in the whole country, but such a situation could be achieved in one or more major provinces soon, as new waves of revolutionary movement 155 throughout the country are growing and developing at different .needs " Accordingly, he called for efforts to achieve victory in the provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi, which would pave the way for nationwide victory. He and his supporters demanded continued attacks on the intermediate forces and the launching of a nationwide offensive. Generally speaking, Wang Ming and his faction were more determined and more arrogant than Li Lisan and those who had followed his line of "Left" adventurism, and clothed their arguments in more theoretical verbiage. Therefore they caused greater damage. After the 4th Plenary Session in 1931, the Party's work in the areas under Kuomintang rule was completely disrupted. A number of outstanding Party cadres, including He Mengxiong, Lm Yunan and Li Qiushi, were arrested and executed because renegades informed against them. Luo Zhanglong and others formed an "Extraordinary Central Committee" in opposition to the policies of the 4th Plenary Session and attempted to organize a separate party; they were therefore expelled from the CPC. In late April Gu Sh unzhang, an alternate member of the Political Bureau who had assisted in running the Party's security work and had access to many of the Central Committee's top secrets, was arrested in Wuhan and betrayed the Party. He proposed that the Kuomintang authorities wipe out the headquarters and principal leaders of the CPC Central Committee at one blow in a surprise attack. This highly confidential piece of information was made known to Qian Zhuangfei, an underground Communist who had made his way into the Investigation Section of the KM Fs Central Organization Department and worked there as a confidential secretary. He immediately sent a courier from Nanjing to Shanghai to report to Li Kenong, who was in charge of the Section of Special Tasks of the CPC Central Committee and who would then convey the information to the Central Committee. At this critical moment, Zhou Enlai, assisted by Chen Yun and others, calmly acted to protect the Central Committee and thus averted disaster. In late June Xiang Zhongfa, who was then chairman of the Political Bureau, was arrested because of his imprudence, and soon he too betrayed the Party. Under these circumstances, Wang Ming left Shanghai for Moscow, and Zhou Enlai was forced to leave for Ruijin, Jiangxi, in the Central Revolutionary Base Area. Because both the Central Committee and the Political Bureau in Shanghai had lost more than half their members, a Provisional Central Political Bureau was set up in accordance with instructions from the Communist International. Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian (Luo Fu) and Lu Futan became members of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee, Bo Gu being given overall responsibility, and they continued to follow the "Left" adventurist line represented by Wang Ming. The Red Army's Victories in the CounterCampaigns Against "Encirclement and Suppression" The Central Committee formed at the 4th Plenary Session sent representatives, representative organs or new leading cadres to the various revolutionary base areas to carry out the struggle against what it called Right deviation. However, in many of them, especially the Central Base Area under the leadership of Mao Zedong, there was no time to carry out the "Left" policies promoted by these emissaries before the KMT began launching its "encirclement and suppression" campaigns. For this reason, it was still possible for the Red Army to defeat the enemy on several occasions. The Kuomintang ruling clique was shocked by the growth of the Red Army and the base areas, and particularly by the Red Army's adventurist attacks on key cities during the period when the Party was following the Li Lisan line. By October 1930 the six-month war on the Central Plains between Chiang Kai-shek on one side and Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang on the other, involving more than a million men, was over. Immediately after he had won, Chiang turned back and concentrated large forces to "encircle and suppress" the Red Army in the revolutionary base areas in southern China. By this time the Red Army had expanded to more than 100,000 men. It was now possible to make the major change from waging chiefly guerrilla warfare to waging chiefly mobile warfare. Wherever the Red Army went, it established 157 Party organizations and revolutionary political power. It conducted a struggle for the distribution of land, winning the support of the masses. Stable revolutionary base areas were established, providing broad combat theatres for the Red Army and plenty of room for them to manoeuvre. These conditions had not been available to the Red Army in the past. Thus, in its countercampaigns against the KMT troops' "encirclement and suppression" during this period, the Red Army fought on a larger scale and gained greater victories than ever before. The main target of the Kuomintang army's "encirclement and suppression" campaigns was the First Front Army of the Red Army, led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De. Beginning in October 1930, Chiang Kai-shek gathered over 100,000 troops and mounted the first "encirclement and suppression" campaign, directed by Lu Diping, Governor of Jiangxi. As they underestimated the Red Army, the KMT forces adopted the tactic of driving straight into the revolutionary base area and making a concerted attack by converging columns, hoping to wipe out the main forces of the First Front Army at one blow. On October 30 the General Front Committee and the Jiangxi Action Committee held a joint meeting in Luofang. Noting that the 40,000 men of the First Front Army were greatly outnumbered and that the enemy forces in Hunan were strong while those in Jiangxi were weak, they decided to retreat to the centre of the base area and look for a favourable opportunity for combat. The plan was to lure the enemy troops in deep, wait for them to wear out their strength and then eliminate them in mobile warfare. And indeed, when the KMT army had penetrated deep into the revolutionary base area, it found that its battle line was overextended and its forces were spread too thin. On December 30 the division headquarters and two brigades led by Zhang Huizan, commander of the 18th Division of the "encirclement and suppression" army, entered the narrow mountain paths in the Longgang area and were ambushed by the Red Army. In just one day of heavy fighting, the Red Army wiped out some 10,000 enemy troops and captured Zhang Huizan. It followed up this victory with an attack to the east that eliminated half of Tan Daoyuan's division in Dongshao. The first large-scale "encirclement and suppression" campaign was smashed. Before long, the Kuomintang regime sent He Yingqin, Minister of War and concurrently director of the Nanchang provisional headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the army, navy and air force, to command 200,000 forces in a second "encirclement and suppression" campaign. Drawing the lesson from the failure in the previous campaign, he changed tactics, advancing by stages, attacking only when sure of success and consolidating his position at every step. He also imposed a light economic blockade on the Soviet base area. The Soviet Area Bureau of the Central Committee held several meetings to consider counter-measures. A proposal to withdraw from the area and another to divide the Red Army forces in an attempt to push back the enemy were both rejected in favour of the former tactic of luring the enemy in deep. Utilizing the favourable conditions of the base area, the First Front Army concentrated its main forces, identified the enemy's weak links and made sure that it had superior forces for every battle. First it attacked where the enemy was weak, then moved rapidly from west to east, wiping out the enemy units one by one. During the period of May 16-31, starting from Futian, the Red Army won five battles in succession, sweeping across 350 kilometres from the Ganjiang River in Jiangxi to Jianning in Fujian and eliminating over 30,000 enemy troops. Thus, the KMT's second "encirclement and suppression" campaign was also smashed. As soon as the campaign was over in June, Chiang Kai-shek personally took up the post of commander-in-chief of the "encirclement and suppression" army, making He Yingqin front line commander, and gathered 300,000 troops for a third attempt. Counting on their tenfold numerical superiority, Chiang and He reverted to the tactic of driving straight into the base area in an attempt to force the Red Army back to the east bank of the Ganjiang River, disperse it and then "mop up" the smaller units. Mao Zedong and Zhu Dc decided to avoid the main forces of Chiang's army and attack its weak spots. Accordingly, they led the main body of the Red Army on a 500-kilometre detour to 159 Xingguo in southern Jiangxi. By this time, the enemy forces were dosing in on them by different routes. Suddenly, however, the Red Army broke through a gap in their lines and won three successive battles, eliminating more than ten thousand enemy troops. Chiang immediately ordered all his units to turn east in pursuit. The Red Army disguised a small number of troops as its main force to lead the Kuomintang army far to the northeast, while its real main force again moved west, making its way through a mountain pass between concentrations of enemy troops. Then they returned to Xingguo to hide, rest and regroup. By the time the enemy discovered the deception and turned west, the Red Army had already had a fortnight's respite. The enemy troops were so hungry, tired and demoralized that they had to withdraw. The Red Army took advantage of this and wiped out another thirty thousand of them. In this way, the KMT's third attempt at "encirclement and suppression," personally directed by Chiang Kai-shek, was defeated like the first two. After this campaign, the two revolutionary base areas of southern Jiangxi and western Fujian were linked up to form the Central Revolutionary Base Area, an area of fifty thousand square kilometres with twenty-one county towns and a population of two and a half million. Not long after, on December 14, over 17,000 men of the KMT's 26th Route Army (formerly part of the Northwestern Army under Feng Yuxiang) staged a mass defection in Ningdu, Jiangxi Province, under the leadership of Zhao Bosheng, the army's chief of staff who was an underground Communist, and generals Ji Zhentong, Dong Zhentang and Huang Zhongyue. These troops were reorganized as the Fifth Army Group of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. This was the first time that a big regular army unit of the Kuomintang, with strong fighting capacity, had defected on the battlefield and gone over to the Red Army. This showed that the KMT's policy of civil war was unpopular and that the Red Army had grown much stronger. At about this time major victories were also achieved in the struggle against "encirclement and suppression" in the revolutionary base areas of Hubei-Henan-Anhui and western Hunan-Hubei. The Red Army and the base areas in those regions had likewise grown enormously. The basic reason that the Red Army was able to defeat one KMT "encirclement and suppression" campaign after another in extremely difficult circumstances, even though greatly outnumbered, was that it had the enthusiastic support of the masses of poor peasants in the base areas. These peasants had been given land in the agrarian revolution, and they vied with each other to join the army and to help in the revolutionary war in every way possible. Without that support, the Red Army's victories would not have been possible. The able leadership of Mao Zedong and others was also indispensable. In essence, their strategy was to concentrate the revolutionary forces and destroy the enemy units one by one. Tactically, this meant finding the enemy's weak links while he was on the move and engaging him in quickly decided battles, fighting only when the Red Army could win and retreating when it could not. These strategic and tactical principles solved the complex and difficult problem of defeating a strong enemy by means of inferior forces with backward weapons. They took shape gradually in practice, in response to the specific conditions of the revolutionary war in China. A few years later Mao Zedong was to explain them systematically in his "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War."

Changes in the Domestic Political Situation and Grave Damage Brought About by "Left" Errors in the Party after the September 18th Incident

Late in the night of September 18, 1931, an event took place that shocked the whole country and changed the destiny of China. The Japanese Kwantung Army, which, in accordance with the terms of an unequal treaty, was stationed in northeast China, attacked Beidaying, where the Northeastern Army was garrisoned, and the city of Shenyang. The next day the Japanese army, encountering only light resistance, occupied Shenyang, Changchun and some twenty other cities. In four months' time, the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang fell into enemy hands, and the people of northeast China sank into the miserable life of slaves in a conquered land. On January 28, 1932, the Japanese army launched a fresh attack in Shanghai. On March 9 it declared the founding of a puppet Manchukuo regime with Pu Yi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, as the "Executive" (a title that two years later was changed to Emperor). The Awakening of the Nation After the September 18th Incident The September 18th Incident was a natural result of the expansionist policy of aggression against China that had long been followed by the Japanese militarists. It was a major step toward turning China into a colony exclusively occupied by Japan. China had been subjected more than once to the threat of being divided among imperialist powers, but this time it was in imminent danger of being conquered. "The Chinese nation laces its greatest danger; from each one the urgent call for action comes forth." The words of the "March of the Volunteers" expressed the indignation in the hearts of hundreds of millions of Chinese. As a result of the Japanese imperialists' invasion of China, the national contradiction between the two countries became the principal one and brought about major changes in the relations between different classes in China. The Chinese workers and peasants wanted to resist the aggression. After having remained inactive for more than four years, the student youth and the urban petty bourgeoisie also began to call for resistance. Cities that had been quiet for some time were again the scene of indignant protests. In Beiping,22 Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Wuhan, students, workers and other residents organized demonstrations and strikes and published open telegrams to the government demanding that it resist Japanese aggression. On September 28, 1931, several thousand students from Shanghai and Nanjing went to the Kuomintang government and the central headquarters of the Kuomintang in Nanjing to demand a declaration of war against Japan; some of them even beat Wang Zhengting, the Foreign Minister. The national bourgeoisie also began to change its attitude and take an active part in the protests. The Sheri Bao and Xin Wen Bao, two newspapers in Shanghai, carried a students' manifesto of resistance. Businesses in Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin and other cities boycotted Japanese goods and asked that economic relations with Japan be severed. In northeast China under Japanese occupation, large numbers of volunteers rose in resistance. Under conditions of extreme hardship and difficulty, they carried out guerrilla warfare in the area between the Changbai Mountains and the Heilongjiang River, winning the admiration of the whole country. In the face of the Japanese invasion, the government in Nanjing made repeated concessions. At the time of the September 18th Incident, the Japanese Kwantung Army had only 10,000 men, while the Chinese Northeastern Army had 165,000 troops stationed in northeast China, in addition to 70,000 who had moved into the area south of Shanhaiguan, the east end of the Great Wall, before the conclusion of the Central Plains campaign. But two months earlier, Chiang Kai-shek had already announced the policy of "internal pacification before resistance to foreign invasion," and he insisted on using his main forces to "encircle and suppress" the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which stood for resistance to the Japanese. When the September 18th Incident took place, the Nanjing government telegraphed the Northeastern Army: "This act of the Japanese Army is merely an ordinary act of provocation. To prevent the incident from developing further, you must keep to absolute non-resistance."23 This attitude of the Nanjing government allowed the Japanese imperialists to launch large-scale attacks recklessly. But as the national crisis came to a head, divisions appeared within the Kuomintang. Ma Zhanshan, Li Du and other generals of the Northeastern Army resisted the Japanese in northeast China. In January 1932, when the Japanese 163 attacked Shanghai, the 19th Route Army under the command of Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai fought them heroically. As Shanghai and Nanjing were the heart of the Kuomintang regime, and as the Japanese were receiving large-scale reinforcements, the government also sent into battle troops of the Fifth Army under the command of Zhang Zhizhong. However, its basic principle was still to sue for peace. On May 5, through the mediation of Britain and the U.S.A., the government signed the WusongShanghai Armistice Agreement with the Japanese aggressors, surrendering the country's sovereign rights under humiliating terms. The following year, when Rehe Province had fallen into enemy hands and the battle of resistance along the Great Wall had failed, it signed the Tanggu Agreement, which similarly gave away sovereignty over north China. In Zhangjiakou, Feng Yuxiang organized the Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Allied Army, but he met with only obstruction and sabotage from the Nanjing government. From the time of the September 18th Incident, the Communist Parly of China stood firmly for resistance against Japan. On September 20 the CPC Central Committee issued a "Declaration on the Brutal Occupation of the Three Northeastern Provinces by the Japanese Imperialists," in which it unequivocally demanded opposition to the seizure, immediate withdrawal of all the Japanese ground, naval and air forces occupying the three Northeastern provinces and nullification of all unequal treaties. On November 27 the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, which had just declared its founding in Ruijin, Jiangxi, issued a statement calling on the people of the whole country to mobilize and arm themselves to combat Japanese aggression and the reactionary regime of the Kuomintang. The CPC Provincial Committee of Manchuria instructed local Party organizations to strengthen their contacts with the people's volunteers and to organize armed resistance forces under the Party's leadership. The Central Committee sent Yang Jingyu, Zhao Shangzhi, Zhou Baozhong and Zhao Yiman to the Northeast to strengthen the leadership of Party organizations there. By early 1933, guerrilla units had been founded successively in Bayan, Hailong, Ning'an, Tangyuan and Hailun and in southern and eastern Manchuria; these were eventually to become the main armed forces resisting Japan in northeast China. In this unprecedented national crisis, the Party faced the questions of how to understand the profound changes in class relations in the country and how to advance the national democratic revolution. At this time, "Left" adventurism represented by Wang Ming was already dominant in the Provisional Central Committee. The Committee failed to understand and deal with these questions correctly. It adopted a series of resolutions that only reinforced the tendency towards "Left" adventurism in practical work. The Communist International held that the Japanese occupation of northeast China was to be regarded chiefly as "a further step towards war against the Soviet Union."24 Following its instructions, the CPC Provisional Central Committee raised the slogan, "Defend the Soviet Union with arms." This demand was far removed from reality and naturally unacceptable to the Chinese people. The Provisional Central Committee did not understand the changes in class relations in China that had been touched off by the Japanese aggression. It failed to see the positive change in the attitude of the middle-of-the-roaders, who were demanding resistance, or to recognize the splits that were taking place in the Kuomintang. On the contrary, they held that the middle-of-theroaders would help the Kuomintang maintain its rule and prevent the masses from overthrowing it. Therefore, it said, "these sections are the most dangerous enemy, and we should use our main forces to fight these counter-revolutionaries who seek compromise."25 In this way, some middle-of-the-roaders who might have been friends were pushed into the arms of Chiang Kai-shek. In the new situation, instead of calling for a national united front against Japan, the Provisional Central Committee emphasized the antagonism between the Kuomintang regime and the Soviet political power. It declared that the collapse of the Kuomintang regime was imminent and that the central political 165 conflict in China was "a life-and-death struggle between counterrevolution and revolution."26 ]n leading workers' movements in cities, the Provisional Central Committee followed adventuristic policies. For example, it demanded that in Shanghai and other cities the workers do everything possible to prepare for general strikes, declared that the most pressing task was to arm the workers and peasants to resist Japanese imperialism and refused to organize legal workers' struggles. Ignoring objective conditions, it insisted that Party organizations in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei should immediately create "a Soviet area in the north" by organizing mutinies by KMT soldiers and insurrections by workers and peasants. Having made these arbitrary decisions, the Provisional Central Committee wrote with full confidence, "the Central Committee is absolutely convinced that the various Party organs will accomplish these urgent tasks one hundred percent in the shortest possible lime!"27 In the areas under KMT rule, these much advertised policies, which were based on "Left" adventurism and closed-doorism and showed no regard for objective reality, were criticized and resisted by leading cadres who had practical experience. These included Liu Shaoqi, head of the Workers Department of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Leading Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and Li Tiefu, secretary of the Leading Party Group of the Beiping Anti-Imperialist Alliance and Head of the Propaganda Department of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee. Liu Shaoqi maintained that in work among the masses, open and legal means should be used as much as possible, so that underground Party organizations could gradually accumulate strength and consolidate themselves. These leading cadres published articles in Red Flag, the weekly organ of the CPC Central Committee, criticizing the policy of having Party members quit the "yellow trade unions" controlled by the Kuomintang, but their position was not accepted. On the contrary, they were accused of making opportunist mistakes and dismissed from their leading posts. Work in the Areas under Kuomintang Rule in the Early 1930s It was extremely difficult for the CPC to operate in the areas under Kuomintang rule. And "Left" adventurism and closeddoorism led to foolhardy acts that inflicted heavy losses on the Party, making things even more difficult. During 1931 and 1932 the Hebei Provincial Party Committee was decimated on three separate occasions by arrests of its members. By January 1932 membership in the Red trade unions had been reduced to 3,000. By early 1933 it had become too dangerous for the Provisional Central Committee to stay on in Shanghai, and it was obliged to move to the Central Soviet Area. The Shanghai Bureau of the Central Committee was established to lead the Party's work in the KMT-controlled areas and to maintain contact with the Communist International. Between March 1934 and February 1935, this Bureau was nearly wiped out no less than six times, and the following July it was forced to suspend operations. By that time, all but a handful of the Party organizations in the KMTcontrolled areas had been destroyed. It is worth noting that even under such harsh conditions, a number of Communists and progressives outside the Party still continued their struggle in the KMT areas. They made a great contribution by promoting the movement for resistance to Japan and for national salvation, opposing Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship, disseminating Marxism and using literature and the arts to expand the influence of the Party. How could this happen? Two factors were at work. First, even though after the September 18th Incident the national crisis reached unprecedented proportions, Chiang's ruling clique stubbornly followed the traitorous policy of "internal pacification before resistance to foreign invasion" and intensified its fascist dictatorship. This was extremely unpopular and could not but arouse growing indignation among the people and cause splits among the middle-of-theroaders and even within the KMT ruling clique. Despite the serious "Left" mistakes made by the Provisional Central Committee, many progressives could see that the Communist Party was 167 standing firmly for resistance to Japanese aggression, demanding a democratic politics and working for the benefit of the toiling masses. For this reason, they drew closer and closer to the Party. Second, the "Left" theories of the Provisional Central Committee did not work in practice. Although it had imposed those theories in many places, some Party organizations and many individual members, taught by objective realities, consciously or unconsciously broke away from them for the sake of advancing the revolution. They gradually adjusted their practical work, adopting flexible and effective measures. When the Provisional Central Committee had moved to the Central Soviet Area and the Shanghai Bureau had been repeatedly sabotaged, some Party organizations in Shanghai—for example, the Commission for Cultural Work of the CPC Central Committee and the Provisional Party Committee of Jiangsu Province—lost contact with the higher levels. In the extremely complicated circumstances, they did some exploring on their own and blazed a few new trails, refusing to be guided by the subjectivism of a few leaders. Their abandonment of "Left" thinking manifested itself chiefly in a new concern for uniting with other social forces and for making full use of legal means of propaganda. Although at the time people working in this way did not necessarily have a clear understanding of the right political line, facts proved that they were doing the right thing. Some leaders in the Provisional Central Committee also showed signs of a change in their thinking. In October 1932 Zhang Wentian published in Struggle, another organ of the CPC Central Committee, two articles entitled "Closed-doorism in the Field of Literature and Art" and "On Our Propaganda and Agitation Work." In these articles he declared that it was chiefly "Left" closed-doorism that had prevented the Left-wing movement in literature and art from expanding beyond the narrow confines of underground work. "It is absolutely essential," he wrote, "to combat "Left" phrase-mongering and closed-doorism, if the present Left-wing movement in literature and art in China is to become a movement of the masses. Only a broad revolutionary united front can transform our underground activities within narrow confines, enabling us to work openly or semi-openly and to reach a wide range of people."28 In August 1931 Soong Ching Ling returned home from Europe because her mother had died. She immediately threw herself into the international campaign to secure the release of Paul Noulens, the leader of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist International, who had been arrested in Shanghai. When Deng Yanda, the former political director of the Northern Expeditionary Army and her old friend, was murdered on orders from Chiang Kaishek, in grief and indignation she issued a statement entitled, "The Kuomintang Is No Longer a Political Power." "I firmly believe, she wrote, "that only a revolution built on mass support and for the masses can break the power of militarists and politicians, throw off the yoke of foreign imperialism and truly realize socialism."29 Soong Ching Ling played a leading role in the founding of the Society for Wiping Out National Humiliation and for Self-Salvation, the China League for the Protection of Civil Rights (together with Cai Yuanpei and Yang Xingfo, who was later murdered by Kuomintang agents for his part in it) and the Chinese People's Committee for Armed Self-defence. She served as the most prominent spokesperson for all these organizations, evoking much favourable response both at home and abroad. Certain Communists kept in close contact with her. In many of his essays the great writer Lu Xun, who had already become a Marxist and kept in close contact with the Party, ruthlessly exposed the dictatorial nature of the ruling clique of big landlords and compradors, their subservience to foreign powers, their shameful failure to resist Japanese aggression and their brutal "encirclement and suppression" campaign against writers and artists. He also sharply criticized manifestations of ultra-Leftism in cultural circles. In March 1930, in a speech at the inaugural meeting of the League of Chinese' LeftWing Writers, he said: "Our failure to form a united front shows that we do not have a common objective, or that our objective is only to serve small groups or individuals. If our objective were to serve the masses of workers and peasants, then the front would naturally be united." Years later, Mao Zedong w'as to pay him this tribute: "Representing the great majority of the nation, Lu 169 Xun breached and stormed the enemy citadel; on the cultural front he was the bravest and most correct, the firmest, the most loyal and the most ardent national hero, a hero without parallel in our history. The road he took was the very road of China's new national culture."30 The help that Communists gave to Zou Taofen, editor-in-chief of Life Weekly, was a successful example of uniting with patriots and developing progressive forces. Originally, the magazine was devoted chiefly to self-improvement, a subject on which it offered its readers "professional guidance." Its political position was generally that of the patriotic national bourgeoisie. The September 18th Incident, however, had an enormous effect on Zou Taofen. With the help of Hu Yuzhi and other Communists, he soon espoused the cause of resistance and national salvation and drew closer to the Party. From then on. Life Weekly became a lively and popular publication with a circulation of over 100,000. Zou Taofen's words gained great influence among young people. In July 1932 he founded the Life Bookstore, which also published a large number of progressive books on the social sciences, literature and the arts. The bookstore became an important bastion of progressive culture in areas under Kuomintang rule. Many Communists worked for the bookstore. Notwithstanding the KMT's policy of brutal repression, some Communists and progressives were able to make full use of legal means to conduct their propaganda. In the spring of 1929 Cai Yuanpei, one of the founding members of the Kuomintang, president of the Central Research Academy and director of the Social Sciences Institute, appointed the distinguished scholar Chen Hansheng, a Party member, deputy director of the Institute. To gain a better understanding of the nature of Chinese society, Chen organized a Marxist survey group, which over a period of six years carried out extensive, thoroughgoing investigations of Chinese rural society. In 1933, together with Xue Muqiao and others, he founded the Society for Research on the Chinese Rural Economy and the monthly Chinese Countryside. This magazine, which was published openly, printed many survey reports and treatises on the necessity of reforming the feudal land system, supporting the agrarian revolution led by the Communist Party. Left-wing writers and artists also worked hard to cooperate with the middle-of-the-roaders. Articles by Lu Xun, Qu Qiubai, Mao Dun and Zhou Yang appeared in "Free Talk," a supplement of the daily newspaper Sheri Bao, edited by Li Liewen, and in the monthly magazine Literature, edited by Fu Donghua. The famous novel Midnight by Mao Dun was published by the Kaiming Bookstore in February 1933 and reprinted four times in three months, which was rare at the time. Communists Xia Yan, Yang Hansheng and Tian Han, through the Mingxing Film Studio and the Lianhua Film Studio, made many progressive films that attracted large audiences. The "March of the Volunteers"—the theme song from the film Heroes and Heroines, written by Xia Yan and produced by the Diantong Film Studio—swept the country. This stirring song, with music by Nie Er and words by Tian Han, did much to mobilize the people for national salvation. Left-wing social scientists translated many Marxist works. The first complete Chinese translations of volume I of Marx's Capital , Engels' Anti-Duhring , Marx's A Critique of Political Economy, Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism were all published in the early 1930s. Progressive social scientists took part in debates on the history and nature of Chinese society, using the tools of Marxist analysis and criticizing views that did not correspond to the realities. Guo Moruo's Studies of Ancient Chinese Society, written while the author was in exile in Japan and published in 1930, was the first book on Chinese history written from a Marxist viewpoint. More and more, Left-wing social scientists were introducing dialectical-materialist and historical-materialist viewpoints into their studies of China and the world. They propagated Marxism in a number of ways, making it easily accessible to young people. Although many of the members of the League of Chinese Left-Wing Writers, the League of Chinese Social Scientists and similar organizations were affected at this time by "Left" ideas, the cultural movement they championed made a great contribution to China's modern ideological development. In particular, the movement played a historic role in disseminating progressive 171 thinking and promoting the anti-Japanese movement for national salvation. It tempered a strong group of revolutionary intellectuals, many of whom later became the backbone of the Party in the fields of ideology and theory, literature and the arts. The Failure of the Central Red Army in the Fifth Campaign Against "Encirclement and Suppression" Since the CPC Provisional Central Committee was still in Shanghai in the early 1930s, it was some time before its "Left" policies penetrated the Red Army and the revolutionary base areas. During November 1-5, 1931, the Party organizations in the Central Soviet Area held their first congress (known as the southern Jiangxi meeting) in Ruijin, Jiangxi. At this meeting, which was presided over by the delegation sent to the Central Soviet Area by the Central Committee after its 4th Plenary Session, Mao Zedong's correct views were denounced as reflecting "narrow empiricism," "the rich peasants' line ' and extremely serious and consistent Right opportunism," and stressed that concentrated efforts should be made to fight against Right opportunism. Immediately after this meeting, the 1st National Congress of the Chinese Soviet was held in the same city from November 7 to 20. At this congress the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic was founded, Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the government and Xiang Ying and Zhang Guotao vice-chairmen. The congress also established the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, with Zhu De as chairman and Wang Jiaxiang and Peng Dehuai as vice-chairmen. At this time the different Soviet areas were separated from each other. The establishment of the Provisional Central Government and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission helped to centralize command over them and over units of the Red Army. However, the Provisional Central Committee based its policies on the directives of the Communist International, which put undue emphasis on the antagonism between the Soviet political power and the Kuomintang regime and demanded that the separate Soviet areas be linked up to form a whole, as if national victory of the revolution were at hand. This assessment was not realistic. Accordingly, some "Left" policies were laid down in the documents drafted by the Provisional Central Committee and adopted by the 1st National Congress of the Chinese Soviet—for example, the policy of giving no land to landlords and only poor land to rich peasants, which hampered the development of the base areas. In the second half of 1930, in the complicated struggle in the Central Soviet Area, the need to eliminate counterrevolutionaries was greatly exaggerated. Confessions were elicited by force and then given credence, with the result that many cadres and soldiers loyal to the revolution were executed as members of the A-B Group31 or the Social Democrats. This was a bitter lesson for the Party. In the summer of 1932, as soon as it had signed the WusongShanghai Armistice Agreement with Japan which humiliated the Chinese nation and betrayed its sovereignty, the Kuomintang regime dispatched a large number of troops for a fourth "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the revolutionary base areas. Their strategy was to proceed in two stages: an attack on the Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Western Hunan-Hubei revolutionary base areas, followed by a concerted attack by all forces on the Central Revolutionary Base Area. First, in July 1932 Chiang Kai-shek massed more than 300,000 troops under his personal command to attack the Hubei-HenanAnhui Revolutionary Base Area. The main forces of the Red Army in that area were the Fourth Front Army commanded by Xu Xiangqian. Through long, hard struggle, the Fourth Front Army had grown to 45,000 seasoned men. It had worked out a set of effective principles for combat, including the following: —when the enemy is strong and the revolutionary forces are weak, keep the initiative and lure him deep into Red territory;—avoid engagement with strong enemy units and attack the weak; —encircle and outflank the enemy; —besiege a point to annihilate an enemy relief force; —concentrate a superior force to eliminate enemy units one 173 by one; .... „ ,—under special conditions, take the initiative and attack the enemy, and thwart the enemy's scheme of "encirclement and suppression." However, Zhang Guotao, whom the Provisional Central Committee had sent to the area after the 4th Plenary Session as secretary of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee and chairman of the Military Commission, to fulfil his own ambitions, got rid of dissidents and dismissed Zeng Zhongsheng, the former leader of the border region. Before long, during the campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries, he had Xu Jishen, an outstanding general of the Red Army, executed, along with many other loyal cadres and soldiers. Some time afterwards, Zeng Zhongsheng was also executed. This produced chaos in the ranks of the revolution. When the Kuomintang was preparing to launch a large-scale attack on the base area, Zhang Guotao underestimated the enemy and made no preparations tor defence. On the contrary, he ordered the Red Army to press south over a long distance. Although the Fourth Front Army fought heroically and inflicted heavy casualties on the Kuomintang troops, it suffered heavy losses and was exhausted from continuous fighting. A large KMT force bore down upon the border, reducing the Red Army to a passive position and repeatedly defeating it. Zhang Guotao was alarmed by these events and decided that more than 20,000 of the main forces of the Fourth Front Army should cross the Beiping-Hankou Railway and move west. After more than two months of marching they entered northern Sichuan and established the Sichuan-Shaanxi Revolutionary Base Area. In July 1932 when an attack was launched on the HubeiHenan-Anhui Revolutionary Base Area, more than 100,000 KMT troops attacked the Western Hunan-Hubei Revolutionary Base Area. Beginning in the winter of 1930, the Second Army Group of the Red Army (with He Long as commander-in-chief and Zhou Yiqun and Deng Zhongxia, successively, as political commissar), had won several battles in the counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression." In the region of Honghu Lake, they had utilized the advantageous terrain for guerrilla warfare, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. However, after the 4th Plenary Session of the Central Committee, Xia Xi was sent to be secretary of the Western Hunan-Hubei Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee and political commissar of the Second Army Group (now reorganized into the Third Army of the Red Army), and he too followed the policies of "Left" adventurism and sectarianism. Duan Dechang and many other outstanding generals were wrongly executed in the movement to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. At first the Third Red Army underestimated the enemy and advanced too rapidly; then, it was forced onto the defensive, suffered heavy losses and eventually had to withdraw from the western Hunan-Hubei region (Xia Xi died during the march). After protracted fighting, it was finally able to open the Eastern Guizhou Revolutionary Base Area. Then, the Sixth Army Group led by Ren Bishi (with Xiao Ke as commander-inchief and Wang Zhen as political commissar) came there to join forces. The Third Army resumed its designation as the Second Army Group and was reorganized with He Long as commanderin-chief, Ren Bishi as political commissar and Guan Xiangying as deputy political commissar. The merger of the Second and Sixth Army Groups greatly strengthened them. Together they opened the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Revolutionary Base Area. The CPC Provisional Central Committee, which was still in Shanghai at this time, sent instructions to the Central Revolutionary Base Area: "At present, you should go on the offensive to eliminate the enemy's armed forces, expand the Soviet area and take one or two key cities, so as to bring the revolution to victory in one or more provinces." In August 1932 the First Front Army of the Red Army, under the command of Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Zhu Dc and Wang Jiaxiang, took first Le'an County and then Yihuang County, both in Jiangxi, wiping out three enemy brigades. At this time, however, a difference of opinion arose in the Central Committee's Soviet Area Bureau between leaders at the front and in the rear. Leaders of the rear wanted the First Front Army to take the initiative in the face of the enemy's 175 i urge-scale offensive, to attack cities, strike enemy reinforcements and win quick victories. Zhou, Mao, Zhu and Wang, who were responsible for command at the front, telegraphed the Soviet Area Bureau in late September, arguing that under present conditions if they followed such a plan there would be no assurance of victory. "If," they said, "we are itching to fight and act rashly, we shall waste our efforts, tiring out the troops and achieving nothing. It will be a case of more haste and less speed, and will only put us at a greater disadvantage." In early October the Soviet Area Bureau held a plenary session in Ningdu, Jiangxi. At the meeting, the plan of the leaders at the front was heavily criticized as "a purely defensive line" and a Righl-deviatiomst policy that "focuses on making preparations and waiting for the enemy to attack." A heated argument took place about whether Mao Zedong should remain at the front. Zhou, Zhu and Wang insisted that he should be kept there, but most of the participants did not agree. After the meeting, Mao was translerred to the rear, on the excuse that he should preside over the work of the Central Government. He was relieved of his post as general political commissar of the First Front Army, and it was given to Zhou Enlai as an added responsibility. At the end of 1932, the Kuomintang concentrated more than thirty divisions and in February 1933 launched the fourth "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the Central Revolutionary Base Area, approaching in three converging columns. I he twelve divisions under the command of Chen Cheng served as the central army of 160,000 men, who were to carry out the mam attack. At this time, the First Front Army had about 70,000 troops The Soviet Area Bureau repeatedly sent telegrams to the front, urging the First Front Army to launch its own attack and quickly occupy Nanfeng and Nancheng. Zhou Enlai replied that the present conditions were not good for attacking cities and that the Red Army should rather seek to wipe out the enemy through mobile warfare. This view was based on a correct assessment of the situation, but it was rejected by the Soviet Area Bureau. Having failed to take Nanfeng, Zhou Enlai and Zhu Dc immediately decided that their main forces should move elsewhere secretly and wait for an opportunity to attack. In two ambushes in Huangbei and Caotaigang, they were able to wipe out three divisions of the well-equipped main force of Chen Cheng and capture more than 10,000 guns. By so doing they smashed the Kuomintang army's fourth "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the Central Soviet Area and set an example of ambush by a large force that was unprecedented in the history of the Red Army. It was during this campaign that the CPC Provisional Central Committee moved to the Central Soviet Area. More than a year before, it had already declared: "We must achieve victory first in several key provinces (Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui). This revolutionary task is not for the future but for the present. All our work must be focused on accomplishing it."32 After moving to the Central Soviet Area, the Provisional Central Committee implemented its "Left" adventuristic policies throughout the Party, the Red Army and the base area. To overcome resistance, organizationally it took a sectarian approach, regarding all cadres who disagreed with its policies as "opportunists," attacking them mercilessly. Luo Ming, acting secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, and Deng Xiaoping, head of the Propaganda Department of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee, opposed this "Left" line of going on the offensive. However, they were denounced as followers of a Right opportunist line who were pessimistic about the revolution and were trying to flee before the enemy. The Provisional Central Committee struggled first against the "Luo Ming line" in Fujian, and then against the "Jiangxi Luo Ming line" of Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zetan, Xie Weijun and Gu Bai in Jiangxi. Its main target was the views of Mao Zedong. This suppression of dissenting opinion threw everyone into a state of anxiety and created an abnormal political atmosphere in the Central Soviet Area. In the second half of 1933, after six months of preparation, Chiang Kai-shek launched a fifth campaign of "encirclement and suppression" against the Central Soviet Area, with himself as commander-in-chief. He had learned from previous failures and now relied "thirty percent on military means and seventy percent 177 on politics." He imposed a tight economic blockade on the Central Soviet Area and utilized the new tactic of building blockhouses and advancing one step at a time. He had already sent a total of one million troops to attack the Red Army in different places. Now, beginning in late September, he sent half a million to attack the Central Soviet Area. By this time, the number of Red Army troops in the Central Soviet Area had grown to more than 80,000. Bo Gu, the leader of the Provisional Central Committee, relied for military command on Li De (the Chinese name of the German Otto Braun), a military adviser associated with the Communist International. Braun had experience only of the formal positional warfare of World War I and knew nothing of the characteristics of the revolutionary war in China. Under his guidance, the Provisional Central Committee abandoned the policy of active defence, which had been effective against the earlier "encirclement and suppression" campaigns. It called the impending conflict "a war to decide between two opposing visions of China's future" and raised the slogans, "Don't give up one inch of the base area!" and "Engage the enemy outside the gates!" It ordered the main forces of the Red Army to march north to fight, with the result that they were obliged to move between the main forces of the enemy and his blockhouses and were reduced to passivity. When the Red Army failed to launch an attack, the Provisional Central Committee shifted to a policy of passive defence. It maintained that the Red Army should be divided for defence purposes and fight a war of short, swift thrusts, attempting to substitute positional warfare for guerrilla and mobile warfare and to fight the well-equipped KMT forces in a war of attrition. Thus, as the war progressed, the Red Army found itself increasingly at a disadvantage. One good opportunity did arise for the Red Army to smash the fifth "encirclement and suppression" campaign. In November 1933 the generals of the KMT's 19th Route Army, which the year before had tried to defend Shanghai against the Japanese, founded the People's Revolutionary Government of the Chinese Republic and appointed Li Jishen as its chairman. They openly declared that they would resist Japanese aggression and oppose Chiang Kai-shek and sent representatives to negotiate cooperation with the Red Army. The two sides signed an initial agreement. On January 17, 1933, the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet and the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army had issued a statement that they were ready to sign an agreement on joint operations to resist Japanese aggression with any armed forces on the following three conditions: 1. they must immediately stop attacking the Soviet areas; 2. they must immediately guarantee the democratic rights of the people (freedom of assembly, association and speech, the right to strike and the right to publish); 3. they must immediately arm the people and establish armed volunteers to defend China and strive for its independence, unity and territorial inlcgrity. This statement was enormously important. However, Bo Gu and others continued to regard the middle-of-the-roaders as the most dangerous enemy. They refused to accept the advice of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian and Peng Dehuai. They held that the action taken by the leaders of the 19th Route Army to resist Japan and oppose Chiang was merely designed to deceive the people, and they refused to cooperate with them in military affairs. As a result, in January 1934, isolated and cut off from help, the Fujian People's Government was defeated by Chiang's military attack and political trickery. Since the Red Army let slip this golden opportunity, Chiang, having defeated the Fujian People's Government, was able to complete his encirclement of the Central Soviet Area. In that same month, the CPC Provisional Central Committee, acting for the 6th Central Committee, held the 5th Plenary Session in Ruijin, Jiangxi. At this meeting the "Left" adventuristic line was pushed to an extreme. The Provisional Central Committee reaffirmed that the fifth counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression" was to be a "struggle for the complete victory of Soviet China," a struggle that would decide whether the country would take "the road of the Soviet or the road of colonialism." Once again identifying the main danger as 179 Rjeht opportunism and warning against any compromise with it, thr Provisional Central Committee continued to be torn by facial strife. Even under the attack of a strong enemy, it intensified the "Left" policy of giving no land to the landlords and only noor land to the rich peasants, broadening the struggle unnecessarily and creating social disorder. But the w'orst consequence of the Provisional Central Committee's continued "Left" adventurism was the failure of the Red Army in the fifth countercampaign against "encirclement and suppression," which led to the abandonment of the Central Soviet Area. In mid-April 1934 the KMT army gathered a superior force to attack Guangchang, the northern gateway to the Central Soviet Area. Bo Gu and Otto Braun decided to concentrate the main forces of the Red Army and build fortifications to hold the town, regardless of the enemy's numerical superiority, and they personally went to the front to direct operations. At the end of eighteen days of bloody battle, the Red Army had suffered heavy casualties and Guangchang had fallen. In early October the KMT army pushed into the heartland of the Central Soviet Area. The main forces of the Red Army were compelled to start a strategic shift of position. The Provisional Central Committee and the Central Red Army (the First Front Army of the Red Army), totalling more than 86,000 men, withdrew from the Central Soviet Area and marched west to break out of their encirclement. This was the beginning of the Long March. In July 1934 the Seventh Army Group of the Red Army was ordered to reorganize as the Vanguard Detachment to Resist the Japanese Invaders in the North and entered the border area of Fujian-Zhejiang-Anhui-Jiangxi. There it joined forces with the Tenth Army of the Red Army, led by Fang Zhirnm, to form the Tenth Army Group, which continued the march north in two columns. However, in January 1935, intercepted and pursued by greatly superior forces of the KMT army, the newly formed army group was routed. Fang Zhimin was captured and executed. As we have seen, in the grim aftermath of the failure of the Great Revolution, the Party, learning lessons paid for in blood and going through trial and error, had begun to revitalize the revolution. In the early period of the Kuomintang's large-scale encirclement and suppression" campaigns against the Soviet areas and the Red Army, thanks to correct policies, the Party and army were still able to win great victories, even though the enemy was much stronger. After the September 18th Incident, national contradictions were intensified and great changes took place in the relations between different classes, creating excellent conditions for the Party and the Red Army to unite with the overwhelming majority of the people and to advance the national democratic revolution. However, at this time the leadership of the CPC Central Committee fell into the hands of "Left" dogmatists who understood nothing about conditions in China but who were trusted by the Communist International. This almost led to the failure of the revolution.

The Zunyi Meeting and the Triumph of the Red Army's Long March

The Long March of the Red Army was a heroic feat unprecedented in history. In October 1934 the Central Red Army (the First Front Army) began the Long March as the forced response to its defeat in the fifth counter-campaign against the enemy's "encirclement and suppression. In trying to break out of the encirclement and effect a strategic shift of position, the leaders of the CPC Central Committee, who had already made "Left" errors, made the further mistake of allowing the troops to flee in disorder, trying to take everything with them. The army carried with it printing equipment, machinery for manufacturing munitions and other cumbersome gear. The entire force of over 80,000 had to travel through mountains along winding trails so narrow that often they could file through only a single pass in one night. The KMT army of "pursuit and suppression," consisting of 77 regiments from 16 divisions deployed on four blockade lines, was 181 made up of the Guangdong Army, the Hunan Army and the Guangxi Army, each of which tried to obstruct and intercept the Red Army. Although the Red Army broke through the four blockade lines one after another, it suffered heavy losses. When it was going to break through the last line along the Xiangjiang River, conflicts between the Hunan and Guangxi warlords brought about a breach in the line. On November 27, 1934, vanguard troops of the Red Army occupied the major ferry point at Jieshou on the east side of the Xiangjiang River. If the troops had been marching with light packs, they might have been able to cross the river quickly, but because they were so heavily laden, they advanced too slowly. Leading organs of the Central Committee were not able to reach the ferry for two days. By this time, the KMT's Hunan and Guangxi armies were already mounting a rapid pincer attack on the ferry, with air support. The Xiangjiang River battle was the fiercest yet fought by the Central Red Army since it had begun the Long March and involved the heaviest losses. The Red Army troops entrenched at the ferry made a tremendous sacrifice to cover the other troops crossing the river. By December 1 the main body of the Red Army had crossed the river, but it had lost on the east bank the entire 34th Division of the Fifth Army Group and the 18th Regiment of the Third Army Group. The Red Army and the detachment from the Central Committee had been reduced from more than 80,000 men to just over 30,000. After this bitter experience, the troops began to feel that the current leadership was no longer satisfactory and that it needed to be changed. Some leaders who had supported the mistaken "Left" line also began gradually to change their attitude in the light of harsh realities. The Zunyi Meeting At this time Chiang Kai-shek, realizing that the Red Army was advancing towards western Hunan Province to join forces with the Second and Sixth Army Groups, shifted the concentration of his troops, arranging them in a pocket-formation to await the entrance of the Central Red Army and then draw the net tight. At this critical juncture, Mao Zedong suggested that, under the circumstances, it would be best to give up the plan to join forces with the Second and Sixth Army Groups and, to march instead to Guizhou Province, where the enemy was relatively weak. This proposal was approved. After occupying the county of Tongdao, on the southwest border of Hunan Province, the troops entered Guizhou. On November 18 the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting at Liping, where it formally abandoned the plan to advance towards western Hunan and decided to march to northern Guizhou instead. On January 7, 1935, the Red Army captured Zunyi, a town of strategic importance in northern Guizhou. Because the Red Army suddenly changed direction, it was able to elude the enemy who had been in hot pursuit, and to have 12 days to rest and regroup in Zunyi. From January 15 to 17 the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Zunyi. The meeting focused on rectifying the "Left" errors in military and organizational matters of decisive importance. Major speeches were made by Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang, all of whom sharply criticized two mistakes—the purely defensive action undertaken during the fifth counter-campaign against the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" and the flight carried out during the Long March. After heated debate, most of those present came to agree with the opinions expressed by Mao and the other two and rejected the views presented in the report by Bo Gu concerning the fifth counter-campaign. The Political Bureau elected Mao Zedong to its Standing Committee and assigned Zhang Wentian to draft for the Central Committee a resolution evaluating the fifth countercampaign. Not long after this meeting, the Standing Committee decided that Zhang Wentian should take over all responsibility from Bo Gu, and it set up a group of three persons—Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang—to take command of all the Red Army's military operations. The Zunyi Meeting actually established the correct leadership of the Central Committee with Mao Zedong at the core. In this critical situation, the meeting saved the Communist Party, the Red Army and the Chinese revolution. It was a life-or-death turning point in the history of the Party. 183 After the Zunyi Meeting, it was as though the Central Red Army had suddenly obtained a new lease on life. Under the command of Mao Zedong and the others, it became more flexible, changing the direction of battle as the situation changed, turning first east, then west and moving circuitously to go around areas of heavy enemy troop concentration. It took the initiative everywhere. West of Zunyi, on the border of Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, the Red Army crossed the Chishui River four times, confusing the enemy and tiring him out by keeping him on the move. Late in March, it crossed the Wujiang River in the south to feign an attack on Guiyang. Chiang Kai-shek, who was supervising operations at Guiyang at the time, hurriedly moved his Yunnan troops up as reinforcements. Mao Zedong had said long before, "If we can just get the Y unnan troops moved out of the province, it will be a victory."33 As soon as this had happened, the Red Army launched a long-range raid on Yunnan, its vanguard troops pressing on the provincial capital, Kunming. At this time Kunming was only lightly defended, so reinforcements were hastily called up from the forces defending the Jinsha River, which were thus seriously weakened. The Red Army again suddenly changed direction to head north, moving rapidly so that by May 9 the entire force had crossed the Jinsha River. In this way it got neatly away from the encirclement, pursuit, obstruction and interception of the KMT army, a force hundreds of thousands strong, and attained a decisive victory in its strategic shift of position. The First and Fourth Front Armies Join Forces After the Central Red Army crossed the Jinsha River, it rested in Huili County in Sichuan for five full days and then continued north. When the army entered the Yi minority area in the Daliang Mountains, Chief of Staff Liu Bocheng, in accordance with the Party's policy on nationalities, participated in a sacrificial ceremony to form an alliance with Xiao Yedan, leader of the Guji tribe of the Yi nationality. He persuaded the other tribes to remain neutral, so that the army was allowed to pass without hindrance through the Yi nationality area and to reach the ferry at Anshunchang on the south bank of the Dadu River. In the area around Anshunchang the river was swift and the mountains steep; it was here that in 1863 during the Taiping Revolution, Shi Dakai's troops were unable to cross to the north and finally met their downfall. Led by seventeen brave men, a part of the Red Army successfully crossed the river. But the main body of troops would have been unable to cross at this point in a reasonable amount of time. It was therefore decided to make a race for the Luding Bridge 170 km. upstream, which the enemy had not yet had time to destroy. The troops covered the distance in two days. A shock force composed of 22 soldiers braved intense enemy fire to climb across the cables of bridge and wipe out the defenders, allowing the Central Red Army to cross. Having overcome this obstacle, the army had to cross the first great snow-capped mountain it was to encounter on the Long March—Jiajin Mountain, south of Maogong. To climb this mountain and descend on the other side required a trek of 35 kilometres. And at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres, the concentration of oxygen was low on the high peaks, causing the men to gasp for breath and feel light-headed; some who sat down to rest could not get up again. By June 12 an advance party of the Central Red Army had crossed the Jiajin Mountain and reached Dawei, southeast of Maogong, where they were met by Li Xiannian, the political commissar of the 30th Army of the Fourth Front Army. (The Fourth Front Army, after emerging victorious from the Jialing River campaign in April, had left the Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet Area and shifted to the west.) Then the First Front Army (the Central Red Army) and the Fourth Front Army joined forces at Lianghekou, north of Maogong. Present at this meeting were Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and Zhang Guotao, leader of the Fourth Front Army. With the joining of these two major forces, the concentration of Red Army troops in the area reached more than a hundred thousand. On the second day after they had come together, the Central Committee called a meeting of the Political Bureau at Lianghekou. Zhou Enlai gave a report on the current strategic principle. At this time, the two front armies had left their former base areas, and the 185 chief problem they confronted now was where to establish a new one. In his report Zhou suggested that the new base area should meet three conditions: 1 ) it should cover a wide area and allow for highly mobile operations; 2) it should have a large population and a fairly sound mass base; and 3) it should have good economic conditions. The conclusion was that they should go to the Sichuan-ShaanxiGansu border region. No one at the meeting made a counterproposal, and this strategic principle was adopted unanimously. Accordingly, the Political Bureau made a decision stating, "Our strategic principle is to concentrate the main forces to attack to the north, wipe out large numbers of the enemy in mobile warfare and seize southern Gansu first in order to build a Sichuan-ShaanxiGansu Soviet Base Area."34 With the joining up of the two main forces, the Red Army's strength was greatly increased, and with the correct strategic principle the situation seemed very favourable. But the Fourth Front Army had over 80,000 men, while the First Front Army had only around 30,000, and the numerical superiority of the men under his command fed Zhang Guolao's ambition. At the Lianghekou meeting he had nodded his head and indicated that he agreed with the principle of moving north. Afterwards, however, he raised all kinds of objections, putting pressure on the Central Committee to appoint him the general political commissar of the Red Army, while all the while secretly considering a move south to the border between Sichuan and Xikang provinces. On August 3 the General Headquarters of the Red Army reorganized the army into left and right columns to march north for the Xiahe River-Taohe River campaign. The right column consisted of the First and Third armies of the First Front Army (at this time, the First, Third, Fifth and Ninth Army Groups of the First Front Army had become the First, Third, Fifth and Thirty-second Armies) and the Fourth and Thirtieth Armies of the Fourth Front Army, accompanied by the detachment from the Central Committee and the Front Command. The left column was composed of the Ninth, Thirty-first and Thirty-third Armies of the Fourth Front Army and the Fifth and Thirty-second Armies of the First Front Army, led by Zhu De, commander-inchief, Zhang Guotao, general political commissar and Liu Bocheng, chief of staff. On August 21 the right column began to cross the grasslands in northern Sichuan. The great stretches of grassland were wild and uninhabited, full of weedy swamps and black, stinking sludge pits. The weather changed unpredictably; sometimes fierce winds would blow from all sides with torrential rain, at other times there would be whirling snow and sudden hail. If a man made the slightest miscalculation when approaching a quagmire, he would be swallowed up. The cadres and soldiers had to trek over long distances with little food and salt, and the cold and hunger sapped their strength; in the end many died on the grasslands. Nevertheless, after marching six days and nights, the right column emerged at last to wait for the pre-arranged meeting with the left column. At this point, however, unexpected news arrived: Zhang Guotao, giving all kinds of pretexts, refused to march north and, instead, wanted the right column to march south. Attempting to split the Central Committee and endanger its safety, on September 9 Zhang sent a telegram without the knowledge of the Committee to Chen Changhao, the right column's political commissar, ordering him to lead the column south. When Ye Jianying, who was serving as chief of staff of the right column, saw the telegram, he immediately reported it to Mao Zedong. Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu held an urgent discussion and decided that to avoid possible internal conflicts in the Red Army, they should set out that very night to lead the First and Third Armies and a detachment of the Military Commission north, in accordance with the strategic principle. Some cadres of the Fourth Front Army did not understand the true situation and advocated the use of force to bar their way. However, Xu Xiangqian, commander-in-chief of the Fourth Front Army, forbade any such action, preserving the unity of the Red Army. The next day the Central Committee sent a telegram to Zhang Guotao demanding that he immediately lead his troops north, which he still refused to do. On September 12 at Ejie, the Political Bureau held an enlarged meeting at which it adopted a "Decision On Comrade Zhang Guotao's Errors" and renamed the part of the Red Army that was marching north, the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment. The Red Army Marches North and Its Three Main Forces Join Together After the Ejie meeting, the Central Committee led the ShaanxiGansu Detachment rapidly north. On September 17, 1935, they reached Lazikou, a natural barrier of steep cliffs and overhanging rocks on the Sichuan-Gansu border. Scaling the cliffs, the vanguard troops made a surprise attack on the rear of the defending KMT troops and in one stroke broke through to the wide-open terrain of southern Gansu. Immediately after that they occupied the town of Hadapu. Here they learned from a newspaper that in northern Shaanxi there was a very large Soviet area and a big contingent of the Red Army. On the 27th the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau held a meeting at Bangluo Town and decided to press on to northern Shaanxi. On October 19 the Red Army that was marching north reached Wuqi Town in the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area. At the beginning of November, in Ganquan, it joined up with the Fifteenth Army Group, led by Xu Haidong, Cheng Zihua and Liu Zhidan, which had been active in the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area. The Long March of the Central Red Army, which had covered 12,500 kilometres and crossed eleven provinces, finally came to an end, bringing victory for the Communist Party of China and the Red Army and defeat for the enemy. Late in September Zhang Guotao, still persistently moving south in his split with the Central Committee, ordered the former left column and part of the former right column to recross the grasslands, planning to head for the area of Baoxing, Lushan and Tianquan counties in western Sichuan, where grain was fairly plentiful. On October 5 he openly established a separate "Central Committee," of which he appointed himself chairman. Zhu Dc and Liu Bocheng resolutely struggled with Zhang, patiently trying, along with Xu Xiangqian and others who opposed the split, to convince the officers and men that he had misled them. On January 22, 1936, the Central Committee adopted the "Decision on Comrade Zhang Guotao's Establishment of a Second ‘Central Committee,"' instructing Zhang to immediately dissolve his "Central Committee" and to stop all anti-Party activity. Zhang Guotao's attempt to split the Party was not popular in the Fourth Front Army. The troops who moved south again suffered heavy casualties in battle, and by April only about 40,000 men were left, less than half the original number. At this time, the Central Committee again sent one telegram after another urging the Fourth Front Army to head north. Meanwhile, the Second and Sixth Army Groups were about to arrive in western Sichuan Province. Zhang Hao, in the name of the CPC's delegation to the Communist International, also sent a telegram to Zhang Guotao, asking him to dissolve his "Central Committee" and establish a Southwest Bureau of the Central Committee instead. Under these circumstances, Zhang Guotao had little choice but to announce the dissolution of his "Central Committee" on June 6, 1936. Meanwhile, in November 1935, the Second and Sixth Army Groups led by Ren Bishi, He Long and others, which had been active in the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Revolutionary Base Area, had also set out for the north from Sangzhi County, Hunan. They too experienced many hardships and perils, crossing the Jinsha River and snow-capped mountains to join up at last, on July 2, 1936, with the Fourth Front Army at Ganzi in western Sichuan. The Central Committee ordered the Second and Sixth Army Groups to combine with the Thirty-second Army to become the Second Front Army, with He Long as commander-inchief and Ren Bishi as political commissar. Through the efforts of Zhu De, Ren Bishi, He Long and others, and with the support of many of the officers and men of the Fourth Front Army, the Second and Fourth Front Armies finally marched north together. On October 9, the staff of the Fourth Front Army headquarters reached Huining County in Gansu to join forces with the First Front Army. On the 22nd the staff of the Second Front Army headquarters arrived at Jiangtaibu, north of Jingning County, Gansu, where it too joined up with the First Front Army. This marked the victorious completion of the Long March for the Second and Fourth Front Armies as well. 189 Late in October a part of the Fourth Front Army received instructions from the Central Military Commission to cross the Yellow River to the west and begin a campaign in Ningxia. In the first half of November, in accordance with a decision of the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, the troops crossing the river changed their name to the West Route Army. Under conditions of extreme hardship, they fought alone for four months, annihilating more than twenty thousand enemy troops, until in March of 1937, being greatly outnumbered, they were defeated. After the main forces of the Red Army set out on the Long March, the part that had remained behind, both north and south of the Yangtze River, under the leadership of Xiang Ying, Chen Yi and others, together with guerrilla forces, independently carried out three years of guerrilla warfare in fifteen areas spread over eight provinces. Although they met with great hardship—they lost contact with the CPC Central Committee, and the enemy broke them up and blockaded them—with the support of the masses they were able to overcome one difficulty after another, maintaining their own strength, holding their ground and making a great contribution to the Chinese revolution. Meanwhile, the anti-Japanese armed forces in northeast China, under the leadership of the Communist Party, continued the struggle in extremely difficult circumstances. They included the First, Second, Third and Sixth Armies of the Northeast People's Revolutionary Army, the Fourth Army of the Northeast AntiJapanese Allied Army, the Fifth Army of the Northeast AntiJapanese United Army, the Tangyuan Guerrilla Corps, etc. Later these units became the main armed strength of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. The triumph of the Long March of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was the turning point for the Chinese revolution. 1 he officers and men of the Red Army maintained unswerving faith in the victory of the revolution. Eluding pursuit and breaking through blockades by large numbers of KMT troops, overcoming the natural barriers of snow-capped mountains and the grasslands, suffering cold, hunger, wounds and sickness, surmounting the crisis of the internal split in the Party and victoriously completing the Long March, all under conditions of extreme hardship, they demonstrated amazing stamina, courage and resourcefulness. The legendary stories of the Long March, which have circulated both in China and abroad, show that the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army were invincible. Before the KMT's filth "encirclement and suppression" campaign, the Red Army had grown to 300,000 men. Because of the errors made by the Party leadership, the revolution suffered a grave setback, and when the three main forces of the Red Army joined together at the end of the Long March they numbered less than 30,000. However, these troops, which were what remained after rigorous testing, were the cream of the Communist Party and of the Red Army, and they were to become the core force in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the People's War of Liberation. During the Long March they had spread the seeds of revolution everywhere along the way. Just as the flames of war with Japan were about to ignite across the country, the three Red Army contingents joined forces in northern Shaanxi, not far from the anti-Japanese battlefront. The historic importance of the victory of the Long March cannot be overestimated.

The Party's Struggle to Establish an Anti-Japanese United Front

After the September 18th Incident of 1931, the Japanese invaders incessantly attacked in an effort to occupy the whole of China exclusively. The KMT authorities, while devoting all their strength to "encircling and suppressing" the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on the Long March, steadily retreated before the Japanese. In February 1935 Chiang Kai-shek, speaking to a Japanese reporter, said, "China and Japan need to cooperate with each other.... The Chinese people have taken no action to fight 191 the Japanese, have no desire to fight them and, furthermore, have h need to do so."35 However, the deep penetration of the country hv a heavily armed enemy raised a nationwide wave of resistance to the invaders, going against the will of Chiang Kai-shek s Kuomintang. The North China Incident and the December 9th Movement Shortly before the Red Army, marching north under the leadership of the Central Committee of the CPC, reached the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region, the Japanese militarists took advantage of the KMT's policy of non-resistance to intensify their efforts to take north China. Their first step was to use the June 1935 He-Umezu Agreement (an agreement between the KM1 commanding officer in Beiping, He Yingqin and the commander of the Japanese troops stationed in north China, Yoshijiro Ume zu) to force the KMT Central Army to evacuate Beiping, Tianjin and Hebei Province. The second step was to instigate the autonomy" movement in the five provinces of north China (Hebei, Chahar, Shanxi, Shandong and Suiyuan). In October the director of the Japanese secret service in Shenyang, Kenji Dohihara, in the name of the Japanese Kwantung Army that had occupied the city, made several demands of Song Zheyuan, commander of the 29th Army, which was garrisoned in Beiping, Tianjin, Hebei and Chahar. These included that he announce the establishment of a North China Autonomous Government in an open telegram and dismiss all the north China officials appointed by Nanjmg^On November 6 Kenji Dohihara even insolently ordered Song Zheyuan to announce autonomy before November 20 or the Japanese would send five divisions to take Hebei and six to take Shandong. The Japanese army then began shifting large masses of troops to north China. At the instigation of the Japanese secret service, Yin Rugeng, the supervisory commissioner of the KM 1 government s Jimi Prefecture in Hebei Province, set up a separatist regime consisting of 22 counties in eastern Hebei and established the Eastern Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Administration in Tongxian County on the outskirts of Beiping. In December the KMT established the Hebei-Chahar Political Council in Beiping with Song Zheyuan as chairman, imposing a special administration in north China. Dark clouds gathered over the skies of Beiping and Tianjin, and all of north China was in imminent danger. The reaction of the people in north China was naturally intense, particularly among the students, who were closely following the development of the political situation. Beiping students shouted with grief and indignation, "North China is vast, but there is no room in it now for quiet study!" At a time when almost all the Party organizations in the KMT area had been destroyed, one provincial Party committee in Hebei survived and over thirty Party members no longer connected with an organization remained in Beiping. In late spring and early summer of 1935, Li Changqing, a special representative from the Hebei Provincial Party Committee went to Beiping to establish a CCP Interim Work Committee there. The committee, composed of Peng Tao and others, appointed Zhou Xiaozhou to take charge of the work of the Beiping branch of the Chinese National Armed Selfdefence Council. With the people's anti-Japanese sentiment growing stronger every day, students in Beiping, led by the CPC Interim Work Committee and organized and directed by Huang Jing, Yao Yilin, Guo Mingqiu and other Party members, raised a cry of protest in a demonstration held on December 9. Students of Qinghua, Yanjing and other universities in the suburbs started marching downtown but were blocked by military police, and a conflict broke out at Xizhimen Gate at the northwest corner of the city wall. At Xinhuamen, in the centre of town, one or two thousand students broke through the military police lines, shouting, "Down with imperialism!" "Stop the civil war!" "Unite against the enemy!" and other slogans as they tried to present a petition to the government. Because they got no response, they began a protest march. By the time the procession reached Wangfujing Street, the crowd had increased to 3,000. The military police suddenly turned a water cannon on the demonstrators and charged them from both sides, brandishing whips, gunstocks and billyclubs. The demonstrators were dispersed, and more than 193 forty students were injured. The next day, the student body of every school in Beiping boycotted classes en masse. The storm quickly swept the whole country. Beginning on December 11, student gatherings and demonstrations took place in Tianjin, Baoding, Taiyuan, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Quangzhou and other large and mediumsized cities. Factory workers in many areas went on strike. 1 atriotic societies and individuals in Shanghai and other places established national salvation committees, sent open telegrams and launched publications calling for an end to the civil war and for the despatch of soldiers to fight the Japanese. Late in December the Students' Union of Beiping, under the leadership of the Party, organized a propaganda team for the area south of and Tianjin. This team went out into the countryside of Hebei Province to spread anti-Japanese propaganda, thus joining in solidarity with the workers and peasants. The propaganda team was expanded into the Chinese National Liberation Vanguard Corps. The students of Shanghai, Wuhan, Jinan and other cities also went to the countryside to spread the word. Some prolessors and scholars who had formerly been unwilling to participate in political activities wrote articles supporting resistance to the Japanese and nationwide cooperation. The struggle against the Japanese and for national salvation grew into a turbulent nationwide mass movement. _ The December 9th Movement, as it came to be called, not only raised the people's awareness of the crisis lacing the nation but demonstrated to them their own strength. It showed that only by uniting all forces within the country could the Japanese invasion be defeated, and it increased the people's determination to light to save China. . o1 These events demonstrated that in the winter of 1935 the political situation in China was on the eve of a great change. The KMT was neither willing nor able to lead the anti-Japanese forces among the people; instead, it stood in their way. The KM 1 with its many internal factions all jockeying for supremacy, which often led to large-scale internecine strife, was also incapable of effecting nation wide unity. Under the KMT, the feudal land relations had not changed one iota. Since it could not alter China's semi-colonial semi-feudal status, it could not turn China into a capitalist country! At this time China's heavy industry was negligible. In 1933 total output of steel was only 35,000 tons, and the most developed light industry was cotton textiles. However, between 1927 and 1936, the number of spindles owned by foreign capital increased from 42.9 percent of the total to 46.2 percent, while the share held by capital of the national bourgeoisie dropped from 57.1 percent to 53.8. During the same period, the share of looms owned by foreign capital increased from 54.8 percent to 5 8.1, with a corresponding drop from 45.2 percent to 41.9 in the share owned by capital of the national bourgeoisie. When the KMT authorities began to take over political power throughout the country, the middle class expected they would develop China's capitalist economy, but instead they brought the country to the brink of national subjugation. The mission of ringing together the various forces calling for resistance to Japan and organizing an anti-Japanese national united front fell to the Communist Party. Whether the Party could carry out this mission would determine whether it could introduce the next stage of the Chinese revolution. The Wayaobu Meeting On July 25, 1935, the Communist International held its Seventh Congress. At this meeting General Secretary Georgi Dirni-fru' t renownecl Bulgarian activist, delivered a report entitled 1 he Tascist Attack and the Communist International's Task for the Unity of the Working Class in Its Anti-fascist Struggle," in which he raised for the worldwide communist movement' the question of creating a united front to combat fascism. On August 1 the CPC delegation to the Communist International drafted An Appeal to All Fellow-Countrymen for Resistance Against Japan and lor National Salvation" in the name of the Chinese Soviet Central Government and the CPC Central Committee Soon afterwards this document was publicly promulgated and became commonly known as the "August 1st Declaration " 195 Shortly after the Red Army finished its 12,500-km Long March to northern Shaanxi and gained a firm foothold there, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau was held at Wayaobu from December 17 to 25 to discuss military strategy, the political situation in China and the Party's tactical line. At this meeting, Mao Zedong asserted that the strategic principle should be to wage a resolute national revolutionary war, first of all subordinating the civil war to the national war and the entire war effort to the fight against the Japanese invaders. He believed that China's national bourgeoisie had a dual nature and could be won over. The Political Bureau adopted the Central Committee's "Resolution on the Present Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party," drafted by Zhang Wentian. This resolution staled in part: "Changes have taken place or are taking place in the relations between all classes, strata, political parties and armed forces in China's political life.... Therefore, the Party's tactical line is to arouse, unite and organize the revolutionary forces throughout the country and among all the nationalities to oppose the chief enemy confronting them, namely, Japanese imperialism and the arch-traitor Chiang Kai-shek."36 It added that the main danger within the Party was "closed -doorism." Two days later, at a meeting of Party activists, Mao Zedong made a report in the spirit of the Wayaobu meeting. In a report entitled "On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism," he began by asking, "What is the present situation?" and answering, "Its main characteristic is that Japanese imperialism wants to turn China into a colony."37 "This," he said, "faces all classes and political groups in China with the question of what to do."38 Mao pointed out that the workers and peasants were all demanding resistance, as was the petty bourgeoisie, and that even the attitude of the national bourgeoisie was likely to change in the new circumstances. "When the national crisis reaches a crucial point," he added, "splits will occur in the Kuomintang camp."39 Summing up the question of class relations, he said, "The basic change in the situation, namely, the Japanese invasion of China south of the Great Wall, has changed the relationship among the various classes in China, strengthening the camp of national revolution and weakening that of counter-revolution."40 Therefore, the Party's basic tactical task was to form a broad revolutionary national united front. Rejecting the closed-door tactics advocated by some, he declared, "In order to attack the forces of the counterrevolution, what the revolutionary forces need today is to organize millions upon millions of the masses and move a mighty revolutionary army into action."41 The Wayaobu meeting was one of the most important held in the turbulent period between the Second Revolutionary Civil War and the War of Resistance Against Japan. It showed that the Party, having overcome the "Left" adventurism and "closeddoorism" that had dominated the thinking of the leadership in the period before the Long March, had lost no time in formulating the policy of a national united front against Japan, thus gaining the political initiative in the period to come. It also showed that the Party had matured through the lessons it had learned from its victories and defeats, and that it was capable of adapting to a new situation and creatively carrying out its work. After the Wayaobu meeting, the troops of the First Front Army, called the "Anti-Japanese Vanguard Corps of the Chinese People's Red Army," prepared to march east to directly engage the Japanese army in battle. Their purpose was to expand the base areas and the anti-Japanese armed forces. Led by Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai, they crossed the Yellow River in northern Shaanxi and entered Shanxi, beginning the Eastern Expedition campaign. Meanwhile, practical measures were taken to strengthen the united front. The work was done between two groups, the general civilian population and the high-ranking KMT military officers. First, the Party did all it could to foster the anti-Japanese national salvation movement, which had begun to grow after the December 9th students' movement. In the spring of 1936, the Central Committee of the CPC sent Liu Shaoqi to Tianjin to serve as secretary of the Party's Northern Bureau and strengthen Party leadership of the national salvation movement there. This movement of the students of Beiping and Tianjin, severely suppressed 197 hv the KMT authorities, was flagging. After arriving m Tianjin, Liu Shaoqi began publishing articles in the spirit of the Wayaobu meeting with such titles as "Eliminating ‘Closed-doorism and Adventurism," systematically explaining the Party s line and policies. He emphasized the need to expand the revolutionary Ces in preparation for a decisive battle, as well as the need to build long-term relations with the masses. This last would enable the Party to carry out intensive propaganda work, consolidate and enlarge the anti-Japanese national united front, increase its own strength and improve its position. Referring to the problems relating to the Beiping and Tianjin students movement, he called for a correct implementation of the united front policy in handling relations with the teachers and school officials as well as with the 29th Army and General Song Zheyuan, encouraging them to move in the right direction. Liu worked hard to rebuild and strengthen Party organizations in north China which had been seriously damaged, opening a new chapter in their work The Central Committee of the CPC and its delegation to the Communist International sent Feng Xuefeng and Pan Hanman to Shanghai to reestablish connections with Party organizations there that had lost contact with the Central Committee and to expand united front work. In May 1936 a number of patriots, including Soong Ching Ling, Shen Junru, Zou Taolen, Tao Xingzhi and Zhang Naiqi, announced in Shanghai the establishment of the All-China Federation of All Circles for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, which called for cessation of the civil war and united opposition to the Japanese. One after another, antiJapanese national salvation associations in Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping and many other cities joined the new federation. Later, the All-China Students' Federation was founded, giving further impetus to the nationwide patriotic movement of youth working to save the nation. , • Second, the Party did everything possible to persuade senior KMT officials and army generals to support the anti- Japanese national salvation movement. Mao Zedong and Zhou many letters to them. In the case of the KM f s Northeastern Army headed by Zhang Xueliang, this work was notably successful. The majority of the officers and men of the Northeastern Army, already appalled to see their hometowns fall into enemy hands and eager to return there to fight, had no wish to combat the Red Army, which supported resistance to the Japanese. Their attitude had an effect on Zhang Xueliang and the senior officers. Progressives who were born in northeast China, such as Du Zhongyuan and others, also did a great deal of work to convince Zhang Xueliang. The CPC Central Committee twice sent Li Kenong, chief of the Liaison Bureau, to talk with Zhang about cooperating to resist the invaders. On the evening of April 9, 1936, Zhou Enlai and Zhang Xueliang had a secret meeting in a church in Yan'an. They agreed on the need to stop the civil war and work together in the resistance, exchanged ideas on a number of issues and finally reached an agreement. The Party's efforts to achieve a united front were also effective with Yang Hucheng, who, as commander-in-chief of the KMT's Seventeenth Route Army and head of the Pacification Headquarters in Xi'an, was the leader of those who were in actual control of Shaanxi Province. Yang was in favour of resistance to Japan, had certain other progressive ideas and was friendly with some members of the CPC. The Central Committee sent a succession of people to see him, including Wang Feng and Wang Shiying, and concluded a preliminary agreement of cooperation with him. In this way, by the summer of 1936 hostilities between the Red Army and the Northeastern and Seventeenth Route Armies had virtually ceased. This was the first major victory of the Party's united front policy in northwest China. A similar victory was achieved in Shanxi. In October 1936 the Northern Bureau of the CPC Central Committee sent Bo Yibo and four other Party members (later increased to a total of 16) to Taiyuan, in response to an invitation from Yan Xishan. Yan, who was the leader of those who were in actual control of Shanxi Province, had asked for the Party's help in preparing for armed resistance. The Northern Bureau decided to establish the CPC Shanxi Working Committee, with Bo Yibo as secretary. This committee was set up especially to direct overt, legal activities, carrying out high-level united front work and developing the 199 nti- Japanese national salvation movement. It reported directly an h Northern Bureau and was kept strictly separate from t Party's^nderground Shanxi Interim Provincial Committee, with , . v, it had no horizontal connections. WhAt this time there was an important anti-Japanese gr°uP in Qhfnxi called the "League of Self-Sacrifice for National Salvation " or the "Self-Sacrifice League" for short. Because of opposi ■ from the KMT authorities, within a month after the foundXof the orgfnTzaUon. it essentially ceased to function In the first half of November, however, after he arnved in Shanxi, Bo Yibo took over as secretary of the League and assumed resP°n^ bility for its activities. After that, the League evo ve in anti-Japanese national united front organization under he lead ershin of the CPC. The organization spread from Taiyuan to every county in the province, and with its encouragement the national salvation movement flourished throughout Shanxi. In "he early months of 1937, the CPC Shanx, Working Committee began to train military and government cadres with a view to building a revolutionary armed force in the province. The Approach of KMT-CPC Cooperation The attitude of Chiang Kai-shek and the Central Executive Committee of the KMT towards resistance to Japan began to Change after the North China Incident. Under , he . usion that the problems between the two countries could t* ^before the dinlomacv Chiang had backed down time after time before the Japanese But the illusion was destroyed as the invaders steadily pressed on When the North China Incident took place, direcUy threatening the very existence of the Nanjing government, the K uomln t ang1 had no choice but to consider changing its policy t°'c)n November 19, 1935, the 5th National Congre^of the KMT adopted a resolution proposed by Ch,ang Kai-shek. Chiang s statement recommending this resolution contained a key sent ence- "While there is still some hope of peace, we must under no circumstances' give up on peace, and while the time for self sacrifice is not yet at hand, we must not speak lightly of selfsacrifice." This sentence implied that when the time was at hand, there would be no choice but to "give up on peace" and resolutely face "self-sacrifice." In January of the following year Japan's foreign minister, Hirotake Hirota, announced three principles, which, among other demands, called for "coordination of the economies of China, Japan and Manchuria." This meant recognition of Manchukuo, which Chiang found it hard to accept. Later he wrote, "The situation of the time was very clear: if we rejected his principles it would mean war, and if wc acceded to his demands it would mean extinction."42 The voracious appetite of the Japanese militarists left Chiang Kai-shek less and less room to manoeuvre. Faced with this situation, at the end of 1935 the Nanjing government began to look for a way out, asking for assistance from the Soviet Union and even seeking ways to make contact with the Communist Party of China. Chiang later explained his policy this way: "War between China and Japan was now inevitable and, while the National Government was negotiating with the Soviet Union, it was also looking for ways to solve the problem of the Communist Party of China."43 After this, the KMT and the CPC made secret contacts through a variety of channels. With the help of Soong Ching Ling, the leadership of the KMT sought out Dong Jianwu, a Protestant minister and a Communist Party member. On February 27, 1936, Dong secretly made a trip to Wayaobu to see Bo Gu, carrying the message that the KMT authorities wanted to negotiate with the CPC Central Committee. On March 4 Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai, who were at the front lines in Shanxi at the time, sent a telegram to Dong Jianwu through Bo Gu expressing the Party's eagerness to negotiate. "We enthusiastically welcome this wise and sensible gesture from the Nanjing authorities," they said, "and wc should like to begin concrete, practical negotiations with them in order to bring together all forces in the country to resist Japan and save the nation." In addition, they made five concrete demands: 1. All civil war should stop and there should be no distinction between Red and White troops in the armed forces: all must resist 201 JaP2anA government of national defence and a united anti'TV'S S forces 5 ffSU «,™*™ « hould be allowed to concentrate without delay in Hebei, so that thev can first of all resist the advance of the Japanese invader . 4 All political prisoners should be released, and the people *—* »«■nalaffairsand the «;onomy." back t0 Nanjing. iS- the KMT and the CPC which had been broken off more than eight years earlier, had been reestab '^'rtfshow their sincerity, the entire Anti-Japanese Vanguard Corns of the Chinese People's Red Army, which had crossed the Yellow River from Shaanxi into Shanxi, crossed back and sent an open telegram to the Nanjing government. ln_,this ,tele.®" P abandoned its anti-Chiang Kai-shek stand and called upon the KMT to enter into peace negotiations to stop the t civd war : a d to ioin the CPC in fighting Japan. On August 25 the CPC Centra Committee sent an open letter to the Kuomintang t the current peril facing the whole nation had been brought about by the wron" P°licy pursued by the KMT a policy that must be radically changed. In the letter the CPC declared. "We are ready to form with you a solid, revolutionary, united front like the one against imperialist a"d feudal oppression ha existed during the great revolutionary period of 1925 2/, tor tnat ^the onN way today to save the nation from subjugation and ensure ^survival.... Only if the Kuommtang and the Communist Party of China once again work together and cooperate with every11 political party, group and sector across the country will it be possible to save the country and ensure its survival. b On September 1 the CPC Central Committee issued an internal dir^%Tetp:n^mperialists continuing their attack and the national revolutionary movement growing across the country. is possible that Chiang Kai-shek's entire army, or at least the greater part, may join in resisting Japan. Our general policy should be to force Chiang Kai-shek to resist Japan.... We are now informing [the KMT] that to facilitate negotiations, the CPC Central Committee is prepared to send representatives immediately or to receive representatives from the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek in the Soviet Area." The Central Committee was now considering the possibility of holding high-level negotiations with the KMT, perhaps sending Zhou Enlai as its representative. The shift from opposing Chiang Kai-shek to forcing him to resist Japan, made in accordance with the changing class relations in the country, was an important change of policy for the Party. But it did not prove easy to carry out the new policy. Chiang was still committed to opposing the Communists. When he spoke of "solving the problem of the Communist Party of China," what he actually wanted was that the CPC should surrender to the KMT and accept reorganization, meaning, in particular, that the Party's armed forces would have to be dissolved to "effect a solution by political means." Naturally, this was impossible. He therefore continued to seek such a solution by force. Thus, in the autumn of 1936, when Chiang Kai-shek had settled 'the Guangdong-Guangxi Incident, he moved swiftly, concentrating his troops in preparation tor a new attempt to suppress the revolutionary base area in northern Shaanxi.44 The steadily mounting tide of the anti-Japanese national salvation movement in the country was also causing Chiang great anxiety. In Shanghai, on the night of November 22, the KMT government arrested seven leaders of the All-China Federation of All Circles for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, Shen Junru, Zhang Naiqi, Zou Taofen, Li Gongpu, Sha Qianli, Wang Zaoshi and Shi Liang, and took them to a jail in Suzhou. This created a stir for a while, and the case became known as "the jailing of the seven patriotic leaders." Shortly thereafter the KMT government arrested the leaders of the Nanjing National Salvation Society, Sun Xiaocun and Cao Mengjun. These arrests aroused the indignation of people from every sector across the country and provoked a vast movement calling for the prisoners' release. In the midst of 203 this movement came the Xi'an Incident. The Peaceful Resolution of the Xi'an Incident The KMT general Zhang Xueliang had on many occasions strongly urged Chiang Kai-shek to stop the civil war and join in the fight against Japanese aggression, but each time Chiang had refused. On December 4, 1936, he mustered the army of approximately 30 divisions directly under his control and prepared to set out from Henan for Shaanxi and Gansu to "suppress the Communists." Chiang flew to the city of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province. There he ordered General Zhang Xueliang and General Yang Hucheng to lead all their troops to the front line in northern Shaanxi to fight the Red Army. Zhang and Yang pleaded with him for several days on end, but he harshly rebuked them. On the afternoon of December 7 Zhang went to Huaqingchi in Lintong County on the outskirts of Xi'an, where Chiang was staying, and tried once more to explain to him the gravity of the Japanese threat. The two men argued for two or three hours, until Zhang was in tears. Finally Chiang pounded the table and shouted, "Even if you were to take a gun and shoot me dead, it wouldn't change my policy of suppressing the Communists."45 This forced Zhang and Yang to the conclusion that the only way to convince him was to start a mutiny. Before dawn on December 12, a contingent of the Northeastern Army under Zhang's command, acting on the plan worked out by Zhang and Yang, swiftly surrounded Huaqingchi and seized Chiang Kai-shek. Meanwhile, the KMT's Seventeenth Route Army was moving to take control of the entire city of Xi'an, and had taken Chen Cheng, Wei Lihuang, Jiang Dingwen, Zhu Shaoliang and other important KMT officers and officials into custody. Zhang and Yang also sent an open telegram explaining the reasons for the mutiny and making eight proposals, as follows: 1. The Nanjing government should be reorganized to accommodate all parties and groups and make saving the nation their common responsibility. 2. The civil war must stop altogether. The patriotic leaders imprisoned in Shanghai should be immediately released. 4. All political prisoners in the country should be released. 5. The ban on mass patriotic movements should be lifted. 6. All political rights including freedom of assembly and association should be guaranteed. 7. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Testament should be executed to the letter. 8. A national salvation meeting should be convened without delay. This was the Xi'an Incident, which shook China and the rest of the world. Naturally, it came as a great shock to the Nanjing government. Among the authorities two views emerged as to how to handle the incident. Some supported sending a punitive expedition against Zhang and Yang, while others advocated negotiations to free Chiang. He Yingqin, the pro-Japanese Minister of War, having obtained authorization to conduct a troop transfer, mustered the East and West Column Armies in preparation for an assault on Xi'an. In the meantime, Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kaishek], H. H. Rung, T.V. Soong and other relatives of Chiang who belonged to a faction aligned with Britain and the United States, in spite of opposition from He Yingqin, worked to find a peaceful resolution of the Xi'an Incident and to secure Chiang's release. The Communist Party had no prior knowledge of the Xi'an Incident. Immediately after Chiang's arrest, Zhang Xueliang sent a telegram to the CPC Central Committee asking for suggestions. In response, the Central Committee despatched Zhou Enlai to Xi'an, where he arrived on December 17. The Central Committee completely approved of Zhang and Yang's stand and of their purpose in detaining Chiang. After careful analysis of the situation, it came to the following conclusion. If Xi'an were put in a position antagonistic to Nanjing, it might prove extremely dangerous for the Chinese nation, igniting a new, large-scale civil war, which would be welcomed only by Japan and the proJapanese faction. At present it was still possible to work for a peaceful solution, thus ending the civil war and creating conditions for a unified effort to resist Japan. This would be welcomed 205 hv all the people in the country, and especially by all parties, amuDS sectors and armies who were in favour of resistance. For these reasons, the CPC Central Committee supported a peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident. When the KMT authorities in Nanjing understood that neither Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng nor the Communist Party had any intention of harming Chiang Kai-shek and that they wished to resolve the incident peacefully, they sent T.V. Soong and Soong Mei-ling to Xi'an on December 22 to negotiate. Zhou Enlai participated in the negotiations with Zhang and Yang After two days of discussion, Soong Mei-ling issued a series of statements promising, among other things, that the KMT would cease its suppression of the Communists, and that in three months it would launch a war of resistance against Japan. On the evening of December 24, Zhou Enlai, accompanied by the two Soongs, went to see Chiang Kai-shek. Once again Chiang told Zhou to his face, "The suppression of Communists will stop, there will be an alliance with the Red Army to resist Japan.... The next day Zhang Xueliang, without notitying Zhou Enlai, accompanied Chiang on a flight back to Nanjing. As soon as they arrived, Chiang placed Zhang under arrest. When the news reached Xi'an, there was pandemonium, and once again the danger of civil war seemed imminent. In this most dillicuit situation, Zhou Enlai carefully set to work, preserving the peaceful resolution of the incident at last. After this the civil war basically ceased, and relations between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang developed rapidly. The Xi'an Incident showed how intense the demand tor a united resistance had become throughout the country, even within the ranks of the KMT. The CPC, instead of taking advantage of Chiang Kai-shek's predicament, had done everything possible to see that the incident was settled peacefully, thus showing the sincerity of its intentions to unite with the rest of the country to resist Japan. The Xi'an Incident took place just as the objective conditions for renewed KMT-CPC cooperation were ripening, and its effect was to push those conditions to fruition. At a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on December 27, 1936, Mao Zedong said, "The Xi'an Incident was the key to the transformation of the KMT. If not for that incident, the transformation might have taken longer, since a certain degree of compulsion was definitely needed to force the transformation upon it.... What put an end to the civil war after ten years? It was the Xi'an incident." In an effort to ensure that cooperation between the KMT and CPC was actually carried out, on February 10, 1937, the CPC Central Committee sent a telegram to the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of the KMT. In this telegram the CPC asked that the KMT make it the national policy to do the following: ( 1 ) end all civil wars and concentrate the country's strength in a united effort to meet the foreign aggression; (2) guarantee freedom of speech, assembly and association, and release all political prisoners; (3) call a conference of representatives of all political parties, people of all walks of life and all armies, and concentrate the nation's talents in a common endeavour to save the country; (4) speedily complete all preparations for resisting Japan; and (5) improve the livelihood of the people. If the KMT adopted this policy, the telegram said, the CPC would pledge the following: (1) the policy of armed insurrection to overthrow the National Government will be discontinued throughout the country; (2) the Workers' and Peasants' Democratic Government will be renamed the Government of the Special Region of the Republic of China and the Red Army will be redesignated as part of the National Revolutionary Army, and they will come under the direction of the Central Government in Nanjing and its Military Council respectively; (3) a thoroughly democratic system based on universal suffrage will be put into effect in the areas under the Government of the Special Region; and (4) the policy of confiscating the land of the landlords will be discontinued and the common programme of the anti-Japanese national united front resolutely carried out.47 207 Making these four pledges meant yielding a great deal to the KMT but it was a principled and necessary step. It was the on y to stop the confrontation between the two political powers in country and bring about their cooperation in the resistance ag WEen^he five demands and four pledges of the CPC became known they received widespread support, including support rom STfaction of the KMT that favoured resistance. At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 5th Central Executive Committee of the KMT it was proposed that the KMT should return to the Three Great Policies" of Sun Yat-sen: alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers The group calling for this move included not only Soong Ching Ling, He Xiangning and others who had always taken a revolutionary stand, together with Feng Ynxiang and others who had vigorously supported resistance ever since the September 18th Incident, but also founding members of the Kuomintang like Zhang Jingjiang, Li Shizeng, Sun Ke and Li Liejun This broad spectrum of supporters reflected the great popularity the proposal had already achieved. In January 1937 the leading organs of the CPC Central Com mittee moved from Bao'an in northern Shaanxi to Yan an. In May the Party held a National Conference there (known then as the Representative Conference of the Soviet Areas) which was attended by representatives from the Soviet areas, the White areas and the Red Army. Mao Zedong gave a report entitled The Tasks of the Communist Party of China in the Period of Resistance to Japan" and a concluding speech entitled Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front. Afterwards, the representatives from the White areas held a separate meeting. In July and August Mao Zedong eemred on philosophy at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in Yan'an and wrote his celebrated essays "On Practice and Contradiction." These two essays were written to counter the dogmatism rampant in the Party at the time, but they are also Marxist philosophical works of permanent importance. On various occasions the CPC sent Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, in Boqu, Bo Gu and others to Xi'an, Hangzhou, Lushan and Nanjing to meet KMT leaders. Although there were ups and downs in the development of the situation, the civil war had already been stopped, high-level talks between the two parties had begun and the tide of history would irreversibly turn in favour of a united resistance to the Japanese invasion. During the ten years between the defeat of the Great Revolution and the eve of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Communist Party of China persisted in its struggle under conditions of extreme hardship, maturing politically along the way. During this period the CPC passed through two great trials—the defeat of the Great Revolution and the defeat of the fifth countercampaign against "encirclement and suppression." These two defeats greatly weakened the Party, bringing it to the very brink of extinction. Some members, who were less determined, panicked and became utterly dejected, even defecting to reactionary forces. Enemies both in China and abroad believed that the CPC would be thoroughly defeated. The steadfast Party members, however, consistently maintained their revolutionary optimism, indomitable will and complete faith in the future, under conditions of unimaginable peril and hardship. They kept their heads and focused on the task at hand, surviving through the darkest hours. This ten-year experience also demonstrated that the strength of the Chinese Communists came from combining the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the specific practice of the Chinese revolution, from working closely with the great majority of the people, seeking truth from facts, adhering to the mass line and maintaining the principle of independence. It demonstrated that any method that ignored realities, dogmatically copied the experience of other countries, relied simply on subjective hopes or prematurely sought quick result was doomed to fail. During these ten years, although several times the Party leadership made "Left" mistakes in thinking that resulted in serious setbacks for the revolutionary cause, the Party finally corrected these mistakes. Thus, as the new period of war with Japan approached, despite the complexity of the contradictions between the Chinese 209 nation and the foreign invaders and between the various classes , home the Party was able to adopt correct policies that would preserve' the major gains from the period of the agrarian revolution.

The Mainstay in the War of Resistance Against Japan

The Line of Total Resistance and the Principle of Protracted War

On the night of July 7, 1937, near the Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) southwest of Beiping, the Japanese aggressor troops, nominally conducting a military exercise, suddenly attacked the local contingent of the KMT's 29th Army stationed there. The Chinese troops fought back, and thus began the War of Resistance Against Japan. The Japanese attack on the Marco Polo Bridge marked the long-premeditated launching of all-out war on China. This war was the largest imperialist invasion ever experienced by China. By the end of July the Japanese army had occupied Beiping and Tianjin. Three hundred thousand troops traveled along the Beiping-Suiyuan, Beiping-Hankou and Tianjin-Pukou rail lines, expanding their attack on north China. On August 13 they turned their guns on Shanghai, hoping to fight a war of quick decision. Relying on their highly developed industry and superior military might, the Japanese believed they were fully capable of forcing China to surrender within a short time and with little cost to themselves. In the "Outline Guide to the Use of Armed Force in North China in the War on China," drawn up by the headquarters of the general staff of the Japanese army, two months were allotted for "mopping up" the KMT's 29th Army and three months for defeating its Central Army.1 212 213 The Formal Establishment of an Anti- Japanese National United Front Tanan's full-scale invasion brought the Chinese people face to faCe with the grave peril of national extinction. The situation Store them was clear: the only way for the country to survive the crisis threatening its very existence was for the whole nation to join together in a war of resistance. Every class and every political group must put aside its own interests m favour of the interest of the nation as a whole, which was to resist the Japanese aggressors. Otherwise, there would be no future for any of therm This was recognized both by the Communist Paity an > vast number of patriots throughout the country. The day after the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge, the CPC Central Committee issued a manifesto that was a call to arms: "Beiping and Tianjin are in peril! North China is in peril. The Chinese nation is in peril! A war of resistance by the whok nation is the only way out." The Central Committee called upon the people of the whole country, the government and the armed forces to unite and build the national united front as a Great Wall of resistance to Japanese aggression." It called upon the Kuomintang and the Communist Party to "cooperate closely and resist the§new attacks of the Japanese aggressors." "The whole nation from top to bottom," it said, "must at once abandon any idea of being able to live in submissive peace with the Japanese aggressors."2 _ _ , . . That same day Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and other leaders of the Red Army sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-sheK saying that the officers and men of the Red Army wished to "engage the enemy to defend the country and save the nation. Next, Ye Jianying was sent to Xi'an, where he issued a statemen on July 14 on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPU Ihe statement, addressed to the Nanjing government, carried the following message: "Desiring to resist the enemy vigorously under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, the main force of the Red Army is preparing to set out as soon as possible to resist the Japanese. All armies have been ordered to complete preparations within ten days and await orders to move to the Beiping-Suiyuan defence line." On July 15 Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu and Lin Boqu presented to Chiang Kai-shek an "Announcement of Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation by the Central Committee of the CPC." In this announcement the Central Committee emphasized the need for national unity: "As we all know, with our nation facing extreme peril today, it is only through internal unity that we can defeat Japanese imperialist aggression."4 The announcement set forth three basic objectives—to launch a national war of resistance, to put democracy into effect, and to improve the lives of the people. It reaffirmed the Communist Party's four pledges for KMT-CPC cooperation.5 On July 17 the representatives of the Central Committee held negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek, Shao Lizi and Zhang Chong at a summer resort in the Lushan Mountains in Jiangxi. The CPC representatives proposed using the announcement as the political basis for cooperation between the two parties, and it was agreed that the document would be released through the Central News Agency of the KMT. That same day, under pressure of the swelling nationwide movement to resist Japan and of the CPC's insistence on cooperation, Chiang Kai-shek gave a speech calling for a united resistance. "Once war breaks out," he said, "every person, young or old, in the north or in the south, must take up the responsibility of resisting Japan and defending our homeland and should be resolved to sacrifice everything for the cause." But Chiang still cherished illusions of making peace with the Japanese and continued to view the attack at the Marco Polo Bridge as a "local incident." Song Zheyuan, chairman of the Hebei-Chahar Government Administration Council, continued negotiations with the Japanese army in north China. On July 19 the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the National Government proposed to the Japanese embassy that the two governments cease military operations and return all troops to their former locations, then find a peaceful settlement through diplomacy. This proposal was rejected. The occupation of Beiping and Tianjin shocked the entire country and made it difficult to continue any negotiation. The attack on 215 Shanghai was an even more direct threat to the heartland of the KMT's ruling clique and to the interests of Britain and the United States in China. On August 14, under pressure of a flood of demands from all over the country to take up the war of resistance, the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the National Government released a statement declaring, "Forced by the unrelenting invasion of Japan, China must now act in self-defence and resist this violence." The leaders of the KMT had been hoping that the Japanese aggressors would stop before they went too far. The Japanese had been urging them to join in "mutual defence against the Communists," and the KMT leaders had been ready to succumb to their wiles. However, the facts showed that the purpose of the Japanese invasion was to take over the whole of China. If that happened, it would be a death blow not only for the Chinese nation but for themselves. They had no choice but to change their tune and accept the proposal of the CPC and other Chinese patriots that they work together to resist Japan. Chiang Kai-shek very much wanted the Red Army to move to the front, and during the KMT-CPC negotiations he began to express his desire for unity and cooperation with the CPC, agreeing not to send KMT personnel into the Red Army. In August of 1937 the two sides agreed to redesignate the main force of the Red Army, currently in northern Shaanxi, as the Eighth Route Arm> of the National Revolutionary Army, to set up liaison offices of the Eighth Route Army in various cities in KMT-ruled areas and to publish the newspaper New China Daily. On August 22 the Military Council of the National Government issued an order redesignating the Red Army as the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army. Three days later the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee issued an order to reorganize the Red Army as the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army, which consisted of the 115th, 120th and 129th Divisions.6 Zhu De was designated commanderin-chief with Peng Dehuai as his deputy, Ye Jianying was named chief of staff with Zuo Quan as his deputy and Ren Bishi became director of the political department with Deng Xiaoping as his deputy. Lin Biao was appointed commander and Nie Rongzhen deputy commander of the 115th Division, which was made up chiefly of the former First and Fifteenth Army Groups of the First Front Army of the Red Army. He Long was appointed commander and Xiao Ke deputy commander of the 120th Division, which was composed mainly of the former Second Front Army; and Liu Bocheng was appointed commander and Xu Xiangqian deputy commander of the 129th Division, mainly composed of the former Fourth Front Army. All these divisions, with a total of more than 45,000 men, were sent to join the KM T army in combating the enemy. In September of 1937 the ShaanxiGansu-Ningxia Revolutionary Base Area was redesignated the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Area Government. It included 23 counties with a total population of 1.5 million, and the CPCCentral Committee was located there. It can be seen that the second cooperation between the KMT and the CPC started with the military. At the urging of the Communist Party, on September 22 the KMT Central News Agency published the "Announcement of Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China," and the next day Chiang Kai-shek made a statement recognizing the legality of the Communist Party. The CPC's announcement and Chiang's statement proclaimed the intention of the two parties to cooperate for the second time and the formation of an anti- Japanese national united front. The acceptance by the top leader of the KMT of a second period of cooperation with the CPC and his agreement to undertake a war of resistance against Japan represented a great service to the people of the country. At this time the KMT was the ruling party and had at its disposal an army of two million men. The shift in its policy made it possible to launch a total war of resistance. The renewal of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC was welcomed throughout the country. In November of 1937 the great patriot Soong Ching Ling issued a statement calling for unity: "The Communist Party is a party which stands for the interests of the working classes, both industrial and agricultural. Sun 217 r Vat-sen 1 realized that without the keen support and cooperation Lf these classes, the mission of completing the national revolution ronld not easily be carried out.... During the present crisis, all former differences should be forgotten. The whole nation must ioin together in opposing Japanese aggression and fighting for the final victory."7 The National Revolutionary League of China, led hv Li Jishen and other high-ranking KMT officers and officials who stood for resistance, had originally opposed Chiang. Now it changed its position and supported him. The National Socialist Party the Chinese Youth Party, the Chinese Vocational Education Society, the Rural Construction Party and others all indicated their support for the resistance effort. Workers, peasants intellectuals and other patriotic persons added to the flood of anti-Japanese sentiment. Capitalists engaged in industry and commerce also joined in the struggle, buying national salvation bonds, donating money and supplies to the front and organizing factories and firms to move to the interior. In Singapore the General Association of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia for Aid to Refugees of the Motherland was established with Jan Kah Kee as chairman, and branches were set up in various countries in Southeast Asia. Ethnic Chinese living in Europe, the United States and other countries set up national salvation groups to spread anti- Japanese propaganda, collect money and materiel and organize young men to return to China and join the army. Mass participation in the resistance grew to a scale unprecedented in modern Chinese history. The Japanese invaders suddenly discovered they were facing a united front composed of the entire Chinese nation. The Conflict Between the Line of Total Resistance and the Line of Partial Resistance Because of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the situation at home and abroad was complex. Internationally, there were several forces with differing attitudes towards the war. The Japanese imperialists intended to annex China and pretended to be preparing an attack on the Soviet Union in an attempt to induce the anti-Soviet British and U.S. imperialists to make concessions to Japan. The German and Italian fascists supported Japan's invasion of China. The Soviet Union, although it explicitly supported China, considered the Kuomintang to be the most important force in the country and the main force in the resistance. On August 21, 1937, the government of the Soviet Union and the National Government of China signed a treaty of mutual non-aggression. After that, Soviet national defence minister K.Y. Voroshilov declared that the Soviet Union would never sit idly by as an indifferent observer of the war between China and Japan. The Soviet Union sent to China first military advisers and then a team of air force volunteers. In addition, it provided the Chinese government with financial and materiel aid. As for Britain and the United Slates, they had a two-sided policy with regard to the China question. As Japan's war of aggression encroached on their interests in China and in the East as a whole, their conflicts with Japan increased. At the same time, they were busy dealing with the tense situation in the West caused by Germany and Italy, and they feared the rise of the Chinese revolutionary force. Thus, on the one hand they hoped that China would resist Japanese aggression and gave China some support; on the other hand, they appeased Japan and tried to alleviate their contradictions with that country by sacrificing China's sovereignty over some of its territory. They also encouraged Japan to attack the Soviet Union, in the hope that this would be to their benefit. In China, too, there were several forces with differing attitudes towards the Japanese aggression. The people were firmly in favour of resistance and determined to defend their motherland. Faced with the threat of national subjugation, not only the workers, peasants and the urban petty and national bourgeoisie but also some landlords, the enlightened gentry of the landlord class in particular, favoured resistance to Japan and refused to be slaves of a foreign power. Many of them, however, were at a loss how to resist and had no understanding of the Communist Party. The middle-of-the-roaders, who constituted the bulk of the population, favoured the resistance, though they still did not fully 219 understand the situation. The Kuomintang was the ruling party and had an internationally recognized legitimate government as well as an army of two million men. Accordingly, most of the middle-of-the-roaders recognized the legitimacy of the Kuomintang and, though they resented its corruption and undemocratic practices, pinned their hopes of resistance on it. Inside the Kuomintang, some members were democratic advocates of resistance to Japan, others were hidden traitors and still others—the majority, who had real power in their hands and worked in the interest of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie—belonged to the pro-British, pro-American Chiang Kai-shek clique. The members of this clique had a dual character. On the one hand, the country was under full-scale invasion and in danger of being subjugated. If they refused to resist, the people would not tolerate them, and it would be impossible for them to remain in power. Furthermore, there were contradictions between them and Britain and the U.S., as well as contradictions between them and Japan. For these reasons, they resisted Japanese aggression quite actively in the initial period of the war. On the other hand, they continued to oppress the people, were reluctant to see them mobilized on a broad scale and hoped to win the war by relying on international aid. They even tried to take advantage of the war to eliminate, or at least weaken, the people's revolutionary forces led by the Communist Party. Throughout the war, the National Government was controlled solely by the Kuomintang and was not based on a national, democratic united front. It was because of this dual character of those in power in the Kuomintang that even though the KMT and the Communist Party had agreed to cooperate in the War of Resistance, it was very difficult to consolidate and expand that cooperation. From the very beginning, the two parties had serious differences over how to conduct the war, and they followed two completely different lines. The Kuomintang, representing the interests of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie, prosecuted the war only to the extent it judged necessary to hold on to its position in power after the Japanese aggressors were defeated. Therefore, it pursued a line of partial resistance. That is to say, adhering to its one-party dictatorship, it engaged only the government and its troops in the resistance, refused to carry out any fundamental reform that would facilitate the war effort, denied the people democratic freedoms and rights and refused to improve their living standards so as to prevent them from taking part in the war and expanding their strength. In its Programme for Resisting Japan and Rebuilding the Nation, adopted at a provisional national congress that met from March 29 to April 1, 1938, the Kuomintang took a positive attitude towards resistance, but it also imposed a number of restrictions on the development of the people's movement. On the other hand, the Communist Party, representing the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation, put forward a line of total resistance. The Party maintained that China had the strength to resist the aggression and would eventually triumph. The ultimate source of that strength was the vast number of people. Only by mobilizing and organizing the people could China resist the powerful enemy. It was therefore necessary to introduce political and economic reforms nationwide, putting an end to the one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang, granting the people full democratic rights to resist Japan and improving the living standards of the workers and peasants. Everything possible had to be done to mobilize, organize and arm the people, so as to make the War of Resistance a true people's war. The Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, adopted at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in Luochuan, in northern Shaanxi, August 22-25, 1937, set forth this line of total resistance.8 These two lines led to two different outcomes. If the Chinese people followed the line of total resistance, they would expel the invading Japanese imperialists and gain their freedom and liberation. But if they followed the line of partial resistance, they would never win the war, and China would remain occupied by Japan. These two completely different lines inevitably gave rise to conflicts throughout the War of Resistance. At the beginning of the war, Mao Zedong made the basic contradiction clear: 221 "Will the proletariat lead the bourgeoisie in the united front, or the bourgeoisie the proletariat? Will the Kuomintang draw over the Communist Party, or the Communist Party the Kuomintang9 In relation to the current specific political task this question means: Is the Kuomintang to be raised to the level of the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation to the level of the total resistance advocated by the Communist Party? Or is the Communist Party to sink to the level of the Kuomintang dictatorship of the landlords and bourgeoisie, to the level of partial resistance?" He gave a straight answer to this question: "The key to leading the anti- Japanese national revolutionary war to victory is to explain, apply and uphold the principle of ‘independence and initiative within the united front'."9 Events were to prove him correct. The Strategic Principle of Protracted War To mobilize and organize the people for an all-out war of resistance, the CPC had to formulate a strategic principle for the war. Even before the Japanese attack on July 7, 1937, the CPC Central Committee had predicted that the War of Resistance would be long drawn out. At the meeting of Party activists held at Wayaobu in northern Shaanxi Province in December 1935, Mao Zedong had declared, "To defeat our enemies we must be prepared to fight a protracted war." After the attack, at a meeting on military affairs convened by the Nanjing National Government in August 1937, the CPC representatives Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Ye Jianying stated that strategically, the nationwide War of Resistance should be a long-term defensive war, but that tactical offensives, or active defence, should be carried out within the strategic defensive. They also recommended that the war zones in north China increase their capacity to operate independently for a long time to come by shifting from positional warfare to mobile warfare. At the same time, they said, these zones should mobilize the people on the flanks of the enemy and in occupied areas to engage in guerrilla warfare and to sabotage transport lines, in an effort to wipe out Japanese troops or pin them down. However, these suggestions were not accepted by the leading body of the Kuomintang. , . . . It was not long before the Communist Party noted again, in its Resolution on the Present Situation and the Tasks of the Paity, adopted at the Luochuan meeting, "It should be realized that the war will be an arduous and protracted war."10 How should such a war be conducted? What tasks should the Red Army fulfil? At the same meeting, Mao Zedong declared that the basic tasks of the Red Army were as follows: to pursue independent guerrilla warfare, to undertake mobile warfare when conditions were favourable, to establish anti- Japanese base areas in the enemy s rear, to pin down and wipe out enemy troops, to give strategic support to friendly armies and to preserve and expand its own ranks. The meeting decided that the strategic tasks of the Red Army were to freely carry out independent guerrilla warfare, mainly in mountainous areas in the enemy's rear in support of front-line battlefields, to open up new battlefields and to establish anti-Japanese base areas behind the enemy lines. After the Luochuan meeting, Zhang Wentian, Peng Dehuai, Zhou Enlai and others published articles explaining both inside and outside the Party the principle of protracted war, in light of the events since the Japanese attack of July 7. Nevertheless, a great many people still believed either that China would be subjugated or that it would win a quick victory. In the Kuomintang camp, some said, "China is inferior in arms and is bound to lose. Continuing the war means subjugation.' Others said, "If we fight for just three months, the international situation is bound to change. The Soviet Union will most probably send troops to China, and Britain and the United States may intervene in Shanghai." Before the fall of Nanjing, Chiang Kaishek sent Stalin a telegram asking him to send troops as soon as possible In the Communist Party, meanwhile, some members took the enemy lightly and held that China would achieve a quick victory by relying on the Kuomintang's regular army of two million men. Both Party members and non-Party members belittled the importance of guerrilla warfare and pinned their hopes for victory on regular warfare. But the course of the war during 223 :HAPTER four the war of resistance against japan r,B ssrisfss ewiirtriistssis , • the war to refute the prevailing ideas about its tuture Si'ESKSIKtSW Jclmmn ibU the W« of Resistance *«" S" "K" wl, lone and that the final victory would be Chinas, lhe war between China and Japan," he wrote, "is not just any war U is soecifically a war of life and death between semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and imperialist Japan, fought m the Nineteen Thirties In this war, China and Japan had four basic sets of contrasting features. First, Japan was a powerful impertalts country while China was a weak semi-colonial and semi feudal country' Second, Japan's war of aggression was retrogressive barbarous whereas China's resistance was progressive and jus . Third although it had great war capabilities, Japan was a comparafi'vely small country deficient tn manpower and in military, Cnda and material resources, and it could not stand a long W^r China on the contrary, was a big country with vast territory, rich resources, a large population and plenty of "^etS; and was capable of sustaining a long war. Four*' Jdp h chjna meagre international support for its unjust war, whereas Ch would find abundant support for its just resistance. Because of the;11 first set of contrasting features, the Japanese invaders wou d run rampant for a time, and as Mao put it, China would not be able to oust the Japanese quickly" and would inevitably have a hard stremh of road to travel.-' Because of the other features however, China could not be subjugated and would win the find V1Cln"On Protracted War" Mao predicted that for the Chinese, the war would go through the three stages of strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive. As far as the relative strength of the belligerents was concerned, in the three stages China would inevitably move from inferiority to parity and then to superiority, while Japan would inevitably move from superiority to parity and then to inferiority. The stage of strategic stalemate would last quite a long time, and it would be the most trying period but also the pivotal one in the war as a whole. In this stage, China's form of fighting would be primarily guerrilla warfare supplemented by mobile warfare. The fighting in this stage would be ruthless, but the guerrilla warfare would be successful. The exponents of quick victory, Mao wrote, did not realize that war was a contest of strength and that before a certain change had taken place in the relative strength of the belligerents, there was no basis for trying to fight strategically decisive battles. ‘Whether China becomes an independent country or is reduced to a colony will be determined not by the retention or loss of the big cities in the first stage but by the extent to which the whole nation exerts itself in the second. If we can persevere in the War of Resistance, in the united front and in the protracted war, China will in that stage gain the power to change from weakness to strength.'13 Mao emphasized that the army and the people were the foundation of victory and that the richest source of power to wage war lay in the masses. He made it clear that the only way to win the war with Japan was to mobilize and rely on them and make it a people's war. In "On Protracted War" Mao set forth a programme for the Communist Party to follow as it led the people in the long War of Resistance. He not only predicted that China would achieve the final victory in that war but outlined the methods by which it could do so, constantly weakening the enemy and expanding its own forces. Written soon after the war began and at a time when many people could not foresee how it would proceed, "On Protracted War" presented a clear blueprint for the entire war and offered answers to all kinds of questions about it. Few articles had been as convincing and inspiring as these lectures. And as the war 225 unfolded, events were to prove that Mao's analysis of the situation had been sound and his predictions correct.

Carrying Out Guerrilla Warfare behind the Enemy Lines

The stage of strategic defensive in China's War of Resistance Against Japan began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on Jalv 7 1957. and ended with the fall of Guangzhou and Wuhan in October 1938. This stage had two major characteristics One was that the invading Japanese troops penetrated further into China's vast territory along separate routes and their °f ™sives on front-line battlefields reached a peak. The other was that the army of the Chinese people opened up new battlefields behind the enemy lines and expanded rapidly. . , At this time the Japanese invaders directed their attack chiefly against the Kuomintang. Both strategic! illy and " naigns front-line battlefields were the mam battlefields lor re sistLg the invasion. The Kuomintang was relatively eager to resist and had its troops wage the Beiping-Tianjin, Wusong Shanghai. Northern Shanxi and Xuzhou campaigns and the ba tie to defend Wuhan. These troops won a victory in the Taier zhuang campaign in Shandong Province, frustrating the plan of the Japanese imperialists to subjugate China in three months. Nevertheless, the situation on the front-line b^^ld^S Tas unfavourable, because the enemy was strong whereas China was weak and because the Chiang Kai-shek clique followed the line of partial resistance and implemented the principle of passive defence Even the great victory in the Tai'erzhuang campaign failed to extricate the Chinese side from its passive potion in the war as a whole. Between July 1937 and October 1938, the Ja panese troops seized Beiping, Tianjin, Shanghai, zhou and Wuhan and occupied a vast territory with a den population, inflicting untold suffering upon the Chinese peopkn For six weeks after they seized Nanjing he ^Ptta of the Kuomintang government, on December 13, 1937, the Japanese militarists carried out a shocking, bloody slaughter, shooting and burying alive more than 300,000 Chinese troops and civilians there. The Eighth Route Army Marches to the Front After the Red Army was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army in August 1937, it marched to the front without delay. In order to exercise more effective leadership over it, the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to establish a front-line military subcommission under the leadership of the Central Military Commission, with Zhu De as secretary and Peng Dehuai as his deputy. The Central Committee also set two strategic tasks for the Eighth Route Army. One was to support the Kuomintang troops in the front-line battlefields by outflanking the Japanese troops invading Shanxi Province, so as to check their advance and cover the retreat of friendly armies. The other was to seize all opportunities to penetrate the encmy-occupied areas and develop guerrilla warfare there. Before the fall of Taiyuan early in November 1937, the Eighth Route Army mainly supported the Kuomintang troops in their military operations, while dispatching a small number of its men to mobilize and arm the masses. As a leader of the League of Self-Sacrifice for National Salvation in Shanxi Province, Bo Yibo twice proposed to Yan Xishan, the warlord of Shanxi, that a new army be organized there to expand the anti-Japanese armed forces. Yan Xishan first approved the establishment of one regiment on a trial basis and later authorized Bo Yibo to organize five brigades. The Shanxi New Army, also known as the Shanxi Youth Resistance "Daredevil" Corps, was a de facto revolutionary army organized and led by the open Shanxi Working Committee of the CPC. Later, the New Army expanded to 50 regiments under the leadership of the Party. This unit played an important role in the war by fighting in close cooperation with the Eighth Route Army. In mid-September 1937, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army marched to northeastern Shanxi and made Mount CHATTER FOUR THE WAR OF RESISTANCE AGAINST JAPAN 227 Henushan its base. On September 22 some units of Japan's Fifth Division began to close in on Pingxingguan, a strategic P°‘n‘ cl°f . the Great Wall in northeastern Shanxi. The next day, Zhu De nnd Peng Dehuai sent a telegram to Lin Biao, commander of the 115th Division, ordering him to set out for the area between Pingxingguan and Lingqiu County and launch flexible flank attacks against the invaders. On September 25 a unit of the 115th Division successfully carried out its first ambush wiping out more than 1,000 troops of the 21st Brigade of the Itagaki Division destroying more than 100 Japanese vehicles and capturing a quantity of supplies and weapons. This was the first great victory of the Chinese army in the War of Resistance and it put an end to the myth that Japan's Imperial Army was invincible. It enormously enhanced the confidence of the army and the people increased the prestige of the Communist Party and of the Eighth Route Army and convinced many people that the Communist Party was not only resolutely resisting the Japanese but also capable of defeating them. After the Pingxingguan campaign, the three divisions of the Eighth Route Army and the Kuomintang troops fought together in the Xinkou campaign, which lasted over 20 days. The Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated fairly well in this campaign, the fiercest and the largest ever fought in north China. . , • • After the fall of Taiyuan, in accordance with the decision adopted at the Luochuan meeting of the CPC Central Committee in August 1937, the army under the leadership of the Party concentrated on penetrating the enemy's rear areas to open up a second battlefront and establish base areas there, so as to give the Kuomintang armies strategic support. Thus two batllefronts emerged that supported each other in the War of Resistance: the front-line battlefront, for which the KM1 army was chiefly responsible, and the battlefront behind enemy lines, for which the CPC army was chiefly responsible. Opening Up the Battlefront Behind Enemy Lines At this time something curious happened on the Shanxi front: when the Japanese troops, taking advantage of their superior forces, forged ahead, the Kuomintang armies staged one retreat after another, whereas the poorly equipped Eighth Route Army, in small groups, rapidly penetrated the enemy's rear areas. The policy of opening the batllefront behind enemy lines, adopted at the Luochuan meeting, was correct and essential. First, because the enemy was strong while the Chinese side was weak, the invading forces were able to seize vast areas in a very short period of time. If the Japanese troops were allowed to remain in these areas undisturbed, they would make them their military bases and launch fiercer offensives elsewhere. Fighting the enemy in his rear areas would make him lose some of his occupied territory, harass him and pin him down. It would pose a serious threat to Japan, which had a shortage of troops. Second, it would help mobilize and expand the people's own anti- Japanese forces. Having undergone the inhuman atrocities committed by the Japanese aggressors who were burning, killing and plundering everywhere, the people in the occupied areas longed to avenge the sufferings inflicted upon their families and on the motherland as a whole. However, as they were scattered, disorganized and inexperienced in armed struggle, their spontaneous resistance was often short-lived. There was therefore an urgent need for a people's army like the Eighth Route Army to penetrate behind enemy lines and serve as a centre around which all anti-Japanese forces could rally. Only by resisting the Japanese for a long time could the people in the occupied areas enhance their understanding of the war, organize themselves effectively and gradually expand their forces. And only by waging a large-scale people's war in those areas could China win final victory. The conditions in occupied territory made it possible for the Eighth Route Army to wage such a war. Having limited troops, the Japanese could only lake control of cities and transport lines, while in the vast countryside and small towns their rule was weak. In those places the original government organs of the Kuomintang had collapsed because of the invasion, and anarchy prevailed. The masses in the occupied areas were determined to fight Japan. Except for a small number of traitors, all classes, including 229 the landlords, were demanding that the invaders be repelled, so there was a solid mass base for the resistance there. Moreover, the hnsically self-sufficient economy in the occupied rural areas nrovided favourable conditions for surviving the tight blockade imposed by the enemy. For these reasons, when the men of the Eighth Route Army, tempered in the long revolutionary war under the leadership of the Communist Party, moved into the rear areas of the enemy, they were able to serve as the backbone of the resistance, to mobilize and organize powerful people's armed forces and to establish democratic anti-Japanese base areas. „ , .. How should the Eighth Route Army fight the enemy once it had penetrated the occupied areas? The Communist Party formulated the combat principle, "Guerrilla warfare is basic, but lose no chance for mobile warfare under favourable conditions."14 This represented a major change in military strategy, a change from the mobile warfare used in the later stage of the Agrarian Revolutionary War to guerrilla warfare, a form of fighting well suited to a weak nation resisting a powerful enemy. To conduct guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, the people's armed forces had to establish anti-Japanese base areas. Such warfare had to be carried out without the support of the country's general rear areas, so base areas must serve that function. It there were no base areas behind enemy lines, it would be impossible to continue guerrilla warfare tor any length of time. 1 here were two basic conditions for establishing and expanding base areas. 1 ) to have armed forces and use them to organize the people to defeat enemy offensives, and 2) to mobilize the people for all the work in the base areas, especially for the establishment and consolidation of democratic organs of political power. In mid-November 1937 the three divisions of the Eighth Route Army and the Shanxi New Army began their strategic deployment in the occupied areas of Shanxi. In cooperation with the local Party organizations, they organized working groups and established battlefield mobilization committees and anti-Japanese associations for national salvation in effect which exercised political power. After the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan in July 1937, many county magistrates in Shanxi Province fled or were afraid to perform their duties. Taking advantage of the legal status of the League of Self-Sacrifice for National Salvation, Bo Yibo and others sent a large number of cadres from the League and from the Shanxi New Army to replace them. Of the 105 counties in Shanxi, 70 had Communists as their magistrates. Most of them were special representatives sent by the League. As a result, the League became an quasi-political organization. At a meeting of representatives of the army, the government and the people of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hcbei Border Area, convened at Fuping in western Hebei on January 10, 1938, a Provisional Administrative Council of the Border Area was formed by democratic election.15 This was the first united front anti- Japanese democratic government led by the Communist Party behind enemy lines. In October 1937, when the Eighth Route Army was marching to the front, the KMT and the CPC reached an agreement in Nanjing on redesignating the Red Army units and guerrilla forces that remained in the border areas of Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hubei, Henan and Anhui provinces (not including the Qiongya Red Army Guerrillas in Guangdong) as the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. In December the headquarters of the New Fourth Army was established in Hankou, Hubei, and soon thereafter it was moved first to Nanchang, Jiangxi, and then to Yansi in southern Anhui. Ye Ting was appointed commander and Xiang Ying deputy commander of this army, which consisted of four detachments. The first three detachments comprised the Red Army units and guerrilla forces in provinces south of the Yangtze River, while the fourth detachment was made up of the Hubei-HenanAnhui, southern Henan and northeastern Hubei Red Army units and guerrilla forces north of the Yangtze. The New Fourth Army had a total of 10,300 men. At the same time, the Southeast Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the New Fourth Army Subcommission of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee were established. Xiang Ying was appointed 231 cretary 0f both units and Chen Yi was named deputy secretary nf the subcommission. After the New Fourth Army was formed, the army units under the command of Chen Yi and Su Yu marched into enemy-occupied territory to conduct guerrilla warfare and establish base areas. For more than a year the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army successfully carried out guerrilla warfare mainly in the mountains; then they gradually moved into the plains. By October 1938 they had fought over 1,600 engagements with the Japanese troops, killing, wounding or capturing more than 54,000 of them As the people living under the occupation were eagei to join the army to fight Japan, the Eighth Route Army expanded to over 156,000 men and the New Fourth Army to 25,000. In north China they established anti-Japanese base areas in ShanxiChahar-Hebei, northwestern Shanxi, Daqing Mountain in Suiyuan, Shanxi-Hebei-Henan, southwestern Shanxi, the HebeiShandong border and Shandong, and in central China they set up bases in southern Jiangsu, central Anhui, eastern Henan and other places. Many people, including Chiang Kai-shek, had not expected that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army could create such a situation behind enemy lines within so short a period of time. ^ . , In the winter of 1938 the CPC Central Committee made another strategic decision: it sent the three main forces of the Eighth Route Army from the mountainous areas of Shanxi Province to the plains of Hebei and Shandong. Late in November the main force of the 129th Division entered southern Hebei, the main force of the 120th Division penetrated into central Hebei and the headquarters staff of the 115th Division led its 343th Brigade to the Hebei-Shandong-Henan border area and Shandong Province to establish new base areas in those places. This important strategic action did a great deal to strengthen anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in the plains. The units of the New Fourth Army also took advantage of the varied terrain of mountains, rivers lakes and branching streams to carry out guerrilla warfare. All this created a new situation in the war behind enemy lines. When the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army marched to the areas behind enemy lines, the Northeast AntiJapanese United Army led by the Communist Yang Jingyu, which had long been engaged in armed struggle against Japan in northeast China, became more active than ever before. Its soldiers of the Han, Manchu and Korean nationalities dealt heavy blows to Japanese and puppet troops. The strategic general rear area of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army was the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. To consolidate the region, the government there, which was under the chairmanship of Lin Boqu, suppressed bandits and fought traitors, secret agents, reactionary landlords and despotic gentry. The Central Committee of the CPC and the government of the region, both based in Yan'an in northern Shaanxi, opened a variety of schools that trained a large number of cadres in different disciplines. They included the Chinese People's AntiJapanese Military and Political College, the Northern Shaanxi College, an institution for training young cadres, the Lu Xun Art Academy, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, the School for Workers and Staff Members, the Women's University of China and the PublicHealth School. Tens of thousands of patriotic young people journeyed to Yan'an from every corner of the country. After studying and being tempered in practical work, many of them became staunch revolutionaries determined to fight the Japanese. The consolidation and development of the general rear area enabled the CPC Central Committee to concentrate on commanding military operations behind enemy lines and made it possible for the Party to unite with the people of the whole country in resisting Japanese aggression. The guerrilla warfare carried out behind enemy lines by the armies under the leadership of the CPC was one of the most difficult undertakings in military history. Confronted by the powerful Japanese invaders, the poorly equipped Chinese troops received no replenishment of guns or ammunition from their rear areas. Encircled by the enemy, they created anti-Japanese base areas in remote areas with strikingly poor material conditions. For example, when Nie Rongzhen led some units of the 115th 233 nivision to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border area in November it began to snow on Mount Wutai. However, the troops were *9j, wearing unlined clothes and straw shoes and camping at ni^ht in ruined temples. In spite of all this, they finally game ?irm control of the ground. The key element that enabled them m do so was the support of the local people. As Nie Rongzhen nut it "The people, once mobilized, became ‘mountains and seas ?o check the Japanese aggressors."16 It would have ^been ummag inable for them to persevere in guerrilla warfare let alone expand it in such a difficult environment if they had not been an army of the people and had not formed the closest ties with the Bureau of the CPC Central Committee was set up in Wuhan, the centre of resistance in the Kuomintang area. The representatives of the Communist Party stayed in contact with members of the Kuomintang and consulted with them on important issues in the relatively cooperative atmosphere that existed for a time. Later, with the approval of the Central Committee of the CPC, Zhou Enlai was appointed deputy director of the Political Department of the Military Council of the National Government, and Guo Moruo was named director of the same department's Third Division, which was in charge of culture and propaganda. Communists also participated in the People's Political Council convened by the Kuomintang. The restrictions of the earlier period having been lifted, they again had the opportunity to contact people openly. They made friends and cooperated with persons who opposed the invasion but held political attitudes different from theirs. The Communists also made friends with a number of people from other countries, and to enhance their understanding of and sympathy with the Party, explained to them the Party's principle of uniting to resist Japan. It was at this time that renowned foreign friends of the Party, such as Dr. Norman Bethune of Canada and Dr. D. S. Kotnis of India, stopped over in Wuhan on their way to the anti-Japanese democratic base areas. The Third Division of the Political Department of the Military Council of the National Government, which included Communists and progressives, mounted big propaganda campaigns against Japan. It launched the "Week of Anti-Japanese Propaganda" and similar activities in Wuhan and formed ten opera groups, four publicity teams and a children's troupe to arouse popular feeling against the enemy. Under the leadership of the CPC's Yangtze Bureau, the Party organizations in southern China that had been seriously damaged in the later period of the ten-year civil war gradually recovered and expanded. Between September 1937 and September 1938, CPC provincial committees or working committees were established in Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Anhui, Guangdong, Yunnan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian. By September 1938 the number of Party members (ex „ those in the army) exceeded 67,000. C‘ Generally speaking, the work done by the Party in the Wuhan times was effective. It opened up a new situation, and this hac far-reaching effects

Overcoming the Right-Deviationist Mistakes and Maintaining the Independence and Initiative of the Party in the United Front

During the War of Resistance Against Japan, because of the complex international and domestic situation and because of the two different lines followed by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the key to the success of the resistance lay in the Party's correct handling, in the united front, of the relation, between unity and independence, between solidarity and struggle. At the very beginning of the war, the CPC Central Committee declared that the Party must follow the principle of 'ndependence and initiative within the united front. This meant tha would be both unity and independence, that the Party would both unite with the Kuomintang and struggle against it, seeking unity through struggle. The CPC would remain independent ideologically, politically and organizationally and follow its own political line of freely mobilizing the masses and leading the people of the whole nation in resistance to Japan. It would maintain its absolute leadership over the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and other people's armed forces, break the restrictions imposed on it by the Kuomintang and work hard to expand the people's armed forces. To uphold the principle of independence and initiative in the anti-Japanese national united front was, in essence, to strive for leadership in the War of Resistance. When this principle was first formulated by the CPC Central Committee, it was not fully understood by the whole Party. After the united front was established, certain Party members made Right mistakes. For example, some of them yielded to the Kuomintang when it interfered in, and even suppressed, the mass campaign for national salvation. When one unit of the Red Army was being reorganized into the National Revolutionary Army, its commander lowered his vigilance against the anti-Communist schemes of the Kuomintang, with disastrous results.17 Some Party members in KMT areas, having too much faith in the Kuomintang, tended to carry out all their activities openly. Others, who were in the army, tried to secure appointments by the Kuomintang government. When they succeeded, they refused to continue to lead a hard life and to accept the leadership of the Party. Still others were not bold enough to struggle against the Kuomintang secret agents who were sabotaging their base areas. This Right deviationism violated the Party's principle of independence and initiative and was detrimental to the preservation of the united front based on cooperation between the KMT and the CPC. Party organizations at all levels struggled successfully to overcome it. At the end of November 1937, Wang Ming, the CPC's representative to the Communist International, member of the International's Executive Committee and presidium and alternate secretary of its Secretariat, was sent back to China. Before he left, the Secretariat of the International held a special meeting on the situation in the Sino-Japanese war and on the tasks for the CPC. The General Secretary of the Executive Committee, Georgi Dimitrov, maintained that as the CPC and the Chinese working class were relatively weak, in the War of Resistance China should rely on the Kuomintang with Chiang Kai-shek as its head. The CPC, according to Dimitrov, should draw on the practice of the French Communist Party, summed up in the slogan, "Everything for the popular front and everything through the popular front," and share responsibility and leadership with the Kuomintang. As a matter of fact, the practice of the French Communist Party had not been successful. If the CPC were to give up its proletarian stand of independence and initiative, make no distinction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, refrain from arousing the masses and try to appease the bourgeoisie in all matters so as to maintain the united front, it would only weaken the position of the proletariat, put the united front at the mercy of the 237 w^nreeoisie and eventually bring about China's defeat. Nevertheless, after he arrived in Yan'an, Wang Ming did ,vervthine possible to carry out this "new policy" of the Communist International. At a meeting of the Politburo of the CPC rentral Committee held from December 9 to 14, 1937, he made , report entitled "How to Carry On the Nationwide War of Resistance and Win It." In this report he put forward some correct ideas on persevering in the war and continuing to cooperate with the Kuomintang. But he also set forth a series of Right capitulationist ideas on the question of how to consolidate and expand the anti-Japanese national united front. Denying the differences of principle between the CPC's line of total resistance and the Kuomintang's line of partial resistance, Wang Ming maintained that the Kuomintang should be the leader in the war, negating the leading role played by the Communist Party. He also rejected the principle of independence and initiative within the united front, saying that "everything must be submitted to the united front" and that "everything must go through the united front." In this way, he confined the activity of the Party to the limits imposed by the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek and opposed the free mobilization and arming of the masses. He belittled the role of guerrilla warfare, the people's armed lorces and the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines under the leadership of the Communist Party, and asserted that a quick victory could be achieved by relying on the Kuomintang armies. Wang Ming confused many participants in the meeting when he said that in his report he was relaying the instructions of the Communist International. Towards the end of December 1937, Wang Ming went to Wuhan as a member of the CPC delegation. There, without the approval of the CPC Central Committee, he published "Manifesto of the Communist Party of China on the Present Situation," "The Key to Saving the Present Situation" and other articles, and he delivered a speech at Wuhan University entitled "On the Anti-Japanese National United Front," propagating his wrong ideas At a meeting held by the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee in Yan'an from February 27 to March 1, 1938, Wang Ming presented the report "The Present Situation of the AntiJapanese War and How to Carry On the War and Win It." Although he admitted that in his "Manifesto of the Communist Party of China on the Present Situation" he had made too many concessions to the Kuomintang, he compounded his mistakes by setting forth the strategic principle that mobile warfare, supported by positional warfare, was primary and guerrilla warfare supplementary. He also agreed with the Kuomintang proposal that there should be only one army under unified command. He demanded that the people's armed forces led by the Communist Party come under the command of the Kuomintang and insisted that they and the KMT armies have uniform organization, arms, discipline and material treatment as well as unified operational plans and combat operations. That the Kuomintang would ever agree to the people's armed forces having the same arms and material treatment as its own was only wishful thinking on Wang Ming's part. And if the Communist Party agreed that the two armies would carry out unified combat operations under unified command in accordance with unified operational plans, it would restrict itself in expanding the people's guerrilla warfare. After the meeting, in violation of the Party's principle of democratic centralism, and in defiance of criticisms by Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian and others, Wang Ming wrote "A Summary of the March Meeting of the Politburo" and published it in the weekly magazine The Masses. Why did Wang Ming oppose the principle of independence and initiative within the united front? Why did he shift from his "Left" deviation during the Agrarian Revolutionary War to Right deviation at the beginning of the War of Resistance? Because he never understood the Party's policy regarding the united front. When the Kuomintang suppressed the Communist Party militarily, the "Left" forces, with Wang Ming at their head, emphasized struggle to the neglect of unity, negating the need for the Party to unite with all kinds of middle-of-the-roaders. When the Kuomintang took a turn in favour of joint resistance to Japan, Wang Ming put good relations with the Kuomintang above everything else and thought that, for the sake of the war effort, the Party 239 C A n„ alternative but to listen to the KMT in all matters. tad in* the unhed front would collapse if the KMT were offendFf stressed the importance of unity to the neglect of struggle These ideas made him shift from "Left" to Right mistakes, which were duplications of those the Party had made in the later stage °f A nodie r' reason' for Wang Ming's Right-deviationist mistakes „ h . he worshipped the instructions of the Comintern and Mindly followed the foreign policy of the Soviet Union There was nothing wrong in the Soviet Union's decision at the time to maintain foreign relations only with the Kuomintang governmen in China. But some leaders of the Comintern and of the Soviet Union overestimated Chiang Kai-shek's enthusiasm for resisting Janan while underestimating his determination to eliminate the CommlX. and their thinking had a great influence on Wang MWang did some useful work in promoting cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and conducting pro£ aganda against the Japanese. However, he rejected the CPC Central Committee's principle of independence ^d mUiaUve within the united front, always acting withinthe LT^For by the Kuomintang. As a result, he impeded the Party swork_For example in the winter of 1937 and the spring of 1938, he made it Impossible for the Party to conduct more extensive guerrilla warfare and to establish more anti-Japanese base areas behinc enemy lines in central China, as it should have done. The Central Committee struggled determinedly to reject ^ang Ming's Right-deviationist mistakes. It insisted that m north China the Party conduct guerrilla warfare independently behind enemy lines and that strategy was brilliantly successful. In central China, despite Wang's interference, the Yangtze Bureau Central Committee for the most part implemented the Cm111"11 tec's principle of independence and initiative. It did much united frontwork, helped local Party organizations with their work and provided leadership in the campaign for national salvation, whde also expanding the armed forces. Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Z De and others reviewed the practical experience gained in guerrilla warfare and made a theoretical generalization of the strategic principles for such warfare, refuting Wang Ming's erroneous ideas. As the Party was determined to be independent within the united front, it confined the influence of those ideas to certain areas and was able to eradicate it in a comparatively short time. After the Politburo meeting of March 1938, the Central Committee sent Ren Bishi as its representative to the Soviet Union to explain to the Communist International the actual situation in China's anti-Japanese national united front. The leaders of the International, who now had a better understanding of China, said they agreed with the political line of the CPC Central Committee headed by Mao Zedong. This helped the Party to correct Wang Ming's mistakes before too long. At the Enlarged 6th Plenary Session of the 6th CPC Central Committee, held in Yan'an from September 29 to November 6, 1938, Mao Zedong made a political report and summarized the work of the session. Many other comrades delivered speeches about their experience in the anti-Japanese war over the previous 15 months. The session basically put an end to Wang Ming's mistakes and reiterated that the CPC must independently lead the people in the fight against the Japanese invaders. Thus, it further unified the thinking and action of the whole Party. This was a vital meeting in the history of the Party, as it upheld the principle of integrating Marxism-Leninism with the realities of the Chinese revolution and reaffirmed the leadership of Mao Zedong. If these problems had not been solved at the beginning of the war, it would have been impossible for the CPC to lead the people to victory.

Upholding the Principle of Resistance, Unity and Progress

After the Japanese troops seized Guangzhou and Wuhan in October 1938, the War of Resistance passed from the stage of strategic defensive to the stage of strategic stalemate. This was possible because changes had taken place in the relative strength of China and Japan. 241 After 16 months of fighting, the Japanese troops had occupied major industrial cities and other economically developed ChJ" In terms of campaigns, Japan was the winner but it was not af strategically. The full-scale invasion had tailed to destroy China s Stance forces, let alone the people's determination to resist. During the Wuhan campaign, the deputy chief of the Japanese General staff said that even if Wuhan and Guangzhou were t seized China would not give up and the Japanese forces would be dragged deener into the interior, which would be greatly to Japans disadvantage.18 As the invaders occupied more and more territory, a their front line extended and as they were increasingly worn down by protracted warfare, Japan's fundamental weaknesses, such as its shortage of financial and material resources and of troops had come to light As its difficulties increased daily, Japan was unable "wage any more large-scale strategic offensives. The guerrilla warfare led by the CPC had expanded m the occupied areas, leaving the Japanese troops in control of only major transport lines and key cities. Their so-called security zones were actually restricted to on y a few kilometres on either side of major transport lines. TheEighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army were in control of the vast rural areas and carried out constant attacks on the enemy, giving rise to a "jigsaw" pattern, in which the Chinese and Japanese troops encirclcd^each other. The Japanese aggressors had not anticipated such a pattern. As for the Chinese, in the stage of strategic defensive, the Kuomintang troops had retreated time after time from frontline battlefields. And although the people s anti-Japanese forces had expanded, they were far from being able to carry out a strategic counter-offensive ; before they were ready to do that they would still have a long, hard struggle to go through. For these reasons, the war had entered upon a stage of strategic stalemate. Major Changes in Class Relations During the Stage of Stalemate When the stalemate began, major changes took place in Japan's policy for the conduct of the war. From the time they seized Wuhan in October 1938 to the beginning of 1944, the Japanese ceased their strategic offensives on the front lines and began to use more and more of their main forces to fight the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in their rear areas. So far as the Kuomintang government was concerned, the Japanese invaders reversed their policy of making military offensives primary and political inducement to capitulate secondary. In the occupied areas the Japanese stepped up their efforts to prop up puppet governments and to establish traitors' organizations. At the time, the economic crises of the capitalist countries were further aggravating world contradictions. War clouds hung over the European continent. The fascists in Germany, Italy and Japan exploited and collaborated with each other. To deal with the war started by Germany and Italy in Europe, Britain and the United States tried to appease Japan by sacrificing China to some extent, in the hope that the Japanese would not side with Hitler against them. Accordingly, Britain and the United States also tried to persuade the Kuomintang government to capitulate. Under these circumstances, the capitulationist, divisive and retrogressive activities within the Kuomintang ruling clique became more serious every day. In December 1938 the pro-Japanese Kuomintang group, headed by Wang Jingwei, vice-president of the KMT, chairman of the Central Political Council, vice-chairman of the Supreme National Defence Conference and chairman of the People's Political Council of the Kuomintang, openly capitulated to the Japanese. In 1 940, as directed by the Japanese military, Wang Jingwei and other leading puppets from both southern and northern China were to hold negotiations with each other and establish a united puppet central government—the "National Government of the Republic of China." The pro-British and pro-American Kuomintang group headed by Chiang Kai-shek continued to resist, but without conviction, pursuing the policy of passively resisting Japan and actively opposing the Communist Party. At the 5th Plenary Session of the 5th Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, held in January 1939, the political situation in China took a turn for the worse. The Kuomintang gradually shifted its focus from external affairs to internal affairs and adopted the reactionary principle of "corroding," "guarding against," "restricting" and 243 - the Communist Party. After the meeting, a committee "combating t specific methods of carrying out this eSllfctrtam"rrasfricSnbetween the KMT and the CPC principle. In certain serjes of serious incidents took became increasingly^ shenJ[ian> Pjngjian and Queshan. In place, sue Japanese troops and civilians and cadres work thCSe of the Communist Party wem suddenly killed or attacked by Kuomintang troops and secret to maintain the coop d the anti-Japanese national every effort to conso Centra) Committee issued a "Manifesto oifthe^ Present Situation, Marking the Second Annivmsary of the War of Resistance," in whrch it put forward the oppose retrogression. lhese g the partv to recogmoved to Chongqing. In vi ^ Central Committee the 6th Plenary Session of the Wuhan and decided to abolish its Yangtz , iq-iq the South establish a South Bureau instead On January 13 1939 the Sou h Bureau was officially set up m Chongqmg. Ud by Zhou&da the bureau did hard but very effective areas. It scored outstanding underground and open), united front work (among pc P ^ ™" ‘n». Buicau publicized the proposals of the Communist Party, mobilized workers and peasants, united people of all classes and supported the resistance against Japan behind enemy lines. Using flexible tactics, it also waged a resolute struggle against the capitulationists and die-hards who were against resistance, unity and progress so as to ensure that the whole nation fought the Japanese. The bouth Bureau paid particular attention to work among the middle-of-the-roaders. While in the Kuomintang areas, Zhou Lnlai and others contacted representatives of democratic parties prominent persons without party affiliation, democrats in the Kuomintang, members of regional power groups and outstanding intellectuals. They discussed state affairs with these people and gradually gained their understanding and trust, thus expanding the anti-Japanese national united front. Expanding Guerrilla Warfare Behind Enemy Lines and Building the Anti-Japanese Base Areas When the Japanese invaders began using their main armies to attack the resistance forces in the occupied areas, the CPC began to shoulder the chief responsibility for fighting the aggressors. The Japanese concentrated their "mopping-up operations" on the base areas in north China. In spring 1939, they formulated a plan for public security and the elimination of Communists" and launched a "total war" including the military, economic and cultural domains and involving the help of secret agents. The commander-in-chief of the invading Japanese forces proposed what he called a "butcher's knife tactic," meaning that although e army led by the CPC was small, it must be attacked with great force In the two years of 1939 and 1940, the Japanese launched 109 large-scale "mopping-up operations" in north China alone using a total of more than 500,000 troops, each operation involving more than 1,000. Following the instructions of the CPC Central Committee, the Eighth Route Army persevered in guerrilla warfare in north China, relying on the population and making use of the advantageous terrain in the mountainous areas. The army and people also 245 . intiy sabotaged railways and highways and developed guerrilla warfare in the vast plains, taking advantage of irrigation ditches for concealment. Again in coordination with the local people, army units travelled to different areas to spy on the regular movements of the Japanese troops and accumulate a superior force to ambush them. Immediately after a successful ambush, the army would leave the scene and begin to search for other opportunities to wipe out enemy troops and enlist more men. Early in November 1939, with the support of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei army unit ambushed and wiped out more than 900 Japanese and puppet troops, including Lieutenant General Norihide Abe, commandei of the Japanese Second Independent Mixed Brigade. In the process of fighting, the Shanxi New Army expanded to 50,000 men. Meanwhile, in order to develop guerrilla warfare in central China, in February 1939 the CPC Central Committee sent Zhou Enlai to southern Anhui Province to consult with the leaders of the New Fourth Army. They agreed that the strategic tasks for the army were to consolidate the south, light battles in the east and expand to the north. After this the New Fourth Army and the guerrilla warfare in central China expanded considerably. In May 1940 the Central Committee sent 12,000 men of the Eighth Route Army south to join the New Fourth Army in developing the anti-Japanese base areas in central China. In November 1940, in order to unify the leadership of the two armies in central China, the Central China General Headquarters was established with Ye Ting as commander-in-chief, Liu Shaoqi as political commissar and Chen Yi as deputy commander-in-chief. (Chen Yi was acting commander-in-chief until Ye ling came north of the Yangtze to take up his post.) As for south China, after the fall of Guangzhou in 1938, the Guangdong Party organizations led the people in carrying out guerrilla warfare and establishing the Dongjiang Anti-Japanese Base Area. The Red Army Guerrilla Corps that had been operating on Hainan Island for a long time conducted guerrilla warfare and later expanded to become the Qiongya Column. For more than twro years, from the winter of 1938 to 1940, the war effort led by the CPC behind enemy lines pinned down a great number of invading Japanese troops. In the vast rear areas of the enemy, guerrilla forces carried out countless small-scale surprise attacks, gradually wiping out Japanese effectives and at the same time increasing their own numbers and combat effectiveness. By the end of 1940, the armed forces under the leadership of the CPC had expanded from 50,000 men to 500,000, not counting a large number of local armed units and militiamen. In north, central and south China, 16 new anti-Japanese base areas had been established, in Shanxi-Chahar-Hcbei, Shanxi-HebeiHenan, Shanxi-Suiyuan, Hcbei-Shandong-Henan, Henan-Hubei Shandong, Northeastern Anhui, Eastern Anhui, Central Anhui,' Southern Anhui, Southern Jiangsu, Central Jiangsu, Northern Jiangsu, Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu, Dongjiang and Qiongya. Together with the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, the base areas under the leadership of the CPC had a population of 100 million and played an increasingly important role in the national war of resistance. To sustain the war for a long time, the base areas in occupied territory had to be not only expanded but consolidated. To this end, the CPC attached great importance to promoting all undertakings there. The first of these was to establish organs of political power. The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region set the example in this respect. At the First Assembly of Representatives of the Border Region, held in Yan'an from the middle of January to the beginning of February 1939, the "Administrative Programme of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region During the War of Resistance Against Japan" was adopted, and a government council for the region was elected, with Lin Boqu as chairman. The programme was of great importance, because it contained the basic policies that would be implemented by the CPC in all anti- Japanese base areas. Later, the CPC Central Committee issued a series of directives on the establishment of organs of political power in base areas. These were as follows: 1. The organ of democratic political power of an anti-Japanese chapter HOUR the WAR OF RESISTANCE AGAINST JAPAN 247 base area would be a united front led by the CPC. In other words, it would be the joint democratic dictatorship of several revolutionary classes over the traitors and reactionaries. 2. In employing government staff, a "three thirds system" was to be implemented, with Communists, non-Party Left progressives and middle-of-the-roaders each taking a third of the posts. This system included people from all backgrounds and helped to unite anti-Japanese elements of all classes. 3. The leading position of the Communist Party in the government was to be maintained through the Party's correct policies, the exemplary conduct of its members and the support of the people. 4. The government should constantly improve democratic systems in all spheres of work. Communists must cooperate with non-Party members in a democratic manner, listening to their opinions and discussing matters with them whenever possible. They should not act arbitrarily or monopolize all power. 5. The policy measures of the government would be to oppose the Japanese imperialists, protect the people who were resisting Japan, properly adjust the interests of all the anti-Japanese classes and improve the life of the workers and peasants. In August 1940, in accordance with the directives of the CPC Central Committee, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region promulgated its own Administrative Programme. In the autumn of the same year, a general election was held throughout the region. One after another, the other anti- Japanese base areas established organs of political power based on the "three thirds system." The governments at the grassroots level were formed through direct, democratic elections and enjoyed the support of the local people. The main task of the Party in the War of Resistance behind enemy lines was to mobilize and organize the peasants to resist the Japanese. In essence, it was the peasants, led by the CPC, who were the main force in the resistance. By the time the war broke out, the CPC had abandoned its agrarian policy of confiscating the land of landlords. To mobilize the peasants and improve their material life, the Central Committee decided to introduce the policy of reducing land rents and interest and protecting tenants' rights. The implementation of this policy could not solve the land problem once for all, but politically, it shook the feudal regime, and economically, it weakened feudal exploitation. Thus, during the national war, this policy gave consideration to the interests of both peasants and landlords, integrating the need to maintain the united front with the need to deal with the peasant question. From the winter of 1939 on, all base areas began to reduce rents and interest. The original rents were cut by 25 percent, and the general annual interest rate was fixed at ten percent (with a maximum rate of 15 percent). Other miscellaneous rents, corvee and all forms of usury were brought to an end. Thanks to this policy, the peasants not only benefited economically but also enhanced their political status and became more enthusiastic about farming than ever before. On Lhc basis of the progress in agricultural production, industrial production and all other economic undertakings developed in the base areas. The base areas also actively promoted culture and education. The Central Committee proposed that as many intellectuals as possible be encouraged to take part in the War of Resistance. The governments of base areas organized intellectuals to develop education. In spite of the difficulties presented by the lack of necessary materials, the poverty of the people and constant harassment by the enemy, the governments made full use of their poor facilities to establish primary and secondary schools and to promote education in the society at large, so as to raise the educational level of the masses. At the same time, a number of cadres' schools were set up in Yan'an and in all base areas, the graduates of which became the backbone of the people's armed forces and major contributors to the development of these areas. The Central Committee also attached great importance to developing science and technology in the base areas. In February 1940 the Research Association of Natural Sciences was formed in Yan'an. In August of the same year, the Academy of Natural Sciences was launched, the first of its kind in the history of the CPC, to train scientific and technological personnel. The progress in all undertakings in the base areas greatly 249 ct lengthened the ties between the CPC and the local people and S reased their confidence in the Party and the people s armed forces. This was vital, if the resistance forces were to continue operating behind enemy lines, where the environment was extremely challenging, and to win final victory. Through its work in the base areas, the Party accumulated much experience m establishing organs of political power and promoting economic development, culture and education. Later, this experience would prove highly valuable in the building of New China. In northeast China, the Japanese aggressors repeatedly launched merciless attacks on the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the army conducted guerrilla warfare and, in May 1939, was reorganized into the First, Second and Third Route Armies. In 1940 Japan sent more troops to northeast China, making it even more difficult for the United Army to operate than before. On February 23, 1940, Yang Jingyu, commander-in-chief of the First Route Army laid down his life heroically in a battle 1 ought m Mengjiang County, Jilin Province. Towards the end of the same year, the United Army moved to the Sino-Soviet border to reorganize and train and continue to fight the Japanese and puppet troops. During 1939 and 1940 the Japanese troops launched some small-scale offensives against the Kuomintang troops. These included the Nanchang, Suixian-Zaoyang, First Changsha, Southern Guangxi, and Zaoyang-Yichang campaigns. However, the KMT forces put up strong resistance and the Japanese tailed to make great advances. During this period, when the Japanese invaders launched frontal attacks, fierce battles were fought. Many Kuomintang officers and men fought valiantly, but these campaigns pinned down only a small part of the Japanese troops and came to an end when the Japanese stopped their offensives. The 100-Regiment Campaign In north China, behind enemy lines, as the people's armed forces and the anti-Japanese base areas were rapidly expanding, from August 20 to the beginning of December 1940 the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army launched large-scale offensives against the Japanese troops. As more than 100 regiments of the Eighth Route Army with a total of more than 200,000 men took part in these operations, they were called the 100-Regiment Campaign. Why did the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army launch these offensives? Mainly because there had appeared "the gravest danger of capitulation and unprecedented difficulties in the War of Resistance."20 In September 1939 Hitler had sent his troops to attack Poland, and Britain and France had declared war on Germany. The arrogance of the German fascists greatly encouraged the Japanese aggressors. They stepped up their efforts to force or induce the Chiang Kai-shek clique of the Kuomintang to capitulate. In May and June 1940 they occupied Yichang in the Xiangyang- Yichang Campaign in Hubei Province, thus seizing the entrance to Sichuan Province from Hubei. Then they imposed blockades on the transportation line from Yunnan Province to neighbouring Vietnam. And on two occasions—in March 1940 in Hong Kong and again in June in Macao—representatives of the Japanese army and representatives of the Chongqing government held secret negotiations on the conditions for a truce. At the same time, in the occupied areas the invading troops stepped up the implementation of their "prisoners' cages" policy, using railways, highways and blockhouses, supplemented by blockade walls and trenches, to divide the anti-Japanese base areas into small pieces and encircle them. Then they carried out "mopping-up operations" against these areas and "nibbled at" them. Under these circumstances, the general headquarters of the Eighth Route Army concluded that to combat capitulationism, inspire the army and people fighting the Japanese and temper its own forces, it was essential to organize large-scale sabotage operations against the enemy.21 In the first stage of the 100-Regiment Campaign (from August 20 to September 10, 1940) transportation lines were sabotaged. At the same time, army units, guerrillas and the militia launched offensives against the Japanese and puppet troops. They damaged the Zhengding-Taiyuan, Datong-Puzhou, Beiping-Hankou, chiiiazhuang-Dezhou, Beiping-Suiyuan, Beiping-Shenyang Thmiin-Pukou and Baigui-Jincheng railways, annihilated a large lumber of enemy troops and even seized for a while the strategic Niangzi Pass, a fortified pass held by the Japanese on the border between Shanxi and Hebei. Caught off guard and assar ed from many sides at once, the Japanese and puppet troops had to acccp MUle without preparation and suffered heavy losses. On Septem ber 20 in Yan'an the people held a rally to celebrate the victory of the 100-Regiment Campaign. They also sent a telegram to e Eighth Route Army, encouraging it to "advance unremittingly from victory to victory." In the second stage (from September 22 to early October), the Eighth Route Army continued to launch surprise attacks on both sides of railways, destroyed Japanese fortified points in the base areas and attacked the county seats of Yushe, Liaoxian, Laiyuan and Lingqiu. However, because the Japanese troops now remained on the alert and the Eighth Route Army was worn out from continuous fighting, the army suffered heav> casu® ^S' 0 seized only one county seat, Yushe, and was unable to clear all the enemy fortified points in the base areas, as it ^.^JiToOO do. From early October, the Japanese dispatched all the 20,000 troops that it could concentrate in north China, in addition to a large number of puppet troops, to carry out des. perate retaliato: ry "mopping-up operations." The army and people in the base areas fought valiantly against them. During the 100-Regiment Campaign the officers and men of the Eighth Route Army fought the enemy courageously. By the beginning of December, they had fought 1,824 battles, large an small, killed or wounded more than 25,000 Japanese and puppet troops and captured more than 280 Japanese troops and 8,000 puppet troops, as well as guns, artillery and other matdriel The Eighth Route Army itself suffered 17,00p casualties^ The : cam paign dealt a heavy blow to the "prisoners cages policy that was designed to carve up the armed units and people in the antiJapanese base areas into isolated groups. The campaign also pinned down many Japanese troops and deflated their aggressi arrogance. It not only tempered the people's armed forces and enhanced the prestige of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army, but also inspired the nation at a time when the War of Resistance was at low ebb. The fact that the Communist Party had persevered for so long in resisting Japan behind enemy lines and had launched the 100- Regiment Campaign was a convincing refutation of the view, held by some, that in the War of Resistance the Party's guerrilla warfare consisted of just moving around without fighting. In spite of the extremely difficult conditions, the army of the Communist Party not only survived but kept a large number of Japanese and puppet troops pinned down in occupied territory. The army and the people fought countless small engagements and also, when conditions were ripe, large-scale battles such as in the 100-Regiment Campaign. During that campaign, on September 11, 1940, Chiang Kai-shek sent Zhu De and Peng Dehuai a telegram reading, "Your army has unhesitatingly seized this good opportunity to launch offensives and has dealt a heavy blow to the enemy. I therefore send this telegram as a citation." This shows that the Kuomintang authorities officially recognized the achievements of the CPC's Eighth Route Army in the War of Resistance.

Repulsing the Anti-Communist Onslaughts Launched by the KMT

Throughout the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan there were contradictions that had an important bearing on China's destiny: first, the national contradiction between China and Japan, which determined whether the Chinese nation would survive; second, the class contradiction between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, which determined whether the people would be able to carry the War of Resistance through to the end and afterwards build a new China. These two contradictions were closely interrelated. 253 Unlike Wang Jingwei, Chiang Kai-shek, the chief leader of the Kuomintang, never forgot to make a pretense of resisting Japan, but when the war was at a stalemate, he adopted a passive attitude toward the War of Resistance and even went so far as to try secretly to reach a compromise with the invaders. He carried out an anti-democratic policy that damaged the efforts for unity and resistance. Furthermore, in the KMT-controlled areas he began to actively oppose the Communist Party, strengthening fascist rule and the activities of secret agents, destroying Communist Party groups and other progressive organizations and jailing Party members and other patriots. He instigated frequent provocations of the Communist Party, attacking the people's army, arresting and killing cadres who supported the resistance, engineering incidents of "friction" between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and even launching armed attacks on the Communist-led anti-Japanese base areas.22 All these acts made the class contradiction between the CPC and the KMT more acute. How, then, was the contradiction to be handled? This was an important and complicated question. The CPC Central Committee held that during the war with Japan, the national contradiction between China and Japan was primary and the domestic class struggle should be subordinated to it. The class struggle should not be denied, but it should serve the national struggle. Accordingly, while rallying the people around itself in the war effort, the CPC sought to maintain its cooperation with the Kuomintang and to carry on the war to the end by following a policy of both alliance with and struggle against the Chiang Kai-shek clique. Alliance with Chiang Kai-shek meant that the Party would do everything possible to persist in the War of Resistance and to secure unity and progress, and that it would support the patriotic forces both inside and outside the Kuomintang so as to keep it in the anti-Japanese united front. The troops commanded by the Communist Party behind enemy lines tied up a great number of Japanese soldiers, which reduced the pressure on the KMT forces in the front-line battlefields. This was an important factor in persuading the KMT to continue its efforts in the War of Resistance. Struggle against Chiang Kai-shek meant that the Party would resist any attempts by the KMT diehards to capitulate, cause splits or retrogress and that it would make no unprincipled concessions. When the Kuomintang launched its campaign against the Communist Party, the latter, upholding the principle of the anti-Japanese national united front, united firmly with the democratic parties and with patriotic and progressive people of all strata and waged the necessary and appropriate struggle against it. The purpose of this class struggle was not to overthrow the KMT government, but to prevent it from capitulating to the Japanese invaders and fighting the Communists and to keep it in the united front. The policy of uniting with the Chiang Kai-shek clique and at the same time struggling against it was based on the lessons the Party had learned from following a policy of alliance without struggle during the period of the Great Revolution and a policy of struggle without alliance during the period of the ten-year civil war. The formulation of the new policy represented a major development of the Party's thinking on the question of the united front. Bearing this policy in mind, the Party was able to approach problems coolly and in an all-round way and to control the development of the overall situation. Repulsing the First Anti-Communist Onslaught In the winter of 1939 and the spring of 1940 the Kuomintang diehards launched their first onslaught on the Communists. At the 6th Plenary Session of its 5th Central Executive Committee, held in November 1939, the KMT established the policy of making the military restriction of the Communist Party its principal objective and the political restriction of the Party subsidiary. In December Kuomintang troops attacked the ShaanxiGansu-Ningxia Border Region, took five county seats there and planned to attack Yan'an. The army led by the CPC resolutely counter-attacked. In Shanxi, Yan Xishan used all his troops to attack the New Army (the Anti-Japanese Daredevil Corps) and the Eighth Route Army. In the Zhongtiao Mountains in Shanxi, several corps under the command of Chiang Kai-shek likewise 255 , forked the Communist-led armies. The New Army, supported hv the Eighth Route Army, repelled these attacks. By January 1Q40 northwestern Shanxi had become an anti-Japanese base area •der the leadership of the Communist Party. In February and March the Kuomintang troops attacked the anti-Japanese base areas in southern Hebei and the Taihang Mountains in southeastern Shanxi where the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army was located. The Eighth Route Army, subjected to a pincer movement by the Japanese invaders and the Kuomintang troops, nevertheless repulsed the latter's attacks. Soon after this demonstration of its strength, the CPC Central Committee sent Zhu De to negotiate with Wei Lihuang in Luoyang, Henan Province and Xiao lingguang and Wang Ruofei to negotiate with Yan Xishan at Qiulin Town in Yichuan County, Shaanxi Province. They reached agreement on stopping the armed conflict between their forces, dividing up the areas where their respective troops were to be stationed and where they were to resist the Japanese. While repelling the Kuomintang's first military onslaught, the Communist Party also frustrated its political and ideological attacks. The Kuomintang set all its propaganda machines in motion, promoting the view that Communism did not suit C hina s reality and that there was no need for a Communist party in China Ye Qing, a reactionary scholar, said: "The Three People's Principles can satisfy all China's present and future needs. If these principles are implemented, there is no need for China to practise socialism or to organize a political party to strive for socialism." The people were worried by the KM Vs attacks on the Communist Party, and many of them raised the question of what direction China should take. The representatives of the national bourgeoisie were dissatisfied with the autocratic rule of the Kuomintang and its passivity in the War of Resistance, but they were skeptical about the Communist Party's proposals. Some of them were under the illusion that after Japan was defeated, a capitalist society of the European and American type would be established in China. At this crucial moment, the Communist Party had to make clear to the Chinese people its views on the revolution and to answer the question, what direction should China take? In October and December of 1939 Mao Zedong published two articles entitled respectively "Introducing The Communist " and "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China." In January 1940 he published another called "On New Democracy," in which he explicitly expounded the views of the Communist Party. He answered three fundamental questions: 1. What kind of state should be built in China? 2. What kind of political, economic and cultural systems should this state have? 3. What were the prospects for this state? In essence, he replied as follows: 1. The basic contradictions in the semi-colonial and semifeudal society of China were the contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation and the contradiction between feudalism and the great masses of the people. The first of these was the principal one. Because of the society's semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature, the Chinese revolution must go through two stages: first, a democratic revolution, and second, a socialist revolution. 2. After the May 4th Movement of 1919, the Chinese democratic revolution was no longer a general one but a newdemocratic revolution. It .was an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution of the masses, and it was led by the proletariat, this being the essential difference between it and the old democratic revolution. During the period of this revolution, which was based on the worker-peasant alliance, the proletariat united the national bourgeoisie and, under special circumstances, a part of the big bourgeoisie to form a broad united front, so as to isolate and strike the main enemy. 3. The political programme of the new-democratic revolution was to end the oppression by imperialism and feudalism and to establish a democratic republic under the joint dictatorship of all revolutionary classes, led by the proletariat and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. Its economic programme was first, to confiscate the big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises that dominated the livelihood of the people and convert them into state-owned enterprises, and second, to confiscate the land of the landlords and distribute it to the 257 . „„rnnra2ini! them to establish a cooperative economy, peasants, imefethe new-democratic republic would allow the A‘ Tnment of a' national-capitalist economy and the existence de h neas an t economy. Its cultural programme was to sweep away 'the feudal, comprador culture and develop a national, The "demS'ratk ' revolution would ultimately lead to socialism The new-democratic revolution and the socialist « m, on were two different revolutionary stages, and the latte M he carried out only after the former was completed. I C°" fd be impossible to accomplish the tasks of the two stages at ne s«ok ^ ‘he second must follow immediately upon the first, whhout allowing any intervening stage of bourgeois dictatOT5hThe new-democratic revolution was guided by the commui-swna s m and w i hout the guidance of the communist ideology the s-rrssss— tion was a major event in the nistory ■ _ Tt pnahled the whole membership to get a clear anu revolution, the taste it^ntai chinese people as they KSiS—"on and played a grea' ' y nation of MarxismLemnism with the practice of the ChmeserevolutiomBefore^ bourgeoisie.23 The Comintern declared that the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution would not necessarily lead China onto the capitalist road, but that idea was not clearly explained. With the theory of the new-democratic revolution, many of the problems that had arisen during that stage were solved satisfactorily. It should be remembered, however, that the Party was able to set forth this theory only after it had been through nearly twenty years of arduous struggle and, especially, only after it had reviewed what it had learned, both from its successes and from its failures in the Great Revolution, in the ten-year civil war and in the anti-Japanese war. Having repulsed the first anti-Communist onslaught, the CPC Central Committee made a serious analysis of the domestic situation. It stated that at a time when the Japanese were invading China, the principal contradiction was the one between China and Japan, and the domestic class contradiction was subordinate. There was still a possibility, it said, of preventing the situation from deteriorating and of changing it for the better, and the Party's present task was to consolidate and expand the antiJapanese national united front. After reviewing its experience in united front work, the Central Committee formulated several important tactical principles for such work. These principles were as follows: 1. In the period of the united front, the Party should develop the progressive forces, win over the middle-of-the-roaders and, as far as possible, try to isolate the diehards. These three things were related, but the main emphasis should be on developing the progressive forces. The middle-of-the-roaders tended to vacillate and were bound to break up as a group. They might often be a decisive factor in the struggle between the progressive forces and the diehards, so it was very important for the Party to win them over. 2. In the struggle against the Kuomintang diehards the Party should adhere to the principle of self-defence. That is, it should not attack unless it was attacked. In that case, it should counterattack, but only on just grounds, when the situation was to its advantage and with restraint. By fighting only on just grounds, 259 lhe party would win the sympathy and support of the people of he whole country. By fighting only when the sttuauon was to its advantage and only with restraint, it would ensure victory and be careful to stop at the appropriate time. By observing this pnncipte . party would be able to develop the progressive forces, win over the middle-of-the-roaders, isolate the diehards and carry the War of Resistance to the end. 1 In the period of the anti-Japanese united Iront, struggle was the means to unity and unity was the aim of struggle. As Mao Zedong put it, "If unity |was] sought through struggle it [would] live' if unity [was] sought through yielding, it [would] perish. 4 While trying to improve the situation, the whole Party and the whole army should be on the alert for any eventualities on a local or national scale and prepared to deal with them, lhe mistake of 1927 must not be repeated. These important tactical principles guided not only the united front work at that time but also the long revolutionary struggle that came afterwards, enabling the Party to tackle all kinds of thorny problems more skillfully and to achieve ever more successes. Repulsing the Second Anti-Communist Onslaught Despite the failure of its first onslaught on the Communists, the Kuomintang did not give up. In September 1940 Germany, Italy and Japan signed a pact of alliance. Britain and the United States tried hard to win over the Kuomintang government. Thin ing this was a favourable moment, Chiang Kai-shek intensified his anti-Communist activities, shifting the focus of his armed attacks from north China to central China. In mid-September 1940, Han Deqin, the Kuomintang governor of Jiangsu Province and deputy commander-in-chief of the Shandong- Jiangsu war zone, ordered his main force to attack Huangqiao in northern Jiangsu, an important base of the New Fourth Army, m an attempt to wipe out the units stationed there. From October 4 to 6 the northern Jiangsu command of the New Fourth Army fough back in self-defence and annihilated 11,000 of Han Deqin s troops. After the Huangqiao campaign, Chiang Kai-shek launched the second anti-Communist onslaught. In a telegram to Zhou Enlai who was then in Chongqing, Mao Zedong warned that the CPC should prepare for the most difficult and dangerous situation, making all arrangements accordingly. On January 4, 1941, in accordance with orders from the Military Council of the National Government and with the consent of the Central Committee of the CPC, the headquarters staff of the New Fourth Army and more than 9,000 New Fourth Army troops in southern Anhui began to move north of the Yangtze River. As they were approaching the area of Maolin in Jingxian County on the 6th, they were ambushed by seven divisions totalling more than 80,000 Kuomintang troops. Surrounded and greatly outnumbered, the New Fourth Army troops nevertheless put up heroic resistance. After a bloody battle that lasted seven days, their supplies of food and ammunition were exhausted. Only some 2,000 of them broke through the enemy lines, while the rest laid down their lives or were captured. Ye Ting, commander of the New Fourth Army, was detained when he went to the headquarters of the Kuomintang troops to negotiate. Xiang Ying, deputy commander of the Army, was murdered after breaking through the siege. Strictly speaking, this engagement was not a war but a trap laid by Chiang Kai-shek, who was taking advantage of his post of supreme commander to get rid of dissidents. On January 17 he even spread the rumour that the New Fourth Army had staged a mutiny. He cancelled its official designation and declared that Ye Ting would be handed over to a military court for trial. This was the Southern Anhui Incident, which shocked China and the rest of the world and was the culmination of the second antiCommunist onslaught launched by the Kuomintang. Before these events, Xiang Ying, the secretary of the Southeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and one of the leaders of the New Fourth Army, had made contributions to the revolution by carrying on guerrilla warfare for three years in southern China and organizing the New Fourth Army. But he did not correctly understand the principle of maintaining independence and initia261 tive in the united front and the Central Committee's policy of expanding the armed forces to the north and in occupied terntorv He was reluctant to carry out the Central Committee's directive to move north, and when he finally did so he was not sufficiently aware of the danger of attacks by the Kuomintang diehards. He was therefore not adequately prepared for an emergency. Also, before the enemy's attack he made some tactical mistakes. As a result, he was unable to avoid or reduce the grave losses suffered by the New Fourth Army in the Southern Anhui Incident. . ...... After this incident, some people both inside and outside the Party thought that the situation would be a repetition of the one in April 1927, that cooperation between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang would soon break down and that the civil war would expand. Indeed, the Southern Anhui Incident staged by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang was quite similar to the coup of April 12, 1927. But the situation in 1941 was dillerent from the one in 1927. In 1941, facing the Japanese invasion, the people throughout the country opposed the civil war and demanded unity and resistance to Japan. Also, the balance of strength between the CPC and the Kuomintang was different from what it had been in 1927. More important, the Communist Party already had a mature leadership that frequently reviewed the experience it had gained in revolutionary practice. This leadership did not panic in the face of any eventuality; it did not make unlimited concessions to the reactionary forces, nor did it take any adventurist actions that might serve them as a pretext for sabotaging unity and the resistance. Confronting the grave situation after the Southern Anhui Incident, the CPC Central Committee still put the interests of the resistance above everything else and upheld the policy of both unity and struggle and of seeking unity through struggle. So far as the KMT's military offensives were concerned, the CPC persisted in the policy of self-defence, and as for the political offensives, it resolutely crushed them. . . n On January 20, 1941, the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee issued an order to reestablish the New Fourth Army Headquarters. A week later this was done in Yancheng County of northern Jiangsu, Chen Yi being appointed acting commander, Liu Shaoqi political commissar and Zhang Yunyi deputy commander. The army was reorganized into seven divisions and one independent brigade with a total strength of 90,000 men. These forces carried on the War of Resistance on both sides of the Yangtze. In the meantime, the Central Committee made public a host of facts exposing the Kuomintang's scheme to undermine the resistance, and it demanded that twelve steps be taken to solve the problems caused by the Southern Anhui Incident.25 In Chongqing, Zhou Enlai lodged a strong protest with the Kuomintang authorities. In a phone call to He Yingqin, chief of the KMT general staff, he denounced the KMT saying, "What you have done has grieved our friends and gladdened our enemies. You have done what the Japanese invaders tried but failed to do. You will be condemned for all time as a traitor to the Chinese nation." New China Daily , defying the KMT's press censorship, carried two commemorative "inscriptions" by Zhou Enlai. One was: "Mourn for the martyrs of the Southern Anhui Incident. The other was: "It is as great a wrong as history has ever known that Ye Ting has been thrown into jail. How brutal some people are to have killed their own family members!" These two inscriptions, written with grief and indignation, had wide repercussions in Chongqing and throughout the Kuomintangcontrolled areas. Liao Chengzhi, a prominent Communist, exposed the truth of the Southern Anhui Incident in a statement in Hong Kong. He made the following clear to the world: ‘The Communist Party of China has no intention of changing its policy of resistance and unity after the Southern Anhui Incident, but it will have to remain on the alert for a possible anti-Communist military attack. It does not want to see a largescale civil war, and if those who have provoked a civil war form greater plots from which the Japanese will benefit, the future of the War of Resistance in China will be jeopardized. We hope the international community will join in averting this danger."26 The Communist Party's determination to give priority to the 263 w_r of Resistance won widespread sympathy among the Chinese Zlolc including the middle-of-the-roaders and patriotic mem£!rs of the Kuomintang, and also among people abroad. Many Iconic knew that it was the army led by the Communist Party of rhina that was carrying on the resistance behind enemy lines. On the other hand, the Kuomintang diehards, confronted with a formidable enemy, the Japanese imperialists, nevertheless continued to attack the Communists, thereby losing all popular support. Soong Ching Ling, He Xiangning, Liu Yazi, Peng Zemin and others launched a protest campaign in Hong Kong writing letters to Chiang Kai-shek and to the Central Executive Committee and Supervisory Committee of the KMT. They denounced the Kuomintang authorities for their encirclement and suppression of the New Fourth Army and demanded that they renounce their suppression of the Communist Party and plan to cooperate with it, instead, expand all the anti-Japanese forces and protect all the anti- Japanese parties. , Huang Yanpei, a noted democrat, declared that the Kuomintang authorities were utterly wrong to have attacked the New Fourth Army in Southern Anhui. Feng Yuxiang said that everyone knew the New Fourth Army had made great contributions to the resistance and that the Kuomintang government would be condemned by the people for having annihilated that army Several hundred people in cultural circles issued a statement denouncing the Kuomintang for having turned its guns against the people. Tan Kah Kee, a patriotic leader of the Chinese community in Singapore, sent a telegram to the People s Political Council, appealing for unity and condemning Chiang Kai-sheks betrayal. The majority of the middle-of-the-roaders sympathized with the CPC. Internationally, the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain were dissatisfied with the Kuomintang and urged China to continue its resistance to Japan. In February 1941 President Roosevelt sent his representative Laughlin Currie to China While in Hong Kong, Currie told Soong Ching Ling that he would warn Chiang Kai-shek not to continue to deceive : and attack the troops of the CPC. In Chongqing he told Zhou Enlai that the United States wanted to see China united against Japan. The Kuomintang diehards had not expected that the Communist Party would be so uncompromising towards them and that the reactions to the Southern Anhui Incident would be so strong both at home and abroad. As they were in an extremely isolated and awkward position, they had no choice but to restrain their anti-Communist activities. On March 6, 1941, in a speech delivered at the second session of the People's Political Council, Chiang Kai-shek pledged that absolutely no further military actions would be undertaken against the Communists. Then Dong Biwu, a leading member of the CPC, was elected a non-voting member of the Council. Chiang Kai-shek invited Zhou Enlai for talks to solve the problems concerning relations between the two parties. Thus, the second anti-Communist onslaught mounted by the Kuomintang was repulsed. Far from achieving the object of destroying the Communist Party, Chiang's policy served only to bring about his own isolation by revealing the truth to many people who had formerly harboured illusions about him. On May 8, 1941, the CPC Central Committee issued a directive laying down the policy for Party organizations in the great rear areas: to have well-selected cadres working underground for a long period, accumulating strength and biding their time. In January 1942 in Chongqing, at a meeting of the Southern Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Zhou Enlai stated that to build a strong and militant Party organization, Party members in the Kuomintang-controlled areas must work and study assiduously. They should make more friends and hold regular jobs so as to have a place in society as cover. Guided by these correct principles, the Party organizations working underground in the KMTcontrolled areas managed to preserve, consolidate and expand themselves and strike deep roots among the masses, despite the fact that the KMT authorities tried every means to undermine them. The ability of the Communist Party to repulse the two onslaughts of the Kuomintang and its determination to persevere in the policy of resistance, unity and progress proved that the leadership of the CPC Central Committee had become politically mature and that despite the complex circumstances, it could up correctly the relations between the national struggle and struggle. As if it had lifted a rock only to drop it on its lhe feet Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang had failed in its cam°Tenfto wipe out the troops under the leadership of the ComS, party More and more people had come to see clearly tha !^ CPC worked not for the interest of a single party or group but for that of the whole nation. Thanks to its correct policies the Party had been able to turn a bad situation around, to unite with I nf-the-roaders and to make the ruling clique of the Kuomintang^think army would exterminate everyone in north China who refused to yield and that it would establish a "Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere" in a sea of blood. Accordingly, the Japanese troops began massacring Chinese soldiers and civilians. In late January, for example, 1,500 Japanese troops "mopped up" the village of Panjiayu, Fengrun County, in eastern Hebei Province. They burned more than 1,000 houses and, in a massacre of unparalleled savagery, drove all the villagers—some 1,300, including women, children and old people—into a courtyard and mowed them down with machine-gun fire. On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviet people immediately began a heroic defence of their country. Earlier, on April 13, 1941, the Soviet Union and Japan had signed a treaty of neutrality. The Soviet Union, which had to cope with a tense situation in Europe, wanted to avoid fighting on two fronts. Japan hoped that if it marched into the area south of China, the treaty would remove any apprehensions for the safety of its rear. In October Hideki Tojo formed a new cabinet and expanded the aggressive war. In the small hours of the morning of December 8, 1941 (Tokyo time), Japan made a surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, the U.S. naval base in the Pacific. Thus began the Pacific War between Japan and the United States and Great Britain. The outbreak of the Soviet-German war and the Pacific War greatly enlarged the scale of World War II, which eventually involved 61 countries and regions. China's War of Resistance Against Japan became an important component of the worldwide anti-fascist war, coordinated with the efforts of other allied countries. On the second day of the war in the Pacific, the CPC Central Committee declared that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, which were enduring great hardships, would persist in their War of Resistance in the enemy's rear in north and central China, thwart his "mopping-up" operations and tic up large numbers of his troops. On January 1, 1942, in Washington, D.C., twenty-six countries involved in the fight against the Axis powers, headed by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China, signed the Declaration of the United Nations, ^pter four the war of resistance against japan 267 . nalling the formal establishment of an international antiracist united front. This created a favourable condition for the rhinese people in their efforts to win the War of Resistance. During this period, China still had to resist the main strength nf Japan's ground forces. By the end of 1941 Japan's total forces had increased to more than 2,400,000 men (300,000 in the navy and over 2,100,000 in the army). About 400,000 troops were stationed in Japan, another 400,000 were fighting elsewhere m Asia and in the Pacific and the remaining 1,300,000, including the Kwantung Army stationed in northeast China, were all deployed in China. If Japan's main ground troops, which made up more than half of the country's total military strength, had been available for use elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific region, the whole war would inevitably have presented quite a different picture The Chinese people's effort to tie up the main forces of the Japanese army was therefore a great contribution to the worldwide anti-fascist war. The Struggle Against Mopping-Up Operations To turn China into a rear base for the war in the Pacific, the Japanese aggressors instituted a brutal colonial rule in the occupied areas and proceeded to plunder them economically, in addition, the Japanese and puppet armies were mustered to conduct repeated "mopping-up" operations against the antiJapanese bases in their rear areas led by the Communist Party. During 1941 and 1942, in the north China base areas, there were 132 such operations involving between 1,000 and 10,000 men each time and 27 operations involving between 10,000 and /U,000 men. Sometimes the "mopping-up" lasted for three or four months in a single area, with the Japanese following a policy of "burn all, kill all and loot all." In some places they even used poison gas and germ warfare to create depopulated zones. In central China, too, the Japanese army launched large-sccde attacks against the army and the people in its rear. Alter the Pacific war broke out, the Japanese still had 290,000 troops m central China. They and the puppet troops set up blockade lines around anti-Japanese base areas in an attempt to consolidate the occupied areas, ensure control over the main transportation lines and plunder strategic materials. They also targeted the central and southern parts of Jiangsu Province, "mopping up" the countryside again and again. Under the ruthless attacks of the Japanese, the army and the people behind enemy lines suffered heavy casualties. By 1942 the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army had been reduced from 500,000 to about 400,000. Some organs of anti- Japanese democratic political power in the North China Plain had been destroyed. The base areas had shrunk, and their total population had fallen from 100 million to less than 50 million. Much of the arable land in the enemy's rear areas was damaged, so it was impossible to maintain normal production. Marauding Japanese troops also looted grain and domestic animals, causing a famine. This was done deliberately, to ruin the economy of the base areas and thus deprive the anti-Japanese forces of their means of survival. During this period, in the Zhongtiao Mountains of southern Shanxi Province, in the city of Changsha in Hunan and in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces and other areas, the Kuomintang troops also resisted the attacks of the Japanese army. In addition, they organized a Chinese Expeditionary Army to march into Burma in support of operations conducted by the anti-fascist allies. After the Pacific war broke out, however, since the Chiang Kai-shek clique believed that it could rely on the United States and Great Britain to fight the war against Japan, it continued to increase the friction between itself and the Communist Party. The Kuomintang government suspended the pay of the Eighth Route Army and withheld ammunition, bedding, clothing and other supplies. Moreover, it gathered several hundred thousand troops to encircle the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and enforce an economic blockade, cutting off support from the outside. Although the people in the Communist-led anti-Japanese bases and the resistance fighters behind enemy lines faced serious hardships, the Communists were not dismayed. The CPC Central Committee made it clear that these difficulties in the War of 269 Resistance were difficulties encountered as the people were advancing and that they were only temporary, because victory was drawing near. They could be overcome by the revolutionary spirit, the spirit that made one seek truth from facts and serve the people wholeheartedly, the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle, of unity and solidarity, the spirit that later came to be called the "Yan'an spirit." The Japanese army, reviewing its experience of fighting in its rear areas, concluded that it could not depend on force of arms alone to suppress the Communist Party. Vigorous and tenacious efforts had to be made to combine military measures with civilian ones. Using "mopping-up" as the main form of action, the Japanese troops also combed areas to find resistance fighters and "nibbled" at the territory controlled by the Communists, mounted campaigns to "tighten public security" and employed other tactics. From March 1941 to December 1942, the Japanese army, having undertaken to "wipe out Communism" and "establish a new order in East Asia," carried out no less than five such campaigns. They divided all of north China into three classifications: "secure zones" (the occupied areas), "quasi-secure zones" (guerrilla areas where their control was contested) and "nonsecure zones" (the anti-Japanese base areas). Different policies were adopted for each classification. Throughout the occupied areas, Chinese traitors were formed into "associations for the preservation of order," the bao-jia system was tightened and villages were merged and stockaded.- The Japanese also organized villagers into "self-defence corps," "garrison forces" and "security forces." They checked household registers, issued identification cards to "disciplined citizens" and practised collective punishment (if one household was found to be anti-Japanese, the members of ten neighbouring households would be killed as well). They arrested Communist Party members and anti-Japanese activists and suppressed all anti-Japanese movements. At the same time, the Japanese controlled steel, iron, zinc and other strategic materials, monopolized or swallowed up Chinese iactoiics and commercial firms, compelled the peasants to plant opium, pillaged great quantities of grain and introduced a rationing system. In addition, they organized "teams of labour for public service" to oppress and exploit the labourers. The Japanese aggressors also spread lies and propaganda to justify the enslavement of the Chinese people and their own brutal colonial rule. In the guerrilla areas, the Japanese army built a network of roads and clusters of blockhouses and constructed ditches, walls and watchtowers to prevent the people's armed forces from gaining a foothold in the guerrilla areas and the occupied areas. As for the anti-Japanese base areas, the Japanese army unceasingly "nibbled" away at them and conducted ruthless and devastating "mopping-up" operations. In view of these ferocious attacks, the Communist Party held that the power of the people's war had to be fully utilized in an all-out struggle against the enemy. The struggle should not consist merely of reckless fighting but should be waged on the political, economic, ideological, cultural and other fronts as well. Only in this way could the enemy be constantly weakened and the strength of the resistance forces be preserved and accumulated. The key to achieving this goal was to practise unified leadership and to coordinate the work in all areas. According to a decision on centralized leadership in the base areas made by the CPC Central Committee on September 1, 1942, the agency of the Central Committee (its bureau or sub-bureau) and the Party committees at all levels were to be the supreme leading organs in the base areas. Secretaries of the Party committees at all levels were to serve concurrently as political commissars in army units at the same levels. In the meantime, the military system, which consisted of the main formations of the regular army, the local formations and the self-defence corps of the people's militia, should be organized in such a way that the main formations of the regular army were the backbone of the armed forces and the other two types of units were strong reserves. When the enemy posed a serious threat, the main formations could be separated and dispersed. When the situation took a favourable turn, the local formations and the people's militia could be concentrated to coordinate with, or act as, main formations carrying out largescale operations. In sum, various forms of struggle should be 271 nAPTER FOUR THE WAR OF RESISTANCE AGAINST JAPAN waged to repel the enemy when he attacked the anti- Japanese base areas and to foil his campaigns to "tighten public security." jn central China, the struggle in the enemy's rear areas was as intense as in north China. From the spring of 1942 to the end of 1943. the New Fourth Army streamlined its troops, simplified its administration and combined armed struggle with unarmed struggle. The main formations of the regular army watched for opportunities to move from one place to another or make a surprise assault on the enemy, while the regional armed forces and the people's militia kept up guerrilla warfare in the same areas. The local Party and government organizations were totally militarized, so that they were able to adapt to the circumstances of guerrilla warfare. They were dispersed and hidden in the local areas, persisting in the struggle no matter what the situation was. The New Fourth Army harassed the concentrated enemy troops, while they surrounded and annihilated those that were scattered. The New Fourth Army also made it difficult for the puppet troops to return safely from the villages they had attacked to the places where they were stationed. If the Japanese and puppet armies concentrated their forces to "mop up' an area, the people s armed forces in neighbouring areas would strike simultaneously, so that the enemy could occupy one area only at the cost of losing others. Thanks to these flexible tactics, the "mopping up" plan of the Japanese and puppet troops was toiled, and the army and the people in the anti- Japanese base areas became stronger. In the course of this hard struggle behind enemy lines, the army and the people devised a number of very effective tactics. They included "sparrow" warfare, tunnel warfare, land-mine warfare, sabotage operations, guerrilla warfare on the lakes and rivers and the use of armed work teams. I hese tactics represented a further development of the people's war. "Sparrow" warfare was conducted mainly in the mountain areas, where the terrain was rough and the paths rugged. Naturally, the people's self-defence armed forces (the people's militia) were familiar with the local conditions. When the Japanese and puppet troops entered the anti-Japanese base areas, the people s disperse the next, attacking them everywhere. The enemy, unfamiliar with the terrain, had to rush here and there and take a beating on the roads. Tunnel warfare and sabotage operations were conducted in the plains. The army and the people in the base areas in the North China Plain dug trenches in the roads to slow the advance of the Japanese mechanized forces, thus protecting their own retreat. As the circumstances worsened, each household in a village would dig a cellar or burrow, and connecting tunnels would be built between them. These tunnels were later developed into extensive networks linking many villages and suitable for attacking, hiding and moving from place to place. The Japanese soldiers tried to fill the tunnels with smoke, water and poison gas, but all these methods were without avail. By depending on the tunnels, single villages and even individuals could effectively attack the enemy and protect themselves. In both mountain areas and plains, land mines were used. The people made mines o t difterent kinds out of local resources such as scrap iron, glass bottles, clay pottery and even stones. They would lay these mines at the entrance to a village or a road, at a door or in the corner of a courtyard, endangering the lives of the Japanese and puppet soldiers as soon as they entered a village or a house. The army and the people even laid mines under the exits of the Japanese blockhouses, otten killing or wounding enemies who came out and shaking the morale of the others. Guerrilla warfare on the water was waged largely on the river networks of central China. Thousands of soldiers and civilians, taking advantage of the varied terrain of rivers, lakes and branching streams, built dams and underwater barriers to make it difficult for the motorboats of the Japanese army to navigate. With small, silent wooden boats that could go everywhere in the vast water areas, they themselves found opportunities to strike the enemy heavy blows. The armed work teams were organized by the army and people behind enemy lines in an attempt to gain the initiative in the struggle against the mopping-up operations. In the spring of 1942, the policy of advancing as the enemy advanced was initiated in 273 orth China. When the Japanese and puppet troops attacked the anti-Japanese base areas there, the soldiers and civilians would use a part of their forces to penetrate the enemy's rear areas. There they would launch extensive military and political offensives, eliminating diehard Chinese traitors, persuading members of the puppet army and organizations like the "associations for the preservation of order" to cross over to the anti-Japanese side or educating them so they would work for the people insofar as circumstances allowed. These people's armed forces gradually developed into armed work teams operating deep inside occupied territory. Each of them, not only a fighter but also a propagandist and an organizer, was capable of functioning independently—fighting, educating the masses and mobilizing them. By combining military struggle with political struggle and overt struggle with covert struggle, they were able to conduct extensive education among the masses, expose the enemy's true colours, gather information, eliminate traitors and combat spies. They disrupted the order of the Japanese and puppet regimes, won over members of the puppet army and organizations, built secret armed forces and established dual regimes, or covert base areas. Thus, areas in the very heart of the territory controlled by the Japanese and puppet armies were turned into torward positions tor attacking them. In the vicinity of the blockhouses, the enemy could hear members of the armed work teams shouting political propaganda. The members also called on the families of soldiers in the puppet army, asking them to urge their men to give up evil and return to good as soon as possible. When the Japanese and puppet troops came to loot the grain in a village, the armed work teams would appear in time to help the villagers resist and protect their stores. Under these circumstances, the Japanese army could have no sense of security even in the "secure zones." Although the Japanese and puppet troops made desperate attacks, it was inevitable that they would be drowned in the vast ocean of the people's war. During 1941 and 1942 the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the guerrilla forces and the people's militia fought more than 42,000 engagements with the enemy troops, killing, wounding or capturing 331,000 of them. In particular, in their struggle against mopping-up operations behind enemy lines, the army and the people tied up or eliminated a large number of Japanese troops, making a major contribution to the protracted war of resistance against Japanese aggression and giving great support to the anti-fascist war fought by the Allies. In the struggle in occupied territory, soldiers and civilians alike fought indomitably and performed countless acts of heroism. On August 1, 1941, for example, puppet troops encircled Dongxin Village in Xianxian County in central Hebei Province. They tried to force the villagers to identify the mother of Ma Benzhai, the brave and capable commander of the Hui Nationality Detachment. A few villagers who refused to inform against her were killed on the spot; others were cruelly tortured. Ma's mother, who could not tolerate seeing people beaten or killed for her sake, stepped forward bravely. The enemy alternated threats and inducements to compel her to write a letter persuading her son to surrender. She denounced them scathingly: "I am Chinese, and I do not know the word ‘surrender.'" She remained unyielding and starved herself to death. In another incident, on September 25, 1941, on Langya Mountain near the Yishui River in western Hebei Province, under attack by Japanese arid puppet troops, five soldiers of the Eighth Route Army—Ma Baoyu, Hu Delin, Hu Fucai, Song Xueyi and Ge Zhenlin—deliberately drew the enemy fire on themselves to allow the members of Party and government organizations and the people in the area to move to a place of safety. They retreated to a steep cliff and from this vantage point repelled four successive assaults by the Japanese troops. When their last bullet had been fired, they resolutely smashed their guns and leaped from the cliff. Three fell to their death. The other two were caught on the branches of trees and eventually made their escape. The five soldiers became known as the Five Heroes of Langya Mountain. Again, on May 25, 1942, in a critical situation in which the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army stationed in Liaoxian County was encircled by the enemy, Zuo Quan, the deputy chief of staff, broke through the encirclement at the head of his men. As he was leading the 275 last group of soldiers through the enemy lines, Zuo Quan was struck by a bullet and gave his life for his country. Thousands upon thousands of such national heroes emerged in the War of Resistance. The revolutionary spirit of the Communist-led army and people in the enemy's rear areas—the spirit that bade them unite as one, resist aggression and defy brute force—was the source of strength that brought them victory in the struggle against the enemy's mopping-up operations. The Chinese people will always remember the great deeds performed by the heroes and martyrs in the War of Resistance Against Japan. Overcoming Economic Difficulties and Initiating the Great Production Campaign During that hard time, the CPC Central Committee adopted a number of effective policies to overcome difficulties and consolidate the anti-Japanese base areas. To lighten the burden on the people, the troops were streamlined and administration was simplified1. The "three thirds system" of political power and the policy of reducing land rents and interest rates were further implemented to arouse the enthusiasm of the peasants and unite people of all social strata in the War of Resistance. In addition, to keep closer relations between the army and the government and between the army and the people, a movement was launched in the army to support the government and cherish the people and a movement was organized among the masses to support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of revolutionary soldiers and martyrs. In the effort to overcome the grave difficulties in material lile and to persevere in the War of Resistance without unduly increasing the people's burden, the great production campaign in the anti-Japanese base areas played a decisive role. The general principle of this campaign was to develop the economy and ensure supplies. Bearing in mind that the rural economy was based on individual producers, that the countryside was divided by the enemy politically and that it was in a state of guerrilla warfare, the CPC Central Committee formulated the following policies: On production : first priority should be given to agriculture but animal husbandry, industry, handicrafts, transportation and commerce should also be developed;—On the relationship between the public and private sectors : both public and private interests, both the army and the people, should be taken into account;—On the relationship between the higher and lower economic departments : leadership should be centralized and management decentralized;—On the relationship between production and consumption: the guiding principle should be to work hard in production and practise strict economy in consumption;—On organizing economic development: cooperation and mutual help should be promoted, emulation should be encouraged in production and rewards should be established for "heroes of labour." Economic self-sufficiency of the army, government organizations and schools was a creation of the production campaign in the anti-Japanese base areas. The idea that the army should be self-supporting appeared to go against the principle of the division of labour and to be a step backward. In essence, however, it was progressive. It enabled the army to relieve the scarcity of basic necessities, to improve its living conditions, to lessen the burden of taxation on the people and still to have sufficient resources to sustain a protracted war. The CPC Central Committee took the lead in carrying out this policy in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. At the beginning of 1941, it ordered the 359th Brigade of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army to march into Nanniwan, a region not far from Yan'an, the seat of the CPC Central Committee, that was desolate and uninhabited but endowed with fertile soil. In March, after Zhu De had made a field investigation, Wang Zhen led the 359th Brigade into Nanniwan to reclaim the wasteland and plant grain. Under extremely difficult circumstances, lacking funds and tools for production and relying only on themselves, the officers and men of the brigade dug cave dwellings to live in, surveyed the areas to be reclaimed, learned farming techniques, made tools and opened hapter FOUR THE war of resistance against japan lhe wasteland. At the same time, tens of thousands of people "P hthe Party government, army, schools and other circles in Wa!iid in the production campaign. Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi and other leaders took part in productive 13 This campaign in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and in the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines was highly successful. The output value of agriculture and industry and the volume of commerce increased rapidly, the tax burden ™ the people was greatly alleviated and the material conditions "^soldiers and civflians were markedly improved. During the three years from 1942 through 1944, more than two mil ion ,nu (over 130,000 hectares) of wasteland were brought unde cultivation in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Regiom By 1945 the majority of peasants in the region had saved out of three years' harvests enough grain to last them for an additio year. Some had even saved that much out of a Singh e years harvest In 1944 the 359lh Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, which had done this and had been self-suffictcnt m other basic necessities as well, was declared a model for lhe whole army. In 1941 the "public grain" collected Horn the peasants m the region as a form of taxation made up 13.58 percent of the total yield, but in 1942 the proportion dropped to 11.14 a"d in 1943 to less than 9 percent. From 1943 on, most of the Party and government organizations in all anti-Iapanese base areas behind enemy lines could grow enough grain and veget ablcs to supply their own needs for three or even six momhs_ The tax burden on the people constituted onU about ^ percen of their total revenue. In terms of the standard of living a the time, the cadres had sufficient food and clothing and had been provided mainly by the work of their own hands. The great production campaign was a paean to self-reliance. It supported the hard struggle in the enemy's rear areas, and at the samT time it served to train numbers of cadres m economic development and give the CPC some experience in this area.

The Democratic Movement in Areas Ruled by the KMT

From 1943 on, the Allies in the anti-fascist war advanced rapidly toward victory. On the European front, following its victory in the battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army moved on to an all-out counteroffensive, driving deep into the Germanoccupied areas and into Germany itself. The British and American troops landed at Normandy, opening up the second front in Europe. On May 8, 1945, the German fascists surrendered unconditionally. On the Asian and Pacific fronts, the United States launched a frog-hopping attack in the Pacific Ocean, while the Chinese and British troops organized the battle of north Burma and captured the city of Myitkyina. The CPC-led War of Resistance behind enemy lines entered a new stage of development. In 1943 the army and the people in north China, having survived the difficult years 1941 and 1942, were able to launch an offensive against the Japanese army. In 1944 all base areas in north, central and south China opened regional counteroffensives against the Japanese and puppet armies, extending the existing base areas and marching into the enemy's rear areas to open up new ones in Henan, on the Hunan-Guangdong border and on the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Anhui border. By the spring of 1945, there were nineteen Communist-led anti-Japanese base areas, covering 950,000 square kilometres and having a population of 95.5 million. The Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and local people's armed forces had increased to 910,000 and the people's militia to 2.2 million. Halting the Third Anti-Communist Onslaught While the CPC-led War of Resistance in the enemy's rear was entering a new phase, the Kuomintang authorities in the main took a wait-and-see attitude, avoiding engagements with the Japanese. On the one hand, they hoped to rely on Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union to win the war; on the other hand, they were still trying to eliminate, or at least weaken, the -hapter four the war of resistance against japan 279 Communist-led revolutionary forces so that they could maintain their autocratic rule after the victory. In the spring of 1943, the KMT launched the third anti-Communist onslaught. In his book China's Destiny, Chiang Kai-shek preached Chinese fascism and openly opposed Communists and liberals, implying that the Communist Party and all other revolutionary forces would be eradicated within two years. Soon after this, the KMT diehards took advantage of the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943 to demand that the Communist Party of China be disbanded and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region abolished. They secretly ordered a massive concentration of troops stationed in northwest China under the command of Hu Zongnan to prepare for an attack on the region. To halt this third anti-Communist onslaught by the Kuomintang diehards, the CPC launched a vigorous political counterattack. Liberation Daily, the official newspaper of the CPC Central Committee published in Yan'an, carried articles criticizing China's Destiny and exposing the KMT diehards' plan to launch a civil war. On July 4 and 6, 1943, Zhu De telegraphed Hu Zongnan and Chiang Kai-shek respectively to protest Hu's armed provocation and to appeal for unity. On July 9, 30,000 people in Yan'an held a rally and adopted a statement opposing civil war and calling for unity in the fight against Japan. On July 10, to conceal his plan to attack the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, Hu Zongnan arranged a reception for Zhou Enlai, who was returning from Chongqing to Yan'an via Xi'an. Zhou announced at the reception that he had asked Hu Zongnan personally if he had sent his troops defending the Yellow River west to prepare an attack on the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. "Deputy Commander Hu told me," he said, "that he had no intention of attacking the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and that the troops under his command would take no such action. I was very happy to hear this, and I believe everyone else will be happy, too."28 Thus Hu's scheme to attack the region was made known to the public. On July 12 Mao Zedong wrote tor Liberation Daily an editorial entitled "Some Pointed Questions for the Kuomintang," bringing to light the KMT's moves to wreck unity and calling on the people of the whole country to prevent a civil war. Eventually, the KMT's third anti-Communist onslaught was brought to a halt before it could develop into a large-scale armed attack. The Rise of the Patriotic and Democratic Movement in Areas Ruled by the Kuomintang Nevertheless, the KMT did not abandon its one-party dictatorship and, indeed, became even more autocratic. After the outbreak of the Pacific war, Chiang Kai-shek was appointed supreme commander of the ground and air forces of the allied armies in the China theatre (which included Vietnam, Thailand and other countries). General Joseph W. Stilwell was sent by the United States to serve as Chiang's chief of staff. After his arrival in China, Stilwell realized the role the CPC was playing in the war with Japan and believed that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party should cooperate in the war effort. However, as the anti-fascist forces worldwide were making good progress, the U.S. government began considering what was to be done after the war. In accordance with its overall strategy for the postwar period of contending for world hegemony and in line with its aim of replacing Japan as the dominant imperialist power in China, it adopted new policies towards China. In January 1943 the United States signed a bilateral treaty with the KMT government abrogating U.S. extraterritorial rights in China, so as to indicate U.S. support for the KMT government and enhance the latter's international standing. From then on, the United States' China policy gradually changed from favouring cooperation between the KMT and the CPC to supporting Chiang and opposing the Communists. In the autumn of 1944, the U.S. government recalled Stilwell and sent General Albert C. Wedemeyer to take over. Patrick J. Hurley was sent to China as a personal envoy of the President and then was made Ambassador to China. Hurley's mission was to prevent the KMT government from collapsing and to help Chiang unify the country. After the shift in United States policy, the KMT government, feeling secure with U.S. support, became increasing 281 nrruot and degenerate and eventually reached a grave crisis ly The corrupt and reactionary nature of the KMT was manifest in politically, Cth°f I&iomintang persisted in one-party dictatorship , -lengthened the secret service and the bao-jia system. The KMT secret agents, ignoring legal procedures, clandestinely ar«fed many Communists, revolutionary young people and patriotic democrats, cruelly torturing them or killing them at wiU. The people were deprived of their rights of free speech, assembly Thi Sication and not even their lives and property were safe. A commentary in the American newspaper Evening and Sunday v"d that the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek who arrogated all power to himself and whose position was as high a. that of emperors in the past, was controlled by Chen Lif u and rins brother Chen Guofu, who believed that the thinking of rndtv d uals should be dominated by the state, a view that might well be ^Economically, the four families of Chiang Kai-shek, foreign Minister T V. Soong, Finance Minister H.H Kung and the Chen brothers, which represented bureaucrat-capitalism in China con trolled the country's main lifelines by takmg advantage of tie privileges granted them. By monopolizing banking and com merce, grabbing land, swallowing up factories and mines con trolling transportation and increasing ahead y-exorbitant tax es they rapidly extended comprador and feudal bureaucrat capitalfsm andmade huge fortunes in the nudst : of nationa calamity. In 1944 the property of T.V. Soong in the United State alone exceeded U.S.S47 million. The expansion of bureaucrat capitalism greatly worsened the situation in the areas ^ under Kuomintang rule, where the economy crumbled, pnces skyrock eted and the people, living in destitution, boiled with resentment But it was in military affairs that the weaknesses of the Kuomintang were even more evident. In the face of attacks launched by the Japanese, the KMT army, whose morale was low almost lost its capacity to fight. Beginning from April 944 in order to open up north-south transportation lines, Japan renewed its strategic attacks on Henan, Hunan, Guangxi and other provinces along the Beiping-Hankou, Guangzhou-Hankou and Hunan-Guangxi railway lines. The Japanese army named these attacks its No. 1 Operation. In these engagements, all but a few of the KMT troops were defeated at the first encounter or fled without a battle. The KMT armies were utterly routed. During April and May 1944 Japanese troops attacking Henan occupied Zhengzhou and Xuchang, opening up the Beiping-Hankou Railway. In June and August those attacking Hunan took Changsha and Hengyang and then went on to attack Guangxi, seizing Guilin and Nanning in November. The Japanese pursued the fleeing KMT troops as far as Dushan County, not far from Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province. This posed a grave threat to Chongqing in neighbouring Sichuan Province. The KMT authorities then sent the troops it had stationed in Burma and those blockading the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region to reinforce its army in Guizhou. In early December, Dushan was recovered, but the Japanese plan to open up land transportation had been realized. In eight months, the Kuomintang authorities had lost more than 200,000 square kilometres of land and 146 cities in Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Consequently, more than 60 million of their countrymen were subjected to great suffering under the cruel oppression of Japanese imperialism. On October 31, 1944, when the KMT had been utterly defeated on all fronts, some 4,000 men from the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, with Wang Zhen as commander and Wang Shoudao as political commissar, were organized into a detachment to march south from Yan'an. Their mission was to enter enemy-occupied territory in Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong and establish new anti-Japanese base areas there. The defeat of the Kuomintang troops in Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, especially when compared to the victories of the Allies elsewhere, exposed the corruption and incompetence of the KMT government and completely discredited it. The defeats at the front also formed a sharp contrast with the situation in the enemy's rear. People saw what was happening and drew their own conclusions: the Kuomintang ruling clique was unable to win the 283 of Resistance Against Japan; it could neither defend China's WHenendence nor promote its economic development^ It was only in Jfsmcle to progress. This disillusionment with the Kuommf was a major reason for the rise of a patriotic and democratic movement in the areas under its control. Tnother reason was that the Communist Party had united with the democratic parties and with unaff.liated patriotic de™°"a« in the Struggle against the Kuomintang. During the period of the lend anticommunist onslaught, the KMT diehards persecuted not only Communists but also non-Commumst patriots Ma Yin chu a well-known economist, was arrested and sent to jail fo rebuking the wealthy families for their control of capital. The KMT authorities also cancelled the membership in the Peoples Political Council of Shen Junru, Zhang Bojun, Shi Liang and other prominent democrats. The contradictions between the middle-of-the-roaders and the Kuomintang ruling clique became increasingly acute. More and more middle-of-the-roaders began to understand the CPC's policies and to voice their support for the Party. After the Southern Anhui Incident, the high-handed policies of the Kuomintang diehards, instead of estranging t e great number of middle-of-the-roaders from the Communist Party, drew them closer. In the struggle to save the nation, the Cl C fought alongside these people through thick and thin. On March 19, 1941, the China Federation of Democratic Political Groups, whose social base was the middle bourgeoisie and the upper petty bourgeoisie, was founded in Chongqing. Because the KM 1 authorities created various difficulties for the Federation, it was unable to function openly in Chongqing and had to send some o its members to work in Hong Kong, where they received support from the local CPC office affiliated with the Southern Bureau of the Central Committee. On September 18 the Federation started publishing its official newspaper, the Guangming News ?. On October 10 it published a summary of its views on the current situation and a declaration of the establishment of the Federation. In these articles it maintained that the KMT government should resolutely resist Japan, strengthen unity, put an end to one-party rule, introduce a constitutional system, practise democracy and guarantee the people's democratic freedoms. The cooperative relationship between the Communist Party and the democratic parties was further strengthened as they struggled side by side. In the first half of 1 944, the struggle for democracy in the areas under Kuomintang control became unprecedentedly dynamic. During January and February of that year Huang Yanpei, a well-known figure in industrial and commercial circles, convened in Chongqing a forum on democratic constitutional government. He advanced ten proposals, including that a provisional constitution be adopted, that the freedom of the people be respected, that politics be renewed, that corrupt practices be abolished and that the people be mobilized and supplied with arms. These proposals evoked a positive response from people of all walks of life. The CPC Central Committee decided to participate in the movement for constitutional government and asked Party members to unite with all democrats so as to defeat the Japanese aggression and establish a democratic state. In May of the same year, the China Federation of Democratic Political Groups published another statement on the current situation, denouncing the Kuomintang for eliminating dissidents and for refusing to carry out democratic reform. In September the Federation was renamed the China Democratic League and admitted many people who had no party affiliations. In the meantime, a group of writers and artists set forth three objectives for their colleagues, namely, to resist Japan, to unite and to advocate democracy. More than fifty writers and other intellectuals, including Zhang Shenfu and Cao Yu, held a meeting demanding freedom of speech and publication. In Guangxi, Liu Yazi, Li Jishen and other enlightened members of the Kuomintang established the Anti- Japanese Association of Cultural Circles in Guilin, calling upon the KMT to mobilize the masses, resist the Japanese and uproot defeatism. A Proposal for the Establishment of a Democratic Coalition Government To persevere in the anti-Japanese war being waged by the entire nation, the CPC Central Committee decided to renew 285 paotiations with the Kuomintang. Starting on May 4, 1944, Lin rouu the Central Committee's representative, held several taiks with Zhang Zhizhong and other representatives of the KMT in arld Chongqing. The Communist Party demanded that L Kuomintang acknowledge the democratic rights of the antiJapanese base areas, enlarge the armies led by the CPC, give th neople democracy and freedom and grant the democratic parties fegal status. Owing to the KMT's unjustifiable obstructions, he talks came to nothing. As the failed talks coincided with the KMT's crushing military defeat, popular indignation increased. The withdrawal and defeat of the KMT troops, which started in Henan and Hunan provinces, fully revealed the corruption and incompetence of the Kuomintang government. People of all persuasions, including many middle-of-the-roaders * * to increase unity in the fight against Japan, the KMT s one-party dictatorship be abolished and democratic politics introduced^ This was something new. On September 15, 1944, at a meeting of the People's Political Council, Lin Boqu, following instiuctions from the CPC Central Committee, submitted a formal proposal for the establishment of a democratic coalition government: "We hope that the Kuomintang will immediately end the domination of a single party and that the National Government will call a conference on state affairs, in which representatives of all parties, anti- Japanese armies, local governments and peoples organizations will participate, to discuss the establishment of a coalition government to be formed by all anti-Japanese parties. The new government, by claiming the world's attention, |nsP^S the people of the whole country and raising the morale of the army at the front, will help strengthen national unity, bring together all talented people and concentrate all the anti-Japanese forces. Thus, in coordination with the counteroffensive to be launched by the Allied armies, we shall be able to defeat the Japanese aggressors."29 Lin's speech to the Council was published in full in New China Daily. Afterwards, the CPC submitted in written form the proposal for the establishment of a democratic coalition government. On October 10 in Yanan, Z ou n ai delivered a speech explaining the specific steps and methods tor carrying it out. This proposal produced strong repercussions at home and abroad. The Japanese army was continuing to attack Guangxi from Hunan. The question of uniting the country to check the enemy attack assumed the greatest urgency and was of concern to everyone. During September and October 1944 the democratic movement in the Kuomin tang-controlled areas expanded day by day. More than 500 patriotic democrats from various circles in Chongqing, including Zhang Lan, Shen Junru and Feng Yuxiang, held a meeting calling for democracy and the termination of the KMT's one-party dictatorship. Dong Biwu also attended the meeting. Seventy-two prominent people, including Soong Ching Ling, Guo Moruo and Zhang Lan, sponsored a memorial meeting for the patriotic journalist Zou Taofen, who, being persecuted by the Kuomintang, had died in exile the previous summer. (According to Zou's wish, unrealized during his lifetime, the CPC Central Committee admitted him posthumously as a Party member.) Several thousand people from all walks of life attending the meeting unanimously denounced the Kuomintang for trampling on democracy and persecuting patriots and declared their determination to struggle against its fascist regime. More than 2,000 people from five universities including West China Union University and Jinling University and twelve learned societies in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan, held a symposium on state affairs and demanded that the Kuomintang government and its supreme command be reorganized and a democratic coalition government established. On October 10 the China Democratic League published a declaration on the final stage of the anti-Japanese war, demanding the immediate abolition of the one-party system, the establishment of a multiparty coalition regime and the institution of political democracy. Under the influence of the Communist Party, the progressive forces were uniting more closely, and the middle-of-the-roaders were becoming politically active and inclined towards progressive views. The patriotic and democratic movement in the areas under Kuomintang rule was increasingly focused on a definite political objective—the establishment of a coalition government. 287 _ , . a flexible approach to negotiations, the CPC also I^TdetermSed struggle agatnst the U.S. policy of sup^rtChiang and opposing the Communists. When Hurley first mE to China the U.S. government tried to prevent the KM T " ™ent from collapsing. Realizing that the CPC had become fhJ mo" dynamic force in China, while the Kuomintang and the N tS Government were falling apart day by day, it asked Hurley to mediate between the two parties. It also understock that the Communist Party led an army of high combat effective ness and that, since the KMT government was corrupt, if a civil war with the Communists broke out before the Japanese were defeated the Kuomintang would face the danger of dtssolut The United States therefore hoped that Chiang Kai-shek would ahow alittle democracy so as to induce hand over its army to the Kuomintang. It believed that if the CPC did so, when the anti-Japanese war was over cl!iaI18 s dommant position could be stabilized. In the meantime the United States £u,d avoid conflict with the Soviet Union on tlx i China quesUom On November 7, 1944, Hurley flew to Yan an, where he indicated his consent to the CPC's proposal to abolish the one-party dicta torship of the Kuomintang and to form a democratic coahtion government. After three days of negotiations. Hurley and the CPC leaders drew up a draft agreement between the National Government and the Kuomintang on the one hand and i the Communist Party of China on the other However, the^ agreement was rejected by Chiang Kai-shek, and Hurley himself later aban doned his endorsement of a democratic coahuongovernmentm the various contacts and negotiations between the KMT and he CPC Hurley's position was that a measure of democracy could be permitted only after the CPC had turned its troops over to the KMT On April 2, 1945, when this political manoeuvring had foiled, Hurley announced that the U.S. government would cooperate only with the KMT, not with the CPC. rmnneine Now that the U.S. policy of supporting Chiang aI,d 0PP°sing the Communists was openly avowed, the reactionary K g ernment became even more arrogant, and the likelihood of civil war "n China increased. From May 5 to 21, 1945, the Kuomintang held its 6th National Congress. At this congress, the KMT refused to form a democratic coalition government and decided to persist in its dictatorship and prepare for civil war. Neither the machinations of the U.S. imperialists nor the threats and deceit of Chiang Kai-shek could halt the advance of the Chinese people in their drive for independence, democracy and liberation. However, they foreboded another long and bitter struggle to be waged after the victory over Japan.

The Rectification Movement

In the spring of 1942, the Communist Party of China launched a rectification movement throughout the Party. Its purpose was to combat subjectivism in order to rectify the style of study, to combat sectarianism in order to rectify the style in Party relations and to combat Party stereotypes in order to rectify the style of writing. 1 he movement not only added an important page to the annals of the CPC but was also an innovation in the international communist movement. Why did the Party need a rectification movement? Because it had to adapt to the actual situation in which it was leading the Chinese revolution forward. The movement was initiated against a specific historical background. The Communist Party had existed for more than twenty years. During those years, the Chinese revolution had not only won tremendous victories but also suffered grave setbacks; thus, the Party had ample experience of both success and failure. The dogmatist errors made by Wang Ming and his faction had been the most damaging. From the Zunyi Meeting in 1935 to the 6th Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee of the CPC in 1938, the Party criticized and corrected the "Left" mistakes Wang had made during the later stage of the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the Right-deviationist mistakes he had made in the initial period of the anti-Japanese war. However, the Party had not had time for the entire membership to make a systematic review of its historical experience and, in particular, it had not thoroughly 289 nnlvsed the kinds of thinking that were at the root of the "Left" Right mistakes of the past. Accordingly, there were still aHTerences of opinion with regard to the Party's guiding ideology, and these continued to be damaging to the revolutionary cause at rertain times and places and in certain respects. if a mistake were not truly recognized as such, it would inevitably be repeated in various forms under other conditions. The CPC Central Committee therefore deemed it necessary to conduct a rectification movement within the Party, using the correct stand, viewpoint and method to overcome erroneous ones At the same time, the Party was in the midst of the most difficult period of the War of Resistance. A rectification movement was also indispensable to achieve ideological and political unity and ensure that the Party acted in unison to win final victory over the Japanese. , _ . ~ In 1938 the 6th Plenary Session of the 6th Central Committee of the CPC helped correct the Party's ideological line by setting the task of "applying Marxism concretely in China. In May 1941 at a cadres' meeting in Yan'an, Mao Zedong made a report entitled "Reform Our Study," in which he said, The twenty years of the Communist Party of China have been twenty years in which the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism has become more and more integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution."-0 He criticized incisively the "subjectivist style" of some Party members who were unwilling to carry on systematic and thorough investigation and study of the specific conditions ... and issue orders on no other basis than their scanty knowledge and ‘It must be so because it seems so to me.'"31 He proposed that the Party should reform the method and the system of study. From September 10 to October 22 1941, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an' enlarged meeting to study the Party's history and summarize its experience, so that the members could distinguish between right and wrong political lines and achieve unity of understanding. Thus, conditions for a rectification movement were gradually growing ripe. .—. The Party-wide rectification movement was launched in February 1942, when Mao Zedong gave two speeches, "Rectify the Party's Style of Work" and "Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing." The Central Committee set up a general study committee under Mao's direction to provide guidance for the movement. The movement had five stages: understanding the importance of the movement, examining the style of study, examining the Party's style of work, examining the style of writing and reviewing the Party's historical experience. This was a Marxist-Leninist educational movement throughout the Party—in other words, a movement in which the Party's style of work was brought into line with the guiding principles of Marxism-Leninism. The most important task of the rectification was to combat subjectivism. Historically, subjectivism had dominated the Party for quite a long time. The Right and "Left" opportunist mistakes that had been repeatedly made all stemmed from subjectivism, which separated theory from practice and failed to conform subjective thinking to objective reality. The leading cadres who had made such mistakes did not truly understand the reality but tried to find solutions to problems in books, in their subjective wishes or in the experience of other countries. As a result, the Party had been seriously damaged and the Chinese revolution had almost collapsed. Since for a long time the ideological roots of these mistakes had not been recognized, the mistakes had been frequent. After the Zunyi Meeting, however, the CPC Central Committee represented by Mao Zedong, acting firmly but flexibly in accordance with objective reality, formulated and put into practice lines, principles and policies suitable to the actual conditions. It soon enabled the Chinese revolution to enter a new phase. These facts showed that it was a matter of life and death for the Party to correct the subjectivism that dominated its guiding ideology. In his report "Reform Our Study," Mao Zedong emphasized in particular the importance of "seeking truth from facts." He explained what this meant: "Facts" are all the things that exist objectively, "truth" means their internal relations, that is, the laws governing them, and "to means to study.... And in order to do that we must rely not ^subTective imagination, not on momentary enthusiasm, not on Hfe ess books, but on facts that exist objectively; we must approbate the material in detail and, guided by the general principles of Marxism-Leninism, draw correct conclusions from it. - In his snebh "Rectify the Party's Style of Work," Mao called upon all Party members "to learn how to apply the Marxist-Leninist stand viewpoint and method in the serious study of China s history, and of China's economics, politics, military affairs and culture and to analyse every problem concretely on the basis of detailed material and then draw theoretical conclusions. According to Mao, stereotyped Party writing was an expression of subjectivism. If it was not corrected, no vigorous ^vo'Htionary thinking could be inspired, the spirit of seeking truth from facts could not prevail and subjectivism could still find a place to hide. Therefore, if the Party wanted to root out subjectivism, it must also put an end to stereotyped Party writing. Another major task in the rectification movement was to combat sectarianism. , . , . . To achieve unity in the Party, unity of thinking alone was not enough- it had to be guaranteed by unity of organization. When subjectivist thinking had been dominant in ‘he Party, sectarianism had inevitably been practised organizationally, and dissidents who persisted in proceeding from reality had been attacked. After the Zunyi Meeting, sectarianism was no longer dominant u remnants of it still existed and found expression in both the Party's internal and external relations. The remnants of inner-Party sectarianism appeared in various forms, such as the "mountain-stronghold" mentality and disunity.34 In his speech "Rectify the Party's Style of Work, Mao Zedong first criticized the assertion of "independence, because it was most harmful to the revolution: Some comrades, see only the interests of the part and not the whole; they always put undue stress on that part of the work lor which' they themselves are responsible and always wish to subordinate the interests of the whole to the interests of their own part.... We should encourage comrades to take the interests of the whole into account. Every Party member, every branch of work, every statement and every action must proceed from the interests of the whole Party; it is absolutely impermissible to violate this principle. Those who assert this kind of "independence" are usually wedded to the doctrine of "me first".... Although in words they profess respect for the Party, in practice they put themselves first and the Party second.... Whenever they are put in charge of a branch of work, they assert their "independence." With this aim, they draw some people in, push others out and resort to boasting, flattery and touting among the comrades, thus importing the vulgar style of the bourgeois political parties into the Communist Party. It is their dishonesty that causes them to come to grief. Mao was unequivocal in his condemnation of sectarianism: "We must build a centralized, unified Party," he said, "and make a clean sweep of all unprincipled factional struggles. We must combat individualism and sectarianism so as to enable our whole Party to march in step and fight for one common goal."35 Sectarianism still manifested itself in the Party's external relations also. Some leading Party members had no respect for non-Party people and refused to cooperate with them, showing a "closed-door" mentality that had emerged during the time when "Left" opportunism was dominant. In his "Speech at the Assembly of Representatives of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region" in 1941, Mao Zedong stressed that the Communist Party should work in the interests not of just one section of society but of all the people. "Chinese society," he said, "is small at both ends and big in the middle; that is, the proletariat at one end and the landlord class and big bourgeoisie at the other each constitute only a small minority, while the great majority of the people consists of the peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the other intermediate classes." It was therefore essential, he said, to give consideration to the interests of these classes. Mao held that Party members should pay careful attention to the opinions of nonParty people: "Communists must listen attentively to the views of people outside the Party and let them have their say. If what they say is 293 pour THE war of resistance against japan CHAP* ek H, we ought to welcome it. and we should learn from their rlg ' ™ints if it is wrong, we should let them finish what they ^ny^and then patiently explain thtngs to them. A Commur must never be opinionated or domineering, or think that he " of in everything while others are good in nothing, he must ' ever shut himself up in his little room, or brag and boast and " rd it over others... Affairs of state, are the public affairs of the whole nation and not the private affairs of a single party or group. Hence Communists have the duty to cooperate democratically with non-Party people and have no right to exclude them and monopolize everything. The Communist Party is a POU^'^rty which works in the interests of the nation and people and which has absolutely no private ends to pursue. It should be supervised S the people and must never go against their will. Its member should be among the people and with them and must not set '^iTthTrectification movement, the Central Committee paid great attention to strengthening the Party ideologically, es^aal lv through ideological and political education of the membersAmong others, Chen Yun's How to Be a Communist Party Mem her and Liu Shaoqi's How to Be a Good Communist were regarded as important documents for study. They did much to heighten the members' Party spirit. . The policy of the rectification movement was, as Mao put it, to "learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones" and to cure the sickness to save the patient.- This was in sharp contra . to the policy of "ruthless struggle" and "merciless blows pursued by leaders who had made "Left" mistakes.- The rectification began with a serious study of relevant documents, followed by criticism and self-criticism. By examining their own thinking, work past records and the work in their areas or departments, Party members were expected to ascertain under what - circum stances and for what reasons they had made mistakes and what the nature of those mistakes was. Thus they gradua y achiev ed unity of understanding and learned how to correct heir it i stakes. In this process, particular emphasis was laid on self-criticism. ^ In May 1942, the CPC Central Committee held the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art. Speaking at this forum, Mao Zedong declared that the basic function of revolutionary literature and art was to serve the masses and, first of all, the workers, peasants and soldiers. He clarified many hotly debated questions, emphasizing that revolutionary literary and art workers had to understand clearly the problem of class stand and to adopt the correct attitude toward three different groups: the enemy, the Party's allies in the united front and the masses. After the forum, writers and artists too began to study as part of the rectification movement. In March of 1943, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee adopted a "Decision on the Readjustment and Simplification of the Central Organs." Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the Political Bureau and of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In the rectification movement, the Party's senior cadres reviewed and summed up the Party's experience. The Central Committee held many forums to discuss the Party's history, including forums on the experience of Party organizations in the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi, Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Fujian-Guangdong border regions, and in the northeastern Jiangxi, western Fujian and Chaozhou-Meixian areas. There were also forums on the experience of the Seventh Army of the Red Army and the Fifth Army Group of the Red Army and of Party organizations in north China. All these forums helped the cadres to understand through their own experience which Party lines had been right and which wrong and to deepen their understanding of Marxism. In July 1942 Zhu De wrote: "Our Party has accumulated rich experience in struggle, correctly understood Marxist-Leninist theory and established in practice a Chinese theory of Marxism-Leninism to guide the Chinese revolution."39 On July 8, 1943, in his article "The Communist Party of China and the Chinese Nation's Road to Liberation," published by Liberation Daily, Wang Jiaxiang presented for the first time the concept of "Mao Zedong Thought," which found wide acceptance in the Party. On April 20, 1945, after a thorough review of the Party's experience, the 7th Plenary Session of the 6th Central 295 remittee of the CPC adopted the "Resolution on Certain QuesUnns in the History of Our Party." The conclusions set forth m resolution helped the entire Party membership, especially Lor cadres, reach a common understanding, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, of the fundamental questions regarding the Chinese democratic revolution. The resolution stated that if the Party hoped to win greater victories, it must take as its guide Mao Zedong Thought, which integrated Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution. This meant that the Communist Party of China had truly chosen the correct course o remaining independent and of making the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism applicable to the situation in China, the resolution laid an ideological foundation lor the convocation o the 7th Party Congress and advanced the cause of the Chinese revolution. It marked the successful conclusion of the rectification movement. , ,QH Between early September and the beginning of December 1943, when the rectification movement was in its later stage, the crc Central Committee, wishing to analyse the Parly's experience, called three successive meetings of the Political Bureau to discuss the "Left" mistakes Wang Ming had made during the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the Right mistakes he had made at the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan. At these meetings, many comrades criticized Wang's mistakes and some criticized themselves. Mao Zedong stressed that in examining Wang's mistakes. Party members should take a historical view, proceed from reality, make self-criticisms and ensure the umty He said they should refrain from employing wrong methods of struggle that had been used in the past, "learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones" and "cure the sickness to save the patient. Wang Ming pleaded illness and did not attend the meetings. T e Party leaders made painstaking efforts to help him understand his mistakes. Mao Zedong called on him several times and sent people to listen to his views. Zhou Enlai also visited him and had a heart-to-heart talk with him. As a result, Wang Ming admitted his mistakes and wrote to the Central Committee stating that he fully agreed with the judgments expressed in the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party." At Mao's urging, Wang Ming was again elected to the Central Committee at the 7th Party Congress. For a short time during the rectification movement in Yan'an, a mistaken campaign was conducted. On April 3, 1943, the CPC Central Committee issued a "Decision on Continuing the Rectification Movement," stating that in the process of rectifying the Party's style of work, an in-depth investigation should be made into the backgrounds of all Party cadres. In the decision the Central Committee overestimated the number of counterrevolutionaries hiding in the Party. On July 15 Kang Sheng, the deputy director of the General Study Committee and director of the Social Department of the Central Committee, made a report at a cadres' meeting in Yan'an, entitled "Redeem Those Who Have Made Mistakes." This report set off a so-called redemption campaign in which confessions were obtained by coercion and then given credence. For ten or fifteen days, a great number of people were falsely accused and unjustly dealt with. This mistake should never have been made in the rectification movement. But since the anti- Japanese base areas were cut off from the outside world, it was difficult to investigate the cadres' backgrounds and, in fact, no real effort was made to do so. The result was that in eliminating counter-revolutionaries, some leading cadres failed to recognize the real number of counter-revolutionaries hiding in the Party, to proceed from the specific conditions in each unit, to seek truth from facts and to deal differently with different cases. Still, because the Central Committee soon put a stop to the "redemption" campaign, it was only a minor aspect of the rectification movement as a whole. It cannot be cited to negate the tremendous achievements of that movement. Above all, the rectification movement had generated a great debate both inside and outside the Party on some major questions. These included how to apply the principles of Marxism-Leninism by proceeding from reality instead of taking a dogmatic approach; how to relate the fundamental tenets of MarxismLeninism to the realities of the Chinese revolution and how to understand the two-line struggle that had taken place in the Party 297 after four the war of resistance against japan thp early 1930s. This debate had strengthened the positions of Cxism-Lemnism inside and outside the Party. Moreover, he rectification movement had greatly raised the ideological level of [he cadres and enabled the Party to become more mature and to thieve unprecedented unity. It was therefore of profound significance.

The 7th National Party Congress and the Chinese Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan

As victory in the war with Japan drew near, the Chinese people were presented with a choice between two different offe postwar future, one bright, the other dark. The Communist Party was proposing the establishment of a new China that would be, in the words of Mao Zedong, "independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and powerf ul."™ The Chiang Kai-shek clique, on the other hand, was insisting on the perpetuation of the old China - semi-feudal, semi-colonial, ruled by the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie, a China in which the people ! would remain sunk in poverty. Communists would be I«rsei ;utec i and the nation would be split. In view of these ahematives the CPC believed it was its duty to lead the people toward the future that offered hope. The 7th National Congress of the Communist Party of China The 7th National Congress of the Party was held in Yan'an from April 23 to June 11, 1945. Five hundred and forty-seven regular delegates and 208 non-voting delegates attended the congress representing 1.21 million Party members. Seventeen years had passed since the 6th Party Congress in 1928. Accordingly, the 7th Party Congress had both to review the experience of the revolution and to prepare for victory in the war with Japan. Mao Zedong made a political report entitled "On Coalition Government," Liu Shaoqi made a "Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution," Zhu De made a military report entitled "The Battlefront in the Liberated Areas," and Zhou Enlai delivered an important speech entitled "On the United Front." Ren Bishi, Chen Yun and others also spoke. By the time the 7th Party Congress was convened, the Communist International had been dissolved for two years. For the Chinese Party the congress was an opportunity to put an end to the ideological trend, represented by Wang Ming, of making Marxism-Leninism a dogma and worshiping the Soviet experience and the resolutions of the Comintern. It was also an opportunity for the Party to solve independently the problems of the Chinese revolution in the light of Chinese conditions. The congress's keynote was unity for victory. Its three major achievements were as follows. 1. The congress reviewed the experience gained over the 24 years during which the democratic revolution, led by the CPC, had been following a tortuous course, and especially the experience of the eight years of the War of Resistance. Then, on the basis of that review, it worked out a strategy for defeating the Japanese aggressors and a programme for building a new China. The congress declared that at a time when victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan was at hand, the task for the Party was to boldly mobilize the masses, expand the people's forces and lead them to victory over the Japanese aggressors, liberate all the people of China and establish a new China that would be independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and powerful. The new China could not, and should not, be a country of the old type, ruled by the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, it could not be made into a socialist country all at once. It should be a country governed by a democratic alliance of all revolutionary classes, based on the united front of the overwhelming majority of the people and under the leadership of the working class—that is, a newdemocratic country. lo build such a country, the congress again called for the abolition of the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship and the formation of a democratic coalition government. It also expound299 ed in detail the political, economic and cultural programmes to be carried out. However, since the policy of the Kuomintang ruling clique was to maintain its dictatorship, betray the country and launch civil war, the congress declared that the Party, while striving for the establishment of a coalition government, should prepare for another eventuality: the outbreak of civil war. If the KMT waged a civil war, the people would respond by waging a revolutionary war to overthrow the reactionary regime and build a new China. 2. The congress criticized certain wrong ideological trends in the Party and enunciated the major elements of the Party's fine traditions and style of work, enabling all Party members to unify their thinking on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. The proceedings of the congress were highly democratic. In discussing the various reports and speeches, many delegates, speaking their minds freely, analysed the mistakes made by certain Party members in the past, especially the "Left" adventurist mistakes made by Wang Ming and his followers during the Agrarian Revolutionary War. Many delegates, starting from the desire for unity, criticized those who had made mistakes, and most of the persons criticized made self-criticisms as well. By summing up the experience and lessons of the past, the Party strengthened its unity based on the programme adopted at the 7th Congress. The congress noted that most Pary members were working in the countryside and came from families of peasants or petty bourgeois. However, the nature of the Party was not defined by the family background of its members. Rather, it was defined by its political struggle, its inner-Party activities, its ideological education it provided and its ideological and political leadership. The congress defined the Party's excellent style of work, which had developed over the course of its long struggles, a style of work which, as Mao Zedong put it, "essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practising self-criticism."41 This was the hallmark distinguishing the Communist Party from other political parties, and it ensured the smooth implementation of the Party's lines and policies. The Party Constitution adopted at the congress stipulated that the CPC should take as the guide for all its work Mao Zedong Thought, which was the integration of Marxist and Leninist theories with the revolutionary practice of China, and that it should correct any dogmatic or empirical mistakes. The congress stated that Mao Zedong Thought provided a solid theoretical basis on which all Party members could achieve unity in their thinking and in their action. The congress especially emphasized that the mass line was the basic political and organizational line of the Party. Party members must serve the Chinese people heart and soul and oppose any tendencies to enforce unquestioning obedience to authority, be bureaucratic or act like warlords, which would alienate them from the masses. In internal affairs, the Party should adhere to democratic centralism, integrating strict centralism with extensive democracy; by the same token, Party members should integrate a high sense of organization and discipline with individual enthusiasm and initiative. This would guarantee that the Party could carry out its political tasks and take concerted action in its struggle. 3. The congress selected a new Central Committee with Mao Zedong as chairman, enabling the Party to achieve unprecedented unity. Forty-four members and 33 alternates were elected to the Central Committee at the congress. In the election process three principles were followed:—Persons who had gone astray would not be considered ineligible, so long as they recognized their mistakes and were determined to correct them.—Since the revolutionary forces had long been scattered in the countryside, factions had inevitably formed. They should be acknowledged and given proper consideration, while at the same time they should be weakened until they were eradicated. However, outstanding figures from various localities and different fields of work should be elected to the Central Committee. 301 CH_ Not every member of the Central Committee need be tile but the Committee as a whole should be composed of «nns having a wide spectrum of knowledge and abilities. Swing these principles, the congress formed a Central „ mmittee of unprecedented prestige and unity, with outstanding members bringing to it a great variety of experience gained in different positions and in different localities. On June 19 at the Kt Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the CPC 13 Central Committee members were elected to the decision-making political Bureau; Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou En and Ren Bishi were elected to the Secretariat, which was in charge of the day-to-day work of the Central Committee; and Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the Central Committee. The 7th Party Congress was the last one held during the period of the democratic revolution and the most important. It went down in the annals of the CPC as a congress of victory, a congress of unity. From that time on, the Party, rallying closely around the Central Committee headed by Mao Zedong, threw all its energy into gaining a final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan and a nationwide victory m the new-democratic revolution. The Final Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan After mounting offensive operations against the Japanese troops in the summer of 1945, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army tightened their encirciement of the places Many scattered Liberated Areas were linked up which enabled the people's armed forces to take the initiative militarily. Gradually, they turned guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare, creating the conditions necessary for a full-scale counteroffensive On July 26 1945, the United States, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, an ultimatum to Japan to surrender unconditionally. On August 8 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The participation of the Soviet army dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese troops entrenched in northeast China, thus hastening the end of the war. At this point the anti-Japanese forces in China entered a period of full-scale counteroffensive. At the time, the main formations of the Kuomintang army were in the western part of the country, while most of the cities, towns, communication lines and the coastal areas occupied by the Japanese troops were in the East, surrounded by base areas under the leadership of the Communist Party. The task of launching a full-scale counteroffensive was therefore carried out mainly by the people's armed forces in the base areas. On August 9, 1945, Mao Zedong made a statement entitled "The Last Round with the Japanese Invaders." On orders from the Yan'an headquarters, the people's armed forces in the anti-Japanese base areas launched a major counteroffensive against both the Japanese and puppet troops. On August 14 the Japanese government sent a note to the governments of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China, expressing acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. The next day Emperor Hirohito publicly announced Japan's unconditional surrender. On August 16 the Japanese supreme headquarters ordered its troops to "cease military operations," but at the same time it ordered them to "carry out military operations in self-defence when they had no alternative." Thus, although the Japanese troops had officially surrendered, they had not laid down their arms. Consequently, the armed forces under the leadership of the CPC continued their counteroffensive, which had begun on August 11. In the course of these operations, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the other people's armed forces liberated 150 cities and counties. On September 2 the Japanese representatives signed the act of capitulation. The 1.28 million Japanese troops in China surrendered. This brought to an end the War of Resistance Against Japan and also the Second World War. The War of Resistance had been won through bitter fighting and at an extremely high price paid by the people of all nationalities in China. The number of Chinese soldiers and civilians killed and wounded during the war came to more than 21 million, properly losses were estimated at U.S.$60 billion and the expense of the war at U.S.$40 billion. ^TER four THE war of resistance against japan all the wars the Chinese people had fought over more °f hundred years for national liberation from capitalist and tha" IhsUnvaders, this was the first that had ended in complete imperialist mvaaers^ modern history> chlna, which had victory. Tor th® . . distance to armed foreign invasion, i " SSlTulmm, *. A. is®was able to a\engc . hen the Chinese nation This victory j decline It laid the foundation for independence and Uberation, and it greatly inspired :hri"ofPa?f"tionalities in China, enhancing their selfcause China's resistance to the Japanese invaders gained support both from people all over the world and from the gdincu . anti-fascist war support that was an contributed greaUy to the victory of the anti-fascists in other parts °f DurinTte ' ^Resistance, the Communist Party mobilized y l lhf> rear from all walks of life, mainly peasants, and anefe and puppet troops (including 527,000 Japanese troops) and "he Smettee1: the3 ^"nder the leadership of the Communist Party made great sacrifices in .. „ Ann non casualties. The people in the base areas oeiu were in the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan base area. Th ters and civdians behind enemy lines, persevering in the struggle with the greatest devotion, wiped out large numbers of Japanese troops and brought about a gradual weakening of the enemy's forces and a strengthening of their own. Eventually, this made it possible to shift to a full-scale counteroffensive against the Japanese aggressors, contributing greatly to the victory. The history of the War of Resistance clearly demonstrated that the Communist Party and the people's armed forces under its leadership were the staunchest defenders of the nation's interests, the mainstay of the alliance against Japan and the decisive factor in winning the war. Thanks to the War of Resistance, a great change also took place in the balance of forces between the domestic political factions. This war was the third stage of the new-democratic revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, following the Great Revolution and the Agrarian Revolutionary War. Dur ing this stage the Party, combining resistance to imperialism with the struggle against feudalism, correctly handled the relations between the national struggle and the class struggle, safeguarded the unity of the country and fought on tenaciously to win the War of Resistance and obtain the liberation and independence of the Chinese nation. In the course of the war, the majority of the Chinese people came to have a correct understanding of the Communist Party and to support it vigorously. A large section of the national bourgeoisie and the upper petty bourgeoisie openly changed their views of the CPC and even became friends of the Party. During the eight years of the war, the Communist Party's line of resisting Japan on all fronts, although it was implemented only in the democratic anti-Japanese base areas under its leadership and was rejected by the Kuomintang, became a call to the people of China to fight on until victory. Responding to this call, the working class, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, the overseas Chinese and part of the landlordcomprador class all joined the anti-Japanese national united front in different ways, turning the War of Resistance into a war of the entire nation against the Japanese invaders. During this war, the Communist Party assumed political leadership. For this reason, when the war came to an end everyone recognized the CommuPTER FOUR THE WAR OF RESISTANCE AGAINST JAPAN Party and the Kuomintang as the two major political forces^ nist '.vnmkt Partv's influence on the social and political iitc The CommumstParty^milue^ ^ ^ ^ before the war. 0f In'the war of Resistance. Mao Zedong Thought the megra• ‘ nf Marxism-Leninism with the revolutionary practice of uon of Marxism the Communist Party gained a Chjna came to ma y,f of china,s democratic better grasp of . rorrectlv the many complex W civil ».r. »» ».1| understanding of t J cpc managed politically and historical experience in a scient y Adhering to mmm-wm the war and to lay a solid foundation for later development of the Chinese revolution.

The Struggle for Nationwide Victory in the Democratic Revolution

The Postwar Political Situation and the Party's Struggle for Peace and Democracy

a the democratic partite had mcreased enormously, as had the number of unaffiliated democrats, and they had established close ties with the CPC. In 1945, therefore, the role of the CPC in Chinese society was quite different from what it had been during the early years of the war. During the War of Resistance, the Kuomintang ruling clique persisted in exercising autocratic control, and during the middle and late phases of the war it followed a policy of passive resistance to the Japanese while doggedly fighting the Communist Party. This policy alienated it profoundly from the masses. With the approach of V-J Day, the KMT focused increasingly on the elimination of the CPC and other democratic elements. In May 1945, at the KMT's 6th National Congress, Chiang Kai-shek announced: "Now our major goal is the elimination of the Communist Party! Japan is our external enemy while the CPC is our internal enemy! It is only with the elimination of the CPC that we shall complete our mission!"1 Immediately after the victory over Japan, the KMT ruling clique made plans to deprive the people of the rights they had just gained and to turn China into the same kind of semi-colonial, semi-feudal society it had been before the war. The Chinese people, of course, would not tolerate this. The U.S. government supported the anti-Communisl policy of the KMT. After World War II the United States relied on its great economic and military might for overseas expansion, attempting to strengthen its dominant position in the world. Control over China was an important component of America's global strategy. As was stated in a report prepared by the National Security Council, "The basic long-range objective of the United States in China is the furtherance of a stable, representative government over an independent and unified China which is friendly to the United States,... however, the most important objective which it is practicable to pursue in the short run is the prevention of complete communist control of China."2 In sum, the situation at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan was as follows: With U.S. support, the KMT government was plotting to monopolize the fruits of victory, but it was doomed to fail for two reasons: politically, the people did 311 nt trust it, and militarily, its vast army had never fully and °ff ectively participated in the war el fort. In contrast, having Endured the hardships of war, the people's armed forces under the leadership of the Communist Party were able to gather some of ‘ fruits of victory, although they were still unable to turn that victory into a total triumph for the people. The fate of China lay with both the CPC and the KMT, and as a direct result of their actions during the war, one party was gaining strength, while the other was beset with crises. How, then, did events unfold after the war? The CPC strove to avoid civil war and to build a new China by peaceful means; it wanted to introduce social and political reforms while strengthening the national economy. Alter eight cruel years of war, the Chinese people were eager for such reforms. If the KMT had been willing to accept a peacelul solution and cooperate with other parties and groups in the process of reconstruction and reform, then despite the complicated struggles which that effort would inevitably have entailed, the CPC would have been willing to compromise, because, after all, that would have benefitted the people. Chiang Kai-shek, however, chose to maintain his policy of autocracy and civil war. Failing to see his own political weakness, he believed that since his military strength far exceeded that of the CPC, he could do whatever he liked. On August 11, 1945, immediately after Japan announced its intention to surrender, the Supreme Command of Chiang's government issued orders to all KMT officers and men in the various war zones "to step up the war effort and, in accordance with existing military plans and orders, to actively push forward without the slightest relaxation. At the same time, a different order was issued to the Eighteenth Group Army (also known as the Eighth Route Army) led by the CPC: "All units of the Eighteenth Group Army should stay where they are, pending further orders"—in other words, they should wait passively for the enemy to attack them. Puppet troops in enemy-occupied areas were ordered to "maintain order and were allowed to be incorporated only into the KMT iorces. Chiang Kai-shek's next step was going to be to launch civil war in an effort to eliminate the Communist Party and to destroy the Liberated Areas and the people's armed forces under its leadership. The CPC, however, was no longer what it had been in 1927, when it was unable to withstand adversity. It would not obtain peace and national reconstruction at the expense of the people's fundamental interests, by allowing China to return to its prewar status. On August 13 the Xinhua News Agency issued a commentary written by Mao Zedong, entitled "Chiang Kai-shek Is Provoking Civil War," in which he stated point-blank that Chiang's "orders" were from beginning to end "provocations to civil war." "Can there be any doubt," the commentary continued, "that the grave danger of civil war will confront the people of the whole country the moment the War of Resistance is over? We now appeal to all our fellow-countrymen and to the Allied countries to take action, together with the people of the Liberated Areas, resolutely to prevent a civil war in China, which would endanger world peace."3 On the same day, at a meeting of cadres in Yan'an, Mao Zedong made a speech again warning of civil war: "With regard to Chiang Kai-shek's plot to launch a civil war, our Party's policy has been clear and consistent, that is, resolutely to oppose civil war, be against civil war and prevent civil war. In the days to come, we shall continue, with the utmost effort and greatest patience, to lead the people in preventing civil war. Nevertheless, it is necessary to be soberly aware that the danger of civil war is extremely serious because Chiang Kai-shek's policy is already set."4 "In short," he concluded, "we must be prepared. Being prepared, we shall able to deal properly with all kinds of complicated situations."5 Chiang Kai-shek had misgivings about immediately launching full-scale civil war. After eight years of tenacious resistance and such a costly victory, people across the land were longing to rebuild their country in peace. A civil war would be diametrically opposed to their wishes. Furthermore, at that time, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were all opposed to civil war in China. In addition, during the War of Resistance, most of Chiang's crack troops had retreated to southwest and northwest 0 „ ,nd d would be difficult for them to advance swiftly into ciuI? ' ml east China let alone northeast China. Lastly, since the rPC unequivocally Earned him of the consequences, he dared CPtCmke reckless action. He still needed more time to prepare n°It was under these circumstances that Chiang sent three teleTto Yan'an inviting Mao Zedong to Chongqing to discuss fm^ t ni que tions of the time. Chiang calculated that if Mao Xd to "me, he could accuse the CPC of rejecting peace Xiations and he could then blame the civil war on the Communists. If, on the other hand, Mao did come, he could use the peace negotiations to put the CPC off guard inducing it to handover the people's armed forces and political power in the Liberated Areas and at the same time gaming the time he needed to deulov his troops for civil war. The Communist Party truly wished to pursue peace, but it was also soberly aware of the situation. The CPC Central Committee believed that no matter what happened, it was necessary to ent into peace negotiations with the KMT for three reasons. First the people desperately wished for peace, democracy and unity alter {he war. If :hcre was the slightest possibility of brmging about progress and development by peaceful means the Party should try to do so. Second, since Chiang Kai-shek could hardly complete his military deployment for civil war within a short period l o time, it was possible for the Party and the People to achieve peace even if only a temporary peace, and that would be usefu I t revolutionary forces, which also needed time to .prepare for any exigencies. Third, the peace negotiations would clearly dem strate to the nation whether the KMT reactionaries truly wanted peace and democracy or were only trying to bring about civil war and totalitarianism under cover of negotiations. This circular, drafted by Mao Zedong, entitled "On Peace Negotiations with the Kuomintang." It analysed the situation at the time and outlined the Party's position with regard to the negotiations: "At present the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain all disapprove of civil war in China; at the same time our Party has put forward the three great slogans of peace, democracy and unity and is sending Comrades Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei to Chongqing to discuss with Chiang Kai-shek the great issues of unity and national reconstruction; thus it is possible that the civil war plot of the Chinese reactionaries may be frustrated. The Kuomintang has now strengthened its position by recovering Shanghai, Nanjing and other places, reopening sea communications, taking over the arms of the enemy and incorporating the puppet troops into its own forces. Nevertheless, it is riddled with a thousand gaping wounds, torn by innumerable internal contradictions and beset with great difficulties. It is possible that after the negotiations the Kuomintang, under domestic and foreign pressure, may conditionally recognize our Party's status. Our Party too may conditionally recognize the status of the Kuomintang. This would bring about a new stage of cooperation between the two parties (plus the Democratic League, etc.) and of peaceful development. In that event, our Party should strive to master all methods of legal struggle and intensify its work in the Kuomintang areas in the three main spheres, the cities, the villages and the army (all weak points in our work there). During the negotiations, the Kuomintang is sure to demand that we drastically reduce the size of the Liberated Areas, cut down the strength of the Liberation Army and stop issuing currency. We on our side are prepared to make such concessions as are necessary and as do not damage the fundamental interests of the people. Without such concessions, we cannot explode the Kuomintang's civil war plot, cannot gain the political initiative, cannot win the sympathy of world public opinion and the middle-of-the-roaders within the country and cannot obtain in exchange legal status for our Party and a state of peace. But there are limits to such concessions; the principle is that they must not damage the fundamental interests of the people. «Tf the Kuomintang still wants to launch civil war after our _ r?v haS taken the above steps, it will put itself in the wrong m Par > eS of the whole nation and the whole world, and our Party m be justified in waging a war of self-defence to crush its ntacks Moreover, our Party is powerful, and if anyone attacks us and if the conditions arc favourable for battle, we will certainIv act in self-defence to wipe him out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely (we do not strike rashly but when we do strike, we must win). We must never be cowed by the Muster ^of reictionaries. But we must at all times firmly adhere to, and never forget, these principles: unity, struggle, unity through struggle; to wage struggles with good reason, with advantage an with restraint; and to make use of contradictions win over the many, oppose the few and crush our enemies one by one.

The Peace Negotiations in Chongqing and the Political Consultative Conference

On August 28, 1945, in accordance with the Central Committee's decision, Mao Zedong flew from Yan'an to Chongqing with Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei for peace negotiations with the Kuomintang authorities. They were accompanied by the KM 1 representative Zhang Zhizhong and by U.S. ambassador Patrick J. Hurley. , , , , This event attracted much attention both at home and abroad, enabling many people to see more clearly that the CPC was sincere in seeking a peaceful solution. Mao's action was widely praised and supported. The poet Liu Yazi wrote a poem extolling it as an act of "overwhelming courage." Zhang Zhizhong also said that this was a major event in Chinese history. The Achievements of the Peace Negotiations in Chongqing While in Chongqing, Mao Zedong discussed matters of peace nd national reconstruction several times directly with Chiang Kai-shek. Most of the negotiations on specific issues were carried out by CPC representatives Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei, and KMT representatives Wang Shijie, Zhang Qun, Zhang Zhizhong and Shao Lizi. Chiang Kai-shek's plans for this round of negotiations can be seen in a passage from his diary written on August 28 and 29, 1945: "Political and military questions should all be resolved. With regard to political issues, however, we should adopt an extremely generous attitude, while making no concessions in military matters." Moreover, he wrote, "Government administration and military command should be unified." These political and military questions were, according to Chiang, "at the heart of the issue." In fact, however, Chiang was never extremely generous in political matters; he merely made a few empty promises of democracy. What he was actually interested in was "unifying" government administration and military command—in other words, eliminating the Liberated Areas and the people's armed forces. On this point, Chiang would brook no concessions. The CPC Central Committee realized beforehand what his attitude would be. To force him to fulfil his promises of democracy, to secure the peace and democracy the nation needed and to disprove the rumour that the Communist Party did not want peace and unity, the CPC Central Committee was prepared, as stated in its internal circular, to reduce the size of the Liberated Areas and the people's armed forces, insofar as such concessions did not harm the fundamental interests of the people. On October 10, 1945, after 43 days of negotiations, the two sides signed a "Summary of Conversations Between the Representatives of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China" (also known as the "October 10th Agreement"). In this summary, the KMT authorities agreed with the "basic policy of peace and national reconstruction", accepted "long-term cooperation... resolute avoidance of civil war and the building of a new China, independent, free, prosperous and powerful." They also agreed to bring the KMT's political tutelage to an end, acknowledged some of the people's democratic rights and consentJJAPTER FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 3 1 a to "actively carry out local self-government and conduct Lneral elections from the lower level upward." 8 during the course of negotiations, both sides agreed to convene _ nolitical consultative conference attended by representatives of all parties and noted public figures, to discuss plans for peace and national reconstruction. . . , The Liberated Areas and the army were the major points of contention. The CPC representatives took the initiative, offering to move troops stationed in base areas in Guangdong, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, central and southern Anhui, Hunan, Hu ci and Henan (excluding northern Henan) to the north. At the same time, they also stated that on condition of "an equitable and rational reorganization of the armed forces of the who e country," they would be willing to reduce their troops from 1.2 million to 24 divisions or to a minimum of 20 divisions, if this represented one-seventh of the total number of reorganized troops. Despite the willingness of the Communist Party to make such major concessions, these two issues remained outstanding, because the Kuomintang was determined to eliminate the people's armed forces and the people's regnpe in the Liberated Areas. . . . ~ The result of the Chongqing negotiations was a victory lor the people's forces. The day after the signing of the October 10th Agreement, Mao Zedong returned to Yan'an and made the following statement at a meeting of the Political Bureau: "The first positive aspect of the negotiations is that they were conducted in an equal manner. For the first time in history both sides formally signed an agreement. Second, the six agreements already signed are all beneficial to the people." Through the negotiations, the KMT had accepted the policy of peace and unity. Even though the agreements were mere words on paper, if the KMT once again tried to provoke civil war, it would put itself in the wrong in the eyes of the nation and the world and would lose all political initiative. The agreements, therefore, could still give powerful impetus to the democratic movement in the KMT areas. The KMT Launches a Military Offensive During the Peace Negotiations Even though the KMT authorities were holding peace negotiations with the CPC, their main plan was still to use armed might to eliminate the people's revolutionary forces. Furthermore, during the negotiations in Chongqing, the KMT authorities secretly reprinted Chiang Kai-shek's Handbook on the Suppression of Bandits written during his 1933 campaign to "encircle and suppress" the Red Army. The October 10th Agreement was no sooner signed than Chiang secretly ordered his troops to attack the Liberated Areas, calling upon his generals to act according to his instructions in the handbook—that is, urge their officers and men to do their utmost to suppress the "bandits" with all speed. The KMT's strategy was to take complete control of the region south of the Yangtze River and to capture strategic areas and key communication lines in north China, thereby dividing the Liberated Areas and reducing their size, while opening up a route to northeast China. After this, they would proceed to occupy the whole of northeast China, taking advantage of the provisions of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance.7 During the two months from the time of the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945, to October 17, 1945, KMT troops occupied thirty cities in the Liberated Areas. While working hard for peace and democracy, the Communist Party entertained no illusions about the Kuomintang authorities. In the inner-Party circular of August 26, the Central Committee had firmly stated: "You must definitely not hope that the Kuomintang will be kind-hearted, because it will never be kindhearted. You must rely on your own strength, on correct guidance of activities, on brotherly unity within the Party and good relations with the people."8 Only then could the Party's position be invulnerable, only then could it lay a solid foundation for peace and democracy and for the building of a new China. On September 19, to protect the fruits of the people's victory in the anti-Japanese war and to expand the people's revolutionary forces, the CPC Central Committee issued a directive to all its pR jtjvE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION cHApTbR Hvj^ /.nils succinctly stating its nationwide military strategy : Exbur . ,0 the North, while taking a defensive position in e C*'°The most important components of this strategy were to S concessions in the South by shortening the line of defence ni'pre- to consolidate north China and the Liberated Areas in east and central China; and to gain control over Rehe and Chahar provinces, while concentrating forces to capture the strategically imnortant areas in northeast China.9 To implement this plan and lead the Party's work mno^east rhina the CPC Central Committee transferred 1 1 0,000 military personnel and 20,000 political cadres there and established its Northeast Bureau, with Peng Zhen as secretary and Chen Yun and others as members. At the same time the KMT, wishing to penetrate deep into north China and open a route to the NorthMst dispatched three units to attack the Liberated Areas in north China One unit attacked eastward along the Bciping-Suiyuan Radway the second attacked northward along the TianjrnPukou Railway, while the third pushed toward Beip‘ng "l0"g Datong-Puzhou, Zhengding-Taiyuan and fieipmg-Hankou rail ways The people's armed forces resolutely fought back. In the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Liberated Area the pcop^ armed forces, under the command of Liu Bocheng and D "g Xiaoping wiped out 35,000 men of the attacking troops under the command of Yan Xishan in Shangdang, Shanxi Province. This contained the KMT assault on the Liberated Areas and strength Tned the position of the CPC at the Chongqing negotiations, facilitating the signing of the October 10th Agreement. Ip m d to late October, the people's armed forces m the Liber a tec Areas fought three battles along the Beiping-Suiyuan Railway the Tianjin-Pukou Railway and the Beiping-Hankou Rai^ay^ Handan), annihilating 110,000 attacking tt~ps.By so doing they delayed the KMT's penetration of north China and slowed its advance toward northeast China. °nMg the Hand^ campaign, the CPC succeeded in winning over th : depu ty ^com mander of the KMT's 1 1th War Zone and commander o its Ne Eighth Corps, Gao Shuxun, who, on the battlefield, ordered the 10,000 troops under his command to join the people s armcforces. The KMT was so unpopular for having started a civil war after the victory over Japan that even this high-ranking officer broke with it. The event had tremendous repercussions throughout the country. The people's armed forces, acting on the CPC Central Committee's directive, recovered territory from the Japanese and puppet troops. At the same time, they fought a war of self-defence against the KM1 troops. By January 1946, the Liberated Areas covered an area of 2,391,000 square kilometres with a population of 149 million, and they included 506 cities. The KMT, hgwever, did not learn from its failures and stop its attacks on the Liberated Areas but continued to move large numbers of troops to the civil war battlefront. By early December 1945, the KMT had thrown against the Liberated Areas a total of 1.9 million men, including 1.2 million regular troops, 350,000 puppet Troops and even 350,000 Japanese troops. Naturally, this aroused the fury of the people, who wanted peace and democracy. On November 19 in Chongqing, Guo Moruo, Shen Junru and others staged a protest against the civil war and established the Anti-Civil War Association of All Circles. On November 25 in Kunming, more than 6,000 university and secondary-school students assembled at Southwest Associated University (formed by Beijing University, Qinghua University and Nankai University, which had all moved there at the beginning of the anti- Japanese war) to discuss current affairs and protest the civil war. Faced with pressure from reactionary soldiers, police and secret agents, 30,000 students in Kunming went on strike. The CPC Working Committee of Yunnan Province led the students in this struggle. On December 1 a large band of armed thugs sent by the KMT attacked the campus of Southwest Associated University and other schools with hand grenades, killing four students and wounding several dozen. This incident, which shook the entire nation, came to be known as the December 1st Massacre. The students of Kunming, supported by teachers and individuals from all walks of life, nevertheless continued their struggle. In Chongqing, Shanghai and other cities, there was an outpouring of support for them in the form of strikes and demonstrations by 321 n.dents and other people. The December 1st Movement, based s slogan "Oppose civil war and struggle for democracy! oushed the KMT authorities, who clung to their policy of civil JL, still further into a passive position politically. In September 1945 in Chongqing, as the democratic movement surged forward, intellectuals in the fields of science, technology, culture and education turned what was originally the Democracy ind Science Forum into a formal political organization called the September 3rd Forum. This was the forerunner of the Jiu San (September 3rd) Society. In December of the same year, China Democratic National Construction Association and China Association for Promoting Democracy were founded in Chongqing and Shanghai, respectively. China Democratic League, democratic factions within the KMT and other organizations intensified their activities. They all called for democracy and an end to civil war. The patriotic and democratic movement in the KMT areas was gaining momentum every day. The KMT government dispatched a great number of ofiicials to all the formerly enemy-occupied areas they could reach, particularly the cities, to resume control there. The people in such areas, having just cast off the yoke of the Japanese invaders, at first welcomed the return of the KMT. But many corrupt officials took advantage of their position to expropriate wealth as "booty. There was severe inflation and social chaos, and the masses lived in dire poverty. The bureaucrat-capitalists waxed fat in the name of the takeover, while the future of national industry became increasingly hopeless. The people lost faith in the KMT. At this time, the U.S. government announced the recall of its ambassador, Patrick Hurley, who had lost his credibility as a mediator by stating publicly that the U.S. would cooperate only with Chiang Kai-shek, and appointed General George Marshall as President Truman's special envoy to China to "mediate in the civil war. On December 15 General Marshall left for China. On the same day, President Truman made a statement on U.S. policy toward China, expressing support for the convening of a meeting of representatives of major political parties in China to work out an early solution to the internal strife—a solution that would bring about the unification of the country. But he also stated that the existence of autonomous armies such as the Communist army was inconsistent with political unity and actually made it impossible. Accordingly, once a representative government was established, the autonomous armies and all other armed forces in China should be incorporated into the National Army. On December 27 the Soviet, U.S. and British foreign ministers published an agreement on China they had reached at a meeting in Moscow, stating, "In China unity and democratization must be realized under the leadership of the National Government, democrats must be recruited into all organs of the National Government, and the internal struggle must stop."10 Marshall's mission was to persuade the Chinese government to convene a national conference attended by representatives of all major parties in order to "bring about China's unification," a plan that deliberately denied the existence of the Communist-led people's armed forces. At the same time, he was to help the KMT move troops into northeast China and prepare to move others into north China. His main objective was to implement the established policy of helping the KMT expand its authority in China as much as possible. The Political Consultative Conference Under these circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to hold a political consultative conference as stipulated in the October 10th Agreement. On December 16 Zhou Enlai arrived in Chongqing as the head of the CPC delegation to attend the Political Consultative Conference. To create better conditions for the conference, the CPC delegation first proposed an unconditional cease-fire. After repeated negotiations, on January 5, 1946, it signed an agreement with the KMT authorities on the cessation of hostilities. On January 10 both sides issued orders that from midnight of January 13, their armies should hold their positions and halt all military activity. Thus, for a period of time the fighting truly stopped (except in northeast China), kindling a new hope in the hearts of a people who had suffered through so many years of war 323 and chaos—the hope that civil war might be averted. On the same day that the cease-fire order was issued, the political Consultative Conference opened in Chongqing. A total 0f 38 delegates attended, including representatives of the KMT, the CPC, the Democratic League and the Youth Party and individuals without party affiliation. The CPC and the middleof-the-roaders, represented by the Democratic League, had much in common with regard to basic political questions: they all supported peace as opposed to civil war, and democracy as opposed to one-party dictatorship by the KMT. During the conference, the CPC and Democratic League delegations and some other representatives often discussed major issues among themselves so as to reach a consensus and act in concert. The conference, which lasted twenty-two days and ended on January 31, adopted five agreements: on government organization, on a national assembly, on a programme for peace and national reconstruction, on military affairs and on a draft constitution. According to the first of these agreements, the one-party government of the KMT was to be reorganized with a Government Council as the supreme organ. Half of the councilors were to be from other parties. During the transition period between the termination of the KMT's political tutelage and the formation of a constitutional government, the Council would be responsible for convening a national assembly to draft a constitution. According to the agreement on the draft constitution, a Legislative Yuan would be the highest legislative organ and would be elected by popular vote. An Executive Yuan would be the highest administrative organ and would be responsible to the Legislative Yuan. If the Legislative Yuan collectively lacked confidence in the Executive Yuan, the latter would have either to resign or to request that the President dissolve the Legislative Yuan. This central government structure was equivalent to the parliamentary or cabinet system in Britain and France; It could restrict Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorial powers. The agreement also stipulated that central and local government should be separate. The province would be the highest unit of local self-government, the provincial governor would be elected by the people, and the province would have a constitution, etc. This provided a potential safeguard for the continued existence of democratic governments in the Liberated Areas. The agreement on military affairs mandated that military power should be separate from political parties, that military authority should be separate from civil authority and that the military system should be reformed in line with a democratic system of government. It provided that a three-man military sub-committee (consisting of CPC representative Zhou Enlai, KMT representative Zhang Zhizhong and U.S. special envoy George Marshall) should reach an agreement on measures for reorganizing the troops of the CPC and that the troops of the KMT should be reorganized according to the plan already worked out by the KMT's Ministry of War. The various agreements reached at the Political Consultative Conference did not represent new-democracy, but they did help break up Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship and promote democracy, and they advanced the cause of peace and national reconstruction. In varying degrees, therefore, they were beneficial to the people and were welcomed by them. These agreements aroused in the hearts of hundreds of millions of the Chinese people the fervent hope for nationwide peace, democracy, unity and unification. Because the agreements embodied many of the opinions of the middle-of-the-roaders, their response was particularly enthusiastic. As a result, for quite a long time in the KMT areas the agreements served as the criterion by which people judged right and wrong: those who upheld the line of the Political Consultative Conference had the support of the people, while those who abrogated it were in clear opposition to them. The CPC was prepared to implement these agreements. When issuing the cease-fire orders, Chairman Mao Zedong had said that a new stage of peace and democracy in China was about to begin and that the entire Party should strive to consolidate domestic peace, carry out democratic reform and build an independent, free, prosperous and powerful new China. The day after the Political Consultative Conference ended, the CPC Central Com325 ^ter five victory in the democratic revolution ■ttee issued an inner-Party directive repeating that the country entering upon a new stage of peace and democracy. _ The principal form of revolution in China, it said, had shifted fro =rmedP struggle to unarmed mass struggle and parliamentary struggle Domestic problems would be solved by political means ,1 of the Party's work must be adapted to this new situation and the entire Party must work for the realization of agreements reached by the Political Consultative Conference. The CPC, the Central Committee said, was sincerely prepared to realize domestic peace, advance economic development and social and political reform and work for progress and prosperity, in accordance with the wishes of the great majority - provided it could protect ^and preserve the basic rights gamed by the people during the ar Resistance Against Japan. At the same time, it continued, Chiang Kai-shek had accepted the agreement only under P^ure, and Britain the U.S. and the big bourgeoisie in China still had many hidden'sehemes. The road to democracy in China would be long and tortuous, it warned, and people should be prepared for the possibility of war. Because of this possibility, the Central Committee advised that it was important for the people s forces to remain on guard and to defend and expand their positions. The [hree most important tasks for the Liberated Areas it declared, were to train soldiers, reduce rents and increase Pr°du«™\ The KMT represented the interests of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie and was therefore based on a very narrow segment of society. Consequently, it could not tolerate any democratic informs The Chiang Kai-shek clique believed that neither people s democracy nor Western-style bourgeois democracy could be realized in China. The U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson later mentioned this in his memoirs, noting that "more and more the Kuomintang evinced the conviction that pursuit of a united and democratic China meant that they would lose all."1' Precisely for this reason, the KMT was never prepared to fulfil the agreements adopted at the Political Consultative Conference. While the conference was still in session, the Anti-Civi Association of All Circles in Chongqing had held a senes of " meetings at Cangbai Hall. The KMT had sent secret agents to disrupt the meetings, beat people and prevent the lectures from continuing. As soon as the conference was over, at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Executive Committee, many of the diehards angrily denounced the agreements, complaining that they were not favourable to the KMT and, indeed, represented a failure for the party. Chiang Kai-shek himself said, "I am not satisfied with the draft constitution either, but since the matter has already reached this point, there is no way to turn back. For the time being, we have to adopt it and see what we can do in the future."12 On February 10, 1946, in Chongqing, KMT secret agents disrupted a public meeting held to celebrate the success of the Political Consultative Conference. In March, at the Second Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Executive Committee of the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek told his followers to take remedial measures with regard to the main points of the agreements. He then intensified the civil war, thereby turning them into mere scraps of paper.

Smashing the Kuomintang's Offensive by a War of Self-Defence

Despite the agreements, the KMT ruling clique still sought to weaken and then destroy the people's revolutionary forces by military means. In the first half of 1946, a political storm was brewing in China. On the surface, the truce agreement signed in January was being carried out. To maintain the cease-fire, the Executive Headquarters for Military Mediation, consisting of representatives of the KMT, the CPC and the United States, sent mediators wherever military clashes occurred. Although the KMT troops never stopped nibbling away at the Liberated Areas, no large-scale military confrontations occurred except in northeast China. But this was merely the calm before the storm. Chiang Kai-shek was using the lull to prepare for full-scale civil war. 327 The Kuomintang Intensifies Preparations for Full-Scale Civil War r, was largely because Chiang could count on the support and distance of the U.S. government that he dared tear up the agreements of the Political Consultative Conference and prepare f° To launch full-scale civil war, Chiang first needed to move his rrick troops swiftly to north and east China to gam control over ch c ksPl4 Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping and Tianjin. From September 1945 to June 1946, the United States used military ^ "and warships to transport 14 KMT corps 41 divisions and eight regiments of the communications P0'1^ 640 000 men in all, to north, east, northeast and south China. The United States also landed 90,000 marines in China and statlon^ them in Shanghai, Qingdao, Tianjin, Beiping, Qinhuangd. ao i in other places, with'orders to hold those areas unt.l they could^ turned over to the KMT troops. In a short time, the KMT forces took over military equipment from more than one million Jap anese troops and several hundred thousand puppet troops. They a"so!ncor%rated a large number of puppet troops into their own armies greatly increasing their military strength. Having gained control of all the major cities south of the Great Wall, the KMT troops focused theu attack on no^ast Chta^ Union declarldwar onJ^panm August 1 945, JinzhouPPChengde, etc. Other units also advanced into n°rtheast China, recapturing broad areas, except ™ ssstswss ss ss&iss'attack on northeast China. During November they reoccupied Shanhaiguan Jinzhou and other places held by Communist-led forces At the time of the signing of the truce agreement in January 1946, the KMT government had excluded northeast China on the pretext that "sovereignty had not yet been regained there." In February the U.S. Seventh Fleet used transport vessels to move crack KMT troops (five corps including the New First and Sixth Corps) to Qinhuangdao, from which point the troops advanced to northeast China. In this way, the KMT military presence in the Northeast increased dramatically to 285,000 men. In early March the Soviet army, acting in accordance with the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty, began to withdraw from the cities and rail lines in northeast China. The KMT army immediately seized Shenyang and advanced against the Liberated Areas from several directions. Beginning on April 18, the main forces of the Communist-led Northeast Democratic Allied Army fought an intense, month-long battle to defend Sipingjie. After annihilating 10,000 enemy troops, they withdrew from the city. In late May, the KMT army captured Changchun and gained control over most of the area south of the Songhua River in Heilongjiang Province. Because the KMT government announced that it would move the capital from Chongqing back to Nanjing in early May, the site of the negotiations between the KMT and the CPC also moved to Nanjing. Zhou Enlai led the CPC delegation to Nanjing and Shanghai, continuing the arduous negotiations and trying hard to avert a full-scale civil war at the last moment. But since Chiang Kai-shek had already committed himself to his course of action, the negotiations were doomed to failure. In the meantime, the U.S. government increased its aid to the KMT. In March 1946 the United States successively organized army and navy advisory teams. On June 17 the two governments signed the Sino-American Lend-Lease Agreement, which transferred U.S.$51.7 million worth of military equipment to the KMT. Secretary of State Acheson later admitted the importance of the U.S. role. In a letter to President Truman on July 30, 1949, he noted: "Indeed during that period, thanks very largely to our aid in transporting, arming and supplying their forces, they extended their control over a large part of North China and Manchuria."13 These facts shattered the myth of U.S. "media 329 a°The actions by Chiang and the United States caused the * anxiety among the people, including many democratic Arties and unaffiliated democrats. In mid-June the Federation People's Organizations of Shanghai formed a delegation to go t Nanking with a petition to the KMT authorities appealing for neace The group included well-known persons from the Associa for Promoting Democracy, the Democratic National Com struction Association and religious circles. On June 23 the CPC Central Committee's Shanghai Bureau organized more than0°' nOO people from all walks of life to see the petitioners off at the railway station That night, when they arrived at Xiaguan Station n NaniS a group of Thugs dispatched by the KMT authorities surrounded them and beat them in a melee that lasted five hours. Ma Xulun leader of the delegation, and several other representatives were seriously injured. Zhou Enlai hurried to the hospital to express his sympathy and concern. Ma took Zhou s hand an said to him that the hopes of all Chma were pinned on the ""devetopments indicated that the full-scale avU war sought by Chiang Kai-shek was already imminent. Despite the Communist Party's many efforts to achieve peace, it could not prevent the outbreak of war. While doing its best to uphold the agreements of the Political Consultative Coherence, the Party wL forced to prepare to defend itself. On April 16 Zhou Enlai sent a telegram to the CPC Central Committee warning of the grave danger. "To fool the people," he wrote, "Chiang superficially seeks to reach a compromise, but he is covertly deploying his trips He is hatching formidable plots." On May 21 l the Centra Committee issued a document telling all Party members that the Kuomintang was preparing for nationwide civil war. We, for our part^the Central Committee directed, "should increase our own preparations (and especially the training of soldiers) in order to stop him " Earlier, on May 4, the Central Committee had issued a d ireedve (known as the May 4th Directive) to solve the rural land question 14 This was designed to increase the peasants enthusism for revolution and production and to lay an even stronger foundation for mass support in the impending war of self-defence On June 19, the eve of the outbreak of civil war, the CPc Central Committee issued an inner-Party directive assessing the situation: "Chiang Kai-shek is bent on launching a major attack, which will be hard to prevent. Once he starts, we judge that if, after about six months of fighting, we win a great victory, peace negotiations can certainly be held. If it is a stalemate, peace talks are also possible. If Chiang's forces win a great victory, there will be no peace talks. Therefore, to win peace our troops must defeat Chiang's attacking forces." Subsequently, in a directive issued to the commanders of all military units, the Central Committee stated, "Even though our Party is doing everything in its power to arrive at a compromise, making major concessions at the negotiations in Nanjing, you should harbour no illusions." Facts show that the CPC took action only when its very existence was at stake and when it could no longer avoid defending itself. Moreover, even after being forced into a war of self-defence, it was prepared to make concessions to stop the war. It was entirely due to the machinations of the KMT ruling clique that civil war broke out in China after the victory over Japan, and the KMT should therefore bear full responsibility for it. Full-scale Civil War Breaks Out As soon as they had completed their preparations for war, the KMT authorities revealed their true nature—their contempt for the truce agreement and for the agreements of the Political Consultative Conference—by launching a full-scale attack on the Liberated Areas. On June 26, 1946, two hundred and twenty thousand KMT troops began the assault by besieging the Central Plains Liberated Area in the border region between Hubei and Henan provinces. On the night of the same day, the main forces of the Central Plains Command, led by Commander Li Xiannian and Political Commissar Zheng Weisan and divided into two columns, broke through the enemy siege. Then the KMT forces mounted major offensives against the Liberated Areas of east 331 rhina Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan, Shanxi-Suiyuan, the Northeast and Hainan Island. These attacks marked the outbreak of full-scale civil war. . • On July 11 KMT secret agents in Kunming assassinated Li Gongpu, a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic League and an activist famous for his participation in the Patriotic National Salvation Movement on the eve of the outbreak of the war with Japan. On July 15 Wen Yiduo, a poet and scholar who was a professor at Southwest Associated University, was assassinated in the same city. At the end of the anti- Japanese war, outraged by the lawless acts of the KMT, Wen had taken an active part in the democratic movement. It was obvious that the KMT reactionaries were aiming their guns not only at the Communists but also at all people of good will who called for peace and democracy. As the KMT government overestimated its own strength, it was confident of the outcome of the war and hoped to win a quick victory. For the assault on the Liberated Areas it had assembled 193 brigades (divisions), or 1.6 million of its regular troops, representing 80 percent of its total strength of 248 brigades (divisions), numbering two million. The KMT's principal strategy was to follow the trunk rail lines, attack from south to north and seize and control the cities and lines of communication of the Liberated Areas, wiping out the main elements of the people's armed forces or forcing them north of the Yellow River, where they could then be rounded up and annihilated. Chiang Kai-shek claimed that in view of the KMT's superior military strength, with proper cooperation and flexible tactics the war could be brought to a speedy conclusion. His chief of staff, Chen Cheng, estimated that the Communist-led people's armed forces could be wiped out in three to five months at most. The situation of the people's revolutionary lorces at the beginning of the war was truly grim. In terms of military and economic strength, the KMT was clearly superior. At the time, the people's armed forces consisted of 1.27 million men equipped basically with weapons captured from Japanese and puppet foot soldiers. They had only a few pieces of artillery. The Liberated Areas covered a region measuring approximately 2.3 million square kilometres, populated by 136 million people. Feudal forces within these areas had not yet been eliminated, and the rear areas were not yet consolidated. Moreover, the Liberated Areas were geographically separated from each other by KMT forces and were therefore unable to obtain material assistance from outside. With such a wide disparity between its own strength and that of the enemy, the first question the Communist Party was forced to answer was whether it dared to fight a revolutionary war against the counter-revolutionaries. As we have seen, one major reason that the KMT dared to launch a full-scale civil war was the support that it received from the U.S. government. At that time, the United States seemed invincible, combining great economic strength with its monopoly of the secret of the atomic bomb. The Chinese reactionaries invoked the power of their backer to intimidate others. At the beginning of the war, some middle-of-the-roaders were misled by the outward strength of the reactionaries and overcome by pessimism and fear. Some people even went so far as to advocate that soldiers and civilians in the Liberated Areas, faced with attack, should compromise and make concessions. Internationally, the U.S. was escalating the "cold war." At the time a clamour was raised that the United States and the USSR were bound to fight, and many people believed that World War III was imminent. The Soviet leaders took a pessimistic view of the situation: they believed that if civil war broke out in China, the United States and the Soviet Union might be drawn into the conflict. China would then be the battlefield in a world war, and the Chinese nation would risk extermination. For this reason, they proposed that the CPC ought to join with Chiang Kai-shek's government and disband its own army. Despite all this, the CPC remained calm and was determined to fight back. After the outbreak of the civil war, all of the Communist-led people's armed forces were compelled to fight in self-defence. The Party believed that Chiang's offensive not only must but could be defeated. Could the Chinese civil war lead to a world war? To answer 333 thjs question, in April 1946 Mao Zedong wrote an i essay "Some Points in Appraisal of the Present International Situation^ He declared that while there was a danger of world war, the demoStic forces of the people of the world were torging ahead and S they must and fould avert that danger. The United States Britain and France and the Soviet Union would arrive at a compromise sooner or later. But, he added, "such compromise doesPnot require the people in the countries of the capitalist world to follow suit and make compromises at home, lhe people in those countries will continue to wage different struggles in accordance with their different conditions."15 In August of the same vear, not long after the civil war broke out, when talking with the American correspondent Anna Louise Strong, Mao Zedong put forward his famous thesis, "All reactionaries are paper tigers "In appearance " he said, "the reactionaries are terrifying but in reality they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view it is not the reactionaries but the people who arc really powerful."16 Mao's views greatly strengthened the confidence and resolve of the entire Party membership, the army and the peop c, convincing them that the Chinese reactionaries could be defeated. But, what would it take to repulse the KMT s military attack. This was another question the CPC had to answer. The Centra] Committee enunciated this fundamental principle- "In order to smash Chiang Kai-shek's offensive we must cooperate closely with the masses of the people and win over all who can be won over."1' The people's armed forces were m an inferior position both in numbers and in equipment. If they were to defeat Chiang, they had to rely on the people and fight a people's war; there was no other alternative. This was the key to victory. For this purpose, the Party had to solve the rural lan problem, rely on the poor peasants and farm labourers and unite with the middle peasants, while distinguishing the ordinary rich peasants and middle and small landlords from the -traitors bdd gentry and local tyrants. It had to consolidate the Liberated Areas and obtain unending human and material resources to support the war. In the cities, the Party should rely on the working class, the petty bourgeoisie and all progressives and take care to unite with the middle-of-the-roaders and isolate the reactionaries. Among the KMT troops, it should win over all the possible opponents of civil war and isolate the bellicose elements. In short, the Party's political principle was to mobilize the masses, unite with all the forces that could be united with and build the broadest possible people's democratic united front. The Party's military strategy was based on the principle of concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one. Hence, the tactic of dispersing forces for guerrilla warfare, which had been the one chiefly used in the anti-Japanese war, was for the most part supplanted by the tactic of concentrating forces for mobile warfare. And to implement a strategy of active defence, rather than trying to hold or seize a specific city or place, the CPC made elimination of enemy effectives its main objective. During the period from June 1946 to June 1947, the people's armed forces were in a stage of strategic defensive, fighting mainly in the Liberated Areas. During the first eight months of this period, they repelled a general KMT attack on all fronts; during the last four months, when the KMT troops launched concentrated attacks on key sectors, they repelled those as well. At the beginning of the war the KMT, relying on its superiority in numbers and equipment, mounted fierce assaults on the Liberated Areas in an attempt to wipe out the people's armed forces with one blow. The CPC Central Committee, however, had always been prepared for two eventualities. While it had been striving for peace, it had also been preparing to deal with any surprise attack by the KMT. When the KMT troops advanced en masse, the people's troops in the Liberated Areas fought back steadily, concentrating superior forces and trying to annihilate the enemy in mobile warfare. Not long after breaking the siege on the Central Plains, the Central China Field Army, under the command of Su Yu, won seven successive victories in central Jiangsu Province, wiping out six enemy brigades and five battalions of the enemy's communications police corps, totalling more than 50,000 men. Victories were also reported from the area north of the Huaihe River, from the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Liberated Area, from the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Liberated Area 335 ER HVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION _ the Northeast These victories dulled the edge of the and from the Northeas . first experjence m armed forces recaptured 48 wiping out cQuld use m mc'tonnmes fttaduaUy decreased, their morale sank andrteir the peoples tioops recaP TJlc ^^T was weakening, beblocking further '""effectives had been destroyed and because prison duty ur the occupied areas abandoned by the people's^anned forces .In h d t - « "wwie the KMT was attacking the Liberated Are^ militarily, U T alTyihe ZhouEnlai and tions with the KMT. 1 he , d the civji war but continr ^ t ' t me"1 Marshall ^and^the newly appointed US ambassador to China, Leighton Stuart M ^ declaring that the d^th"a T "mfdiatmn" had already difficult to resolve and that ^ headed by Zh0u failed. On September 30 regard to the breakttSBSPO&gBzZSi CPC's Liberated Areas, to push relations between the KMT and the CPC to the final breaking point."18 The letter contained a stern warning: "We have received special orders which state that if the government does not immediately cease its military operations against Zhangjiakou and the surrounding areas, the CPC will have no alternative but to view such actions as the government's public declaration of complete failure of the negotiations and its final rejection of a political solution. Full responsibility for all the grave consequences arising therefrom will, of course, be borne by the government." On October 1 1 the KMT army, without heeding the repeated CPC warnings, launched an assault on Zhangjiakou and occupied it. The KMT authorities let this victory cloud their judgment and immediately abrogated the Political Consultative Conference agreement on the National Assembly. That agreement provided that the National Assembly should be convened not by the one-party government of the KMT but by a reorganized coalition government of all parties. Yet on the very afternoon of the capture of Zhangjiakou, the KMT formally announced that it was going to convene the Assembly. In this way, even more people came to see that it was the KMT that rejected peace and democracy, while the CPC, left with no other choice, had been forced into a war of self-defence. Thus, the sympathy of the people was with the Communist Party. The KMT asked all organizations that had attended the Political Consultative Conference to hand in lists of the representatives they would send to the National Assembly. The CPC flatly refused to do so, and the Democratic League did likewise. The KMT-dominated National Assembly opened in Nanjing in midNovember 1946 (apart from the KMT members, it was attended only by a few politicians from the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party). It adopted the so-called Constitution of the Republic of China, designed to support the dictatorial regime of Chiang Kai-shek. On November 19 Zhou Enlai concluded his attempts to negotiate peace, which had lasted more than twelve months, and returned to Yan'an. In January 1947 General Marshall issued a statement of his intention to leave China and then C turned to the United States. On January 29 the U.S govern1 nt announced the withdrawal of its representatives front the Executive Headquarters for Military Mediation On February2 the KMT authorities forced the CPC representatives to the Exe hnve Headquarters for Military Mediation, including Ye JianCXrto return to Yan'an. Next they ordered the CPC representI fves stationed in Nanjing, Shanghai and Chongqing mdudmg Dong Biwu, Wu Yuzhang and their colleagues, to leave those cities bv March 5. New China Daily, published in Chongoing wls orderfd to shut down. At this point, the KMT blocked all possible avenues to peace and broke off all relations wi c CPh,' March 1947 the KMT troops began to suffer repeated setbacks in their full-scale offensive and had to shift the focus their attacks to key sectors in the Liberated Areas. In the ShanxiHebei-Shandong-Henan and Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei aret* andrn northeast China, they were forced to go on lhe defensive T KMT concentrated its main strength on wiping out the peop e s armed forces in the Northern Shaanxi and Shandong Liberated Areas before turning to others. The people's armed forces continued to follow their strategy of active defence^ In Shandong Province in late February, the East China Held Army under tghe command of Chen Yi and Su Yu, aunched a surprise attack in the Laiwu area. It wiped out over 56,000 men of the KMT's 2nd Pacification Zone, who had been advancing south under deputy commander Li Xianzhou. This dealt a crushing blow to the enemy troops, and made it possible i^h iVearly East China Field Army to focus on fighting in the South. In ear y March the commander-in-chief of the KMT grounc 1 forces Gu Zhutong, ordered 60 brigades, approximately 450,000 men, to advance8 steadily in close formation, ‘inching a new a^ ck^on the Shandong front. Acting on orders of the CPC Central rary Commission, the East China Field Army lured the enemy m deep carefully biding its time and keeping its mam contingen in reserve Then in mid-May it finally seized the initiative and nut out of action 32,000 of the KMT's American-equipped crack troops, ihe Reorganized 74th Division, at the battle of Menglianggu. This smashed the KMT's attack on key sectors in the Shandong Liberated Area. Jn northern Shaanxi, the KMT launched a sudden assault on Yan'an, seat of the CPC Central Committee and General Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Two hundred and fifty thousand troops, under the command of Hu Zongnan and others, engaged the 20,000 CPC troops. Although outnumbered ten to one, for six days of round-the-clock combat the Communist troops held back the KMT forces south of Yan'an covering the withdrawal of the CPC central officials and other residents. On March 19 they abandoned Yan'an, beginning a period of bitter fighting in northern Shaanxi. The KMT generals were overjoyed at the capture of Yan'an, but they soon realized that their happiness was premature. After withdrawing from Yan'an, the CPC Central Committee decided to send to north China a working committee consisting o( several of its members, including Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De from the Secretariat, to carry out certain tasks on its behalf. The majority of the Secretariat, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi, remained in northern Shaanxi. From there they led the simple but efficient organs of the Central Committee and the PLA General Headquarters, directing military operations on all fronts nationwide. Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun took charge of the Central Committee's Rear Area Commission and moved to northwestern Shanxi to manage the work in the rear. Taking advantage of the favourable conditions in northern Shaanxi, including a good mass base, mountainous terrain and plenty of room for manoeuvre, the PLA's Northwest Field Army Group, later called the Northwest Field Army, used the tactic that Mao Zedong described as "wearing the enemy down to complete exhaustion and then wiping him out."19 Acting according to this principle, the Northwest Field Army, led by Peng Dehuai, dealt the attacking enemy forces heavy blows. Within 45 days after abandoning Yan'an, the army won three battles fought at Qinghuabian, Yangmahe and Panlongzhen, wiping out more than 20,000 enemy troops. They then turned to fight in northwestern Shaanxi and at Shajiadian completely wiped out the ^PTER FIVE victory in the democratic revolution 339 headquarters staff of the Reorganized 36th Division H^dquarh ‘ and its two brigades under Hu Zongnan. By August the KMT «ault on key sectors of northern Shaanxi had been smashed. During the period from March to June 1947, while in the nrocess of defending themselves against KM 1 attacks on key sectors PLA units began a partial counterattack in the Northeast, Rehe eastern Hebei, northern Henan and southern Shanxi. Although 95 cities in the Liberated Areas remained under enemy occupation, the people's armed forces managed to recapture or liberate 153 cities and to annihilate over 400,000 enemy troops. Within the one year period from July 1946 through June 1947, the People's armed forces wiped out 97 and a half regular brigades, or 780,000 men, as well as 340,000 puppet troops, peace preservation corps and others—altogether, 1.12 million of tie enemy. At the same time, its own ranks swelled to 1.9 million men. In view of these circumstances, the people's armed forces were able to complete the phase of strategic defence as they entered the second year of the War of Liberation.

The Opening of the Second Front

At this time the Kuomintang ruling clique was growing increasingly corrupt, increasingly divorced trom the people, io carry on the civil war, it relied heavily on the U.S. imperialists and sold out the rights and interests of the nation. U.S. soldiers stationed in China behaved like a domineering army of occupation. The KMT bureaucrat-capitalists waxed fat on the wealth they stole from the people. A great many industrial and commercial enterprises of the national bourgeoisie shut down, the rural economy stagnated and prices skyrocketed. The areas under KMT control sank into economic crisis. Huge numbers of people struggled on the brink of starvation. People of all political persuasions (including the middle-of-the-roaders) gradually came to realize that in this war the central issue was not which party, me KMT or the CPC, would win, but whether China would finally become independent, unified, free and prosperous, as generations of Chinese had longed for it to be. While the army and people of the Liberated Areas were achieving great victories in their war of self-defence, the people of the KMT areas launched a momentous patriotic and democratic movement. With the students in the van, this movement against the reactionary KMT government gradually crystallized into a second front in the people's War of Liberation. The Movement to Protest U.S. Atrocities This movement stemmed from the U.S. policy of supporting Chiang in the civil war and opposing the Communist Party. In exchange for U.S. aid, the KMT authorities signed the Sino-U.S. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation, one of a number of agreements and treaties, both open and secret, which surrendered the nation's sovereignty under humiliating conditions. Taking advantage of special trading privileges, American manufacturers flooded China's markets with their products, quickly gaining a monopoly. For example, 80 percent of the goods on the shelves of the department stores in Shanghai were made in the United States. U.S. investment accounted for 80 percent of the total foreign capital in China. These percentages were the result not of normal international investment and fair economic exchange but of the unequal treaties signed by the KMT government at the expense of national sovereignty. These circumstances were a mortal blow to the already precarious Chinese national bourgeoisie. Areas controlled by the KMT after the War of Resistance Against Japan had essentially become American colonies. With the connivance of the KMT government, U.S. military personnel in China had been made subject to U.S. rather than Chinese law, and the soldiers stationed in China ran rampant. According to incomplete statistics, between August 1945 and November 1946, they committed at least 3,800 violent acts in the five cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping, Tianjin and Qingdao, killing or wounding more than 3,300 Chinese. Such crimes could not but fire the indignation of the Chinese people, who had long FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION uert their fill of imperialist oppression. TT . . SinThese events showed many Chinese that while the United Thef ? been an ally during World War II, its postwar policy S?l62orting Chiang and opposing the Communist Party was a of supp . • sufferings When American soldiers gang n,aJdaChLcse univershy swdent in the Dongdan Playing Field S Beiping on December 24, 1946, the incident triggered a mass December 30 more than five thousand students from . University Qinghua University and other universities mlle^es in Bering held a demonstration to protest the crimes thce ^3tut0nPt—S;«pience .of this Ancient city under KMT rule but also caused a nattonwrde suree of anti-American sentiment. . __ On December 31 the CPC Central Co^mi^^SSa^sautgTng live to its underground organizations in the KMT arf^' "®lng them to mobilize the masses in big ciues in response to the sWdent movement in Be, ping. It asked the orgamzamns brnkUhe broadest base of support" for this movement, take brave action and "lead the movement forward so as to isolate the U K and Chime" Evtr^rTtteZT; "m°onestrikeeSAsmany alloOdJOO participated nationwide. Many professors, scholars and well-known cultural figures in Beiping Shanghai and other cities denounced the outrages perpe trated by U S soldiers as an insult to the Chinese people, esc ng he student movement as a struggle for mdividua and natiom al dignity. The Shanghai chapter of the Democratic National Construction Association, the Shanghai Association of IndustraJists and Merchants for Progress and the Chongqing Chamber of Commerce, among others, issued statements in support of the students' patriotic actions and demanded the withdrawal of U S troops.^ The student movement developed into a broad-based people's movement, a united front against the U.S. and Chiane Kai-shek. ' 6 The anti-atrocity movement demonstrated that the Chinese nation would tolerate no humiliation. It helped the people understand the underlying connections between American interference in China's affairs and Chiang Kai-shek's autocratic regime and policy of civil war. It also advanced the patriotic democratic movement. In December 1946, to strengthen its leadership of the people's movement in the KMT areas, the CPC Central Committee made Zhou EnJai director of its Urban Work Department. Under the Party's unified leadership, the movement made great advances. The Movement Against Hunger and Civil War in the KMT areas China's bureaucrat capital, combined with U.S. monopoly capital, controlled the economic lifeline of the nation. In 1947 it made up two-thirds of China's total investment m industry and 80 percent of its fixed assets in industry and transportation. The bureaucrat-capitalists took advantage of all sorts of political privileges to bleed the labouring people white and mercilessly annex capital of the national bourgeoisie, thus creating a severe recession in the national economy. As the civil war continued, the KMT government's military expenses soared to 80 percent of its total expenditures. To make up for the huge deficit this caused, the government printed money at an appalling rate. At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the annual rate of currency issue was 1.5 trillion yuan. By the end of 1947, it had reached 40 trillion. Drastic inflation drove consumer prices skyward. An Associated Press report from Shanghai on July 24, 1947, depicted this fact vividly: "In 1940> 100 yuan bought a pig; in 1943, a chicken; in 1945, a fish; in 1946, an egg; and in 1947, one-third of a box of matches." 343 This vicious inflation was actually a widespread form of plunder of the masses. Under these circumstances, national industry and commerce gradually went bankrupt and were on the verge of total collapse. From October 1946 to February 1947, as many as 27,000 factories and shops closed in 20 cities including Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou. Total industrial output fell by more than 30 percent of its prewar ( 1936) level. The number of unemployed increased sharply. The vast majority of workers, city dwellers and even members of the middle and lower petty bourgeoisie were brought to the brink of disaster. The rural economy also went into a sharp recession. In 1946 agricultural production sank 8 to 12 percent below its 1936 level, and in 1947 it sank a further 33 to 40 percent. Starving people became a common sight in many villages, and bodies of the starved lined the roads. Government employees, teachers and students were also in desperate straits. By July 1947 prices had soared to 60,000 times their prewar levels, and the cost of living had increased by a factor of 6,000 to 7,000. Those who lived on fixed salaries or school subsidies could not afford adequate food and struggled on the edge of starvation. On February 28, 1947, the CPC Central Committee issued a directive on work in the KMT areas. On the foundation of the struggle for survival, the Central Committee said, the Party should try to build a broad front against the betrayal of the nation, civil war, dictatorial rule and the terror practised by secret agents. Thus, it gave the right orientation to the people's movement. In May the patriotic students initiated a movement on an even larger scale than the one launched the previous December against U.S. soldiers' atrocities. This time the targets were hunger and civil war. On the 15th in Nanjing, the capital of the KMT government, students from Central University and other schools marched to the KMT Executive Yuan and Ministry of Education to present petitions. On the 18th students from Beijing University and Qinghua University took to the streets and called on the people to oppose hunger and civil war. The KMT government issued an order forbidding groups of more than ten to gather to lodge petitions and banning all protest marches and all strikes, including strikes by students. Chiang Kai-shek issued a warning, stating that "drastic action" would be taken against the students. But they did not give in. On May 20 in Nanjing more than 5,000 students broke through a blockade of military police and marched through the streets carrying a banner that read "Demonstration of Students from sixteen Universities and Colleges in Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou Against the Crisis in Education." As they marched, they shouted the slogans "Oppose hunger!" and "Oppose civil war!" On the same day, in Beiping, more .than 7,000 students took to the streets carrying a banner that read, "Demonstration of Students from Beiping and North China Against Hunger and Civil War." Patriotic students in Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Guilin, Jinan, Changsha, Kunming and other cities joined the struggle with strikes and marches. Many professors and secondary school teachers sympathized with their movement. The Shanghai Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, its Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Bureau and underground Party organizations in Nanjing, Beiping and other cities organized and led these struggles, which became known as the May 20th Movement. The May 20th Movement served to unmask and isolate the KMT reactionaries politically. Not long before this, in April 1947, the KMT government had already used the ruse of government reorganization to draw members of the Democratic Socialist Party and the Youth Party into its cabinet, calling itself a "liberal, multiparty" government. The KMT-controlled People's Political Council was scheduled to open on May 20 in Nanjing. The students' large protest march on that day was therefore a major political blow to the KMT government. The KMT authorities in Nanjing sent troops and policemen to suppress the students, and more than 150 students were wounded or arrested. But the repressive action of the reactionary government failed to achieve its intended result; it only served to spread throughout the country the student movement against hunger and civil war. In the KMT areas, other aspects of the people's movement also intensified rapidly. FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION M5 CHApTER . . A tr uniarv 78 1947 the people in Taiwan rose in armea °"Fe"t £ despotic ruTe of the Kuomimang. People of ^^nationality and of the native Gaoshan nationality fought thC u ", shoulder paralyzing the reactionary government m Sh™t of the province. The KMT sent a large detachment of troops the mainland, who landed at the port city of Jilong. In the Woody suppression of this rebellion more than 30,000 people were kl During 1947 about 3.2 million workers went on strike in more twenty cities in the KMT areas. In September Shanghai workers went on strike to protest the authorities use of force to take over three democratic trade umons. The workers fought th roons and police who had been sent to suppress them. In the rural areas, the peasants rebelled against press-ganging an ,he requTsition of grain and taxes. By January 1947 rebellions had occurred in more than 300 counties. Between May and June 1947, the grain riots had spread to more than 40 cities, including Naniins Shanghai, Beiping, Wuxi and Wuhu. There were new developments in the revolutionary movemen in minoriTy-nationality areas as well. In April 1946 the people o Inner Mongolia held a conference to unify the movement autonomy in the region and decided on a policy t of F sti ruggle i for equality, autonomy and national liberation. In Apri 1947 they convened the Conference of Peoples Representatives of Inn Mongolia, at which a provisional people's political council wa elected. The council in turn elected the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Government with Ulanhu, a Mongol and member of the ?_nLt Party, as chairman. On May 1 the Inner Mongoh Autonomous Region was formally founded. The revolutmnary movement in northern Xinjiang, whic egan 1 • tu:s in Hi, Tacheng and Altay, also continued to expand during thi 56 A^Mao Zedong pointed out in a commentary written for the Xinhua News Agency on May 30, 1947'*e^e had turn against the Chiang Kai-shek government. On both the military and political fronts," he wrote, "it has met defeats, is now begged by the forces it has declared to be its enemies and can find no way of escape." "The march of events in China," he added, "is faster than people expected.... The Chinese people should quickly prepare all the necessary conditions for the establishment of a peaceful, democratic and independent new China." By the end of the first year of fighting, the situation in the civil war had changed dramatically. By July 1947 the Kuomintang's total military strength had already fallen from 4.3 million men to 3.73 million, its regular troops having dropped from two million to 1.5 million. Because its battle lines were overextended and most of its troops were needed for garrison duty, the number of men available for combat was greatly reduced. As a result of successive defeats, it had lost large numbers of men, and morale continued to sink: the mood among the officers and men was defeatist and war-weary. Moreover, the people in the KMT areas rose up in struggle, making the KMT army's rear insecure. In contrast, the People's Liberation Army had grown from 1.27 million men to 1.95 million, with the number of regular troops approaching one million. Furthermore, having captured a large quantity of materiel from the enemy, they were now better equipped. Because the PLA did not need to divide its troops to defend supply lines or cities, the number of men available for combat duty had also increased greatly. Lastly, as most of the Liberated Areas were undergoing agrarian reform, the peasant masses had greater enthusiasm for revolution and production, and the PLA's rear area was therefore secure. On July 4, 1947, in an attempt to get out of his predicament, Chiang Kai-shek issued the "General Mobilization Bill." This was a desperate attempt to extend the war to the Liberated Areas, so as to wear them down and make it difficult for the PLA to sustain the war. riTin. five victory in the democratic revolution CHAPTtK Advancing Towards the Central Plains A, this time the KMT forces still enjoyed superiority in mhers and, in particular, in equipment. The PLA still faced a a Tficult situation. Nevertheless, the CPC Central Committee d fhe an unexpected policy decision: it would immediately shift m a country-wide offensive, without waiting for the enemy is strategic offensive to be completely defeated and for ""PLA Ifn numerical superiority. It formulated the basic task for the fecond year of the War of Liberation in these terms: "To launch a countrywide counter-offensive, that is, to use our main forces to fight our way to exterior lines, carry the war into re Kuomintang areas, wipe out large numbers of the enemy on the exterior lines and completely wreck the Kuommtangs counter-revolutionary strategy, which is, on the contrary, to c So carry the war into the Liberated Areas, further damage and drain our manpower and material resources and make it imnossible for us to hold out very long. The CPC Central Committee chose the Dabie Mountains of the Central Plains as the main target of their assault, because this region, bordering on three provinces (Hubei, Henan and l Antal was strategically located between Nanjing, the KMT capital an the important city of Wuhan on the middle reaches of the Yan^e River. Relying on the Yellow River as a natura bamer the KMT had concentrated its troops on the eastern flank in Shandong province and the western flank in northern Shaanxi, deploying only a small number of troops to defend the central region. Furthermore, the Dabie Mountains had been i an . old revolutionary base area, and mass support was . 'da"vnd^"° ^ which would make it easy for the Peop es Liberation Army to gam a firm foothold there. Once the PLA took the Dabie Moun tains, it would constitute a threat to Nanjing to the east, Wuha to the west and the Yangtze River to the south. It would therefore be in a position to force Chiang Kai-shek to recall the troops he had sent to attack Shandong and northern Shaanxi so they could intend with the PLA for control of this strategic region. Although it would be most difficult for the PLA to capture Ahe region, success would immediately brmg about a dramatic change in the course of the war, carrying the fighting away from the Liberated Areas into the KMT areas. The CPC Central Committee further decided that in advancing towards the Dabie Mountains, the PLA should refrain from consolidating each city it captured, as it had done during the Northern Expedition in 1926 and 1927. Instead, it should advance by leaps, penetrating swiftly and deeply into enemy territory and abandoning any attempt to build solid rear areas. It should first occupy vast rural territory, then build up revolutionary base areas and finally take the cities. To carry out this strategic plan, the CPC Central Committee coordinated the movements of three armies and deployed troops to tie down the enemy on the flanks. That is, the main force of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army, led by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, was to launch an assault along the central route, heading directly for the Dabie Mountains. The main force of the East China Field Army, led by Chen Yi and Su Yu, was to take the eastern route, pushing into the area between Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Anhui. Part of the Shanxi-HebeiShandong-Henan Field Army, led by Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi, was to take the western route, advancing into western Henan. The three armies were to annihilate the enemy forces through coordinated mobile operations. For the containing action on the flanks, the Northwest Field Army was to attack Yulin to draw the enemy troops that were attacking northern Shaanxi up north, and the Shandong Army of the East China Field Army was to start an offensive in eastern Shandong, driving the enemy troops toward the sea. The 500-kilometre drive on the Dabie Mountains was a unique attack. Mao Zedong predicted the serious difficulties involved in this strategy. He pointed out that in fighting towards the exterior lines, there were three possible outcomes. Having paid the price to conquer a given territory, the PLA might 1) be unable to hold its ground and be forced back; 2) be unable to completely hold its ground and be forced to engage in guerrilla warfare on the periphery; or 3) hold its ground. He urged the commanders to prepare for the worst and strive for the best. On the night of June 30, 1947, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiao349 ■ o led 120 000 troops in a surprise manoeuvre, crossing the P^ural barrier of the Yellow River and thus raising the curtain n lhe pLA's strategic offensive. In 28 days of continuous fight•' jn southwestern Shandong, the PLA troops annihilated 56,000 nf the enemy, opening a route to the south. Then they began their heroic 500-kilometre march south, fighting all the way against hundreds of thousands of KMT troops who intercepted and nursued them. They crossed 15 kilometres of marshes inundated by the Yellow River, waded the Shahe River and fought their way across the Ruhe and Huaihe rivers. In late August, after more than twenty days of exhausting marches and heavy combat, they reached the Dabie Mountains. The advance of Liu and Deng's army forced the KMT to move its main forces back as reinforcements, quickly increasing the troops surrounding the Dabie Mountains to more than 30 bn gades, totalling 200,000 men. Liu and Deng's men were worn out from continuous marching and fighting. Also, they had never fought in the south before. After arriving in a new area, they needed time to establish political power and to mobilize the masses, and they were short of food, clothing and ammunition. In view of these circumstances, Liu and Deng deployed one part of their forces in the northern foothills of the mountains and moved the remainder to western Anhui and eastern Hubei. With firm support from the masses, the troops fought tenaciously, repulsing repeated attacks by the KMT troops on key sectors. By November they had annihilated over 30,000 enemy troops and set up democratic governments in 33 counties. These were the preliminary successes in the Dabie Mountains. In late August, while Liu and Deng's troops were on their 500kilometre trek to the Dabie Mountains, a detachment of 80,000 men from the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army, led by Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi, crossed the Yellow River into western Henan. By late November they had wiped out 50,000 enemy troops and established democratic governments in 39 counties, fulfilling their strategic mission in the Henan-Shaanxi border area. In September the East China Field Army, led by Chen Yi and Su Yu, crossed the Longhai Railway and marched south into the Henan-Anhui- Jiangsu plains to fight on exterior lines. By late November they too had carried out their strategic mission. At this point, the three armies had fought their way to the exterior lines. They had advanced together in a triangle formation sweeping through the vast area bounded by the Yellow River to the north, the Yangtze to the south, the Hanshui River to the west and the sea to the east. Supporting each other like the three legs of an ancient bronze vessel, the three armies pressed forward and approached the KMT's line of defence along the Yangtze, posing a direct threat to Nanjing and Wuhan. This action pushed the battlefront south from the Yellow River to the north bank of the Yangtze, transforming the Central Plains once an important rear area from which the KMT troops had launched attacks on the Liberated Areas—into a base from which the PL A troops would advance to nationwide victory. Not long after, a spokesman for the General Headquarters of the PLA said that as the three armies moved south they had "manipulated and drawn towards themselves some 90 out of the 160-odd brigades which Chiang Kai-shek had on the southern front, forced his armies into a passive position, played a decisive strategic role and won the acclaim of the people all over the country."22 Other PLA units were still fighting on the interior lines. These included the Northwest Field Army led by Peng Dehuai, the Shandong Army of the East China Field Army led by Tan Zhenlin and Xu Shiyou, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army led by Nie Rongzhen and the Taiyue Army of the Shanxi-HebeiShandong-Henan Field Army led by Xu Xiangqian. They intensified their military operations and gradually went over to a counteroffensive. During the summer of 1947, the Northeast Democratic United Army launched a strategic counteroffensive, completely changing the military situation in northeast China. Conducting offensive operations on every front, the PLA had, in fact, switched to a strategic offensive nationwide. This was an event of historic significance. Mao Zedong said at the time: "This is a turning point in history. It is the turning point from growth to extinction for Chiang Kai-shek's twenty-year counterrevolutionary rule. It is the turning point from growth to extinc351 HAPTER f,ve victory in thh DEMOCRAT1C revolution „ for imperialist rule in China, now over a hundred years old This is a momentous event ... and, having occurred, tt will certainly culminate in victory throughout the country. Reform of the Land System As the PLA went over to the strategic offensive, the new situation demanded an intensive land reform movement throughout the Liberated Areas. Such a movement was necessary to arouse the peasants' enthusiasm for revolution and production and to win their support, which was vital to successful operation. in the War of Liberation. In 1946 the CPC Central Committee issued the May 4th Directive ," which marked the CPC's change from a policy of reducing rent and interest to a policy of confiscating the land of the landlords and distributing it among the peasants. During the period from May 1946 to June 1947, the land question was essentially resolved in two-thirds of the Liberated Areas A total of 600,000 peasants had enlisted in the PLA and ano er million were doing support work at the front lines. Ho'*'ever> reform had not yet reached one-third of the Liberated Areas, and in some places it had not been carried out thoroughly. Fr °m July to September 1947, to facilitate further advances m land reform the Working Committee of the CPC Central Committee held the National Land Conference under the chairmanship of Liu Shaoqi at Xibaipo Village in Pingshan County Hebei Province^ On October 10 the Outline Land Law of China formulated by the conference was approved and promulgated by the Central Com mittcc The Outline Land Law of China presented a thoroughly revolutionary programme. First, it stipulated, "The land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation is to be abolished and the system of land to the tillers put into effect. This was a pubhc demonstration of the Party's commitment to overthrowing the feudal system of land ownership. Second, the Law stipulated, "All the land of the landlords and the public land in the villages is to be taken over by the local peasant associations and, together with all other land there, is to be equally distributed among the entire rural population, regardless of sex or age." The method to be used was to take from those who had a surplus of land and give to those who had a shortage and to take from those who had better land and give to those who had worse. In general, these provisions served to meet the need of the peasants—especially the poor peasants and farm labourers—for land. They also helped avoid the mistake made in the past of allotting no land to landlords and only poor land to rich peasants. However, equal redistribution of all land tended to encroach upon the interests of the middle peasants. This method was therefore changed when land reform was conducted in the newly-liberated areas and in all other parts of the country. Third, the Law stipulated that peasants' congresses and their elected committees were to be the lawful bodies responsible for carrying out the land reform. It also provided for the establishment of people's courts to ensure implementation of the policies and decrees relating to land reform and to maintain revolutionary public order. Thus, while the peasants were mobilized to overthrow the landlords and acquire land themselves, the government promulgated laws and decrees to support them in their struggle, guaranteeing the complete success of the movement. As the War of Liberation progressed, under the guidance of the Outline Land Law hundreds of millions of peasants oppressed under the feudal system participated in a great democratic revolution. However, while the National Land Conference made an enormous contribution, it overestimated the deficiencies in the land reform in the Liberated Areas and overstated the problems within the Party. It did not adopt specific policies to prevent the reform from encroaching upon the interests of the middle peasants and to protect national industry and commerce, and it stressed only the need to guard against Right tendencies, without mentioning the danger of "Left" tendencies. This was one of the reasons why during the land reform and the related Party consolidation, serious "Left" errors were made in many areas. After the National Land Conference, leading Party and govter FIVE victory in the democratic revolution SuTTh. p»». -T; poor P"sany^fthae° land and punish those who were local was soon berng carried out enthus.asttwere encroached upon, or . , odiers were barred from sified as rich peasants participating in decision ma ^ deviation also harmed tax was imposed on ^ them. exaim3le the industrial and national industry and comme landlords were confiscated, and commercial enterprises run y distinction was the taxes levied on enterprises ^^^^between big, made between the landl^rd b t en dcspotic and non-despotic middle and small landlords, 01 ^ - in the landlords. All these people were denounced ^ ^ ^ same way. Some landlor s , nhces they were beaten left with no means sle ^PCCemral Committee found out about ST steps situation and gradually put the reform uc on vast area represented The land reform conducted across history. It uproota social transformation unpara e China, liberated the ed the feudal system from the ^rtd to cruel oppression and peasants who had so long political and economic shackles, their political consciousness and organizational level reached unprecedented heights. In response to the Party's call, "Join the army to protect your land!" ablebodied peasants swarmed into the people's armed forces. Peasants everywhere sent grain, bedding and clothes to the front. Moreover, they organized themselves into transport teams, stretcher teams, railway and road sabotage teams and other military support units. Many established or strengthened people's militia units, which cooperated with the PL A in the defence of the Liberated Areas. The people's armed forces thus found an inexhaustible source of manpower and material assistance, enough to win the War of Liberation. It was precisely as Mao Zedong had said: "The whole Party must understand that thoroughgoing reform of the land system is a basic task of the Chinese revolution in its present stage. If we can solve the land problem universally and completely, we shall have obtained the most fundamental condition for the defeat of all our enemies."

The Party's Programme to Overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and Liberate All China

After the War of Liberation entered the stage of strategic offensive, the General Headquarters of the Chinese People's Liberation Army issued a manifesto containing the resounding slogan, "Overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and liberate all China!" The pace of historical progress sometimes exceeds human expectations. As Zhou Enlai put it in the autumn of 1947, "For a time after the Japanese surrender, the Party hoped to establish a new China through peaceful means, though without any relaxation of armed self-defence."25 However, Chiang Kai-shek tried every means possible to frustrate the efforts for peace of the Communist Party and the Chinese people and imposed on the people the unprecedented calamity of nationwide civil war. After the outbreak of that war, the Party, while responding with armed ^PTER F1VE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION if defence still did everything in its power to salvage peace Chiang Kai-shek, for his part, ceaselessly expanded the war, at fhe same time convening the bogus National Assembly that Wonted a so-called Constitution and forcing the CPC represent Lves to leave the KMT areas, thus closing the door to peace negotiations. In July 1947 the KMT government issued an Order for General Mobilization to Suppress the Insurrection of the Communist Bandits." This order indicated in legal form its final and complete break with the Chinese people. By issuing it, Chiang Kai-shek lifted a rock only to drop it on his own feeti He left t Chinese people with only one alternative: to unite and overthrow him In the second half of 1947, the military situation changed greatly to his disadvantage. As Zhou Enlai explained: We have shown the people with facts that we are strong enough to overthrow him, and the people don't want him anyway. Even e in the upper social strata (except for a few reactionary cliques) and the middle class are getting tired of the loadandwantto overthrow him. Thus, it is opportune to raise the slogan. Over throw Chiang Kai-shek!'"26 Formulating a Programme of Action for the New Period In December 1947 the CPC Central Committee held a meeting at Yangjiagou, Mizhi County, northern Shaanxi, to draw up a specific plan for overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek and liberating all China. At this meeting Mao Zedong presented a report outlining a political, military and economic programme fol Heh began by declaring, "The Chinese people's revolutionary war has now reached a turning point."27 This was a victory bought at enormous cost, a victory won after iongyears of struggleby the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party ""'reiterated the main points of the PLAN Manifesto of October 1947, which listed eight basic policies of the army, lhe ^"Unite workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals and businessmen, all oppressed classes, all people's organizations, democratic parties, minority nationalities, overseas Chinese and other patriots; form a national united front; overthrow the dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek government; and establish a democratic coalition government."28 This, he said, was the fundamental political programme of the CPC. Practice had demonstrated that without the broadest possible united front, consisting of the overwhelming majority of the population, it would be impossible to bring the Chinese revolution to victory. And without firm leadership by the Party, it would be impossible for any revolutionary united front to consolidate and expand. From the military point of view, Mao analysed the methods that the PLA had been using and that would enable it to carry the War of Liberation to a victorious conclusion. He highlighted ten principles of operation, all of which centred around the basic principle of concentrating a superior force in every engagement so as to destroy the enemy forces one by one. He emphasized the need for the PLA to suit its methods of operation to the new situation, now that it had shifted to the strategic offensive. For example, one of the principles was: "Strive to wipe out the enemy through mobile warfare. At the same time, pay attention to the tactics of positional attack and capture enemy fortified points and cities." Another, designed to leave the enemy no time to breathe, was: "Give full play to our style of fighting—courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no fear of fatigue, and continuous fighting."29 The army, Mao said, should replenish its strength with all the arms and most of the personnel captured from the enemy, making the front its main source of manpower and materiel. (This was particularly important for main forces fighting far from their bases or without a rear area to fall back on.) Military leaders in world history have seldom made such an open statement of their strategy and tactics while fighting was still going on. But Mao pointed out that because the PLA's strategy and tactics were based on a people's war, no army opposed to the people could either adopt them or counter them. With nationwide victory in sight, the CPC also felt it necessary to proclaim a basic economic programme for the new China. pjvE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION CHAPTLK r,v Accordingly, in his report Mao set forth the CPC's plans in this ^Confiscate the land of the feudal class and turn it over to the ™-asants. Confiscate monopoly capital, headed by Chiang Kai diek T v Soong, H.H. Kung and Chen Lifu, and turn it over to he new-democratic state. Protect the industry and commerce of 1 national bourgeoisie. These are the three major economic oolicies of the new-democratic revolution. The principles SL1iding the new-democratic national economy," he added, must closely conform to the general objective of developing production promoting economic prosperity, giving consideration to both nubiic and private interests and benefiting both labour and capital. Any principle, policy or measure that deviates from this general objective is wrong."31 , „ . , Mao emphasized that to ensure achievement of the Party s political, military and economic objectives, the Party must firs consolidate its ranks by solving the problem of ‘ impurities in the class composition and style of work of its local organizations, especially those at the primary level in the countryside. Only when these "impurities" were removed, he said, could the Party and the broadest masses of working people all march in the same direction and could the Party lead the masses forward. Mao concluded his report with these forceful words: Ihe dawn is ahead, we must exert ourselves. A decision adopted at the CPC Central Committees meeting in December 1947 stated that Mao Zedong's report was a programmatic document in the political, military and economic fields for the entire period of the overthrow of the reactionaiy Chiang Kai-shek ruling clique and of the founding of a newdemocratic China."33 Formulating New Policies and Tactics for the New Situation During the period following its December meeting, the CPC Central Committee concentrated on developing concrete policies and tactics appropriate to the new situation. There were three reasons for this. First, as the PLA progressed triumphantly, new areas were liberated, including many cities, and these presented the Party with unfamiliar circumstances and tasks of which it had no experience. Second, the Party and army consisted mainly of peasants and petty bourgeois. Some of them were inclined to approach urban work from the perspective of small producers or to apply their methods of rural work empirically to the urban work. Without guidance from the Party, such tendencies could become destructive. Third, historical experience had shown that in periods when the Party had broken with the KMT, "Left" deviations were likely to occur, and that when successes were scored in revolution, some people were prone to become arrogant and imprudent, which likewise led to "Left" deviations. According to Mao Zedong, in spite of the fact that the line, basic principles and policies of the GPC Central Committee were correct, in practical application "Left" deviations had occurred "to a greater or lesser extent in all the Liberated Areas and in some cases had developed into serious adventurist tendencies."34 In rural work, such deviations consisted in encroaching on the interests of the middle peasants, neglecting the tactical importance of narrowing the scope of attack in land reform in the new Liberated Areas (that is, neglecting to neutralize the rich peasants and small landlords) and lacking the patience to work step by step. In urban work, "Left" deviations manifested themselves in encroachment on the interests of the industry and commerce of the national bourgeoisie, one-sided stress in the labour movement on the immediate interests of the workers to the neglect of production and construction in the cities, and destruction of production facilities there. As for relations between the Party and the masses, "Left" deviation was seen in the sweeping slogan, "Do everything as the masses want it done," which rejected the Party's leadership role and encouraged the tendency to let the Party "tail after" the people. In view of these problems, Mao Zedong strictly admonished the Party: "All comrades in the Party should understand that the enemy is now completely isolated. But his isolation is not tantamount to our victory. If we make mistakes in policy, we shall still be unable 359 ‘0 - *£• S withreganL to any outlie SS fees^ on'the war, Party consolidation, land reform indusUy and and, t3CtiCSt iaier inner Party encu comrades at all levels must ■=»" " land reform, Mao Zedong drafted "^^fproblems of kSsksSSS framework of the Prlf C P id^le and smalllandlords, as well as were not. ^"uninate ^en ral Committee also reissued two Agrarian Revolutionary War (1927 37 ). emit Qn Some jSraS! for Land " These provided guidelines for local organizations in dealing with such Problems. was very much in the sp analysed the causes of the been made during Und ^ forward principles and methods to conec classes should be ated the criteria according to ^^t^rtanS of rmly uniting j J need to adopt a policy to protect intellectuals and to win over as many of them as possible so they might serve a people's republic. He also stressed the need to avoid adopting any adventurist policies towards industry and commerce. He declared that the CPC was strongly against indiscriminate beating and killing and the torturing of criminals. The CPC Central Committee distributed copies of this speech to Party organizations at all levels and published it in the Party's newspapers. It proved very helpful in putting the land reform and other mass movements back on the right track. With Mao Zedong's approval, the "Report on Some of the Problems in Land Reform" by the secretary of the Northwest Bureau, Xi Zhongxun, and the "Report on Problems in Work in the New Areas" by the secretary of the Central Plains Bureau, Deng Xiaoping, were also distributed to Party organizations everywhere. Thanks to the Party membership's hard work, by the spring of 1948 the "Left" mistakes in land reform had for the most part been rectified, and the land reform movement had returned to its proper course. Because the peasants in most villages in the new Liberated Areas were not yet organized and public order was still unstable, the conditions there were not yet ripe for reform of the land system. Accordingly, the CPC Central Committee decided that in those villages the methods developed during the War of Resistance Against Japan could be used. This meant that in the beginning the policy would be to reduce rent and interest, to readjust the distribution of seed and grain and to institute a rational distribution of the grain-tax burden. This would provide the peasants with material benefits and shift a larger percentage of the tax burden to the landlords and rich peasants. Only when the necessary conditions were present for enforcing the Land Law would land reform be introduced. The reform would be conducted in two stages. During the first stage, efforts would be made to bring the rich peasants to a neutral stand and struggle would be directed exclusively against the landlords. During the second stage, land would be equally distributed, including the surplus land previously rented out by the rich peasants. These methods were applied in the new Liberation Areas, where they served not VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 361 ChaPTEK FIVE otiefv the needs of the peasants but also to reduce the '"mberof persons subjected to political attack, rapidly stabilizn miblic order and stimulating production. ingw h he successive liberation of a series of large and medium• ^cities the CPC was confronted with many new problems. a th.t its nolicv had been construction, not destruction. No ZS22B3SSL .now- „ «*■•»« entering their style of extravagant y_ y A1) individuals and organizations, other tharfthe^governrnent authorities (including the public se ^hy bureau)8 had been prohibited from making arrests or confiscating property. recaptured from the Sisli'HSSH "fevery of the organs of Kuo mintang rule', arrest only the chief reactionaries and do not invoive too mny personSf defining bureaucrat™ " «»-» »» 7 bI ... d„ » ^t'o^'ntnnftra^do 'noUighUy^ advance slogans of ra^1nnftteCTCrc" Co0mmiUee°approved and issued "The Northeast Bureau's Directive on Protecting Newly Recaptured Cities," which emphasized that when dealing with urban matters it was necessary to abandon practices- suited to guerrilla warfare or to villages. Instead, newly recaptured cities should be governed in the short term by a system of military control. In December the Central Committee approved and distributed Chen Yun's report on the takeover of Shenyang in Liaoning Province. The experience in Shenyang helped solve the two most difficult problems: how to ensure complete control over a city and how to quickly restore public order. Chen Yun enumerated the specific methods to be used as follows: "a) different aspects of the work should be assigned to different divisions; b) in each enterprise or government department the military control commission should start from the top; c) the original staff of each unit should be left unchanged; and d) the commission should take over all units before placing each under the administration of the appropriate division."38 These methods, Chen Yun said, had been used successfully in Shenyang and had served to ensure a quick takeover, so as to allow no lime for sabotage and to avoid confusion and social unrest. At the same time, he considered it imperative to solve the key political and economic problems in order to set people's minds at rest—restoring electricity, stabilizing currency and prices, disarming enemy police, using the media to publicize government policies and calm the public, issuing wages, and so on. He added, "To ensure success in taking over a city, it is most important that the troops be well disciplined."39 It was necessary to enforce social reform measures systematically, only when conditions were ripe. Because the Party adopted a series of correct policies, public order in the newly-liberated cities was stabilized quickly, production resumed and increased and the Party established good relations wiih the city dwellers of various social strata. These newly-liberated cities contributed greatly to the war effort and to the economic prosperity of the Liberated Areas. To ensure rigorous application of the Party's line, principles CJ^PTFJ* FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 363 , noiicies for all fields of work, Mao Zedong repeatedly urged fhe entire Party membership to acquire a solid understanding of £* Party's general line. In April 1948, speaking at a conference Of cadres, he summed up that line as follows: "The revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged bv the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the nroletariat - this is China's new-democratic revolution, and this fs the general line and general policy of the Communist Party of China at the present stage of history." "If we actually forget the Party's general line and general policy," he warned "then we shall he blind half-baked, muddle-headed revolutionaries, and when we carry out a specific line for work and a specific policy, we shall lose our bearings and vacillate now to the left and now to the right, and the work will suffer."40 . ... He also insisted that the Party must determine its tactics according to the circumstances. In applying the policies adopted by the Central Committee, the Party organizations must make concrete plans, taking into account different local conditions and avoiding over-simplification. Mao emphasized the need to translate the Party s policies into the people's actions. He pointed out that exponents of the slogan "Do everything as the masses want it done were absolutely mistaken: they were denying the leadership role Jarty,f encouraging cadres to "tail after" the masses. The Party he said "must lead the masses to carry out all their correct ideas in the light of the circumstances and educate them to correct any wrong ideas they may entertain. . • To ensure thorough implementation of the Partys policies it was essential to uphold the Party's centralized, unified leadership and to increase Party members' sense of organization and discipline The problem was particularly important at this point, because the revolution had already made tremendous progress. Many of the Liberated Areas had been linked together and many cities had been or were about to be liberated The War of Liberation had become much more of a regular war. These changes required that the Party move quickly to do away with the indiscipline, anarchy, localism, and practice of operating independently that had grown up during the long years of guerrilla warfare when the various army units had been separated from each other by the enemy. The Central Committee required that all local Party organizations strictly enforce its policies and that they establish a regular system of asking the Central Committee for instructions and submitting reports to it at stated intervals. At the same time, they were to strengthen inncr-Party democracy and the Party committee system. Having come to an historic turning point, the Communist Party, as the political party of the proletariat, had to anticipate and study new situations and problems as they arose, and formulate appropriate and effective measures to deal with them. The CPC instituted practical policies and worked hard to help all its members understand their importance and maintain a high degree of unity based on a correct line. Thus, work in all fields was conducted in an orderly manner. All this provided the most important preconditions for nationwide victory in the revolution. As the People's Liberation Army went over to the strategicoffensive, the KMT authorities, in an effort to maintain their tottering rule, stepped up their oppression and exploitation of the people and their suppression of the patriotic democratic forces. After issuing the "Order for General Mobilization to Suppress the Insurrection of the Communist Bandits" in July 1947, the KMT government drafted all eligible men and requisitioned all available material resources to continue the civil war. It arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned and executed workers, students and other patriotic democrats and promulgated a series of reactionary laws and decrees, including "Methods for Dealing with the Communists in Rear Areas," "Regulations Governing the Establishment cHAFrER FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION f Snecial Criminal Courts" and "Martial Law." The areas under S-MT control were devastated by White terror. R To give its dictatorial rule an air of democracy, from March to vri 1948 the KMT held in Nanjing a Constitutional Congress ^ wh ch Chiang Kai-shek was "elected" President. Because of factional conflicts within the KMT administration, and because [he United States government was considering finding another leader of the KMT to replace Chiang, the leader of the Guangxi faction, Li Zongren, was "elected" vice-president. At the same time the KMT authorities were deploying their remaining regu lar army forces and local troops to reinforce the South and outlying regions in preparation for a last-ditch struggle agams the revolutionary people. f In 1948 the economy of the KMT areas was on the brin collapse Prices rose sharply. In June of that year, the price of rice in Shanghai reached eight million yuan per hectolitre, eight times the January level. In August the KMT government issued a document entitled "Emergency Measures ; for Handling nancial and Economic Situation" and in October another called "Supplementary Measures for Improving Economic Control. It also issued "gold yuan" notes to replace the original currency .The exchange rate was three million yuan for one gold yuan notec However, the new currency also depreciated quickly, and prices soared Thus, all the KMT government s efforts to alleviate he economic crisis were in vain. They served only to worsen the situation for both urban and rural working people and brought national industry and commerce to the verge of fasten As the KMT regime crumbled, the Peoples Liberation Army advanced triumphantly. Under the influence and leadership of the Communist Party of China, the peoples movements xn the KMT areas began to gain momentum. The student masses increasingly pinned their hopes on vie y in the War of Liberation. Accordingly, they dropped the slogan "Oppose civil war!" and instead called on people to Oppose persecution!" In October 1947 the chairman of the Zhejiang University Autonomous Student Association, Yu Zisan was arrested and tortured to death in jail. When they learned of this atrocity, more than 100,000 students demonstrated in twelve cities, including Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Beiping. They waged a struggle against persecution, illegal arrests, secret police and the killing of young people. In early 1948, when the KMT authorities had students at Tongji University massacred, students in Shanghai, Beiping and other cities intensified their protests. In April students in north China protested against the KMT authorities' suppression of the North China Students' Association with the slogan "Oppose persecution, protect the Students' Association!" Moreover, they joined the teachers and other school staff in Beiping and Tianjin in demanding better material benefits. The teachers, workers, researchers and doctors all held strikes. The movement grew and became known as the "April storm." During May and June, a nationwide student-led movement against U.S. support for the Japanese militarists swelled to include people from all sectors of society. The reactionary KMT rulers were thus completely isolated. All the democratic parlies and the majority of democrats without party affiliation became daily more inclined to support the people's revolution. As successes were scored in the War of Liberation, the KMT authorities stepped up persecution of the patriotic democratic forces, and as the CPC's propaganda struck deep roots among the people, some democrats and hitherto uncommitted persons began to turn away from the once widespread search for a "third road."42 Although the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party, once participants in the Democratic League, had gone over to the KMT, the Democratic League and other democratic parties and most of the independent democrats stood with the CPC. They refused to participate in the "National Assembly" or the KMT government and opposed the bogus constitution. On June 28, 1946, the eve of the full-scale civil war launched by the KMT, the CPC Central Committee stated in a circular on the current situation: "On the question of negotiations, the Democratic League advocated that the CPC take a strong position and oppose any concession. If the KMT wants war, they think the CPC should fight back. They believed that war was inevitable." ^ VICTORY „ ™ DEMOCRATIC ~ *7 The Demoaatk ^ague. the CPC Central Committee sai^ alS° "fdMy " The democratic parties and times of difficulty. Jn lhe struggie against the KMTs crats played an ac civil war. They cooperated with dictatorial rule "d its pol Y jn the course of struggle. ThhisCwas the major characteristic of all the democratic parties at "kMT authorities not only bitterly hated the CPC but were also hostile towards all consistently though the Democratic ec ^. ms t0 achieve democracy and advocated the use of dem( . authorities continual means to achieve of ually used violence to perse h ■ inenl democrat, Du Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo ano t members of local Bincheng, was assassinated in X iam Qr kidnapped. branches of the Democratic eag or raided In May 1947 Several of its newspapers were demolish c ■ CPC's "MT published a document purpo. rung t Programme for the prepared by the KMT, d h pederation of CornAssociation for Promoting 6 mo , progressive rades of the Throe People s Principles and other ^ organizations as "receiving ; orders [™m thcCPCa^ ^ be the willing tools of ih rvmneratic League an illegal KMT authorities declared the ^mentary puborganization and banned all ^ November 6, 1947, prolished by the Xinhua > unarmed organization. Its tested: "The Democratic League _is an 00^^ ^ Thdr Qnly members have no guns, ^ J3 . , tj.ev were long ago weapons are speech and ^ i ' l Chiang could ss sass sr s=,Se.. ... was forced to announce the dissolution of the party: "Let it be known that from this day onward, the members of this organization will cease all political activities, all members of this headquarters will resign from their posts and this headquarters is hereby dissolved as of today." The CPC made every possible effort to unite with the democratic parties and individuals. Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other CPC leaders and the Party organizations maintained close contact with the leaders of the democratic parties, encouraging and supporting them in their struggle against the dictatorship of the KMT. This also helped strengthen the left-wing factions in those parties. In January 1948 Shen Junru and other leaders of the Democratic League convened the 3rd Plenary Session of its 1st Central Committee, at which they declared they would not accept the dissolution of the League and would restore the headquarters. The participants in this session clearly stated that the League would "absolutely not adopt a neutral stand in matters of right and wrong." They also pointed out that the argument for an independent "middle road" was untenable under the prevailing circumstances in China. The League, then, had no alternative but to take the people's democratic, revolutionary stand and join in the struggle to overthrow the KMT ruling clique, eradicate the feudal system of land ownership, drive the U.S. imperialists out of China and achieve a people's democracy. The participants in the session affirmed that the Communist Party of China was "worthy of every patriot's admiration" and that from then on the League would cooperate with it. This session marked the Democratic League's conversion to the standpoint of new-democratic revolution. As the leader of the League, Shi Liang, said many years later, "This political change will go down in the history of the Democratic League. From this point on, the Democratic League took the right path of total cooperation with the Communist Party of China and, practically speaking, accepted the CPC's leadership."43 At about this time, the democratic factions in the KMT began to form a revolutionary alliance. On November 12, 1947, in Hong pjvE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION in the KM , rhine^e Kuomintang. On January 1, 1948, ocratic Factions of the Chinese g f th Kuomintang. they founded the RevoiuUonary Comnuttee^a^ ^ u Jishen as with Soong A^he^amgres^the^announced, "Our immediate chairman. At the cong Qverthrow the traitorous, dictatorial rerevolutionary wsk is t realize independence, democracy gune Of Chh*"? sh h Revolutionary Committee of the and peace in China. . lf tQ cooperation with the Kuomintang tirm y c , . basic principles of the Communist Party and revolution progressed and as new-democracy PI0g"tee le raedlh rough practical struggle, ifea^ne to^ublicly^c^iowledge the^eadersh^p of the Communist ""other democratic parties. al Construction A^aUon Cht Dfimocratic Par°e"u San Society6 China Zhi Gong Dang and the Taiwan Demrcradc^dfSovernment League, all expressed thetr commitmeo A nrfl nri"eacVrCentTal Committee issued a May Day^logan that called for thew""Je"x"® df aV TeactSnaiies consultative conference w ic ^ coalition government. the Liberated Areas to and IhetuXg^fa new ChLa under the people's democratic ..pub,. ... * a country suffering under imperialist oppression."44 With the exception of a few exponents of bourgeois democracy who had turned reactionary, the great majority of them had gradually discarded it and now believed that the Communist Party's political position on building socialism through the establishment of a people's republic was correct. It was this belief that provided the foundation for the Communist-led system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation.

The Great Decisive Battles

In the autumn of 1948 the War of Liberation entered the decisive phase for nationwide victory of the people's forces. A t I his time, the People's Liberation Army had expanded to a total of 2.8 million men, of which 1.49 million were in the field armies, as compared to 1.27 million at the beginning of the war. It was also much better equipped, great quantities of new equip^ ment having been captured from the enemy—one could say that the United States was supplying the PLA through the KMT troops. The PLA had now established powerful artillery and engineering corps, which made it possible for it to attack strongly fortified positions and thus to gain experience in positional warfare. Moreover, the ideological education movement carried out in the army by the methods of "pouring out grievances" and the three check-ups" had greatly enhanced the political consciousness of the troops and their combat effectiveness.45 The Liberated ^ccSAAAd gradually been linked t0 form a continuous area of 2,355,000 square kilometres, or 24.5 percent of the total territory of the country. Their population was now 168 million, or 35.3 percent of the total. Land reform had been completed in most of the Liberated Areas, and the enthusiasm of the peasant masses for revolution and production had reached unprecedented heights. The rear areas of the PLA were therefore increasingly secure. In contrast, the KMT troops had decreased from 4.3 million men at the start of the war to 3.65 million. Because a significant cHAptf.r five victory in the DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 371 number of them were deployed for garrison duties, only 1.74 million were available for use at the front lines. Moreover, morale was low and the troops lacked combat effectiveness. Even though the KMT reactionaries still controlled three quarters of the territory and two-thirds of the population, they were faced with a hostile people and were extremely isolated. Under these circumstances, they were forced to abandon their strategy of "total defence" and adopt one of "defence of key sectors." Their five strategic armies (under Hu Zongnan, Bai Chongxi, Liu Zhi, Fu Zuoyi and Wei Lihuang) had been cut off from each other by the PLA and had been operating separately in northwest China, the Central Plains, east China, north China and northeast China, without adequate coordination. As a result, the only thing they could do was to guard strategic areas and communication lines, leaving only a small number of troops available tor strategic manoeuvring. They had already lost the advantage of a continuous battlefront. The KMT regime was on the verge of collapse. All these circumstances showed that the moment for decisive battles between the PLA and the KMT troops was at hand. But the total military strength of the KMT still exceeded that of the PLA. The Communist Party was therefore faced with two major strategic questions. First, did it dare launch decisive battles, fighting on an unprecedentedly large scale? Second, did it dare attempt to capture the enemy's key cities and to annihilate his strongest corps? At the time, the KMT authorities were in the process of making a major strategic change in troop deployment. In August 1948 they convened a "military self-criticism meeting" in Nanjing, during which they decided: 1) to concentrate their forces in the area between the Yellow River and the Yangtze, 2) to strengthen the defence of Liaodong and Rehe in northeast China in order to stabilize north China and to defend their positions south of the Yellow River, and 3) to do all they could to defend the Central Shaanxi Plain and Hanzhong in northwest China in order to protect their line of defence in southwest China. If the PLA allowed time for the KMT to conduct this strategic concentration of forces, it would find it very hard to carry on military operations later. The CPC Central Committee, headed by Mao Zedong, analysed the military situation and decided to seize the opportunity for decisive battles. It organized three consecutive major campaigns—the Liaoxi-Shenyang campaign, the Huai-Hai campaign and the Beiping-Tianjin campaign. These campaigns were correlated with each other, so that they proceeded from one victory to another. The overall strategy called for annihilation of the enemy by groups. The Central Committee chose the correct target for the first strike and began the decisive phase of the war in northeast China. This would prevent the KMT from carrying out its strategic plan of concentrating its forces. At the same time, some of the PLA troops in northeast China could move to fight south of the Great Wall. Moreover, the CPC could take advantage of the industry there to support the war effort nationwide. At this time the military situation in northeast China was most favourable to the PLA, which was quite sure of victory. Although there were still 550,000 KMT troops in the region, they had been cut off trom each other in three areas—Changchun, Shenyang and Jinzhou. The PLA, for its part, had 700,000 regular troops stationed in northeast China, which, together with 300,000 local troops, totalled one million men, far outnumbering the enemy. The Liberated Areas covered 97 percent of the region's total land area and contained 86 percent of its population. Of the 2,100 kilometres of railways, 2,000 km. were in the people's hands. After land reform and the elimination of bandits, the PLA's rear areas were secure. Such favourable conditions were absent in other sectors. The Central Committee accordingly decided to begin the final push in northeast China, so as to be certain of victory in the first campaign. The opening shot in this series of decisive battles was fired on September 16, 1948, in Shandong, in the battle of Jinan, which ended on September 24. The East China Field Army had massed a powerful force to attack this strategically important city. After eight days and nights of fierce fighting, 20,000 men from the KMT's reorganized 96th Corps, under the command of Wu Huawen, revolted and crossed over to the people's side. A further 1 10,000 enemy troops were wiped out, and the commander of the 373 KMT's 2nd Pacification Zone, Wang Yaowu, was captured. This was the beginning of a series of victories in which the PLA liberated the enemy's heavily fortified cities, and it was therefore .he beginning of the total collapse of Chiang Kai-shek s defence svstem which was dependent upon them. The liberation of Jinan linked up the North China and East China Liberated Areas and greatly improved conditions for support of the front lines. It also freed the East China Liberation Army to move south and join the Central Plains Liberation Army in its large-scale campaign to annihilate the enemy south of the Longhai Railway. For these reasons, the victory at Jinan was of great consequence. The Liaoxi-Shenyang Campaign On September 12 the Northeast Liberation Army concentrated its main forde of 700,000 men and launched the momentous Liaoxi [Western Liaoning Province ]-Shenyang campaign. On the basis of strategic considerations, the CPC Central Committee believed that it would be wise to hem in Chiang Kai-shek's troops in northeast China and annihilate them one by one. Chiang did not know what to do with his 550,000 troops stranded north of the Great Wall. If these troops, led by Wei Lihuang, were to retreat south of the Great Wall, the KM 1 would be able to retain them as a relatively complete unit of strategicimportance. Moreover, they could then be combined with Fu Zuoyi's army in north China, to cause trouble for the PLA later on. Mao Zedong pointed out the need to consider the possibility of such a retreat and to wipe out all the enemy troops while they were still in northeast China. To do this, the Northeast Field Army had first to gain control over the Beiping-Liaomng Railway and then to capture Jinzhou, in Liaoning Province, sealing off the exit from the Northeast. But the commander of the Northeast Field Army, Lin Biao, put undue emphasis on the difficulties involved in moving south for the operation and advocated attacking the city of Changchun, in Jilin, instead. After a period o hesitation and repeated criticism by the Central Committee, Lin Biao resolved to move his troops south. On September 12 the Northeast Field Army under the command of Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan began the attack on Jinzhou. To reinforce the city's defence, Chiang Kai-shek hurriedly summoned a portion of his troops from north China and Shandong and organized them into an army to move east. In the meantime, he organized the main body of his troops at Shenyang into an army to move west. The first of these two armies was blocked by the PLA in the Tashan-Hongluoxian sector, and the second was intercepted northeast of Heishan and Dahushan. On October 14 the Northeast Field Army launched its final assault on Jinzhou. In 31 hours of intense fighting, it succeeded in annihilating nearly 90,000 enemy troops and capturing Fan Hanjie, deputy commander-in-chief of the KMT's Northeast "Bandit Suppression" Flcadquarters. The liberation of Jinzhou impelled part of the KMT troops defending Changchun to revolt and the remainder to surrender. Seeing that the retreat route out of northeast China was now cut off, Chiang Kai-shek gave Liao Yaoxiang, who was in command of the army moving west, strict orders to recapture Jinzhou. The Northeast Field Army immediately encircled Liao's army which consisted of crack troops of the New First Corps and the New Sixth Corps—from the north and south. After stiff fighting lasting two days and one night, it completely wiped out the 100,000 troops of that army and captured Liao Yaoxiang. The Northeast Field Army followed up this victory and on November 2 took Shenyang and Yingkou. Thus, the whole of northeast China was liberated. During the 52 days of the Liaoxi-Shenyang campaign, 472,000 enemy troops were wiped out. From this time onward, the PLA was numerically superior to the KMT, a change that marked another turning point in the Chinese revolution. The liberation of northeast China not only turned the one-million-strong Northeast Field Army into a powerful strategic reserve but also provided favourable conditions for the subsequent liberation of Beiping, Tianjin and the rest of north China. Moreover, it provided the PLA with a secure strategic rear area where there was a certain amount of industry. 375 The Huai-Hai Campaign Immediately following the conclusion of the Liaoxi-Shenyang campaign, 600,000 men from the East China Field Army, the Central Plains Field Army and regional armed forces from east China, the Central Plains and north China, launched the HuaiHai [Huaihe-Haizhou] campaign. Unprecedented in scope, this campaign was centred at Xuzhou in Jiangsu and extended east as far as Haizhou, west as far as Shangqiu, north to Lincheng (now Xuccheng) and south to the Huaihe River. In November 1948 the KMT convened a military conference at Xuzhou, where it decided to transfer the armies under Liu Zhi and Du Yuming to Xuzhou, with orders to fight if they could. If they could not, then they were to retreat south across the Huaihe River to defend the Yangtze. This showed that the KMT General Headquarters was still wavering between defence and withdrawal. At the time, there were 800,000 KMT troops deployed around the intersection of the Tianjin-Pukou and Longhai railways at Xuzhou. . Early in September, Su Yu, deputy commander of the Last China Field Army, had suggested organizing the Huai-Hai campaign. He recommended that the main forces of the East China Field Army leave southwest Shandong for northern Jiangsu, with the aim of wiping out the right flank of the KMT army stationed at Xuzhou. The Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee had agreed. In November the Military Commission decided to expand the scope of the Huai-Hai campaign, with the overall plan of separating Xuzhou and Bengbu and wiping out Liu Zhi's main forces. In a telegram sent to Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping and others on November 16, the Military Commission pointed out that victory in this campaign would not only secure the situation north of the Yangtze but also lay the foundation lor the resolution of the situation nationwide. On that day the CPC Central Committee decided to organize a General Front Committee consisting of Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping, Su Yu and Tan Zhenlin, with Deng Xiaoping as secretary. The committee was to assume unified leadership of the East China Field Army and the Central Plains Field Army. Throughout the Huai-Hai campaign, the KMT's troop strength in this sector exceeded the PLA's. Its equipment was also far superior. Under these circumstances, the PLA s tactic was to repeatedly divide the enemy's troops, massing a superior force to annihilate his forces one by one. The campaign was divided into three phases. The first phase lasted from November 6 to 22, 1948. During this period, the KMT army under Huang Baitao was stationed along the Longhai Railway between Lianyungang in the east and Xuzhou in the west. As Mao Zedong stated in a telegram addressed to the forces which were to take part, in this first stage of the campaign, the central task was to concentrate forces to wipe out that army. The PLA decided to use more than half of its total effectives to cut off and attack the enemy troops that were coming to reinforce Huang's army; this would prevent the two units from joining forces and ensure that Huang's troops did not escape. On November 6 the battle began. Huang's army tried to escape to the west. At Jiawang and Taierzhuang, the 23,000 men led by He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia, who were deputy commanders of the KMT's Third Pacification Zone and underground members of the CPC, suddenly revolted. The main forces of the East China Field Army immediately crossed the area those troops had been defending and quickly cut off Huang Baitao's line of retreat as he approached Xuzhou. The enemy reinforcements from all directions were checked. Huang's army had no choice but to turn back to Nianzhuang. Thus forced into a pocket no more than 10 kilometres in length and breadth, Huang's entire unit was wiped out on November 22. _ _ . The second phase of the campaign lasted from November 15 to December 15. The main objective now was to annihilate Huang Wei's army, which had been dispatched as reinforcements and was to march alone all the way from southern Henan to the Huai-Hai area. The 120,000 men of Huang's army were Chiang Kai-shek's own personal troops, and their combat effectiveness was relatively strong. The 18th Corps of Huang's army was part of the KMT's crack force. The main forces of the Central Plams Field Army and part of the East China Field Army adopted the 377 rtic of surrounding the enemy while allowing him one channel f escape which was designed as a trap. On November 25 the PL^ trooPs encircled Huang Wei's army south of the Kua.he pjver at Shuangduiji. The enemy) reinforcements were either wioed out or intercepted. From December 6 to 15, the PLA inducted a general offensive and destroyed the enemy s enure force in the area. During this period, the KMT armies under Qiu rinpnuan Li Mi and Sun Yuanliang, all commanded by Du Yuming^deputy commander-in-chief of the KMT's "Bandit Supnression" Headquarters at Xuzhou, withdrew from the city. They were besieged by the main forces of the East^ China Field Army near Chenguanzhuang, and Sun Yuanliang's entire army was anmhihitedd ^ of the campaign lasted from December 15, 1948 to January 10, 1949. The chief objective now was to wipe out Du Yuming's forces. However, in order to coordmate tto action with the Beiping-Tianjm campaign, in the beginning of this phase the PLA troops on the front line of the Huai-Hai campaign were ordered to stop their attack on Du's army for two weeks to give Fu Zuoyi's army on the north China front a false sense of security. In the meantime, the PLA concentrated on a pohucal offensive, urging Du and others to surrender with their troops. On January 6, 1949, after the PLA had succeeded in dividing and surrounding Fu Zuoyi's army, it launched a general attack on the troops under Du Yuming, who refused to surrender. After four days and nights of intense fighting, the armies led by Li Mi and Qiu Qingquan were completely annihilated. The units wiped out included the 5th Corps, one of the KMT's crack umts_ Du Yuming was captured. This marked the successful end of the Huai-Hai campaign. . . . , ^r».rHr The campaign had lasted 66 days. During this time the K had lost 555,000 men, and its crack troo^ along the southern front had been destroyed. The area north of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze had been liberated and linked up with h North China Liberated Area. The PLA had pressed south to the north bank of the Yangtze. Thus, the KMT capital of Nanjing layex posed directly in front of the PLA forces. The reactionary Kuomintang regime was disintegrating. The Beiping-Tianjin Campaign With the successful conclusion of the Liaoxi-Shenyang campaign, and with victory on the horizon in the Huai-Hai campaign, one million men from the Northeast Field Army and the Second and Third Armies of the North China Military Command joined forces to launch the Beiping-Tianjin campaign. At the time, the KMT's north China forces, not counting the 50,000 of Fu Zuoyi's men stationed at Guisui and Datong, numbered more than 500,000. These men were stationed in a narrow stretch of land extending 500 kilometres east from Shanhaiguan along the Beiping-Liaoning Railway and west to Zhangjiakou along the Beiping-Suiyuan Railway, with Tanggu as their opening to the sea. Of these troops, 17 divisions were commanded by Fu Zuoyi, and 25 were directly under Chiang Kai-shek. Earlier, Chiang had told Fu to withdraw his troops southward to reinforce the defence line along the Yangtze. Fu was deeply suspicious of Chiang's discrimination against those who were not his own men and had not wanted to withdraw. At this time, his troops were already shaken by the PLA's victories in northeast China. However, he calculated that the Northeast Field Army would need three to six months of rest to recuperate from the LiaoxiShenyang campaign and would not be ready to fight south of the Great Wall until the following spring. For this reason, he decided to defend Beiping and Tianjin, control an escape route by sea, seek to expand his forces and wait to see what would happen. Accordingly, he began to withdraw forces from other areas under his control, including Chengde, Baoding, Shanhaiguan and Qinhuangdao, and prepared to flee south by sea or west toward Suiyuan if necessary. If Fu Zuoyi withdrew, the PLA could seize Beiping and Tianjin without fighting. But then Fu's troops would help reinforce the KMT units along the Yangtze River defence line or, in any event, make it possible for the KMT to maintain greater military strength. That would be disadvantageous to the PLA in later battles. Therefore, the CPC Central Committee vv»lieved that the key to success was to postpone the enemy s decision to flee south or west and hold him in north China so the PI A could wipe him out there. , , Acting in accordance with the Central Committee s plan, the main forces of the Northeast Field Army ended their period of rest and consolidation early, not long after the conclusion of the I iaoxi-Shenyang campaign. Starting on November 23, they took a short cut and covertly moved south of the Great Wall. There they joined forces with the Second and Third Armies of the North China Military Command. Applying the principle of encircling the enemy troops without attacking them or separating the enemy troops without encircling them, with lightning speed the combined forces made a strategic encirclement and cut the links between the enemy forces in Beiping, Tianjin and Zhangjiakou, but did not make a tactical encirclement. This action cut off their escape routes to the south and west and at the same time drew the KMT's 92nd, 94th and 105th corps, originally stationed at Tianjin and Tanggu, to the area around Beiping. After that, the PLA started a general assault by taking enemy positions on both wings and then capturing the ones in the middle. In late December, the PLA troops conquered Xinbao an and Zhangjiakou on the west wing. At Xinbao'an they annihilated 16,000 men from the 35th Corps, the main force directly under Fu Zuoyi's command. At Zhangjiakou they destroyed the headquarters of the enemy's 1 1th Army and the 105th Corps, wiping out more than 54,000 men. On January 10, 1949, the CPC Central Committee decided to form a General Front Committee for the Beiping-Tianjin campaign under Lin Biao, Luo Ronghuan and Nie Rongzhen. On January 14, when the enemy defending Tianjin on the east wing refused to surrender, the PLA used a powerful force to launch a general offensive against the city. After 29 hours of intense fighting, the solidly fortified and heavily defended city fell. The 130,000 enemy troops had all been wiped out, and Chen Changjie, commander of the KMT's Tianjin garrison, had been captured. After Tianjin was liberated, the enemy troops defending Tanggu took to their boats and fled south. In order to avoid destroying the world-famous ancient capital of Beiping, the PLA first surrounded the city and then dispatched representatives to meet with Fu Zuoyi. Thanks to the PLA's great strength and the speed with which it had carried out its deployment, and thanks also to the CPC's patient persuasion and to the urging of people from all social strata, in the end Fu Zuoyi was obliged to give in. Acting in accordance with the will of the people, he ordered the troops under his command to leave the city to await reorganization. On January 31, 1949, Fu's army completed its move, and the PLA entered the city. The peaceful liberation of Beiping was proclaimed. The Beiping-Tianjin campaign had lasted for 64 days. More than 520,000 KMT troops had been put out of action or reorganized as part of the PLA, and most of north China had been liberated. A few enemy troops were allowed to remain in Suiyuan. In September 1949 these troops, led by Dong Qiwu, indicated their willingness to revolt and accept incorporation into the PLA. Thus, three patterns were set for disposing of the KMT troops—the Tianjin pattern (fighting them), the Beiping pattern (reorganizing them into PLA units), and the Suiyuan pattern (keeping them intact for a time, winning them over or neutralizing them politically, and reorganizing them at a later date). In terms of their scope and achievements, the three great campaigns of Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai and Beiping-Tianjin were unprecedented in Chinese military history and unusual even in world military history. Over the course of four months and nineteen days, from September 12, 1948, to January 31, 1949, these campaigns led to the annihilation of more than 1.54 million KMT troops. Essentially, they caused the collapse of the military strength that had propped up the reactionary KMT regime and thus provided a firm foundation for nationwide victory of the Chinese revolution. The success of the three campaigns was a great victory in the people's war. During the course of the campaigns, the commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army displayed a high degree of revolutionary commitment and initiative, fighting heroically and resourcefully against the KMT troops. The people cHAptf.r five victory in the democratic revolution 381 of the Liberated Areas showed incomparable enthusiasm and ceaselessly provided enormous amounts of human and material support for the front. The underground CPC organizations and revolutionary people in the KMT areas also contributed to the PLA's victory in the campaigns. At the time, although the PLA's equipment had improved, transport conditions remained extremely poor. To ensure the needs of the vast army at the front, people helped transport supplies on their shoulders or in pushcarts. According to statistics, no less than 5.43 million labourers were mobilized to support the Huai-Hai campaign, and they carried 7,300 tons of ammunition and 480,000 tons of grain and other goods. Chen Yi once gratefully remarked that victory in the Huai-Hai campaign had been brought in pushcarts by the people. This mass participation was powerful proof of the enthusiastic popular support enjoyed by the Communist Party in the War of Liberation. The victory in the three campaigns was also a victory for Mao Zedong Thought. The CPC Central Committee and its Military Commission, headed by Mao Zedong, with their great revolutionary prowess and superior military command skills, seized the right moment for decisive strategic action and selected the proper course. They mapped out different concepts of operation in the light of the different situations in northeast, east and north China. All of these factors contributed to victory in these great campaigns.

Carrying the Revolution Through to the End

By the end of the three campaigns, the KMT government's military strength north of the Yangtze River had crumbled. It was even having trouble organizing its defence south of the river. On November 9, 1948, Chiang Kai-shek sent a letter to President Truman asking him to quickly provide more military support and even to send U.S. military advisors to help conduct the war. The United States government, however, sensed Chiang's imminent doom and did not wish to accede to his request. On January 8, 1949, Chiang's government sent messages to the governments of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union asking them to "mediate" in the Chinese civil war. All tour governments tactfully cited their own particular considerations and declined. At this point, Mao Zedong summed up the situation as follows: "The U.S. government has changed its policy of simply backing the Kuomintang's counter-revolutionary war to a policy of embracing two forms of struggle: "1. Organizing the remnants of the Kuomintang's armed forces and the so-called local forces to continue to resist the People's Liberation Army south of the Yangtze River and in the remote border provinces, and "2 Organizing an opposition faction within the revolutionary camp to strive with might and main to halt the revolution where it is or, if it must advance, to moderate it and prevent it from encroaching too far on the interests of the imperialists and their running dogs."46 Li Zongren, leader of the Guangxi faction, was prepared to take a chance. He stood ready to replace Chiang Kai-shek, and in order to gain time to implement his scheme of instituting two governments divided by the Yangtze River, he was willing to negotiate with the Communist Party. With this in the background, on December 24, 1948, Bai Chongxi, another leader of the Guangxi faction, sent a telegram to Chiang urging him to hold peace talks. In response to Bai's hint—or perhaps under his influence—the KMT's Hubei Provincial Political Council and the governors of Henan and Hunan provinces recommended resumption of peace talks. In that interest, they also demanded Chiang's resignation. As a result of these internal and external pressures, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to issue a statement on New Years Day, 1949 suing for peace. However, in his statement, he demanded, among other things, the preservation of the KMT-manufactured Constitution, (which had never been approved by the people), of his so-called legally constituted authority and of his reactionary TFK FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION CHAPTER Eiv* Unless these conditions were fulfilled, he said, he would 3rnlht to the finish" with the Communist Party. Clearly, these * f 're conditions not for peace but for the continuation of war. At t ti^ there were also some bourgeois Right-wingers who •hdsted\hat the Communist Party immediately put a stop to the War of Liberation, accept Chiang's "conditions for peace and c fmm eliminating its enemies completely. rC Should the Chinese people carry the revolution through to t e . or should they abandon it halfway, allowing the reactionary forces the breathing-time to stage a comeback? At this historic moment with victory already in sight, this question took on vital importance' In the last hundred years, had not the people had enough bitter experience to know the answer- Q . M With these thoughts in mind, on Decembei 30, ' 7„Hnn(1 iccned through the Xinhua News Agency a New Years message Tha t tva^a great call to carry the revolution through to ^"We1 must use the revolutionary method to wipe out all the forces of reaction resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and comp letely , we must unswervingly persist in overthrowing dalism and bureaucrat-capitalism; and we must overthrow the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang on a country-wide scale and set up a republic that is a people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the proletariat and with the worker-peasant alliance as temain body."47 This, he went on to say, would then make it possible for China to develop into a socialist society. But if the revolution were abandoned halfway, it would mean giving the^reactionaries a chance to heal their wounds, so that one day they might stage a comeback and again plunge the whole country into darkness g What was required of all those who wished to participate in the revolutionary cause, he said, was unanimity and cooperation, not the setting up of any ‘opposition faction or theOPnTnuary ^ 7, in his capacity as chairman of the CPC Central Committee, issued a statement indicating the a™, h,and abundant reason to wipe out completely the remnant armed forces of the reactionary Kuomintang government in not too long a period and has full confidence that it can do so, nevertheless, in order to hasten the end of the war, bring about genuine peace and alleviate the people's sufferings, the Communist Party of China is willing to hold peace negotiations with the reactionary Nanjing Kuomintang government or with any local governments or military groups of the Kuomintang...."48 These negotiations would be held, he said, on the basis of eight terms, including that war criminals were to be punished, that the bogus constitution and the bogus "constituted authority" were to be abolished and that all reactionary troops were to be reorganized on democratic principles. Mao's statement was warmly received by the democratic parties, democrats without party affiliation and other people from all social strata. On January 22, 55 individuals, including Li Jishen, Shen Junru, Guo Moruo and Tan Pingshan, who had just arrived in a Liberated Area, issued a joint statement expressing their firm support of Mao's statement and their readiness to help advance the cause of revolution and build a new China under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. On January 21 Chiang Kai-shek announced that he would resign from the position of President and that Vice President Li Zongren would serve as Acting President. The next day, Li Zongren expressed his willingness to accept the Communist Party's eight terms as the foundation on which to begin peace talks. After Chiang Kai-shek resigned, he returned to his hometown of Xikou in Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province. However, he continued to run the government from behind the scenes. He decided that the peace talks should be limited to dividing the country at the Yangtze River. In other words, he insisted that "the integrity of certain provinces south of the Yangtze should be ensured."49 At the same time, Chiang ordered his followers to prepare for war by strengthening the armed forces. His plan was to reorganize and train two million troops south of the Yangtze over a period of three to six months in order to stage a comeback. At the same time, he began to make arrangements for his final cHA1>TER FIVE victory in the democratic revolution tr.at to Taiwan. Li Zongren's government also intended to the territory south of the Yangtze. It was obvious that the KMT's acceptance of the CPC's eight terms was only a smokeSCrFrom March 5 to 13, 1949, the 7th Central Committee of the rommunist Party of China held its 2nd Plenary Session at Xibaipo Village in Pingshan County, Hebei Province. In his So the session, Mao Zedong set forth policies to promote the speedy achievement of the country-wide victory of the revo lutioTand to organize this victory. He proposed that afterwards the Party should shift the focus of its work from the rural areas o the cities and defined the basic political, economic and foreign nolicies the Party should adopt. He also set the general tasks and main course for transforming China from an agricultural country into an industrial one and from a new-democratic society into socialist one. He appraised the new situation in the class struggle both at home and abroad and gave timely warning that the "sugar-coated bullets" of the bourgeoisie would become the main danger to the proletariat. He stated the Party s policy with regard to negotiations: "Our policy is not to refuse negotiations . but to demand that the other side accept the eight terms in their entirety and to allow no bargaining.- He added that if negotiations on an overall basis succeeded, that would have great advantages. If they failed, then separate negotiations on a local basis would be held after the PLA had made further advances. To bring the war to an early conclusion and realize genuine peace on April I a CPC delegation headed by Zhou Enlai entered into negotiations in Beiping with the KMT ^government atives headed by Zhang Zhizhong. On April 15, after the two sides had had repeated exchanges of views and consultations t CPC representatives presented a final amended version of he Agreement on Internal Peace, demanding a response from i the KMT government by April 20. The KMT government representatives agreed unanimously to accept this agreement and sent Huang Shaohong back to Nanjmg with tlic doeument. It P pened that at this moment the KMT Central Executive Committee was holding a session of its Standing Committee and a Political Conference in Guangzhou. The Central Executive Committee issued a statement rejecting the agreement and instructed Li Zongren and He Yingqin to act accordingly. On April 20 Li and He sent a telegram to the KMT government representatives in Beiping telling them not to sign the Agreement on Interna] Peace. The failure of the negotiations was announced. Nevertheless, at the request of the Communist Party, the KMT government representatives remained in Beiping, and most of them later participated in the preparations for the People's Political Consultative Conference of new China. Because the KMT government refused to sign the Agreement on Internal Peace, on April 21 Chairman Mao Zedong and Commander-in-Chief Zhu De issued an order to the army for a countrywide advance. The Second and Third Field Armies (lormerly the Central Plains Field Army and the East China Field Army), which had been placed under the command of Deng Xiaoping, secretary of the General Front Committee, started to cross the Yangtze River from north to south. In this operation they had the support of troops from the Central Plains Military Command and of the people along the north bank as well as the cooperation of the guerrilla forces south of the river. The battle line stretched for more than 500 kilometres, from Hukou in Jiangxi Province in the west to Jiangyin in Jiangsu in the east. One million troops divided into ?ueV^1UmnS f0Ught their way across the Yangtze on boats, ihe KM 1 defence line along the river, which had been painstakingly built up over a period of three and a half months collapsed instantly. On April 20 and 21, while the PLA was crossing the Yangtze, four British warships, including the Amethyst, intruded into the Yangtze, an inland waterway of China, and proceeded to areas defended by the PLA, trying to prevent the crossing. The British and Chinese exchanged fire. The British killed or wounded 252 PLA men. The Amethyst was disabled by the PLA and forced to anchor on the river near Zhenjiang. The other three ships escaped. After this, the British government declared that British warships had the legal right to 387 navigate the Yangtze. The Conservative Party leader Winston Churchill even proposed that aircraft carriers be dispatched to Chinese waters to provide "effective power of retaliation." The General Headquarters of the PLA immediately issued a statement declaring, "The Chinese people will defend their territory and sovereignty and absolutely will not permit encroachment by foreign governments." This statement demonstrated that China was not afraid of threats and would resolutely oppose any imperialist aggression. It made the Chinese people, long bullied and oppressed by the imperialists, proud and elated. This event showed that the time when foreign invaders, relying on their military might, could commit atrocities on China's sovereign soil was gone forever. When the PLA troops broke through the KMT defence lines along the Yangtze, the government in Nanjing fled to Guangzhou. On April 23 the PLA captured Nanjing, the KMT capital, announcing the downfall of the reactionary regime that had lasted for 22 years. The PLA troops then continued their victorious advance to the provinces in south-central, northwest and southwest China. By either military or peaceful means, most of the remaining enemy forces were put out of action. The vast territory of the country was liberated and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang clique was driven from the mainland.

The Great Victory of the Chinese Democratic Revolution

Now that the reactionary Kuomintang regime had been overthrown, conditions were ripe for the founding of the People's Republic of China. In June 1949 in Beiping, the Preparatory Meeting for the New Political Consultative Conference was convened, and a standing committee headed by Mao Zedong was established. This committee was in charge of drafting the Common Programme and working out a government structure. This was the beginning of the comprehensive preparatory work to build a new regime in China. As early as March 1949, in a report to the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the CPC, Mao Zedong put forward a plan for the basic line of China's development: China should be transformed from a new-democratic, agricultural country into a socialist, industrial one. On June 30 of the same year, in an important article entitled "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," he restated this idea. Historical experience, he wrote, showed that the plan to build a bourgeois republic in China could come to nothing. The only solution was to found a people's republic, transform China from an agricultural country into an industrial one and realize the transition from new-democracy through socialism to communism. "To sum up our experience," he concluded, "and concentrate it into one point, it is: the people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the working class (through the Communist Party) and based upon the alliance of workers and peasants."51 Mao emphasized that the people's dictatorship must be under the leadership of the working class, because "it is only the working class that is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly revolutionary."52 The dictatorship was to be based on the alliance of the working class, the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie, and mainly on the alliance of workers and peasants, because those two classes were the main force in overthrowing imperialism and feudalism and in making the transition from new-democracy to socialism. It was necessary to unite with the national bourgeoisie, Mao said, so as to resist the oppression of imperialism and develop China's economy, but the national bourgeoisie could not be the leader of the revolution or have the chief role in state power. This article, together with Mao's report to the Central Committee, laid the political basis for a common programme to be adopted by the New Political Consultative Conference. On September 21, 1949, the New Political Consultative Conference—renamed the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference—was solemnly inaugurated in Beiping. In his opening address Mao Zedong proudly proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China: ",..[T]he Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, 389 CHAPTEK FIVE VICTORY in THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION have now stood up.... We have closed our ranks and defeated both domestic and foreign oppressors through the Peoples War of Liberation and the great people's revolution, and now we are proclaiming the founding of the People's Republic of China From now on our nation will belong to the community of the oeace-loving and freedom-loving nations of the world and work courageously and industriously to foster its own civilization and well-being and at the same time to promote world peace and freedom. Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up."53 . ^ The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was an organ of the people's democratic united front, based on the alliance of workers and peasants and led by the Communist Party. It consisted of representatives of the CPC, the democratic parties, public figures without party affiliation, various people s organizations, the People's Liberation Army, all the localities and nationalities and Chinese living overseas. The conference adopted its "Organic Law" and elected the 1st National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (Mao Zedong was elected its chairman on October 9). Until the National People's Congress was convened after a general election, the plenary session of the CPPCC was to act in that capacity. ^ The conference also approved a "Common Programme. The Programme made the following stipulations regarding the state system and the form of government. "The People's Republic of China is a new-democratic or a people's democratic state. It carries out the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class, based on the alliance of workers and peasants, and uniting all democratic classes and all nationalities in China." "The people's congresses and the people s governments at all levels are the organs for the exercise of state power by the people." "The organs of state power at all levels shall practise democratic centralism." , The basic principle for economic construction, the document stated, was "to develop production and bring about a prosperous economy through the policies of taking into account both public and private interests, of benefiting both labour and capital, of mutual aid between the city and countryside, and circulation of goods between China and other countries." The document noted that the state would coordinate and regulate the state-owned economy, individual economy, private capitalist economy, etc. "In this way," it continued, "all components of the social economy can, under the leadership of the state-owned economy, carry out division and coordination of labour and play their respective parts in promoting the development of the social economy as a whole." With regard to the policy towards nationalities, the Common Programme stated: "All nationalities within the boundaries of the People's Republic of China are equal. They shall establish unity and mutual aid among themselves, and shall oppose imperialism and their own public enemies, so that the People's Republic of China will become a big fraternal and cooperative family composed of all its nationalities." "Regional autonomy shall be exercised in areas where national minorities are concentrated." As for foreign policy, the document declared that it was to be based on the principle of "lasting international peace, and friendly cooperation between the peoples of all countries, and opposition to the imperialist policy of aggression and war." This Common Programme became the great charter for the Chinese people, and served for a time as a provisional constitution. The conference also adopted the Organic Law of the Central People's Government. It unanimously elected Mao Zedong chairman of the Central People's Government and elected Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Soong Ching Ling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan and Gao Gang vice-chairmen. Fifty-six other persons, including Chen Yi, were elected members. (Afterwards, the Central People's Government Council appointed Zhou Enlai Premier of the Government Administration Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs.) The conference approved Beiping as the capital of the People's Republic of China and changed the city's name back to Beijing. It also adopted the Western calendar as the chronological system, the "March of the Volunteers" composed by Nie Er as the new national anthem and a national flag with five stars on a field of red, symbolizing the great unity of the people of the whole country under the leadership of the Communist Party. ^^r FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 391 _ . i_ __ -m First Plenary Session of the Chinese 0l| ^Political Consultative Conference came to a successful Peopl le * fhe evening a ceremony was held in Tian'anmen Square Cl:v the foundation stone for the Monument to the Peop£s Heroes. ^The epitaph on the Monument, composed by Mao Ze ^"Eternal gloryato*the heroes of the people who laid down their who laydown their lives in the people, war and the C^of^ many struggles against domesttc ^foragn enerme^ ^ ^ people^' lhdusPwhUeCcelehrating their victories, the Communist Crti of CWna and the people of the whole country commemorated with reverence the revolutionary martyrs who had heroical "n their lives to the long-term struggle for nattonal independence and the pe ople ps b]ic of china marked the ,h. Chines, ib— »■«»»' "J ",Mon f„„ in a new era in Chinese nisxory, a neHowTad!he Chinesfpeople's revolution come about, and how ‘nin^aid^-A revolution cannot be ‘made' ... revolutions and bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie, placed itself in opposition to the Chinese people. When the War of Resistance Against Japan came to an end, the Chiang Kai-shek clique ignored the fervent aspirations of the Chinese people to build an independent, democratic, strong and prosperous new China. Instead, it pursued a policy of autocracy and civil war, bringing the entire people to the brink of starvation and death. As a result, the people had to rise to save themselves. Thus it was profound social problems that touched off the revolution, and a solid mass basis provided the condition for its expansion. The Chinese people had always been heroic in their resistance to aggression and oppression. However, during the period of nearly eighty years from the Opium War in 1840 to the May 4th Movement in 1919, they had failed in all their struggles because they lacked the leadership of an advanced revolutionary party. It was the Communist Party that clarified for the people the aim of their revolution. And it was the Communist Party that, over a long course of struggle, found the way for them to bring that revolution to victory. It was the Party that cemented the Chinese people —who had always been considered "a plate of loose sand"—into an unconquerable force with one heart and one mind. It was under the leadership of the Party that the Chinese people, through twenty-eight years of arduous and courageous struggle, won their historic victory at last. Thus, from the revolutionary practice of modern times, the people have drawn a scientific conclusion: without the Communist Party there would have been no New China. This is the great truth confirmed by their own experience. The leadership position of the Communist Party was not the result of some individual's desire or will. For a long time, the Chinese people were presented with a choice of three plans for building the country, three visions of its future. The first, represented by the Northern warlords and later by the Kuomintang ruling clique, was that China should be under the dictatorship of the landlord-comprador class and retain its semi-colonial and semi-feudal status. The second, advocated by some middle-of-theroaders, was that China should be a bourgeois republic and ^TER FIVE VICTORY IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 1,6 -?hese th ee plans were put to the test of practice time and Asa result the first was abandoned by the Chinese people *r.~v v »' «■' and to advance from new-democracy to socialism. That was an W T°hTreasoCn the Communist Party was able to lead the revolusissass Hism m thfmlsses' " ^inte "g Marxism-Leninism with the realto the masses- . * h le series of lines, principles correct theoretical principles guiding the Chinese revolution and a summation of the Party's experience gained in practice. It is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party. The formation and development of Mao Zedong Thought meant that Marxism had already taken deep root in China. Once this Sinicized Marxist ideology was accepted by the Chinese people, it became a great material force in the revolutionary transformation of Chinese society. Seeing this point, even Dean Acheson, the U.S. Secretary of State, who adamantly opposed Communism, had to admit at the end of 1949: "We must face the fact that there is no Chinese basis of resistance to Communism."56 He said this even though he would not resign himself to defeat and was still under the illusion that someday democratic individualists would prevail again and establish a capitalist system in China. Following the principle of combining Marxism-Leninism with the Chinese reality, the CPC accumulated valuable experience while leading the new-democratic revolution. As Mao Zedong summed it up: "A well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of MarxismLeninism, using the method of self-criticism and linked with the masses of the people; an army under the leadership of such a Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups under the leadership of such a Party—these are the three main weapons with which we have defeated the enemy.... Relying on them, we have won basic victory."57 The victory of the Chinese people's revolution eloquently proved that Marxism-Leninism can guide not only the liberation struggles of people in capitalist countries but also those of people in colonial and semi-colonial countries. In 1949, in an article commemorating the 28th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong said: "Twenty-eight years of our Party is a long period, in which we have accomplished only one thing—we have won basic victory in the revolutionary war. This calls for celebration, because it is the people's victory, because it is a victory in a country as large as China. But we still have much work to do; to use the analogy of a journey, our past work is only the first step in a long march . , n thousand li (five thousand kilometres]."5" Having won ° rtory in the new-democratic revolution, the Communist Party Tf China integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism ith the concrete practice in the country, would continue leading The peop" ^ the long and difficult struggle to build the new China. NOTES , Cheng Siyuan, Reminiscences of Political Events, Chin. ed„ Guangxi People's States MS Umted Stales Governn.cn, ‘SfSfffiS'Alffk Victory in die War of Resistance Against Japan," Ibid., p. 13. 7I,nedAFens!S"4a"f4retherKM?governmcnl and the Soviet government signed ,hi" treaty. along E3S5 StctTa lnced that tt && Central Government of China ha t B. the Nation i ^ fjghting ^ ceased jn Si^a^eSteNahoial Government of the Republic of China will assume full governing authority over them. _ Circular 0f the Central sfSssr, U Dean^Aches^mA/v^yenr^^n1 the State Department, W.W. Norton & Co., New After Japan's surrender, in view of the peasants' eager demand for land, the CPC Central Committee decided to change the land policy for the period of the War of Resistance. That is, instead of merely reducing rents and interest, it would confiscate the land of the landlords and distribute it among the peasants. The "May 4th Directive" marked this change.

The Founding of the People's Republic of China and Transition to Socialism

The Early Period of New China and the Party's Tasks

The victory of the Chinese people's revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China opened a new chapter in Chinese history. The Communist Party of China, which organized and led the revolution to victory, assumed nationwide state power, shouldering the heavy task of leading the people of all ethnic groups in the construction of a new life. A fresh chapter was opened in the Party's history. On October 1, 1949, 300,000 citizens of the capital assembled in Tiananmen Square to hold a grand founding ceremony. Amidst their cheers, Chairman Mao Zedong, on the Tiananmen Rostrum, solemnly proclaimed: "The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China is founded today." He pressed a knob and hoisted the first bright red five-star flag. His action was followed by a military review, in which Commander-in-Chief Zhu De reviewed the land, naval and air forces of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Enthusiastic celebrations were held in various major liberated cities across the country. The founding of the People's Republic of China marked the end of a century in which colonialists and imperialists collaborated with feudal rulers to enslave the Chinese people as well 398 CHA,™ SIX F— OF PKC ANP TRANSITION TO SOCAUSM » j f reouent civil wars and loreign as a time of ^aos caused by ^ chinese le aggression and the breakup new society. stood up and China long anticAn independent, united and " d born. Inspired by this ipated by the popu ace wa s * ^ J exhlbited great victory, Chinese at party of China and revolutionary fervour. T disDlayed wholehearted service PLA officers i"hardP work and plain living and to the people, and the spirit areas. people were strict discipline in their wo b innings all around them, struck by the freshness a"derne^~opie rejoiced over Workers, peasants and "he lh exu,tauon, numerous young their emancipation, rmea revolutionary students and other intellectual ^ ^"^todying abroad work. Youthful overseas middle-of-therelurned to China in lag broken away from the reactionroaders, including those forces y initiative. ary enemy, moved e ‘°e ‘\Xhange old ideas in order to Many desired to study an . ces Party forces and the adapt to the chaaBed " liberated areas and in the original revolutionary forces from he more effective core "* emerged over the vast ^p^Tj'^ople's revolution was not The great victory of tteQ«*P«P ^ ^ ^ of world only historically unprecedented *f ^ Qctobcr Socialist significance, ranking af ter tl h fascism. A great Revolution and the W°rld ,d>s population broke through nation with onrfou J ° * greatly^hanged global political the Eastern imperialist fro , g V democracy and patterns; expanded lor"s ed nations and peoples socialism, and inspired the jhus^he victory was welcomed in their struggles for liberation. Thus the "rES 5 £ s ^ one ^r Ma«ismconcrete practice of the Chinese revolution, making it the victory of Mao Zedong Thought. It raised the prestige of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought among the Chinese populace and it was accepted as the guiding ideology for various undertakings of the People's Republic, while its influence spread worldwide. Tests Facing the Newly-Born Republic The great revolutionary triumph of the Chinese people represented the main prevailing stream of the time. In the initial period after the founding of New China, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people were confronted by many difficulties and numerous severe tests. In military terms, despite a basic victory, the People's Liberation War was yet to be fully concluded. The one million KMT troops in southwest and south China and on coastal islands still put up desperate struggles. In the new liberated areas, the remnant forces left behind by the fleeing KMT struck by disorder were in collusion with local despotic forces. They waged local bandit guerrilla warfare against the people's political power, placing their hopes on imperialist intervention in China's civil war and on the outbreak of a third world war in a vain attempt to stage a comeback. In economic terms. New China had carry-overs from the shambles of the old society characterized by decreased production, impeded communications, hard lives for the people and a high rate of unemployment. The long-term, indiscriminate issuing of paper money by the KMT government, in particular, resulted in cemented skyrocketing prices, rampant speculation and a chaotic market. The Communist Party of China and the people's government faced a new, severe test, in regard to their abilities to check runaway inflation and price rises, stabilize the economic situation, and restore production to provide a firm economic and political foothold, that was more difficult than launching offensives to suppress bandits. In international terms, as soon as it was founded New China was recognized by the Soviet Union and various people's democ^PTER SB FOUND, NG OF PRC AND TRANS, T,ON TO SOOAL.SM 40, •„ in Europe and Asia. India. Burma, Sweden and Svritzerf \ negotiated to sever diplomatic relations with the KMT government and establish diplomatic ties with NewChimr Alad P ntinns with the KMT government and restoring the legal economic 'assistance to Ch,na. The United States which atW ed to dominate the globe, after its ^^"/""Xed to re in opposition to communism pcdjcy^failed^ It Xfd to recognlze^New ChL and tried * *£?»£* S=o^S^=r^s legal seat in *? chaHenges^This^cmailwi ^the^eed^to^culuvate^new^ Preferred to whether the Party, under completely new historical condhions as it moved into urban areas, held state power and £=NS£ SSS.S the 7th Party Central committee as well as the deep concern shown by many friends of the Party. In brief. New China had been founded, but many still questioned whether the new people's regime could keep a firm foothold and the Communist Party of China could be a successful administrator. This had to be answered by practice. International friends and foes also looked on attentively and waited for an answer. In the face of the complex situation and various difficulties in the early period after the inception of New China, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China kept a clear head, fully confident of meeting the challenge. In line with various basic principles formulated at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee, the Party methodically adopted a series of measures and waged effective struggles to consolidate the new People's Republic. Rear combat to eliminate remnant KMT troops went on smoothly. The Chinese People's Liberation Army, following a unified Central Military Commission, continued to advance through south and southwest China. Seeing the collapse of enemy forces was a foregone conclusion, our army adopted outflanking and encircling tactics and, like a thunderbolt, heroically pursued and attacked the stragglers, winning successive victories in the Hengyang-Baoqing Battle and the Guangxi Battle that eliminated the Bai Chongxi group, and the Guiyang Battle and the Chongqing and Chengdu Battle that wiped out the Hu Zongnan and Song Xilian groups. After drawing a lesson from reverses in its attacks on Jinmen Island, the PLA successfully crossed the sea to liberate Hainan Island in April 1950. Against the backdrop of sweeping military victories on the Chinese mainland, the PLA peacefully liberated vast areas in Yunnan, Sichuan and Sikang, one after another. By June 1950, after eight months of fighting, the PLA wiped out a total of 1.3 million regular KMT troops, making a total of 8.07 million KMT casualties in the entire Liberation War. Thus was completed the task of liberating all Chinese territory with the exception of Tibet, Taiwan and a few islands. In May 1951, the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was reached between the Central People's Government and SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 40} the Local Government of Tibet. In October, thePLAmovedmto has^to be stationed there and Tibet was peacefully llbfra‘^ . " me newly-liberated areas, the PLA launched large-scale banditmppression operations. With the support of the broad ™ass* ‘ the people, by June 1950, nearly one million armed KMT bandits had been wiped out, leading to initial social stability. In conjunction with the victorious advance of lbe PLA. tary control committees were first set up in the newly-liberated areas to suppress counter-revolutionary disruptive actl',lt"s> mafntata social order, take over all public institutions of the KMT and organize the restoration of production. When cond lions permitted, conferences of people's representatives from all circles^were convened. These gradually exercised the functions and powers of the people's congress, discussed and determined local government administrative policies and major matters needing development or reform, and elected local people's governments The system of people's representative conferences became Tn appropriate form for the transition from a military control svstem toPa formally elected people's congress. Echelons of political power from the central to local levels of the People s Republic of Xa were set up on a completely -w basis after the borough smashing of the reactionary ruling machine °f cadres ernment functionaries were mostly cadres of the PLA, cadres from old liberated areas and intellectuals whohadnewly pin^i the revolution. The top level consisted mainly of Party members and included considerable numbers of patnouc democrats from various fields. This was astatepowerotfe united front with multi-party cooperation led by the Communist Party of China. It was a government under the people s democratic dictatorship, one unprecedented in Chi"eSfe h‘St"y " J , truly and effectively exercised power nationwide from the centra down to the grassroots level. . . f Confiscation of bureaucratic capital was an important task for the military control committee in newly-liberated cities. On con liberation of overall experience gained in taking over administra tion of cities during the Liberation War in northeast and north China the Party decided to adopt different methods in handling bureaucrat-capital enterprises from those used to deal with the KMT organs of power. It would not smash these bodies, but instead first adhere to their original organizational institutions and production systems, "maintaining original posts, salaries, and systems." The military control committee took them over intact, exercised supervision over production and then gradually conducted democratic reform and production reform. This made it possible to rapidly enact takeover tasks and prevent chaos, basically avoiding the phenomenon of stoppage of production and damage to equipment. By early 1950, a total of 2,800 bureaucratcapital industrial and mining enterprises and over 2,400 financial enterprises had been taken over. They formed the main sector of the state-owned economy in the early period after the founding of the People's Republic. The people's government abrogated the economic prerogatives gained by imperialists in China through taking advantage of unequal treaties, and recovered control over China's customs offices where imperialists had long been entrenched, exercising control over foreign trade and foreign currency. They safeguarded the state's independence, sovereignty and economic interests. Price Stabilization and Financial- Economic Integration Confronted by an extremely difficult financial and economic situation, the Party carefully led a major struggle to stabilize prices and unify finances and the economy. Financial and economic problems of the time were due to several causes. One was the on-going military conflict, which entailed massive supporting expenditure. Another was the government's shouldering of responsibility, for the sake of social stability, for all the millions of military and government employees and teachers left behind by the old government, so long as they did not oppose the new order. These steps were necessary, but the resultant numbers of national personnel divorced from production whom the government provided for or paid salaries to exceeded 9 million. This constituted a very heavy burden. Large amounts of funds were also needed to restore production and . PTER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 405 „ transnort services. Most parts of the country had no basic tal Tlar tax s^tem. The income of the people's government fell w of expenditure, so it could only rely on the issuance of large Sm™ms ofcurrency to make up financial deficits. Under such ^ instances lopsided-developed speculative capital persisted in Cir tine trouble in newly-liberated cities and prices continued to TvS ln o derto check the market disorder worsened by the manipulation of speculative capital, the Party and government mlving on the forces of the state-owned economy and the support of peasants in old liberated areas, adopted effective measures and necessary administrative means. They successively organized two large-scale campaigns agamst speculation. The first was the ' ilver dollar battle." Military administrative departments and the people's government in various large cities to counter the rampant silver dollar speculation of the tune issued exnhcit orders strictly forbidding the free circulation of gold bars sUver doUars and foreign currencies on the market They couM only be sold to the People's Bank and it was stipulated that th Renminbi (people's currency) was the sole legal currency. Th speculators, ‘howe v er , turned a deaf ear to the govern" and continued to disrupt financial markets. In Shanghai, th country's largest industrial and commercial metropohs some peop/even hectored that the PLA could ^ ly sealed the securities building, the headquarters of financial speculation, and arrested more than 200 brought to justice, dealing a heavy blow to illegal activities designed to disrupt finances. Speculators changed °ver to hoard • f noderuns cotton yarn, cotton cloth and coal, jacked up pricesan? disrupted ^market. KMT special agents clamoured fhLt controls on rice, cotton and coal alone were enough to kill Shanghai Then the "war of rice and cotton" was waged. Chen determines feelings of mental well-being of citizens." Large-scale allocation, transportation and concentration of grain, cotton yarn and cloth, and coal were organized nationwide by the people's government. On November 25 when prices were soaring the most rapidly, various major cities across the country took united action in line with the unified arrangements of the central government to sell large quantities of goods without restriction. This resulted in the rapid fall of prices. Simultaneously, they tightened the money supply, with the result that speculators went bankrupt, one after another, since their funds could no longer turn over. The heavy blow administered at capital speculation represented the first round of victory won in the struggle between restriction and counter-restriction on the bourgeoisie. This won extensive support from the masses, including capitalists who were willing to engage in normal and legal business. Subsequently, a representative of the national bourgeoisie in Shanghai acknowledged that the silver dollar unrest in June was suppressed by the Communist Party of China with political force, and this time the price was stabilized with economic clout alone, giving Shanghai industrial and commercial circles a lesson. After this, the socialist state-owned economy gained the first initiative to stabilize the market. To further fundamentally stabilize prices, it was necessary to ensure a balance between state financial revenue and expenditure and between market material supply and demand. To achieve this, it was essential to move from methods of decentralized management adopted in various liberated areas to cope with enemy-imposed isolation and encirclement. The new situation after the founding of New China led to the introduction of integrated management and unified leadership over the nation's financial and economic work. In March 1950, the Party Central Committee issued a circular on the basis of the Decision on Unifying the State's Financial and Economic Work promulgated by the Government Administration Council, calling on Party committees at all levels to use every means to guarantee full implementation of this resolution. Its main contents entailed: unification of national monetary income so the main part would be held by the central government and used in principal state 407 hapTER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM vnenditure; unified allocation of national materials so the bulk 6f dispersed important varieties would be gathered by the state which would make rational use of them and regulate supply and demand; and unified management of national money. The cash nf all military and government institutions and publicly-owned enterprises, except for shortly-needed funds, should be deposited in state banks and allocated under a unified plan. This resolu,ion was immediately carried out conscientiously throughout^ country The government also adopted such measures as reductions in staff, takeovers of stock, strengthening of taxation, issuing of government bonds and curtailment of expenditure. All these measures yielded remarkable results. After March, financial revenue and expenditure approached equilibrium inflation was halted and prices assumed daily stability. The following figures convincingly show this situation. While Shanghai s wholesale price index was 100 in the first month after the city s liberation (June 1949), the figure jumped to 2,097.9 m February 1950. a more than 20-fold rise. Following attacks on speculation and monetarv-economic integration, with the nation's wholesale price index standing at 100 in March 1950, the figure was 85.4 in December 1950, 92.4 in December 1951, and 92 6 in December 1952, demonstrating maintenance of stability and a slight tail. The work of stabilizing prices and unifying finances and the economy was a victory of great importance on the monetary and economic front after the founding of New China. A subsequen end was put to the inflation and price rises which had brought untold suffering to the people for the twelve years flowing the War of Resistance Against Japan during the period of KM 1 rule A stop was also made to the decades of unbalanced financial income and expenditure of old China, creating favourable conditions for winning a secure livelihood for the people, while restor ing and developing industrial and agricultural production, lhis wonderful achievement won the admiration and praise of those people at home and abroad who doubted whether the Communist Party could make the economy a success. It proved that the Communist Party of China was not only invincible militarily and strong politically but had economic clout. The 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee The 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in Beijing in June 1950 analysed the international and domestic situation. It summed up the work since the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee over the year around the time of the founding of New China. Mao Zedong gave a written report at the session entitled "Fight for a Fundamental Turn for the Better in the Nation's Financial and Economic Situation." In it the Central Committee outlined the central task for the whole Party and people nationwide. The session pointed out that the group of victories won on China's economic front indicated the beginnings of an improvement in the financial and economic situation but there was still no fundamental turn for the better. A fundamental upturn needed about three years and the creation of three conditions. These were the accomplishment of agrarian reform, a reasonable readjustment of industry and commerce, and a massive reduction in funds needed by state organizations. Mao Zedong delivered a speech entitled, "Don't Hit Out in All Directions." It pointed out: "To accomplish agrarian reform, we must combat the remnant forces of imperialism, feudalism and the KMT reactionaries; the enemies confronting us are as numerous as they are powerful. We must properly handle the relations between classes, political parties and national races at home so as to isolate and attack current main foes. We should not hit out in all directions. Making too many enemies will create unfavourable nationwide tension. We must create concessions and easing in one aspect, so workers, peasants and small craftspeople support us and the overwhelming majority of the bourgeoisie and intellectuals do not oppose us." The cable regarding taxation and unemployment which Mao Zedong sent to the secretary of the Shanghai Party committee before the session mentioned such tactics. "We are now in an intense period of change, whose successful progress we should ensure with no unnecessary or minimal destruction. A firm grip on this can help reduce resistance and gain initiative."1 At that time, due to historical reasons and social and economic reorganization resulting from the victory of the revolution, the CHAFTER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 409 umber of unemployed workers, craftsmen and intellectuals mown tar ily increased. The burden on the peasants was very heavy, auite a few of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie were " tenterhooks. Dtsrnptive activit.es and the brilhant triumph in me attack on speculative capital caused some comrades in the Party to mistake the main targets of the struggle as the bourgeois^ fe In light of this situation, the session criticized the idea, holding that it was possible to eliminate capitalism and practise socialism ahead of tune, pointing out that it was an erroneous concept inappropriate for national conditions. The national bourgeoisie would be eliminated in the future, but they should now be rallied with us to jointly develop the national economy and not Tshed away Our policy towards the national bourgeoisie remained one'of unity and struggle, with the emphasis on unity, and one of controlling funds and not of squeezing out an "8p£‘y Session of the 7th Party Central Committee wal one of the most important meetings of the Party Central Committee in the early period after the founding of New China. The resolution of the session laid down an explicit tactical ^hne and programme of action for the Party's work during the three years of economic rehabilitation.

The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, Reform of Land System and Other Democratic Reforms

After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee, just as the Chinese people were fighting tor ; a improvement in the financial and economic situation, New China was again faced with the threat of external aggression. On June 25, 1950, civil war broke out in Korea. The split o North and South Korea was the result of the separate acceptance by the armed forces of the United States and the Soviet Union of the surrender of Japanese troops at the 38th parallel of north latitude which marked the dividing line of Korea after World War II. On the third day after the outbreak of Korea's civil war, U.S. imperialism announced arms assistance to South Korea, interfering in the country's internal affairs. At the same time, it ordered its Seventh Naval Fleet to move into the Taiwan Straits "to prevent any attack on Taiwan," brazenly interfering in China's own affairs and setting foot in China's territory of Taiwan. Subsequently, the UN Security Council, manipulated by the United Slates, adopted a resolution, dressing up the aggressor troops of the United States and the other countries it patched together against Korea as UN forces, appointing General McArthur, commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Far East, as the commander- in-chief of UN forces, further expanding the war against Korea. The Chinese Government voiced strong protest against the United States for its crimes of aggression against Korea and Chinese territory. On June 28, Mao Zedong delivered a speech, pointing out, "The affairs of various countries around the world should be governed by their own citizens. Asia's at lairs should be handled by Asians and not be run by the United States. The U.S. aggression against Asia can only arouse the extensive and resolute resistance of the Asian people." On July 13, the Central Military Commission promptly made the "Decision on Defence of the Northeast Frontier," and the Northeast Frontier Force was organized. On September 15, U.S. troops landed in Inchon, cutting off the retreat of the south advancing forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The aggressors pressed up to the mouth of the country and there was the possibility that the war flames would spread to China's northeast border. On September 30, Zhou Enlai, premier of the Government Administration Council and foreign minister, gave a stern warning: "The Chinese people ardently love peace, but in the defence of peace, they have not been and will never be, afraid of fighting against wars of aggression. The Chinese people will never tolerate foreign aggression, nor will they allow the imperialists to commit wanton aggression against their own neighbours and turn a blind eyes to it." On October 3, Zhou asked the Indian ambasBR gx FOUNDING OF FRC and transition to SOCIALISM 411 sadOT n incident* thc Korea.n KOrmust te Stopped immediately. If the U.S. forces attempt to aX"unmdde"ted the determination and strength 1 rittn^e neoole who had stood up, believing that it was °f 1 \ible that China would dispatch troops to take part in the imP so ttre wafno cause to worry, and that they were sure to Conflict between the armed forces of the Chinese people and U.S. imperialists eventually became inevitable. Beating Back U.S. Aggressor Troops Would New China, founded for only a year, dare to meet the United States, the most powerful imperialist country henH-nn? This was no small matter in light of the situation lino in China it that time. Economic rehabilitation had just ES&ssRfcgSSS people's political power had not been completely consolidated. ThtT weapons1 andPequipment of the were still quite backward, and navy and air forces were sti the initial stages. If China dispatched troops tobecomemvolved in the conflict, could they win, would they Jgl t themselves and court disaster to their own door, thus making it impossible for the country to carry out economic constructio^ In the face of such an emergency situation, the Political Bureau If the Central Committee of the Chinese C°mmu^t Party under the guidance of Mao Zedong, met several times in the first half of October 1950. They made an all-round assessment of the internal and external situation, clearly took a sobre note of the immediate difficulties and made a penetrating analysis of the necessity and possibility of dispatching combat troops. Troops had to be dispatched because if U.S. invading troops were allowed to occupy the whole of Korea and their powerful forces pressed up to the banks of the Yalu River, it would be difficult for China to engage in peaceful construction, while international and domestic reactionaries would be bound to swell with arrogance. The consequences would be extremely unfavourable to China and to various countries in the East. The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea meant protecting homes and the native land. The Joint Declaration of the Various Democratic Parties of China which was published later succinctly stated, "The life and death of Korea and the safety and danger of China are closely related. If the lips disappear, the teeth will be cold; if the door is broken, the hall will be dangerous. The Chinese people's support of the Korean people's war of resistance against U.S. aggression was not only their moral responsibility, but also closely linked to the vital interests of the entire Chinese people. It was determined by the necessity of self-defence." Possibilities of winning lay in the fact that a war waged against aggression was a just one and a just cause enjoys abundant support. Morale was high and China had abundant reserves of troops. Our army, which had always been able to defeat well-equipped enemies with inferior weapons, possessed rich combat experience, flexible strategies and tactics and a valiant, militant spirit unafraid of sacrifice and hardships. The battlefield was near northeast China, facilitating logistics support. On the other hand, although the U.S. troops had advanced weapons, their forces were dispersed, their supply line long, and their fighting will weak. China strove for the possible defeat of the aggressors within the territory of Korea while simultaneously remaining prepared for potential U.S. air force bombardment of some Chinese cities and industrial bases, and naval attacks on Chinese coastal areas. Even in this eventuality, if these cities and areas were war-torn, it would at most mean delaying victory in the Liberation War for several years. EK SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 413 On the basis of these assessments, the conference made the determined strategic decision to resist U.S. aggression and aid K rea protect Chinese homes and the motherland. K on October 8, Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Peop lc d evolutionary Military Commission, issued an order that the Northeast Frontier Forces be formed into the Chinese People s Volunteers (CPV) and Peng Dehuai be appointed their comman der and political commissar. They were to await orders to set out to Korea and participate in operations. The Soviet Union ongi naily agreed to dispatch its air force in support but ^s offer was rescinded at the last moment. On the evening of October 19, 1950, wSlo ak force cover, the CPV vehemently and spirited* Tressed the Yalu River. The arrogant U.S. imperialists simply did not expect China would dispatch its troops to enter the w". On October 25 the CPV rapidly encountered the enemy which then Straight in. Taking advantage of the foes' weaknesses o misjudgment and rash advances by divided forces, the Chinese troops seized their opportunity while moving forward and made a surprise attack on the enemy. They won the very first battle, and drove the enemy from the banks of the Yalu River to areas south of the Qingchon River. , . U S aggressor troops, wrapped in fond delusions, continued t advance towards the north on a larger scale, launching a general attack named "Christmas Day decisive conclusion campaign. The CPV and Korean People's Army adopted the tactic of luring the enemy in deep, under extremely trying conditions when enemy planes conducted wanton and indiscriminate ^cold The Chinese army had insufficient supplies in the bitterly cold weather but fought valiantly, surrounded, wiped out and inflicted heavy casualties on large numbers of enemy troops. Subsequent victories in further battles forced the enemy troops to change from a general offensive to a general retreat, moving back to south of the 38th parallel line, thus reversing the war situation. This was followed by three successive major campaigns with hot advances and retreats, and offences and defences. By June 10 1951, our army had won all five battles, wiped out a total of 230 000 enemy troops and stabilized the battleiront near the 38th parallel line. Under such circumstances, beginning in July 1951, both sides held truce negotiations. However, the U.S. imperialists did not willingly give up their aggressive ambitions, attempting to use military pressure, such as air strikes and coastal otfensives, to force the Korean-Chinese side to submit in talks. The United States mobilized one-third of all its army, one-fifth of its air force and nearly half of its navy and threw them into the Korean battlefields, making them the main force in the war of aggression against Korea. Truce negotiations, which were intermingled with the fighting, were carried out intermittently, dragging on for two years. In the whole process, the CPV and the Korean People's Army, made use of the terrain to dig tunnels, adopted the operational tactic of combining positional defence and counterattack during movement, wiped out much of the enemy s effective strength through several minor victories. They further eliminated 720,000 enemy troops in two years. China's domestic army units, as the reserve forces of the CPV, took turns to go to fight in Korea, the CPV air force supported by the Soviet Union also began' fighting, and logistics transport guarantees were strengthened. Thus, the United States was compelled to sign the truce agreement on July 27, 1953. Mark W. Clark, then commander-inchief of the UN Forces, later wrote dejectedly about the moment in his reminiscence, "I have earned an unenviable reputation. 1 am the first commander in U.S. history who signed a truce agreement in an unwon war."3 The U.S. aggressors employed every kind of modern weapon except the atom bombs. The war, however, ended eventually with triumph for the Chinese and Korean armed forces and people. The victory exploded the myth about the invincibility of U.S. imperialism. Just as Peng Dehuai stated in the Work Report on the CPV War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the victory eloquently proved "the time has gone forever when Western aggressors could occupy a country as long as they mounted several big guns on the coast of the East as they did for several centuries." The national self-confidence and pride of the Chinese people was greatly strengthened as a result of the victory. Some CHArrER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 415 once had fears and delusions about imperialism were I profound lesson and woke up. The whole world looked Tchina with new eyes, and China's international prestige was s oktened to an unprecedented level. Since then, imperialists anve dare no° rash attempts to invade New China. A relatively stable peaceful environment was won for China's economic construction and sociaUe Volunteers who entered Korea to fight naJ^he enthusiastic support of the Chinese people at home as their ^.weZl backing Domestically, the Party led the largescale movement to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea vied nationwide to join the CPV and to donate money for buying aircraft and guns. They worked hard on all fronts to promote production and practise strict economy, ZesZn and their actual deeds. The movement to resist U.S. aggression ana aid Korea inculcated in the people the spirit of a high degree of patriotism and internationalism and greatly inspired the people s revolutionary enthusiasm and labour fervour, becoming a tremendous motivating force in restoring and developing the nation al economy and promoting various social reforms. Beginning in September 1954, group after group of the CPV returned home from Korea, even though at that time • ^eUnittd States was still unwilling to reach agreement with the Korean Chinese side on solving the Korean question peacefully or with drawal of all foreign armed forces from both North and South Korea In October 1958 the CPVs were totally recalled home, demmistrating^he sincerity of the Chinese people -th . to the peaceful solution of the Korean issue and China s stand of having no intention to station troops in a foreign country. Abolishing the Feudal Land System While engaging in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and^id Korea the Party, following the plan adopted at the 3rd Plenary sZoVof the 7th Party Centra. Committee ^ the ^ between the winter of 1950 and the spring of 1953 to accomplish land reform in the countryside of the newly-liberated areas. Their population accounted for over half the country's total. As soon as the new areas were liberated, a campaign was launched to clean up banditry, combat despots and reduce rent and return deposits. Meanwhile, grass-roots political power and militia organizations were established in rural areas. A number of peasant activists were trained, in preparation for the launching of agrarian reform. In June 1950, the Central People's Government Council adopted and promulgated the Law of the People's Republic of China on Agrarian Reform formulated under the guidance of Liu Shaoqi and submitted to the government after it was discussed at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee. The law summed up the experiences and lessons the Party gained in leading past agrarian reform, and set down new policies in keeping with the new situation prevailing after the founding of New China. It became the basic legal basis for guiding the agrarian reform. The agrarian reform movement was conducted when nationwide victory had been won in the people's revolutionary war and unified people's political power had been established. The most important question confronting the Party was no longer how to seize victory in the revolutionary war but rather how to rehabilitate and develop the national economy. Every item of the Party's work was to be centred around and serve this central task, which was also the basic aim of the agrarian reform. The first general principle of the Law of Agrarian Reform affirmed, "Abolition of the land ownership of the feudal exploitative landlord class and introduction of peasant land ownership so as to liberate rural productive forces, develop agricultural production and pave the way for New China's industrialization." In accord with the need and potential of the new situation, China changed the past policy of collecting surplus land and property from rich peasants to that of preserving the rich peasant economy; that is, a rich peasant's land tilled by himself or by a hired hand and his other property should be protected, and a small amount of land leased by a rich peasant was generally preserved and kept intact. Levies were to be placed on large areas of land leased by a semi-landlord, rich peasant that exceeded the amount of land tilled by himself or by six FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 417 .. , hand With regard to landlords, the scope for confiscating 3 nnerty was limited and for small plot leasers, standards were to pr0pe L for the amount of land to be preserved. Implementation 1 these^policies was aimed at better protecting middle peasants, of h f ,P°' tn , hf. colitting up of the landlord class and reducing C— movement. It would contribute KXuzing the national bourgeoisie, and, in the last analysis, facilitating the restoration and development of production. Whh regard to working methods, it was stressed that agrarian reform1 should be carried^, in a guided, planned and orderly „v Since agrarian reform formed an acute class struggle, entailed implementation of the Party's mass line, and fiance °n poor peasants, farm labourers, uniting of middle fth" mobilization of the broad masses of peasants, so that Struggle to defeat the landlord class they could taisetheirlevel consciousness and organization. Thus they wBte*1 confident of their own strength and mas"r^/^s"wi4"'land p-.rtv oDDOsed the peaceful agrarian reform of bestowing ===== iSm m——d after the founding of New China was the largest in Chinese history, anc lake i the best organized and most smooth compared to earlier ones. This plished throughout the country. Nationwide more than 300 million landless and land-poor peasants (including those in old liberated areas) were given gratis about 700 million mu (15 mu=1 hectare) of land and large quantities of production means, free from the past heavy rent of about 35 billion kg of grain given to landlords annually. Ownership by the landlord class, the foundation of the feudal system that had continued for several thousand years in China, was by that time thoroughly eliminated. This meant a great, historic victory. Opposition to feudalism was originally a democratic revolutionary task of the bourgeoisie. However, China's bourgeoisie was not strong enough to lead the peasants to fulfil this historical task. Only China's proletariat and its political party, the Communist Party of China, could clearly put forward this historical task and lead the peasants towards its accomplishment. The most fundamental task in opposition to feudalism was to eliminate its economic base; i.e., the feudal exploitative system of ownership by the landlord class. Without the struggle to abolish this, mere opposition to feudal ideology and culture could not be thorough, nor could shake the foundations of the feudal system. Of course, after abolition of this form of land ownership and elimination of the economic base of the feudal system, the Party had to transform the scattered individual economy (once also the foundation of the feudal society) into a socialized, large-scale production economy and continue to carry out arduous struggle in order to thoroughly eliminate the political and ideological influence of feudal and small-scale production. This was a long-term historical task. With regard to agrarian reform in ethnic minority areas, in view of the economic and political situation and the many social and historical conditions different from those in the Han areas, the Party favoured adopting more prudent and gentle policies and steps, particularly in regard to the Tibetan region. The Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet signed between the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet stipulated, "In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. The local government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and demands for reform raised by the people shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet." The reactionaries in the local government of Tibet consistently obstructed the reform. Waiting for the awakening of Tibetan leaders and maturing of other conditions, up till 1956, the central government continued to tell the Tibetan local government that reform might not be carried out during the Second Five-Year Plan (1958-62). However, reactionaries among serf-owners and nobles not only opposed agrarian reform in Tibet, but also collaborated with reactionary foreign forces to plot for "Tibetan independence." On March 10, 1959, they staged armed rebellion in Lhasa, which also spread to some other places in Tibet. The Chinese People's Liberation Army was ordered to swiftly put down the rebellion. On March 28, the State Council ordered that the original Tibetan local government be dissolved and that the Preparatory Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region exercise the function of the Tibetan local government. In June, the Preparatory Committee of the autonomous region held the 2nd plenary session, which adopted the Resolution on Conducting Democratic Reform. From that time on, democratic reform was carried out successively in a systematic and discriminating way throughout the region. The central task of the democratic reform was to change land ownership from that of feudal serf-owners to the peasants. The Party's class line in Tibet's rural areas was: reliance on poverty-stricken serfs and slaves, unity with middle-class serfs (including rich serfs) and with all forces that could be united, attacks on the rebellious and most reactionary serf-owners, thorough elimination of feudal serfdom and elimination of the serf-owning class. In the reform, it meant distinguishing those who participated in the rebellion and those who did not. Land and means of agricultural production of the Tibetan local government and of nobles and monasteries who participated in the rebellion were confiscated. A policy of redemption was adopted with regard to the land and means of agricultural production of the serf-owners, and monasteries who had not joined in the revolt. Within nearly two years, democratic reform was basically accomplished throughout the region. As a result, the last remnant feudal system on this territory of the People's Republic of China was eventually eliminated. Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries The suppression of counter-revolutionaries was one of the three great movements (the other two being War to Resist U.S Aggression and Aid Korea, and agrarian reform) carried out in the early period after the founding of New China. A large number of counter-revolutionaries were left behind in the mainland when the defeated Kuomintang reactionaries fled to Taiwan. Unreconciled to their routing, they continued to carry out disruptive activities and make trouble. After the Korean War broke out, they believed that a third world war would soon occur and that the time had come for Chiang Kai-shek, swollen with counter-revolutionary arrogance, to launch a counterattack. They destroyed factories and railways, burnt warehouses and citizen residences, looted grain and property, spread rumours and organized riots, raided and besieged grass-roots people's governments, and slaughtered revolutionary cadres and activists among the masses. In 1950, in the vast new liberated areas, nearly 40,000 cadres and masses, including more than 7,000 in Guangxi, were murdered by counter-revolutionaries. To cope with this situation, on October 10, 1950, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the Instruction on Suppression of CounterRevolutionary Activities, calling on Party committees at all levels to firmly correct the deviation of excessive leniency towards counter-revolutionaries at certain times and in some places and comprehensively implement the policy of combining suppression with leniency. The chief criminals shall be punished without fail those who are accomplices under duress shall go unpunished and those who perform deeds of merit shall be rewarded." Chief counter-revolutionaries who are guilty of heinous crimes and who are steeped in evil and refuse to repent shall be firmly suppressed. Beginning in December, a large-scale movement to suppress counter-revolutionaries was launched nationwide. 421 The movement was targeted mainly at bandits (chieftains, hardened bandits), special agents, despots, heads of reactionary secret societies and core members of reactionary parties and iP.sues. A mass line was adopted for the movement. Under the leadership of the Party committee, the whole Party and masses were mobilized, public security and judicial organs were combined with the broad masses of the people, various democratic parties and democrats were drawn into participation, and the masses consciously rose to denounce and expose counterrevolutionaries. In February 1951, the Central People's Government promulgated the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Punishment of Counter-Revolutionaries, providing legal weapons for the struggle to suppress counter-revolutionaries and a standard for measuring penalties. After a nationwide upsurge in the movement to suppress counter-revolutionaries had taken shape, in May 1951, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a timely decision to immediately implement a prudent drawing back policy and concentrated its efforts on handling long-standing cases. In the handling of cases, the Party stressed the need to conduct investigations and studies, to lay the emphasis on the weight of evidence and to not easily trust confessions, oppose taking hasty actions and extorting admissions through compulsion and providing them with credence. Attack should be directed mainly at those counter-revolutionaries guilty of heinous crimes and bitterly hated by the people. A lenient policy should be adopted towards those who commit light crimes and were willing to repent. The nationwide movement to suppress counter-revolutionaries was basically concluded in October 1951. With its accomplishment, the counter-revolutionary remnant forces left behind in the mainland by Kuomintang reactionaries had been basically wiped out. The bane of wild outlawry, including bandits in west Hunan and Guangxi whom previous dynasties of old China had been unable to eliminate, as well as black social forces in many cities, were by and large eliminated. This brought unprecedented stability to China's social order and effectively supported and co-ordinated agrarian reform and the struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea. Other Democratic Reforms The Party also led the people in conducting multi-faceted democratic reforms in co-ordination with agrarian reform and suppression of counter-revolutionaries. First, democratic reforms were gradually unfolded in state-run industrial, mining and communications and transport enterprises. In November 1951, the CPC Central Committee issued the Instructions on Cleaning Up Counter-Revolutionaries in Factories, Mines and Communications Enterprises and Carrying Out Democratic Reform in Them. During the democratic reform, workers were boldly mobilized and relied upon in a guided way to expose and denounce feudal gangmaster and various other systems which opposed the workers, systems extant in old enterprises and not reformed in time after take-over. The Party wiped out the counter-revolutionaries and remnant feudal forces concealed in enterprises, promoted a number of workers and staff prestigious among the masses to leading posts in administration, production and management. It established factory management committees and worker representative conferences, drew workers into participation in factory management and realized democracy in enterprise management, so that workers would truly become masters of enterprises. At the same time, the movement led to self-education among the worker masses to eliminate estrangement resulting from feudal trade association and regional concepts and to strengthen unity among workers and between workers and managerial and technical personnel. This gave further expression to the new socialist relationship of production based on the taking over of ownership of enterprises and placing it under the people's state. This was an indispensable step taken to transform bureaucrat-capitalist firms into socialist businesses. On May 1, 1950, the Central People's Government promulgated the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, the first law of New China. The Marriage Law stipulated, "The feudal marriage system characterized by arrangement, compulsory marriage, superior male and inferior female and neglect of children's interests shall be abolished and the new democratic marriage system characterized by free marriage of male and female, moSIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 423 pnual rights for men and women and protection of the n0gamy',e interests of women and children shall be instituted, legitimate in ‘ n ^ familiai structure that had ThlS T H for several thousand years as well as a deepening of the ^rSTfdarstruggTe of the Chinese people. The Party and governantl-feudal struggle o ideological and organizational ^extensive pTbUc.ty on and implementation of the Marriage Law, effectively promoting the emancipation of Chinese "'struggle to ban prostitution, patronage of whores, trading November 21, 1949 g a decisjon to seal off sfaiiil sh measures.^he ugly scanfof the old ansiilsi tarily renounce their habits. After two to three years of efforts these social maladies which lingered despite repeated prohibitions and were considered incurable in Western society, were almost totally banned under the leadership of the Communist Party and the people's government. This could only surprise the world and earn applause. The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea was the continuation of the Chinese people's democratic revolution against imperialism, while the agrarian reform and various other democratic reforms marked the accomplishment of the Chinese people's democratic revolution against feudalism. The mighty torrent of revolution cleaned up the filth and mire left over from the old society. China's social outlook and social mores experienced great changes. This victory further consolidated political power under the people's democratic dictatorship and provided necessary social and political conditions for the work of restoring and developing the economy.

The Fight for the Restoration of the National Economy

The 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to the entire Party and nation the general slogan and task "Fight for a fundamental turn for the better in the nation's financial and economic situation," since armed conflict had been basically concluded. Only Tibet and Taiwan remained to be liberated. The focus of the Party's work had begun to shift from military to the economic sphere with its entry to major cities. As early as the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee held on the eve of the founding of New China, Mao Zedong pointed out, "From the very first day we take over a city, we should direct our attention to restoring and developing production there." All other work would "revolve around and serve the central task." In the early stage after the founding of New China, he solemnly declared, "Economic construction on a national scale has been placed ^pter Six founding OF PRC and transition to SOCIALISM 425 fore us "4 On the eve of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Committee, the Party Central Committee telegraphed various localities, demanding that "the principal responsible comof Party bureaus of the Central Committee personally ^1,e fmaanaal, banking and economic tasks and that centra Party bureau conferences regularly discuss fiscal work They must not slacken their effort in the slightest, thinking this is the Ssk only for financial business organizations. This holds true, also for the Party committees of big cities, provinces and autonomous Ions under the Party bureaus. The Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee discusses financial and economic wor at afmos" every conference.- Moving from all-out leadership over the revolutionary war to all-out leadership over peaceful construction marked a profound change in the Party history Old China's economy was extremely backward. The eight y Jananese imperialist war of aggression against China and the three-year conflict launched by Kuomintang reactionaries against he people caused serious damage to the country. In companion with earlier record levels, in 1949 total industrial output had halved in worth. The output value of heavy rnd, ustry . d™PPe^ 70 percent and light industry by 30 percent. That year, stee output was only 158,000 tons, a fall of 80 percent; "al output 32.43 million tons, a drop of 48 percent; gram production 11 3T8 million tons, down about 25 percent, and cotton yield 444 000 tons a dip of about 48 percent. Modern industry came to 17 percent of total industrial and agricultural output value in 1949. According to statistics from the UN Asia-Pacific Society Committee in 1949 China's per-capita income was U.S.S27 ess han two-thirds the average U.S.$44 of Asia as a half the U.S. $57 of India. This made concentrated efforts to restore the national economy a pressing task. The outbreak of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea adversely affected the shift of the focus to e— construction Much manpower and material resources were ne ed to support the war and national defence. However, since the conflict* remained confined to the Korean battlefield, the Party Central Committee decided to "engage in combat, stabilization and construction simultaneously." Stabilization meant stabilizing prices. This task was accomplished under arduous conditions while the war was still going on. A two-fold economic construction policy focussed on key projects and planned postponements. Another adverse effect of the Korean War on economic work was the U.S. government's brazen declaration of dominion over China's public and private property in the United States, its prohibition of entry to China by all U.S. goods and ships and its manipulation of the Paris Planning Committee to impose complete international blockades and embargoes on New China. In foreign trade, China decided, "proceeding from an overall point of view, to put the Soviet Union in the first place, and at the same time prepare to do business with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Britain, Japan and the United States."6 The blockades and embargoes of the imperialists obstructed China's access to the outside world. The Chinese government was compelled to adopt appropriate measures to control all property of U.S. authorities and enterprises in China and freeze U.S. public and private savings deposits in the country. Subsequently, the Chinese government dealt with American public and private businesses in China through requisition, administration, purchases and tightening of control. It took over various cultural, educational and relief organizations receiving U.S. subsidies. The economic and cultural undertakings of other nations in China were dealt with case to case on its own merits by the government in accordance with the principle of reasonableness, advantage and restraint in the light of the different conditions in the nations and trades concerned. The difficulties caused by the blockades and embargoes did not frighten the Chinese people. On the contrary, inspired with the spirit of self-reliance, they redoubled efforts to fight for restoration and development of the economy. Restoration of Agriculture, Transport, Industry and Commerce "The recovery of agriculture will serve as the foundation for the recovery of all other branches, since if no food is available, everything else is out of the question."7 The aim of agrarian SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 427 c m liberate the forces of production. It was implementreform was k seasons of winter and spring in order not ed mainly a ararian reform did not change the individual to hold up wort Ag : economy Freedom from the feudal "TareatW tested the enthusiasm of individual peasants for l fask Thirty deemed it necessary to gradually develop S thour aid alng ££% °f VntUfuTplaPyrtoC^asant fervour for individual economic secs' The state put in great efforts to promote the restoration and totalled 20 million nationwide They billion cubic metres of earth works, equivalent to 23 Suez Cana KSSssSSSSS; were all begun and stepped up at that time_ railway The restoration of communications link. , P . ? . railway rights became the fuse of the \9U Kcvoim ^ less throughout the entire period during the KM 1 rul , t£tS3S£S3£X SSKSJi jg ™e Chengdu and Chongqing stations to warmly hail the achievement. Many could not help becoming teary-eyed. Arduous construction was also started of the Xikang-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet highways, leading to Lhasa, on the "Roof of the World." In the restoration and construction of industry, the Party laid emphasis on two points. The first placed wholehearted reliance in the working class and the second did so in the state-run economy. Workers who had been emancipated and become masters of the state and enterprises exhibited greatly heightened labour enthusiasm. Numerous model workers emerged and an extensive labour emulation drive was launched. Key project construction, apart from first restoring and revamping existing businesses in northeast China and other places, led to the building of a group of major enterprises, such as the Fuxin Haizhou open-cast coal mines, the seamless steel tube factory and heavy rolling mill of the Anshan Iron and Steel Co., the Shanxi Heavy Machinery Plant, cotton mills in Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Xi'an and Xinjiang, and the Harbin Flax Mill. The rails for the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway and all steel and iron sluice gates used in the project to harness the Huaihe River were made in China. Restoration and development of trade were important links in promoting material exchange between urban and rural areas and restoration of the entire national economy. The Party held that state-run and cooperative commerce should be gradually developed and expanded to become the main distribution channel. After several years of efforts, by the end of 1952, an integrated state-run commercial system encompassing various departments at all levels had taken basic shape throughout the country. State-run commerce increased its share in the nation's total retail sales Irom 14.9 percent in 1950 to 34.4 percent. Cooperative commerce was an important adjunct for state-run stores to link up with the masses, and particularly the peasants. In 1952, its annual retail sales constituted 19.6 percent of the nation's total retail sales worth. A question of vital importance in the restoration and development of the national economy was how to treat private industry and commerce. In 1950, private industry accounted for 51 percent of total national industrial output value and private comSIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 429 „n as nercent of the nation's total retail sales. The mcrce made UP p)ayed a relatively crucial role in private c p pf industria] products to meet the needs of inCr^)nuface helping commodity circulation to promote urbanaa-MsssttW Inri exerted positive influence on other capitalists. However, the an aie ranitalist economy also possessed negative aspects. In orfer to develop production and promote economic Pr"P"^' the people's government had to support the positive aspect of t private capitalist economy benefiting the national economy and the neonle's livelihood while restricting its adverse role. In I ? loaq the neonle's government attacked speculative cap)tTand won tLhe Ground of victory in the struggle between restriction and opposition to restriction. When Pr‘c" ^" stable in early 1950, due to the disappearance of false purchasing power resisting from inflation and other—Cc such as sluggish sales of commodities, closed factories, detune. shops and increased unemployment. In ^ bles the government adopted measures such as expansion of sta orders with private factories for processing of materials and purchasing oflarge quantities of farm and sideline products to only helped private industry and commerce to tide over diff.cu ties but enabled them to achieve mighty progress. In 1951, the number of the nation's private industrial enterprises i ■»»!>««> to those in 1950 had increased by 11 percent, the tota production by 39 percent, the number firms by 1 1 9 percent and total retail sales by 36.6 percent, in yea™ profits earned by the national bourgeoisie surpassed those in any of the 22 years under the Kuomintang rule. Movement Against "Three Evils" and Struggle Against "Five Evils" The Party and government protected the legal management and appropriate development of private industry and commerce in accordance with the Common Programme. However, lawless elements among the capitalists, not satisfied with ordinary profits gained by normal methods, tried hard to grab high spoils by illegal means such as bribing state functionaries. The serious acceleration of this situation forced the decision of the Party Central Committee to launch a movement against the "three evils" of mainly corruption, plus waste and bureaucracy, among personnel of Party and state organizations. It also led to a campaign against the "five evils" of capitalist bribery of government workers, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, and stealing of economic information for private industrial and commercial firms. Cases of cadre corruption were discovered and dealt with sporadically after the founding of New China. Serious corruption and waste by some cadres exposed in the report submitted by the Northeast Bureau to the Party Central Committee in November 1951 aroused the great attention of the Party Central Committee. The committee immediately made the Decision on Streamlining Administration, Increasing Production and Practising Economy, in Opposition to Corruption, Waste and Bureaucracy. This struggle was necessary in order to carry through the policy adopted at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee of guarding against corruption within the entire Party. A vigorous and steady major attack was launched through a mass movement in order to create active public opinion and exhibit mass power. Major representative cases were grasped and tackled in the struggle to arouse the vigilance of the whole Party and the attention of the whole society. Liu Qingshan, former secretary, and Zhang Zishan, then secretary, of the Tianjin Prefect ural Committee of the six FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 431 1HA munist Party, degenerated into arch criminals of corrupC°m Although they had given some meritorious service durti0n,ht democratic revolution, the Party never tolerated their jng the democra^ ^ fey the court and executCHmThe essence of the slruggle against "three evils" that lasted more than half a year was maintenance of the integrity SnSSES i == it healthy social contort Cen(ral Committee issued an 7h"d" whole nation After the movement reached an upsurge, the Party 7sued aTimeiy^ instruction, saying that the various big cities must "nay attention to maintaining the normal progress o life "8 "Production, transportation, finance and tra e co taxes and return of illegal gains. The Party Central Committee pointed out: Concluding the struggle in this way "enables us to gain complete political and economic initiative and bring about rapid economic restoration and development, so capitalists may again move closer to us and rekindle their management enthusiasm and workers not face unemployment."10 To handle negating positive aspects of the bourgeoisie, which emerged within the Party during the upsurge of the movement, the Party Central Committee stressed: "The political and economic position applicable to the national bourgeoisie on the basis of the Common Programme remains unchanged."11 The nationwide movement against the five evils concluded after half a year. It attacked the five serious evil malpractices of capitalists. Widespread education on legal management was conducted among industrialists and businessmen, promoting the establishment of worker supervision in private enterprises and the introduction of democratic reform. This enabled the Party to gain another round of victory in the struggle between restriction and opposition to restriction. After the movement ended, the Party and government, in the light of the newly emerged strained relations between the public and private sectors and between labour and capital and a depressed market, took further measures to readjust relations on a new basis. It worked to expand the placing of state orders with private enterprises for the processing of materials, purchases and monopoly sales, to guarantee reasonable profits to ensure the relative development of capitalist industry and commerce. In 1952, total output value of capitalist industry increased 54 percent compared to that of 1949. Achievements in the Three Years of Economic Restoration After three years of efforts, the national economy met with comprehensive restoration and initial development. In 1952, total industrial and agricultural output value reached 81 billion yuan, up by 77.5 percent over 1949, and by 20 percent over the record 1936 level. The average annual increase rate in the three years was 21.1 percent; total industrial output worth increased by 145.1 SK FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM «» t over 1949. with an average annual increase rate of 34.8 peTen Total agricultural output worth rose by 53.5 percent over So with an average annual increase rate of 15.3 percent. The 9t>ut of major industrial and agricultural products surpassed °a Pneak level gained before the founding of New China. Along '"utfthe restoration and development of production, a balance was achieved between state financial revenue and expenditure^ The economic structure improved. Culture, education and public Lnith services developed appropriately. The incomes of employ ^ and peasanrs mcreascd and their living standards improved M/hat In 1952 the total number of the nation s set employee radtcrea d o ib mmlon from the 1949 figure of 8 million, white their average wages had risen by 70 percent. A labour insurance system was instituted among enterprises and a free medical service among government employees and teacher . A survey indicated that in 1936, the year which saw the highest ore-liberation living standards for employees, average annual speldlng per family member was 140 yuan (calculated on the basis of 1957 prices). The figure reached 189.5 yuan in 1952 p 35 percent. The 1952 income of peasants generally increased by over 30 percent compared to that in 1949. Simultaneous with economic restoration, profound ^change ^occurred in the national economic structure. The state, private capitalist, individual, state-capital and co-operat.ve econom.es al developed. With state support and the superiority of the socialist economy the state-run economy developed even faster. In 1949 the share' of socialist industry in total national industrial worth (excluding handicrafts) was 34.7 percent. The figure rose to 5 percent in 1952. Furthermore, industry share (including han i crafts) in the nation's total industrial and agricultural output value rose from 30 percent in 1949 to 41.5 percent. Modern industry went up from 17 percent to 26.6 percent. The proportion of heavy industry in the total industrial output value clunbe from 26.4 percent in 1949 to 35.5 percent in 1952. This progress indicated that the restoration of China's economy not only mcludS quantitative development, but also change in nature and improvement in quality.

The Party Proposes the General Line for the Transitional Period

Near the end of 1952, our country's development faced a new situation and many new problems. To lead the people in their continued advance, the Party needed to put forward fresh tasks and goals. ^ The struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea had long been stable and an agreement on major issues had been reached uring peace talks. This war New China was compelled to wage was expected to end before long. The main task left over from the democratic revolution, that of large-scale agrarian reform, had basically been accomplished nationwide. The work of restoring the national economy, though adversely affected by war and accompanied by intense social reform, proceeded quite smoothly due to the hard work of the people nationwide. Originally restoration of the national economy was planned to take three to five years but the anticipated goal had been surpassed in three years. All this showed that China had acquired the conditions for carrying out planned economic construction. The Party made a timely decision to begin the First Five-Year Plan for national economic development in 1953. The main part of the plan entailed national industrialization, of course. This was the goal the Chinese people had cherished over the past 100 years, and the key to changing China s backward state and achieving strength and prosperity. The Chinese people were finally able to take big strides forward on the road to industrialization. At the same time, new dilemmas which appeared and accumulated in society required the Party to work out explicit guidelines and systematic policies for their gradual solution. In the rural areas after the agrarian reform, the main problem was that the scattered and backward individual economy of the peasants could hardly meet the growing needs of the cities and industry for grain and agricultural raw materials. The initial appearance of polarization between the rich and the poor compelled the Communists to consider the question of how the private economy should develop. In the cities, restriction and anti-restriction struggles cflApTER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 435 tween the working class and state-run economy on the one hand nd the bourgeoisie on the other had undergone several rounds aJith no conclusion. Instead there had been vacillations that had creat impact on state economic life. The aggravation of these Contradictions resulting from rapid growth of industrialization compelled the Party to consider measures to step up and expand mutual-aid and cooperative movement in the rural areas and control capital in the cities. This inevitably made it essential to place the task of socialist transformation of the national economy on the agenda. It was against this background that the Party Central Committee, after nearly one year of deliberation, drew up and put forward the Party's general line for the transitional period: For a considerably long period of time, there would be gradual realization of state socialist industrialization, plus state socialist transformation of agriculture, the handicraft and capitalist industries and commerce. The clear general line proposed the great task of building socialism to the people of the whole country. This was a major strategic step taken by the Party at a crucial historical moment. Realizing socialism in China was the struggle objective laid down by the Communist Party of China at the time of its founding. Contemporary Chinese history has proved that all efforts aimed at realizing capitalism in China, whether by relormist method or by revolutionary method, had ended in failure. This gave rise to the historical necessity of seeking a new objective of struggle. The objective set by the Communist Party of China to realize socialism precisely embodied this historical necessity. However, China was originally an economically very backward semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. This basic national condition determined the need to take two steps to bring about socialism in China and the need to change over to socialist revolution after passing through the new democratic revolution. This was the road that Chinese revolution must follow in its history of development. It was the reason why for a considerably long time, the Party had invariably taken new democracy as its primary programme and used it to determine the nature of the revolution it led and the nature of the republic founded through this revolution. With regard to the issue of when the revolution should change over to the socialist stage, the Party merely noted that this was the inexorable trend for which certain conditions were essential. It had not made concrete judgments and could not do so on the time and conditions for the changeover. This needed to be decided in the light of the concrete conditions in the process of the development of the revolution. The 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee held on the eve of the victory of the democratic revolution laid down various basic policies for the republic soon to come into being. It also set the basic orientation for changing China from an agricultural into an industrial state and for progress from the new democratic society to the future socialist society. However, at the time of the founding of New China, the country's socialist future was not written into the Common Programme formulated by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which acted as a provisional constitution. Liu Shaoqi gave an explanation about this on behalf of the Communist Party of China: "This is because adopting quite serious socialist steps in China is a matter for the distant future." He pointed out at the same time: There is no doubt that in the future China will advance to socialism and then communism." During the session, some nonParty people asked Mao Zedong how long it would be before China would advance into socialism. Mao Zedong replied it would probably take twenty to thirty years. On several Party occasions, including a conference of the Political Bureau in September 1948, the 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee and at a number of inner-Party cadre meetings in the first few years after the founding of New China, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai all said it would take at least a decade or at most fifteen to twenty years for China to practise socialism. Then they had a rough idea that, after a considerable length of time when industry had developed and the state-run economy had been expanded, it would be possible to adopt "serious socialist steps" to realize nationalization of capitalist industry and commerce and the collectivization of individual agriculture. By 1952, after three years of practice and developments, the accumulation SJX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 437 CHAPTtK _ . fr.sh experience and the attainment of new understanding o ° tens nken for socialist transformation had brought about thrt rchlnge m the original tentative idea. The Party Central rnmmhtee deemed it opportune and necessary to formulate the n tv's aeneral line for the transitional period. This clearly set the tables for the whole Party and the whole people to gradua illy _pass over to socialism, tasks which were estimated to be fulfilled in fifteen years or longer. „ Why and how had this change taken place. First because China already had a relatively strong and rapidly developing socialist state-run economy. This formed a good beginning and an important force to rely on for the social^ transformation of the entire national economy. Confiscation o bureaucrat-capital and turning it into state P~P«rty nalty one of the three major economic programmes for the new democratic revolution. However, as a result of confiscation of bureaucrat-capital, 80 percent of the fixed assets of ^ "a! pre-liberation industrial and mining enterprises and communica tions and transportation became state assets ** „tradon banks came basically under state management The of such a huge economic force in the hands of the state gave confiscation a socialist revolutionary nature Later summing up this stage Mao Zedong said: The statement that the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution can be accomphshed at one stroke "confused the two revolutionary stages, making it er roneous- but is alright to voice when it comes to the opposition erfbtirea uc r a t-capit a 1 . " ' 2 New China's socialist state-run economy should not be put on a par with the official economies during Kuomintang rule and even earlier periods in Chinese history. It represented and guaranteed the interests of the pcopk : and society and was thus well received and trusted by the people^ It became the main force for supporting state finances and ^rhzing rile economic situation and the main body of the existing bas^ industry0 The main tasks for the First Five-Year Plan were to be undertaken by it. The realization of Chinas industrialization could only rely on developing the socialist state-run economy, and not on the capitalist private economy. Chinas national capitalist economic strength was weak and it consisted mainly of commerce and financial capital, with little industrial capital. National industrial capital was invested mainly in light and textile industries and little in heavy industry. Private factories generally were small in scale (69.7 percent had less than 10 workers), their technology was backward (workshop handicraft industry accounted for 79.1 percent). China's national bourgeoisie was unable to lead China's democratic revolution to victory, still less was it able to undertake the heavy task of realizing industrialization in China. While most state-run industries were comparatively advanced in technology, their labour productivity was relatively high, and workers had a strong sense of being masters of state-run enterprises. Their livelihood was secure and they enjoyed various kinds of power and welfare. Their labour enthusiasm was high. In short, the socialist state-run economy at that time clearly demonstrated its superiority over other economic sectors and was a new thriving and prospering force. By 1952, the proportion of state-run industrial output in total modern industry had increased to 56 percent and the business volume of state-run wholesale commerce made up 60 percent of the nation's total. Socialism had become a relatively strong factor in China's social and economic life. In addition, the highly integrated financial and economic work supported by the state economy and state administrative force was naturally guided step by step onto the path of the planned economy. The subsequent development of the planned economic system built on this highly centralized and unified basis showed that it had defects in certain aspects which needed to be readjusted and reformed to suit the changed situation. But this choice made by the Party and government under the severe circumstances prevailing at that time was the only correct one when there was a shortage of and pressing demand for materials. Moreover, a certain degree of unity and planning was always necessary for the stability and development of the national economy. When the First Five-Year Plan began, the demand for the development of the state-run economy and the expansion of the planned economy became a basic factor by which the Party deemed it necessary and possible to put forward the general line ter SIX FOUNDING of PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 439 ,rtr the gradual transition to socialism. Second, because we had accumulated much experience in the ..e Cind restriction of private industry and commerce, this actuallv became the initial step towards the socialist transformation of .L capitalist economy. Protecting national industry and commerce was another one of the three major economic programmes tor the new democratic revolution. Protection included positive aspects advantageous to the national economy and people s livelihood and restrictions on negative aspects acting against these. Because China's economy was backward, the use of the positive role of private industry and commerce was of crucial signil icancc. However, contradictions existed between the capitalist economy on the one hand and the interests of the people and society, state management and the socialist economy on the other hand. There were some contradictions between the workers and the capitalists within the private economy. Readjusting and solving these m accordance with the needs of economic development and with the greatest interests of the vast majority of the people would inevitably entail the struggle between restrictions on capitalism and resistance to these constraints by capitalists. The 2nd Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee pointed out, "‘Restriction versus opposition to restriction will be the mam form of class struggle in the new democratic state." Under national economic restoration, during the struggle waged against illegal and negative capitalist resistance to state restrictions, in the process of rationally readjusting industry and commerce, the state created a scries of forms from low- to high-level state capitalism. They entailed mainly rational distribution of raw materials and markets, and sustained support of the positive role of private industry and commerce while ensuring growth of the state-run economy. These included the placing of state orders with private enterprises for processing of materials, private company sales of goods tor the state on a commission basis, state monopoly of the purchase and marketing of products of private enterprises, and stale-private operation. These measures were adopted mainly to help private industry and commerce to overcome production dilliculties. At that time, it was difficult for many private enterprises to survive and develop without the support of the state, so the capitalists welcomed these state measures. The results that ensued showed that the series of state capitalist configurations not only aimed to draw on and restrict capitalist industry and commerce, they also inevitably deepened the links between the capitalist and socialist state-run economy, causing different degrees of changes in their relations of production. This, thereby, to varied extents, started initial socialist transformation of them, even though the Party did not fully realize this at the very beginning. From its summation of experience, the Party affirmed that the continued expansion and improvement of various forms of state capitalism provided the concrete way to the gradual socialist transformation of capi talist industry and commerce. It changed former concepts which regarded future declaration of nationalization and elimination of the private capitalist system at one stroke as the only measure for socialist transformation. This was another basic aspect of the Party's view. that it was timely to put forward the general line for gradual transition to socialism. Third, because the Parly had accumulated much experience after the accomplishment of the agrarian reform in launching agricultural mutual aid and cooperation in rural areas. This became the initial step towards the socialist transformation of individual agriculture. Confiscation of feudal land and placing it under peasant ownership was one of the three major economic programmes for the new democratic revolution. After the peasants were given distributed land, the question was, how could individual scattered and weak agriculture meet the rapidly growing needs of industrialization for food and raw material crops? How could polarization between rich and poor be avoided? At that time, each individual peasant household held only an average of some ten mu (15 mu— 1 hectare) of farmland, each poor peasant household or hired hands had an average of less than half a draught animal and half a plough. There were also shortages of funds. Even maintenance of production was not easy, to say nothing of expansion on any scale, improvement of conditions and diversified economic development. On the foundation of such an individual agricultural economy, it w'as impossible to suit the 441 needs of industrial development and avoid polarization between the affluent and badly-off. In the light of current experience and understanding, the Party believed that only by organized mutual aid and cooperation, was it possible to develop output and achieve common prosperity. During the period of national economic restoration, simple cooperative mutual-aid teams were universally set up, while primary cooperatives characterized by pooling of land began to develop. There were also typical trials by advanced cooperatives (collective farms) characterized by collective ownership of the basic means of production. After summing up these practical experiences, the Party confirmed that these mutual aid and cooperative forms not only were effective means for helping poor peasants overcome their difficulties and increase production, but also appropriate methods for preventing the spontaneous tendency towards capitalism in the countryside and guiding agriculture towards a socialist orientation. The Party also established a new concept: China's industrialization and agricultural mechanization would be a very drawn-out process, so agricultural cooperatives could not sit back wailing for industrialization and mechanization. Generally, small-scale agricultural mutual aid and cooperative organizations which lacked large machinery could augment production by relying mainly on unified management and cooperation. They reassembled handicraft workshops which initially also lacked major equipment but could still raise production by relying mainly on cooperation. Many people were convinced by this viewpoint. This was the third basic factor by which the Party deemed it possible to put forward the general line for the gradual transition to socialism. These three points indicated that since the new democratic future was bound to develop towards socialism, the new democratic economy already contained socialist factors of decisive significance that were continually expanding their force and scope. Thus, the new democratic construction stage also meant the transitional period from new democracy to socialism. In a summing-up speech made in September 1953 at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhou Enlai said, "To pul it in a nutshell, the transitional period means the new democratic construction period, the period of gradual transition to socialism, as well as a period of gradual increase in the share of the socialist economic sector in the national economy." Fourth, judging from the then international environment, the imperialists carried out military aggression and posed a threat to China. They imposed a strict economic blockade on the nation. While the capitalist countries themselves were in the doldrums, socialist countries were vigorously developing, demonstrating their superiority over capitalism. During economic rehabilitation and construction in the First Five-Year Plan, only the Soviet Union aided China. Although the Parly proceeded from China's specific conditions while formulating concrete economic policies and methods of work, the Soviet Union's expertise in socialist construction and its economic system still formed a role as a model for China. It also constituted a factor that prompted the Party to deem it necessary to begin the gradual transition to socialism. In September 1952, at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Mao Zedong said, "We will basically accomplish socialism in ten to fifteen years, not begin the transition to socialism after a decade." This marked the beginning of preparations to promote the general line for the transitional period. Thereafter, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai also expounded in detail the guiding thought and rough ideas about "beginning from now the gradual transition to socialism." The conference of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, held in June 1953, formally discussed the matter, forming a fairly comprehensive exposition. The slogans issued on September 24, 1953 to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the founding of New China announced this general line to the whole Party and the people throughout the country. In December, the "Outline for Study and Publicity on the Party's General Line for the Transitional Period—Fight to Build China Into a Great Socialist State by Mobilizing All Forces," which was drafted by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and transmitted by the Central Committee of 443 the Communist Party of China, made a detailed exposition of the rrmtent of the general line. While examining and revising this nutline Mao Zedong wrote this succinct summary: From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the basic accomnlishment of socialist transformation is a transitional period = general line and general tasks during this transitional neriod are, within a considerably long period of time, to gradually realize the state's socialist industrialization and gradua ly realize the stale's socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry and capitalist industry and commerce. This general line, like a beacon light, illuminates various fields of our work. If we depart from it, we will commit Right or Left deviations errors Mao gave the following explanations as to why the lounding of the People's Republic of China should be taken as the beginning uf the transition period from new democracy to socialism: we say things that mark change in the nature of revolution, and mark the basic conclusion of the stage of new democratic revolution and the beuinning of socialist revolution, are the change m political power, the extinction of the counter-revolutionary regime of the Kuomintang and the founding of the People s Repub lie of China. We do not mean that we can set about carrying out the great task of socialist transformation in all national fields immediately after the founding of the People's Republic. Now we still need to solve contradictions between feudalism and democracy; i.e., between the landlords and peasants in the vast rural areas. Over time, the principal contradictions in the rural areas will be between feudalism and democracy, not between capitalism and socialism. Therefore, two to three years are needed to carry out agrarian reform in rural areas. By then, we will, on the one hand, carry out democratic agrarian reform in the rural areas- on the other hand, in the city, we will immediately start to take over bureaucrat-capitalist enterprises and turn them into socialist enterprises, set up socialist state banks and simultaneously set about to establish socialist state commerce and cooperative commerce nationwide. Over the past few years we have begun implementing measures for stale capitalism in private capitalist enterprises. All these facts demonstrated the complicated situa tion prevailing in the first few years of China's transitional period." In February 1954, the 4th Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China formally approved this general line confirmed by the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee. The Party's general line for the transitional period was one characterized by "one industrialization and three transformations," and "one main body and two wings." "One industrialization" implied the gradual realization of state socialist industrialization; this is the main body. "The three transformations" meant the gradual realization of socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft and capitalist industry and commerce. These were the "two wings." "Industrialization" and the "three transformations" related to, promoted and contained each other, demonstrating the organic unity between the development of productive forces and the reform of the relations of production. This was a general line wherein socialist construction and socialist transformation were conducted simultaneously. "Industrialization " and "transformation" both required a very long period of time for their realization, step by step. This stipulation was based on the consideration that China's original production forces were at a very low developmental level, and the reform of hundreds of millions of individual peasants and handicraftsmen required arduous and meticulous work. This task could be realized only through long-term efforts, estimated at the time to take three five-year plan periods, or fifteen years, plus three years of restoration, a total of eighteen years. This was a comparatively careful estimate. Compared with the original plan whereby China would first spend fifteen or twenty years on new democratic construction and then carry out and accomplish socialist transformation in one step, there was change in concrete steps and methods, but the estimated time needed was roughly the same. After the general line for the transitional period was put forward, extensive and intensive publicity and educational work was conducted among the whole Party and people throughout the country. Unity of understanding was quickly achieved within the Party and support was received from the populace nationwide for six FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 445 line which became the new programme for uniting and mobilizing the entire population in the effort to build a great socialist new China.

Planned Economic Construction and the Start of Socialist Industrialization

On January 1 1953, in an editorial of Renmin Ribao (People s Daily) the Party and government announced: China has begun implement the First Five-Year Plan for national construction. At the 4th Session of the 1st National Committee of theChmese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Zhou tmai minted out "The vear of 1953 is the starting year for the First Five-Year Plan.... Mobilizing the working class and the people _of the whole country in the concentrated effort to overcome 'Jiff culties and work lo fulfil and overfulfil the annual 1953 construe don plan is the overriding task facing us that will run through the whole year." The following year, at the 1st Session of the Is National People's Congress, he further noted since implementation had begun of the First Five- ear > f construction work has held the primary position in the life of the whole country." The whole Party and entire populace turned their attention to the task of socialist industrialization joyous y greeting and plunging into the upsurge of large-scale and planned economic construction for New China. The First Five-Year Plan The drafting work of the First Five-Year PlanM (1953-57) was conducted under the guidance of Zhou Enlai and Chen , Y nn. The work started in 1951. In December 1952, the Party Uentrai Committee issued the Instruction on the Drafting of the 195 Plan and the Outline of the Long-Term Programme In Apr 1953 the Parly Central Committee approved the broadcasting of highlights of 1953 national economic plan. The general line put forward during this period by the Party Central Committee for the transitional period was clearly defined: The gradual realization of state socialist industrialization forms the main body of the general line. According to the spirit of the related instructions of the Party Central Committee, we, on the one hand, initially drafted and began to implement the First Five-Year Plan; on the other hand, we continued to constantly discuss and revise the proposals. The work lasted four years and the text of the plan was changed five times, being basically finalized in September 1954. Following its consideration and approval by the National Representative Conference of the Party in March 1955, the plan was formally discussed and adopted at the 2nd Session of the 1st National People's Congress held in July that same year. The NPC was unanimous in agreeing that the plan drawn up under the auspices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China "is a programme of decisive significance whereby the people of the entire country arc working for the fulfilment of general tasks for the transitional period. It is a plan for peaceful economic and cultural construction.' The guiding principle and basic tasks for the First Five-Year Plan entailed: Concentrating major efforts on developing heavy industry and establishing an initial foundation for state industrialization and modernization of national delcnce; appropriately developing communications and transportation services, light industry, agriculture and commerce; suitably training construction personnel; systematically promoting cooperatives for agriculture and handicrafts; continuing to carry out transformation of capitalist industry and commerce; ensuring steady growth of the share of socialist sectors in the national economy, and simultaneously correctly giving play to the role of individual agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce; and ensuring a gradual rise in the level of the people's material and cultural life on the basis of developing production. ( 1 ) The Party determined at that time to take industrialization as the main task of overall economic construction and concentrated major efforts on developing heavy industry. This was partly due to the influence of Soviet construction expertise and also 447 Npr-ause China's industrial foundation, particularly for heavy b nnstrv was very weak. In order to acquire a material base f reezing industrialization by relying on the nation's own f ,1, pverv nossible means had to be tried to achieve major Xtld development of heavy industry. When China started the First Five-Year Plan, although industry had been restored Ld had surpassed record levels, planned industrialization took off at a very low point. In 1952, the share of modern industry in tie total output worth of China's agriculture and industry was a mere 26 6 percent, and that of heavy industry m total "dustnal output value was only 35.5 percent. In the Soviet Union these figures had reached 45.2 percent and 39.5 percent, respectively, in8 1928 before that nation started its First Five-Year Plan. 1952 the per-capita output of many major mdustnal products of Chma notPonly lagged far behind countries but was also lower than India s 1950 level. For exam pie the per-capita steel output of China was 2.37 °t India and the United States, the respective figures were: 4 kg ; and 538 3 kg. In terms of power output, China had 2.76 kwh, India 10 9 kwh and the United States, 2,949 kwh. A paragraph written by Mao Zedong to describe this situadon had a Prf°un^PreS£ sion on the people: "What can we make at present? We can make tables and chairs, tea bowls and teapots, grow tod grair . and grind it into flour, we can also make paper bu we cannot manufacture even a motor vehicle, an aircraft, a ank 01 ^ tractor"'5 The Chinese people, of course, were eager to quickly change this situation. Light industry had some foundation, then limited by market and raw material supplies The 'ltdizauon rate for equipment was very low and the potential for increased production very great. It was thought that to mere ase njgnflilm* production, main reliance could only be placed °n the work enthusiasm of the peasants and their investment of funds. Such being the case, during the First Five-Year Plan, there was the objective possibility for the state to concentrate its mam effort on developing heavy industry. The prevailing tense international situation and imperialists' threat of armed aggression compeUed greater thought being given to the construction of heavy industry essential for the modernization of national defence. The plan stipulated that during the five years, on the one hand China would build a number of new industrial departments on a grand scale and with advanced technology, while on the other hand, the nation should use modern, advanced technology to expand and transform existing industrial departments. The nation should make rational use of and rebuild existing industrial foundations in northeast China, Shanghai and other coastal cities, and also begin to erect new hinterland industrial bases to greatly increase China's industrial production capacity and initially rectify the irrational distribution of industries which were nearly all concentrated in the coastal areas and northeast China. The plan stipulated that during the five years the total value of state investment in economic and cultural construction would hit 76.64 billion yuan. This equalled over 700 million taels (1 tael= 1.1023 ounces) of gold, an unprecedented amount in Chinese history. Of the capital construction investment, 58.2 percent was for industry, of which 88.8 percent was for heavy industry. Giving priority to the promotion of heavy industry did not mean it would be developed in isolation. There had to be overall consideration and comprehensive arrangements to achieve a total balance among the various closely-interlinked national economic departments. The First Five-Year Plan stipulated that while giving priority to the growth of heavy industry, the nation should appropriately develop agriculture, light industry, transportation, post and telecommunications, and commerce as well as cultural and educational undertakings. Out of total capital construction investment, 7.6 percent was for agriculture, forestry and water conservancy departments, 19.2 percent for transportation, post and telecommunications departments, 3 percent for banking and trade departments, and 7.2 percent for cultural and educational departments. Great attention was also paid to market stability, and emphasis was laid on the four major balances of finance, credit, foreign exchange and materials so the national economy could develop proportionally and in a planned and co-ordinated way. (2) The Party emphasized that the scale and speed of economic 449 construction must be based on actual conditions with accurate estimates of potential increase in subjective strength. Serious shortages in funds, machinery, equipment and technical personnel were an important factor restricting economic construction. The blockade and discrimination imposed on us by the United States and other developed capitalist countries in the fields of economic, technological and scientific exchange were also major restrictive factors. Action had to be based on capability and reality. On the question concerning speed of development, a lack of experience and constant hopes to quickly change China's poor and backward state, meant that consideration was usually first given to needs and less attention paid to objective limitations and actual potential. For example, when the plan was first drafted, it proposed that industrial production should increase at an average annual rate of over 20 percent and agricultural production at 7 percent. This plan was drawn up roughly in reference to the 1950-1952 growth rate. But that was a high speed of recovery which was unrealistic to want to maintain for planned economic construction after restoration. At that time, expectations for increased industrial production were placed mainly on putting newly built projects into operation. There was overanticipation of the speed with which new factories would start up production. In particular, extravagant hopes were entertained tor rapid increase in agricultural production, and the disadvantageous factors that restricted such increase were underestimated. After careful investigations and repeated calculations and in view of natural disasters causing the failure to fulfil the planned main annual targets for agricultural production in 1953 and 1954, it was finally decided that industrial production should increase at an average annual rate of 14.7 percent. Of this, 70 percent should come from tapping the potential of existing enterprises, while agricultural production should increase at an average annual rate of 4.3 percent. Such a growth rate was relatively high compared with equivalent rates for many countries. It was, however, in keeping with China's reality and so could be fulfilled. (3) In economic construction, the Party adhered to the policy of relying mainly on China's own efforts while seeking assistance from abroad. The drafting and implementation of the First FiveYear Plan received great help from the Soviet government. Negotiation between China and the Soviet Union determined that the Soviet Union helped China build 156 projects. These constituted the core of industrial construction during the First FiveYear Plan (part of which needed to be carried over to the Second Five-Year Plan). For the building of these projects, the Soviet side not only provided loans, but gave concrete guidance and help in prospecting for natural resources, the selection of factory sites, technical design, the supply of machinery and equipment, and aid in construction and installation, personnel training and placing factories into trial run and operation. During the First Five-Year Plan period, the Soviet Union dispatched 3,000 technical experts to China, while China sent more than 7,000 students and 5,000 trainees to the Soviet Union. This was a glorious page in the history of friendship between the Chinese and Soviet peoples. However, the Party still insisted on and emphasized the need to rely mainly on the nation's efforts and disapproved of dependence on Soviet aid. During the First Five-Year Plan period, foreign loans accounted for only 2.7 percent of the state's total financial revenue. China began in 1955 to repay these loans annually with favourable balance of trade with the Soviet Union. In projects designed and equipped with Soviet help, 20 to 30 percent of the volume of design work and 30 to 50 percent of machinery and equipment came from China itself. There was no dependence on foreign aid for whatever the nation could supply. In 1956, the Party Central Committee further clearly put forward the principle of establishing an independent, comprehensive industrial system. These policies and measures were of far-reaching significance in enabling China to adhere to its independent stand in the subsequent radical change in international relations. (4) The Party called for correct handling of the relations between accumulation and consumption in planned economic construction and an appropriate combination of production growth with improved living standard. The two were fundamentally identical, since the basic aim of socialist construction is to gradually meet people's growing material and cultural needs and 451 to bring about a better life for the populace. However, in the midst of them there also exist contradictions between immediate ^nd long-term interests, and between local and overall interests. Mishandling of these would either hinder the development of Jltional construction or affect improvement of the people s live lihood In order to accumulate construction tunds, the people of he whole country had to work hard, practise economy, be industrious and thrifty and subordinate personal interests to the fun damental, long-term interests of national construction. Necessary limitations had to be put to the range of improvement of immediate living standards. In the process of continuous expansion, there should also be appropriate improvements in living standards through developing production and raising iabom productivity. There should be no undue rise in accumulation at the expense of consumption, which would dampen the people s enthusiasm for building socialism. At .he beginning of the . Fim FiveYear Plan, the construction scale was very big, but the share o accumulation in the entire national income went up only slightly in 1953 compared with 1952, an appropriate scale for the time. The above-mentioned guidelines were based on reality m China and embodied the consistent ideological tenet of integrating the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of national construction. Upsurge in Industrial Construction Inspired by the initial implementation of the First Five-Year Plan and in the process of publicizing and studying the Party s general line for the transitional period, a lively atmosphere quick fy prevailed throughout the nation's rural and urban areas for participation and support for state industrial construction. The working class took the lead. Workers were the "ding class of the state, as well as the main force on. the industrial front T hey were known by people of alt social strata as •'elder brothers." They not only strove to raise their own ideological consciousness but tried hard to lift their educational levels and levels of scientific and technical knowledge. In 1953, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, in accordance with the spirit of the Party Central Committee's instruction on increasing production and practising strict economy, issued an Emergency Circular on Further Launching the Labour Emulation Drive for Increasing Production and Practising Economy to Ensure an All-Round Fulfilment of State Production Plans. In April 1954, Wang Chonglun of Anshan Iron and Steel Company and six other national industrial model workers presented a proposal to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions for launching a technical innovation movement which took off from the vigorous labour emulation drive going on among the working class. The Party Central Committee called upon Party committees at all levels to follow the pattern of selecting large numbers of cadres for the army during the war years. It was to be most determined to pick outstanding cadres from various fields and assign them to work on the industrial front and train them to become key leading members for industrial construction. At that time, as many as 10,000 cadres were assembled at one time nationwide. The Party called on experienced and new cadres to assiduously study industrial construction. At the National Representative Conference of the Party held in 1955, Mao Zedong stressed: "We have entered a new historical period in which we should diligently study socialist industrialization, socialist transformation, modern national defence and begin to study atomic energy. To keep track of this new situation, we should immerse ourselves in these fields and become experts. These are our tasks." Engineering and technical personnel and scientific workers were to give full play to their abilities in industrialization. Large numbers of graduates from institutions of higher learning and various professional and technical schools accepted state assignments. Braving all hardships, they joyously hurried to the industrial construction front in various parts of the country. University students of the science and engineering disciplines urgently needed in construction were even graduated and assigned jobs one year ahead of schedule in 1952 and 1953. The vanguards of construction, the geological prospecting teams, were an example of how this worked. In old China, there were a mere 200-odd CHAPTER SIX FOUNDING OF Pile AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 453 nrc In just a few years, the number quickly increased to fns of thousands of prospectors through the transfer of profesionals front other fields, assignment of college graduates special led in geology and who had been transferred from other dtsetnltne to study geology, as well as adoption of large-scale training. P Peasants also showed great concern for industrial construction, thinking that once developed it might provide chemical fertilizers mechanization for farming, electric lighting in homes and telephones They supported industrial construction by striving to increase production and actively paying agricultural tax and selling grain and cotton to the state. The existence of a disparity between the prices of industrial and agricultural products became an TZrtant channel for the peasants to contribute energy to state and industrial construction. In the initial development industrial construction, particularly in mining areas, large nurn bers of young peasants were accepted into the fast expanding "dn^sC 'pouring in from the industrial construction front. On December 26, 1953, the three major projects the heavv rolling mill, the seamless steel tube factory, and the No. ircni-smelting "urnaee-of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company held the inauguration ceremony. They formed the fust batch o important projects in China's heavy industrial construction to be completed and go into production. They greatly northeast iron and steel base with Anshan Iron and Steel Compa ny in the centre. This was a victory of important significance for the take-off of New China's socialist industrialization. All t workers of the company wrote to Chairman Mao Zedong reporting on this good news, and Mao Zedong sent a congratulatory telegram in reply. Soviet experts contributed much to the recon struction of the Anshan Company. The Soviet government sent a delegation to attend the celebration meeting. The construction of the Baotou Iron and Steel Company in north China and the Wuhan Iron and Steel Company in central-south China also formally started, making a good beginning for the of large iron and steel bases in the hinterland. By 1956 building had been completed and production begun at the Changchun Automobile Manufacturing Factory, China's first plant producing heavy-duty trucks. China's first jet plane had been successfully manufactured by China's first aircraft manufactory. The Shenyang No. 1 Machine Tool Plant, China's first factory manufacturing machine tools, and the Beijing Electronic Tube Factory, which engaged in mass production of electronic tubes, all went into operation in 1956. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge spanning north and south was completed in 1957, making it possible for railways to run the entire length of the country. The completion and opening to traffic of the Qinghai-Tibet, Xikang-Tibet and Xinjiang-Tibet highways linked Tibet with the hinterland. There were countless small and large projects, with one major project started or completed each day, on average. In short, although New China's industrialization took off with a weak foundation, faced multi-sided restrictive factors and arduous tasks, many favourable conditions existed. The most crucial had been the enthusiastic support of the people throughout the country for the task put forward by the Party for socialist industrialization, the main body of the general line and general tasks for the transitional period. As the entire Party and people of the whole country arduously struggled with one heart and one mind, China's industrialization programme made steady progress. VI. CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION AND DIPLOMATIC WORK The upsurge of economic construction was followed by a high tide of cultural construction. Construction in other fields also developed appropriately. Cultural and Ideological Construction Cultural construction required first fitting and promoting political change. This meant a change from old China to New China and the transition from new democracy to socialism. Second, it q^PTER six FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 455 ..mailed suiting and boosting economic construction. These meant preparation for and implementation of the First Five-Year Plam P ffter the founding of New China, the Party proposed tha "reform of the old school education and of the old cultural institutions in our society should be conducted carefully s ep by step, and all patriotic ^intellectuals should be won over to the ^IiTaddition'to state leadership over schools, abolition of the oBginal reactionary political education, and the estabhshmen and strengthening of revolutionary political education, reform t of educational work included two main aspects. One was to solve the problem of opening the door of education to the broad masses of workers and peasants. Thus, the Party called for great efforts to launch an anti-illiteracy campaign, develop primary and midd schools and expand the enrolment of chddren of workers^ peasants. It set up worker and peasant accelerated middle schools men worker and peasant cadre remedial classes and classes for furthering their technical know-how, creating special a™nue!_‘° raise the educational levels of worker and peasant cadres. The other aspect was the development and reform of higher education. In 1952 readjustments of colleges and departments were conducted on a national scale. The policy was directed mainly a training industrial personnel and teachers, developing special colleges and training schools, consolidating and strengthening umversiUes and forming a system encompassing engineering colleges with comprehensive faculties. Colleges and universities substantially "sed their enrolments as a result. All these measures were aimed at meeting the urgent needs of planned economic construe tion and construction personnel for industrialization. For scientific work, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was set up shortly after the founding of New China. In the spring o 1954, in transmitting the report submitted by tHe-leading Pa y group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Party Centra Committee issued this instruction: "As the stales planned nomie construction has begun, we must make great e Thir s to develop natural sciences, to bring about constant development of production technology and help with all-round understanding and more effective use of natural resources. china scientific foundation has been weak. since bringing up researchers the accumulation research experience require a considerably long period time we must work hard inspire ourselves to catch otherwise our backward science will hold development national construction. written instruction also systematically expounded party policy uniting with scientists principle energetically training new forces that establishing system chinese academy sciences at centre including institutions higher learning sections production departments. in art literature continued advocate served workers peasants soldiers people general. it set forth hundred flowers bloom weeding through old bring new. medical health put forward three major principles of gearing needs prevention first western medicines. guided by these policies remarkable achievements were gained reform culture public services. intellectuals ideological remoulding was important condition for completion democratic reforms all fields gradual industrialization country. initial after founding greater section exhibited soaring patriotic fervour most accomplished refused flee kuomintang instead remained mainland greet liberation. return home large numbers famous intelligentsia li siguang lao she participate construction clear proof this. enthusiastic about study desired understand society communist marxism-leninism mao zedong thought. extensively organized them basic marxism policies. arranged take part or visit mass movements struggle resist u.s. chalymi six prc transition socialism egression aid korea agrarian suppression hunter-revolutionaries. they gain education nractice. activities marking anniversary of publication selected="selected" works gave an impetus upsurge history theory parly china. response call twelve professors beijing university september initiated political movement among of university. this followed centred on launched teachers tianjin. entrusted central committee zhou enlai report concerning two cities. light his personal revolution mainly necessity aim reforming thinking intellectuals. he emphasized need draw distinction between enemy repudiate ideas imperialism feudalism bureaucratcapitalism. encouraged nationalist-minded stand closer strive further proletariat. participating sessions felt greatly enlightened inspired. hearing reports studying documents reviewed their conducted criticism self-criticism. summed disseminated nation universities colleges secondary technical schools gradually spreading various circles forming nationwide. came conclusion autumn total percent teaching staff students middle school participated activities. results whole positive. nevertheless had some shortcomings making distinctions right wrong grounds/> criticism. For example, in learning from the Soviet Union, some units demanded that certain biological theories of the Soviet Union be recognized as "proletarian," and others of Western scientists be criticized as "bourgeois." These matters were handled very crudely, with some units adopting mass struggle means and some people were offended. In the process of the movement, the Party took opportune measures to correct the shortcomings, and issued a circular to various work units calling their attention to prevention of such shortcomings. Most intellectuals felt that they had gained something. Through study they had overcome old ideas and accepted new ones, had established the viewpoint of serving the people, knowing their way ahead and gaining strength. In 1951, criticism of the film The Life of Wu Xun was launched in newspapers and magazines. Wu Xun, eulogized by the new movie, became famous for developing school education during the late Qing Dynasty by begging, and was praised as a "perpetually strange beggar" by imperial rulers. Discussion and criticism of this film not only raised the question of how should a historical figure like Wu Xun be evaluated, but extended to the question of how to look upon contemporary Chinese history and the road of Chinese revolution. The criticism became part of the movement of intellectual ideological remoulding. In 1954, starting from giving his support to critical articles by two youths on research on A Dream of Red Mansions, Mao Zedong launched and led an extensive attack on the bourgeois idealism of the Hu Shi school. Hu Shi was the most influential representative of the bourgeoisie in ideological and cultural fields after the May 4th Movement. The issues raised not only concerned how to appraise and study A Dream of Red Mansions, a famous classic Chinese novel. They also concerned the liquidation and criticism of the most influential bourgeois academic school after the May 4th Movement in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, politics and ideology. In these two attacks launched by the Party, the questions raised were important and the work carried out was essential. Launching criticism and discussions in combination with practical examples for study and application of SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 459 Marxism was a method for intellectuals to educate and remould themselves. The two criticisms played a very good role in studyin8 Ind publicizing historical and dialectical materialism and so had their positive aspect. However, the ideological and academic questions they posed were complicated, belonging to the intellectual world Use of the criticism movement to solve them was anoversimplification and one-sided, which made debate in academic fields difficult. The two criticisms turned academic and cultural ques tions into political struggles which they tended to intensify, so they also had their negative aspect. In 1955, another movement was launched to criticize H u Feng's literary and art theory . H u Feng was a progressive literary and art critic who had long participated in the Left-wing literature and art movement. Different opinions and criticisms in progressive literary and artistic circles had circu a cd about his theories. A severe criticism was directed against h 300 000-word letter containing his ideas on the question of literature and art presented by Hu Feng to the Party Central Committee. Very soon the criticism was transformed into exposure and suppre sion of the "Hu Feng counter-revolutionary clique. Thus an ldeo logical debate in the literary and art field was turned into a political struggle; H u Feng and a group of literary and art workers associated with him, including both Party members and non-Party progressive writers, were groundlessly labelled as a ‘‘counter-revolutionary clique," the target of the struggle. It had made no distinction between friends and enemies and confused the two different types of contradictions-contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and contradictions among the people, creating a major case of injustice in ideological and cultural fields after the founding of New ^In^March 1955, the Party Central Committee released the Instruction on Publicizing Materialism and Criticizing Bourgeois Idealism. It emphasized that in order to realize China s socia list construction and transformation, the fundamental task of the Party in ideological work was to publicize matenatem and oppose idealism, so that cadres and the masses would be liberated from the influence of bourgeois ideology and raise their socialist con sciousness. Fulfilment of this task required long-term efforts. With regard to the correct unfolding of academic criticism and discussion, the instruction stipulated a series of principles. Among them were "reasoned and realistic academic criticism and discussion." "Criticism and discussion should lake research work as the basis. Simplistic and rough altitudes should be opposed. Academic controversy should be solved through free discussion, with imposition of administrative orders opposed. Those criticized should be allowed to make counter-criticism, with the latter not suppressed. The few people holding different opinions should be allowed to reserve them, the principle that the minority should be subordinated to the majority not to apply in this regard." During criticism, "We should adhere to the Party's united front policy and the policy of uniting and remoulding intellectuals.... We should draw distinction between political counterrevolutionaries and those who err in academic ideas." In dealing with the latter, "we should ensure they can continue to carry out research useful to society, enjoy respect and give play to their special skills that benefit society and that they can pass on their skills to youth. At the same time, we should encourage them to take an active part in academic criticism and discussion and remould themselves." These stipulations were devised on the basis of summing up experience and lessons while studying a situation and problems before carrying out academic criticism and discussions. They were aimed at correcting and preventing the appearance of deviations in academic criticism and discussions so these would develop along the correct path. They laid the initial groundwork for the presentation for the Party's subsequent policy of "letting a hundred schools of thought contend." However, with the launching of the movement to expose and struggle against the "Hu Feng counter-revolutionary clique," implementation of these stipulations was seriously obstructed and neglected. The Formulation of the First Constitution of the PRC Along with the beginning of large-scale national economic construction, the strengthening of various forms of political construction and further stimulation of public enthusiasm were 46! placed high on the Party's agenda. P m January 1953, in compliance with the proposal of the fentral Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Centra People's Government Council adopted a resolution on convening local people's congresses elected at various levels, and, on this basis holding the National People's Congress. After more than a year's intense work, the 1st Sesston of the 1st NPC was held tn Reiiing in September 1954. , r. . The primary task of the session was to formulate the first Constitution of the People's Republic of China, which is the state's basic law, Mao Zedong delivered an ebuhient opening speech entitled "Strive to Build a Great Socialist Country. L1" Shaoqi made the Report on the Draft Constitution of the People s Republic of China on behalf of the Constitution Drafting Committee, The session adopted the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China, an encapsulation of the historical experience gained in the Chinese people's heroic struggle for the founding of New China over a century and more, as well as a summary of new historical experience gained since the estab hshment of the People's Republic of China. The session affirmed the road traversed by the Chinese Communist Parly in leading the Chinese people in the new democratic revolution and established in legal form the Party's general line for the transitional Penod as general tasks for the entire Chinese people. The Constitut on clearly stipulated: "The People's Republic of China is a peop e s democratic state led by the working class and based on he alliance of workers and peasants.... All power in the Peoples Republic of China belongs to the people The organs through which the people exercise power are the National People Con gress and the local people's congresses.... The National People s Congress, the local people's congresses and other organs of s ate practise democratic centralism." Thus the basic political system of our state was established. The Constitution explicitly stated, "The People's Republic of China, by relying on the organs of state and social forces, and by means of socialist industrialization and transformation, ensures the gradual abolition of systems of exploitation and the building of a socialist society. This set the orientation and way for the nation's transition to socialism. The Constitution also prescribed the fundamental rights and duties of citizens. In short, it embodied two cardinal principles of people's democracy and socialism, recorded the victories of the protracted struggle of the Chinese people and pointed out the correct road for their continued struggle. In line with the Constitution, the session voted for state leaders. Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the People's Republic of China; Zhu De, vice-chairman; Liu Shaoqi, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, while Soong Ching Ling and 12 others became vice-chairmen. Zhou Enlai was decided on as premier after being nominated by Mao Zedong. Following this, the National People's Congress has been the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China and the State Council, originating from the National People's Congress and being the highest administrative organ of the state, that is, the Central People's Government. In accordance with the principles prescribed by the Constitution, multi-faceted construction was carried out in the political field, w'ith the main ones as follows: (I) The People's Political Consultative Conference continued to exert its role. With the convening of the National People's Congress, the CPPCC no longer had to act on its behalf. In December 1954 the CPPCC held the 1st Session of the 2nd National Committee, which discussed and adopted the statutes of the CPPCC. It clearly pointed out that a People's Political Consultative Conference was still necessary as a people's democratic united front organization to unite various ethnic groups of the country, democratic classes, democratic parties, people's organizations, overseas Chinese and other patriotic democratic personages. Its tasks were, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, to continue to consolidate and develop the people's democratic united front, and through the unity of various democratic parties and people's organizations to more extensively unite the entire populace and report the masses' opinions and suggestions to relevant state organs, to conduct consultations on major domestic and internapTER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 463 a , i events and important arrangement of personnel, and to tiona, - the development of the cause of socialism. The ■i0int n elected Mao Zedong as honorary chairman, Zhou E at session elected tviao ^ * Ling and ]4 others as vice« Ch^ The contfhued existence of the People's Political Conchairmen-T conformed with the stipulation of the Conthat The people's democratic united front will continue S v its part " and embodied the system of mult, -party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Taws relating upstate organs were reformulated at the 1st Session nf the 1st NPC These included the Organic Laws of the NPC ^Council, People's governing Criminal^guaranteeing £ sTg—nt i rnmBs— ££•*£, totalled over 35 or about ^rcen, of the nation's total WulattonTh^y ^ ^ During ,he long area, "Veng p h Yarious ethnic groups had gradual— a. «* »" dominated. People of various ethnic groups in China had commonly suffered from imperialist aggression. Around the time of the founding of New China, imperialist powers still carried out various scheming activities among some minority nationalities instigating so-called "national independence" in a vain attempt to split China up. Proceeding from this reality and in accord with its consistent stand of ethnic equality and unity, the Party decided that regional national autonomy would form the basic policy for solving China's nationality question. In other words, regional national autonomy was introduced in regions where minority nationalities lived in compact communities, within the unified big family of the motherland. Under the unified leadership of the Central People's Government, national autonomous regions and autonomous organizations at different levels were established in accordance with the sizes of population and regions inhabited by ethnic groups. This policy made it possible to ensure the unification of the motherland and the unity of all nationalities in order to jointly resist imperialist aggression plus develop economic and cultural construction. It also ensured the equal status of all nationalities and satisfied the desire of minority peoples to become masters of their own affairs. This was an important creation made by the Party in solving China's national problem in the light of Chinese history and reality and by applying MarxistLeninist theory to national problems. This Party proposition had been accepted by the Common Programme in the early period after the founding of New China. In accordance with the principled stipulations of the Common Programme on national policy, and after summing up the experience gained since the establishment of the inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the first national autonomous government at the provincial level founded in May 1947, the Central People's Government, in August 1952, promulgated the Outline for the Implementation of Regional National Autonomy in the People's Republic of China. The Constitution stipulated further measures on regional national autonomy and the political, economic and cultural construction for various minority nationalities in addition to the Common Programme. By September 1956, China had set up the Inner LrrEK SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 465 , -nlia Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autono^ Region, 27 autonomous prefectures and 43 autonomous "nunties Bv 1958, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Cn N^naxia Hui Autonomous Region had been established. The S? Autonomous Region, for which the Preparatory Committee cet un in 1956, was formally established in 1 165. (IV) Revolutionization, Regularization and Modernization of '^The Constitution stipulated: "The armed forces of the People's Republic of China belong lo the people. Their tasks arel° defend I |L achievements of the people's revolution and national co struction and defend the state's sovereignty, territorial integrity and security" If countries openly hostile to the PRC engage 1 arms expansion and war preparations and pose a threat to China s security, the nation cannot go without powerful, modern iiationa defence forces. Therefore China had to build up land, air naval forces strong enough to defend China's territorial inlegn y and defend air and sea territory against ‘^on. During the period of peaceful construction, China s powerful P^A^tchhad Cr tempered m the People's War of Liberation and the War to Resist U S Aggression and Aid Korea, gained new achievements hi its advance along the road to revolutionization, standardiza tion and modernization. Party Building Strengthening the building of the Party and Party unity was the basic condition for fulfilling the tasks of industrialization i and [ socialist transformation set down in the Party's general line tor * Ate " n^of New China, the Party paid great aliention to the construction of Party organization when it was n Dower In 1950, as some within the Party had become afroga" and conceited having been heralded as heroes and given the st\ of bureaucracy and commandism under the nationw.de victory for the revolution, the Party Central Committee issued a senes of instructions concerning building up of the Party. A campaign was launched in the Party to correct the styles of Party cadres. In the spring of 1951, the Party Central Committee held the First National Organizational Work Conference. It was decided to conduct a general rectification of the grass-root organizations of the Party and education on the eight requirements for Communist Party members, particularly with regard to the future of socialism and communism. On the basis of such education, conscientious examination and registration were carried out for Party members. Those who committed various errors and disqualified members were dealt with organizationally. Party consolidation, begun in the latter half of 1951, was carried out in stages and by groups. In work units, where the movement against the "three evils" was under way, Party consolidation took place in combination with the movement. By the spring of 1954, it had been basically concluded. Of the 6.5 million Party members, 410,000 were expelled from or asked to withdraw from the Party. Just when the general line for the transitional period had been put forward, the serious event of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi carrying out anti-Party, splittist activities took place within the Party. Gao Gang and Rao Shushi were transferred, successively, in late 1952 and early 1953 from their posts as top Party and government leaders of northeast and east China to work in central departments. Gao Gang was appointed chairman of the State Planning Commission and Rao Shushi head of the Organizational Department of the CPC Central Committee. At that time, the Party Central Committee was prepared to hold the 1st National People's congress and the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Spying out the situation, Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, inflated with personal ambition, miscalculated that the time had come for them to usurp supreme Party and state leadership. At the National Financial and Economic Conference held in the summer of 1953, Gao Gang and a handful of his followers delivered various unprincipled statements and created internal Party disputes. Outside the meeting, they spread rumours, alleging that there were so-called "circles" among the central authorities, tarnishing the prestige of these entities and in particular attacking Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai of the leading core of the central government while lavishing praise on Gao Gang himself. At the National Organizational Work Conference in the autumn of the same year, Rao Shushi, taking co-ordinated action, also engaged in activities against Liu Shaoqi. After the National Financial and Economic Conference, Gao Gang went to south China, sowing discord in east and central-south China, attempting to incite resentment among high-ranking officials against the central government. He spread the so-called "army-Party theory," which divided the Communist Party of China into the "Party of the base area and the army" and the "Party of the white area." This ignored the fact that the army was established and led by the Party but rather asserted that the Party was created by the army. Gao Gang described himself as a representative of the "base area and army Party." He claimed that the leading organs of the Party Central Committee and the state weere now in the hands of the "white area Party" and because of this, the Party Central Committee should be "regrouped." In December, Mao Zedong made the usual proposal that Liu Shaoqi be entrusted to take charge of the Party Central Committee's work on his behalf during his leave. Gao Gang appeared personally to oppose this and engaged in clandestine activities, demanding that he be appointed the Party General Secretary or vice-chairman and that the candidate for the premier of the Government Administration Council be changed. In December 1953, the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee exposed the anti-Party splittist activities of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi. The 4th Plenary Session of the 7th Party Central Committee held in February 1954 further exposed and criticized Gao Gang and Rao Shushi. It unanimously adopted the Resolution on Strengthening Party Unity. The resolution stressed that Party unity is the life of the Party and demanded that the whole Party, especially high-ranking Party cadres, raise their consciousness to safeguard Party unity and to wage resolute struggle against all words and deeds that undermined Party unity, tarnished the prestige of the Party Central Committee and interfered with the unified leadership of the Party Central Committee. After the conference, the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee held separate forums on the question of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, continuing to expose and verify the facts about their scheming. At the same time it awaited their awakening, education was being conducted. Gao Gang, however, rejected Party education, and finally alienated himself trom the Party and the people by his shameful suicide. In March 1955, a resolution on expelling Gao Gang and Rao Shushi from the Party and removing them from all their posts was adopted at the National Party Representative Conference. In order to strengthen supervision over Party members, particularly high-ranking Party cadres, the National Party Representative Conference decided to set up central and local supervisory committees at various levels, and elected the central supervisory committee with Dong Biwu as its secretary. The anti-Gao Gang and anti-Rao Shushi struggle was carried out under the principle of "learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing sickness to save the patient," with the emphasis on drawing on ideological and political lessons, thereby educating the whole Party, and in particular high-ranking Party cadres. This was a comparatively successful and healthy innerParty struggle carried out after the Chinese Communist Part> wielded power over the whole country. Generally speaking, in the years after the founding of New China, the mental outlook of all Party members was relatively good. They maintained the styles of hard work and close ties with the masses which were developed during the revolutionary war years. The Party paid close attention to educating Party members and the struggle to expel degenerates from Party ranks. The PartyCentral Committee continued to keep up, under the condition of wielding political power over the whole country, the strong unity formed during the Yanan rectification campaign and following the Seventh Party Congress. Careerists Gao Gang and Rao Shushi were expelled from the Party and few in leading Party levels were implicated. As a result, Party unity, far from being harmed, was strengthened. Differences in policies and work at the Party leadership could be ironed out and co-ordination of opinions and unity of understanding achieved through normal inner-Party 469 Irussion. A strongly united Party, a Party taking united action dnd working hard for the correct goal it had set formed the most "nortant guarantee for the smooth progress of various work m the early period after the founding of New China. Diplomatic Work Tn order to create favourable international conditions for planned economic construction, the Party called for various activities and struggles in the diplomatic Held. ... The end of the Korean War saw some easing of tension in Asia The United States, however, not only did not wish to withdraw its troops from Korea for the peaceful solution of the Korean question, but kept its fleet in the laiwan Straits intervening in China's internal affairs. Moreover, it attempted to proceed from Indochina to pose a military threat against China and maintain the tense international situation. This ran counter to the wishes of most countries and people around the world, particularly those in Asia and Africa so was unpopular The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, which had the grea support of China, waged resolute struggle against the French colonial aggressor troops and won decisive victory in 1954. In April 1954, prompted by the Soviet Union, a conference on the Korean question and the Indochina issue was held m Geneva, attended by foreign ministers of China, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and related countries. This important conference was one which the People s Republic of China attended for the first time in the status and capacity as one of the five major powers to discuss international issues. During the conference, the Chinese delegation led by Zhou Enlai was active diplomatically. Due to U.S. obstruction, the conference failed to reach an agreement on the political solution of the Korean issue, but reached one on restoration of peace in Indochina. France withdrew its troops from the three countries of Indochina, recognized their national rights, thus putting an end to the colonial war France had waged for many years in this region. In order to develop relations with newly emerging independent countries, especially neighbouring nations, in December 1953, the Chinese government in discussions with India on relations of the two countries in the Tibet region, first proposed the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. These included mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, noninterference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. They won favour with the Indian side. In June 1954, Zhou Enlai visited India and Burma on invitation. He issued joint statements, respectively, with the Prime Ministers of the two countries. There was unanimous agreement that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence should be the basis guiding relations and they were proposed as the norm for handling international relations, a move with extensive and far-reaching significance. With national liberation movements surging in Asia and Africa, in April 1955, heads of government from 29 Asian and African countries with similar historical backgrounds held a conference in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss questions of common concern, including the defence of peace, struggle tor national independence and national economic development. The Chinese delegation headed by Zhou Enlai attended the conference. In the face of imperialist sabotage of the conference plus complex differences among the participating countries, Zhou Enlai unequivocally put forward the policy of "seeking common ground while reserving differences." He called upon various nations to put aside differences while strengthening unity and cooperation in the struggle against colonialism for the common interest and thus brought the conference to a successful conclusion. The conference adopted a final communique, putting forward ten principles for promoting world peace and cooperation. These' actually embodied and extended the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. During the conference, the Chinese delegation established contacts with participating countries. It also declared that the Chinese people did not want to go to war with the United States and that China was willing to discuss with the United States matters concerning the relaxation of the tense 471 situation in the Taiwan area. The declaration led to the ambaf f dorial talks between China and the United States, which began in AUfhese1fruitful diplomatic activities promoted relaxation of the tense international situation and expansion of China's ties with the world. They demonstrated China's important role in international affairs and created the favourable external environment for China's peaceful construction.

Socialist Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Capitalist Industry and Commerce

Along with the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan and start of socialist industrialization, and publicity about the general line for the transitional period, the systematic socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft and capitalist industry and commerce also took off. Steady Progress of Agricultural Cooperative Movement In 1953, the Party adopted, in succession, two resolutions on the agricultural cooperative movement. The first was the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Mutual-Aid and Cooperation in Agricultural Production published in the spring of 1953. The second was the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Developing Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives, published at the end of 1953. The mutual-aid and cooperative movement in China's rural areas made steady progress under the guidance of these two resolutions. . . . .. Do The first resolution originated as a draft within the y in December 1951. It was brought up against a backdrop of different views on the nature and future of the labour mutualaid organizations which had undergone great development » old liberated areas of the countryside. Individual peasants ww to "get organized" before they could eliminate poverty and attain prosperity. The long-term goal of such organization was collectivization and socialization. The Party consistently advocated these, with no opinion to the contrary. Differences lay in what steps should be taken. In old liberated rural areas, along with restoration and growth of the economy, there was laxity in private-based mutual-aid organizations and spontaneous development towards rich peasants. Faced by this situation, some comrades proposed guiding these mutual-aid organizations to a more advanced level. They were then mainly perennial mutual-aid teams with a small number of cooperatives pooling land. Measures which would raise public accumulation of mutual-aid teams and expand the percentage of cooperatives' distribution according to work should be adopted to gradually overcome self initiative by peasants, slowly shaking, weakening and even negating the private foundation of mutual-aid team organization. Some comrades opposed these views, thinking the main issue in consolidation of mutual-aid teams was to substantiate their production contents, and not shake their private foundation. This latter task and collectivization of agriculture were future tasks, requiring great development of state industry and massive use of agricultural machinery. Differences of opinions also found expression among leaders of the central authorities. The Secretariat of the Central Committee carried out conscientious discussion of differences, took the opinions of various parties into consideration and reached a common understanding. On this basis, the CPC Central Committee held the first conference on agricultural mutual-aid and cooperation in September 1951. The abovementioned resolution draft resulted. The guiding thought which served as the basic starting point of the draft was that of paying attention to the two types of initiatives. The production enthusiasm of the Chinese peasants roused on the basis of agrarian reform was expressed in two areas. One was enthusiasm for the individual economy and the other was enthusiasm for labour mutual-aid. Under Chinese economic conditions, a substantial individual peasant economy would exist cHApTBR SIX FOUNDING OF PRC. AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 473 for a long period of time, so its popularity with peasants was unavoidable. The Party understood the traits of the peasants as orivate property owners and stated that their fervour for the individual sector of the economy must not be neglected and rudely dampened. It adhered to the policy of firmly uniting with middle income peasants and permitting development of rich peasants. The Party had invariably maintained it necessary to encourage organization and develop peasant enthusiasm for mutual-aid labour in order to overcome difficulties that lay in decentralized management, help poverty-stricken peasants increase production and embark on the road to ample food and clothing; and, to enable the country to get more food and rawmaterials, it is necessary to encourage the peasants to "get organized," to develop the peasants' enthusiasm for labour mutual aid. This mutual-aid labour was based on the individual sector of the economy (peasant private property). Its future development entailed agricultural collectivization and socialist transformation. The draft demanded that labour mutual-aid teams be developed in a guided way and on a large scale across the country, and that in areas where the masses had rich experience in mutual aid and where the leadership backbone force was strong, agricultural producers' cooperatives formed by pooling of land as shares should be selectively developed. In addition, the draft also stated that in places with the full agreement of the peasants and the availability of machinery, it was all right to trial-establish a few socialist collective farms. The resolution draft analysed the two tendencies towards the question of agricultural mutual aid and cooperation. One was a negative attitude which failed to see this was the way by which the Party guided the peasants to advance gradually from the individual peasant economy to a large-scale collective mechanized economy, denying that various existing agricultural producers' cooperatives were a form of transition to socialist agriculture. The second was the impetuous attitude, adopted by those who ignored essential conditions, such as voluntary participation by peasant and economic preparation. Such people prematurely and unduly tried to rescind or restrict the private property of peasants who joined cooperatives, thinking that socialism could be fully accomplished in the countryside in one go. The Party criticized these two extreme tendencies and demanded that agricultural mutual aid and cooperation be carried out as a major matter in accordance with the necessity and possibility of production development. It was to be on the guiding principle of vigorous development and steady progress and the tenet of voluntary participation and mutual benefit, adopting the method of demonstrations of models and gradual popularization. After more than a year of trials, the Party believed that practice proved the correctness of the guiding principle set by the resolution draft, which was made public as a formal resolution in the spring of 1953. When it was published, the term "mechanization conditions" required for the trial operation of socialist collective farms was changed into "suitable economic conditions." This showed that the Party's view on the use of machinery as a prerequisite for operation of advanced cooperatives had changed somewhat. In 1953, after the Party's general line for the transitional period was published, the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Developing Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives was adopted and published in December alongside the CPC Central Committee's major decision on the implementation of state monopoly on the purchase and marketing of grain during the emergence of a tense situation in the food market. The resolution stressed that serious contradictions had been exposed with increasing clarity between the individual agricultural economy and the growing needs for socialist industrialization. In order to further raise agricultural productive forces and gradually overcome the disparity between agriculture and industrial development, the most fundamental task of the Party in its rural work was to use the easily comprehensible principles and methods acceptable to peasants to educate and urge them to become organized and slowly carry out the socialist transformation of agriculture. The resolution placed the hope for increased agricultural production and common prosperity on the cooperative movement. After summing up China's experience gained in mutual aid and cooperative movement, the resolution pointed out: 475 ttThe r0ad to the gradual realization of the socialist transforma™ of agriculture as pointed out by the Party leads from tem* arv mutual-aid teams of simple and common labour to perenmutual-aid teams with a small amount of public property aiined through division of work on the basis of common labour, ft then moves on to agricultural producers' cooperatives with nnoled land as shares, unified management and some public nrooerty, and then to advanced agricultural producers cooperatives (ie collective farms) under collective public ownership, which is socialism in its full sense. This road of development from socialist embryo to greater socialist factors to full-blown socialist cooperatives, is a path charted by our Party for the gradual realization of the socialist transformation of agriculture. I he resolution served to turn more attention to the establishment of primary agricultural producers' cooperatives, confirming that these had demonstrated their superiority during their trial operation and in the process of their early development. This proved they were suitable forms for guiding the peasants to effect transition to advanced cooperatives that were socialist m a fully real sense. They thus increasingly became an important link in the Party's lead to the further advance of the mutual aid and cooperative movement. . . . Under the guidance of the two resolutions, the agricultural cooperative movement had made great progress and was basically sound during this period. Some spontaneous deviations appeared momentarily in 1953 but were quickly corrected. The Party Central Committee set up a rural work department with Deng Zihui as its head, which followed the development of and gave concrete guidance to the movement. While actively promoting mutual aid and cooperation, the Party particularly stressed that agricultural production was the overriding work in rural areas, while other kinds of work were conducted around and served agricultural production. The fundamental criterion for judging whether or not mutual aid and cooperation was successful was increase in production. According to statistics releasedl at the end of 1954 the number of mutual-aid teams had increased from over 4 million at the end of 1951 to nearly 10 million, that of primary cooperatives from over 300 in 1951 to over 14,000 in 1953 and then 100,000 in the autumn of 1954, to 480,000 at the end of 1954. Peasant households participating in mutual-aid teams and cooperatives jumped from 21 million in late 1951 to 70 million at the end of 1954. Their percentage of the nation's total farm households increased from 19.2 percent to 60.3 percent. Many statistical materials available at that time showed that over 80 percent of cooperatives increased production and income. Generally speaking, mutual-aid teams did better than individual farming, and cooperatives excelled mutual-aid teams. That was why the mutual-aid and cooperative movement was welcomed by the broad masses of the poor peasants who were eager to join them. In many villages in the old liberated areas, 60-70 percent and even 80 percent of peasant households joined cooperatives in what had become a mass movement. In the spring of 1955, the number of primary cooperatives had grown to 670,000 nationwide. The CPC Central Committee decided to consolidate the agricultural producers' cooperatives. This was because, during the process of major development of cooperatives, rough work was unavoidable in new cooperatives. In addition, in 1954 the state purchased 3.5 billion kg of grain above quota, causing complaints from peasants. Phenomena that deserved serious attention, such as abnormal slaughter of pigs and cattle, and neglect of collection of manure and preparations for ploughing and sowing, had appeared in some places. The principles for consolidation were: In view of conditions in difiereni areas, either temporarily cease development, go all out to consolidate or appropriately reduce numbers and scale or continue promotion in the course of consolidation. This was known as "cessation, contraction and development." After initial consolidation on this basis, the number of the nation's cooperatives had been cut by 20,000, and initially consolidated at 650,000. limely steps were taken to readjust the cooperative movement, thus maintaining the pattern of steady advance, characterized by development, consolidation, renewed development and renewed consolidation. „BR SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOC.AL.SM 477 chapter Planned Purchases and Supply of Grain t rvtober 1953, the Central Committee made a decision on Planned purchase and supply of grain (state monopoly on the frehase and marketing of grain). Its implementation gave a u c to both agricultural mutual-aid and cooperation, and boostT he ost acism and transformation of private grain traders, $ferrSK££s-=:s erain The small peasant economy had only nmiteu . n. r.i" —ifp-;;: « were rnmoant giving rise to the gram problem. In the first year of the start of'large-scale planned economic "nstruc"°nJ 3 "" situation emerged in the purchase and SUPP ^ of hf31" the sales volume of grain needed to be supplied by the state snot up by 1 l ucent over the previous year. It was apparently ha d to fulfil the state's grain purchase plan Hthat,yefbe ^o appea of stock in some areas. Grain market disorders tegan to appear in small cities, towns and disaster-stricken areas tH wen m Be jrng and Tianiin there were worries about flour supplies. On ueptem bef 4 some traders in Beijing bought all the grain available on the marke' within two hours. People worried that the evil wind of price hikes several times a day would blow again. Confronting these* severe^ circumstances, the Party needed to prudently evaluate the situation and properly handle the relations 1 ^ Estate state and peasants (gram-surplus households), betwem .the state and commodity grain consumers (workers, city dwt lUers and erain-short households in the rural areas), between the state an in traders and between the central and local govern ments. Of these relations, the first two were difficult to tackle, with the first in particular the most challenging. Chen Yun, then in charge of financial and economic work at the central level, said, "I am now carrying a load of explosives, with black dynamite in the front end and yellow in the rear. If we fail to obtain grain, the entire market will fluctuate; if we adopt the method of compulsory grain purchase by the state, the peasants will probably oppose us. We choose between the two, but both pose dangers. The present problem is how to ensure obtaining grain. If our methods prove impracticable and fall through, I can say with certainty, the grain market is sure to become chaotic. This is no joke."17 After carefully considering and weighing the eight possible measures, the central authorities decided the only basic alternative was to implement compulsory purchases in rural areas, institute a ration system in cities and exercise strict control over private businesses. This was a long-term plan of major importance. As long as there was no marked increase in agricultural production, this was the road to be invariably followed. On the evening of National Day, the Party Central Committee agreed to this important decision at the conference room behind the Tiananmen rostrum. Since implementation of the state monopoly on the purchase and marketing of grain affected the lives of almost the entire urban and rural population, after the resolution was taken, the Party Central Committee called on all Party members and cadres at various levels to go down to grassroots units and adopt this work as an extremely urgent economic and political task. The Party believed it could win the support of the peasants for this policy and this was borne out by facts. It would do so by relying on close ties established between the Party and the peasants since the agrarian reform, strengthening general ideological work and education on the general line through outlining the future of socialism, and by giving full consideration to the rational interests of peasants in planned grain purchases. Implementation of the state monopoly on the purchase and marketing of grain initially eased the strain on the supply of grain, maintained the stability of market prices and moderately met indusCHA1TER SK FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 479 CH i needs for grain. At that time, this was the correct, inevitable tr‘® L Later, in order to alleviate the tension caused by excessive cl*° nnrehases in 1954, the Party reduced amounts of grain ^chased and adopted the fixed quota system for production Purc, 1 murketine This dispelled certain complaints of the S K or »« monopoly •'SST^r. Iho'sntom of state monopoly on purchase and m arkedng of grain required evaluation of the surplus gram of toid " The fundamental solution to the grajn^ortage waS w increase grain production, but the potential for doing so by relying on the small peasant economy was very ‘ow- L^g^sca mechanization of agriculture was the distan l* the development At this time, reliance had to bt placed on t cooperative movement with this as the bas^ for coiiducting appropriate technical transformation. All these factors urged the Party to call for energetic development of agricultural producers cooperatives. M utuaf aid and cooperation as well as compu^ory grain purchase were the two strategic measures for the remould ing of peasants; they related to and promoted each other. In instituting the system of state monopoly over grain purchase anSSi. was necessary to decree that no Pnvate trader were allowed to engage in free dealing in grain. The> could serve asgrain sales agents for the state. Private factories oou d only nrocess products entrusted by state grain departments. 1 h y col not autonomously buy raw materials or sell their f.mshed products This was the meaning behind transformation o priv< fn" and commerce for the enure gi *in trade^ mptoenUtion of state monopoly on gram purchase and marketing was followed by state monopoly purchase of oil-bearing crops and stale monopoly sales of edible oil. In 1954, purchase of cotton was monopolized by the state and cotton cloth was bought and sold exclusively by the state. These all constituted important steps taken to promote the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce. Steady Advance of Socialist Transformation of Private Industry and Commerce In the course of presentation and formation of the general line, Li Weihan, head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, led an investigative group to Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai in the spring of 1953 to survey and sum up the Party's experience in implementation of the policy to use and restrict capitalist industry and commerce. Thereafter, the department submitted a findings report on Questions Concerning Public-Private Relations in Capitalist Industry. After three years of rehabilitation of the national economy, the private capitalist economy had undergone profound reorganization and transformation. Most private enterprises had established contact and cooperation with the socialist economy through various forms and had, to different degrees, changed from the relationship of production characteristic of capitalist enterprises. They were no longer purely private capitalist in nature, but instead, state capitalist enterprises under the management of the people's government, having links with the socialist economy and accepting worker supervision. The development of private industry from a primary state capitalist form to an advanced state capitalist form (the former entailed state purchase and marketing monopoly of private firm products and placing of state orders with private enterprises while the latter involved joint stateprivate operation) was, in fact, a gradual transformation .of production relations and gradual advance to socialism. Therefore, in his report to the Party Central Committee, Li Weihan pointed out: State capitalism "is the main form of using and restricting capitalist industry, the main form for us to gradually bring capitalist industry onto the path of state planning and the main form for transformation of capitalist industry and its gradual transition to socialism." It was also a principal link in united front work with the bourgeoisie and in the "transformation of capitalist cHAPTER six FOUNDING OK PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 481 eleThentCPC Central Committee attached great importance to findings report. In June, the Party Central Committee ' ve held enlarged meetings of the Political Bureau to discuss Tand set down the policy for transforming capitalist industry Ihrough state capitalism. Later, it decided no. to adopt the niirp ostracization of private commerce but enforce stale 'capitalist policy instead. Thus, the Party's policy towards ^ani t ii list industry and commerce was summed up as utiUza SSS and transformation." The process of using and restricting capitalism would also transform it. The change feferred to here did not mean final transformation through abolishing capitaUst private ownership of the means of produ lion and turning such bodies thus run into socialist enterp^ It meant the gradual turning of capitalist companies into state capitalist enterprises under the condition o & limited and incomplete private ownership, in the process o implementing due consideration to pubUe and P^me mteres^ and benefiting both labour and capital. The Party estimateu that it would take three to five more years to basically complete the task of guiding private industry and commerce onto th Mth of state capitalism. The final transformation would need a time span of three five-year plans. In September, while talking with some representatives of democratic parties an industrial and commercial circles, Mao Zedong said, More than three years of experience have shown it already certai arsris ss to 5:5 accomplishing the task of socialist transition. , ^ Adoption of the policy of using, restricting and transtormmg capitalist industry and commerce and the introduction of the capitalist forms based mainly on placement of state orders with private enterprises. In January 1954, the State Finance and Economic Commission put forward the Opinion on Systematically Transforming Capitalist Enterprises Employing Ten Workers or More Basically Into Joint Public-Private Enterprises. In 1954, China began to switch to priority development of state capitalism, the advanced form of public-private operation. Placing state orders with private enterprises mainly referred to state-capitalist cooperation outside enterprises. Public-private operation entailed cooperation between the socialist sector and the capitalist sector inside enterprises. The public side had considerable equity rights, conducting public and private joint management of businesses with the public representative in the leading position. In these two forms of state capitalism, profits were distributed according to state income tax, enterprise public accumulation funds, workers' welfare funds, and capitalist dividends which accounted for roughly 25 percent. Most enterprise profits went to the state and workers, basically serving the national economy and the people's livelihood. This produced varying degrees of socialism in these enterprises. At that time, most private enterprises were using obsolete equipment and were backward in operation. The labour productivity of the textile industry, one of the comparatively high development level industries for private enterprise, comprised three quarters of the state-run textile industry, and the gap was expanding. For this reason, plus restrictions on raw materials and the market, many private enterprises found it difficult to operate. They requested the state to supply support and practice of publicprivate operation. In 1954 and 1955, great progress was achieved in the work of expanding joint public-private operation. The number of joint public-private enterprises increased from 1,036 in 1953 to 1,746 in 1954, and the figure rose to 3,193 in 1955. Their output value accounted for 49.6 percent of the nation's total output for private industry (including joint ventures). After the introduction of joint venture enterprises, labour enthusiasm was very high since the state sent cadres to strengthen leadership, invested in building ER SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 483 nA expansion and readjusted enterprises. As a result production if joS venture enterprises developed rapidly, w.th increased rnfits Take per-capita labour productivity, for example. StandC at ioo in 1950, it increased to 314 in 1955 in joint publ.cnrivate industry, a three-fold increase, while it was 158 in private industry in the same period, an increase of over 50 Percent. The superiority of joint public-private operation was marked. The dividend distributed to private shareholders in joint publicnrivate factories mostly far exceeded the profits gained during the Sriod of private operation. These circumstances prompted more capitalists to demand joint public-private operation, thus creating a favourable situation for the socialist transformation of industry "jo^t" public-private operation generally began with large enterprises. However, not many existed m the natior is capdahst industry The majority of firms were scattered and backward "and medium businesses. After fairly large enterprises introduced joint operation, the more than 1 20,000 medium and smalf 'bodies, which made up half the total output vatae of private industry, faced a difficult production position ■ due to having simple and crude machinery, complete *ork Pr°" dures and disruption of former economic >nks. Jims " demanded joint public-private operation. In order to guarantee kev Droiects it was impossible for the state to disperse funds and assign cadres for such large numbers of ^b cnterprises^ Under such circumstances, in December 195 Committee put forward the policy of overall planning and consideration for the interests of all concerned, making arrange ments through relevant departments and conductmg trans or mation along the lines of different trades. In various trades* big entities nurtured the small and advanced the backward. Small and medium enterprises were first reorganized and i am ^ aamated Then joint public-private operation was introduced, individual joint operation was combined .i > -organization and transformation to meet the needs o trades. In i 1955 joint public-private operation was fully introduced in trades Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. Acceleration and Hasty Conclusion of Socialist Transformation In the summer of 1955, a heated debate took place within the Party concerning the speed of agricultural cooperation. Prior to the discussion, the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry and private industry and commerce, on the whole, was proceeding steadily in a planned and systematic way. After the debate, due to sharp criticism of Right opportunism, likened to women with bound feet, the pace of the agricultural cooperative movement was drastically accelerated. So was the speed of socialist transformation in other fields. In the spring of 1955, the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee proposed a plan which required that by the spring of 1956, the number of agricultural cooperatives, which stood at 650,000 after consolidation, should reach one million. This plan was approved by the Conference of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. Before long, Mao Zedong returned to Beijing from an investigation tour of the south. He made new observations and judgments of the grain situation and the development of agricultural cooperation. He proposed revising the plan and quickening development, increasing the number of agricultural cooperatives from 650,000 to 1.3 million, doubling the figure. Deng Zihui did not agree with this alteration. He contended that the cooperative movement should keep pace with industrialization and growth should not be too fast, and that the cadre leadership level and the level of the masses' political consciousness should be raised step by step. There should be no demands for undue haste. He contended that the development from 100,000 agricultural cooperatives in the autumn of 1954 to 650,000 in the spring of 1955 had already been quite fast. Many problems existed and the task of consolidation was very heavy. Main efforts should be devoted to consolidating existing cooperatives and laying the foundation for their further development. Subsequent practice showed that Deng Zihui 's opinion was correct and conformed with the reality. Mao Zedong, however, asserted that the ^PTEK SIX FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 485 f npno 7il-mi and the Rural Work Department of Stf Srr ^ a'conference 2*^ 9U TmumcLl and autonomous regional Party committees. At Z mectmg Mao Zedong delivered a report titled "On the fh°:Cn oTnrath"oryn ^S'^ing & J £ nf the links between China's agricultural cooperation and mechamzaton, and between social reform and technical renovation also contained profound views. However, the report wa. designed to severely criticize the Right deviatiomsm of Deng ...» and countless tabSs"-all this amounted to an erroneous Rightist guiding policy. Mao even alleged they were proceeding "from the8 stand of the bourgeoisie, the rich peasants, or well-to-do middle peasants with their spontaneous tendencies towards capitalism." Thus, he exaggerated a normal inner Par y dismite over the speed of growth for cooperation, turning it into a two-line difference and introducing abnormality to sound inner-Party democracy formed over many years Mao Zedong's report was relayed straight to rura y branches Party organizations in various places re-examined con servatism" and opposed "Right deviation" and rearranged the cooperative—SW £"ommittee^held^hc enlarged 6th Plenary Session. In line with Mao Zedong's report On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture, the session adopted a resolution and determined Deng Zihui and the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee had committed "Right opportunism," stressing that "only through criticism of this can fundamental change be brought about in rural work." In December, the book Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, compiled under Mao Zedong's guidance, was published. He wrote the prefaces and 104 notes for the book, including the summary of concrete experience in successful running of cooperatives. They contained many correct opinions on work in rural economic, technical, cultural, educational, women's and youth spheres, saying, "political work is the life-blood of all -economic work ... to foster the socialist spirit which postulates the principle of integrating collective interest with individual interest as the criterion for judging all words and deeds ... diligence and thrift ought to be the principle for all our economic enterprises," and other important expositions of universal guiding significance. However, the prefaces and some notes not only sharply criticized Right opportunism in the cooperative movement, but also posited that the Right conservative ideas were conducting mischief in many other fields of work, thus further expanding the scope of "anti-Right conservatism." Under such a political atmosphere, a tidal wave of fury was formed in the agricultural cooperative movement. Although Mao Zedong, in his On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture, focused criticism on Right conservatism, he thought that the problem was not one of rash advance by that time. However, he insisted that socialist transformation of agriculture be accomplished in 18 years, that he would adopt the method of gradual advance from low to high and that he would control numbers of cooperatives according to actual situations. He put forward his estimate: By the spring of 1958, half of peasant households would have joined the primary cooperatives; semi-socialist transformation would have been basically accomplished in 1960; then semisocialist peasant households should gradually be developed into complete socialist ones by stages and by groups. However, due to the political pressure formed by the severe criticism of Right opportunism, his estimate no longer formed the principle for COPTER Six FOUNDING OF PRC AND TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 487 euiding the movement, while with regard to actual blind development that appeared in total disregard of these principles and plans, the leadership not only failed to correct this, but instead gleefully praised it. As a result, the tidal wave that speeded up the mass cooperative movement, like a seismic wave, engulted the whole of China's countryside. Cooperatives were suddenly accomplished in the space of only a few months. By the end of 1956, peasant households joining the cooperatives accounted for 96.3 percent of the nation's total peasant families. Of these, 87.8 percent joined advanced cooperatives in only seven years, 11 years ahead of schedule. Pushed by the rapid development of the agricultural cooperative movement, a surging tide of joint public-private operation of capitalist industrial and commercial enterprises also rose throughout the country. The greatly accelerated plan drawn up by the Party Central Committee in November 1955 still called for finishing joint public-private operation of all trade, group by group and stage by stage, in two years. However, private industrialists and merchants in various places, including some enterprise workers and staff members, sounded the gong and beat the drum everyday, asking for approval for joint public-private operation. The government had to adopt the method of one-time approval, all-round joint operation. This entailed first giving recognition to joint public-private operation, then carrying out the appraisal of stocks and assets of enterprises, production arrangements, enterprise reorganization and personnel readjustment. On January 10, 1956, Beijing was the first to declare it had completely realized joint public-private operation for every trade. By the end of January, over fifty large and medium-sized cities across the country, where capitalist industrial and commercial enterprises were relatively concentrated, declared one after another that they had accomplished joint public- private operation in all trades. By the end of the year, 99 percent of the nation's private industrial households and 82.2 percent of private commercial households had been drawn onto the path of public-private joint ventures or cooperatives. After the general line was put forward, the former policy of active leadership and steady advance was also adopted for handicraft cooperation. Organization proceeded from handicraft production cooperative groups, handicraft supply and marketing cooperatives to handicraft production cooperatives. The steps started with supply and sales, advancing from small to big and from low to high, gradually introducing socialist transformation and production change. The rapid development of agricultural cooperatives also affected the speed of handicraft cooperatives. A demand was raised at the end of 1955 that handicraft cooperation should be basically achieved in two years. As a result of the move from the past method for transformation through stages, groups and areas for various sectors of the trades to overall cooperation in the entire handicraft trade, by the end of 1956, over 91.7 percent of handicraft workers had joined cooperatives. The progress of socialist transformation between the latter half of 1955 and 1956 obviously went too fast, forming a deviation from real work. From the viewpoint of orientation and line, however, the socialist transformation of private agriculture, handicraft and capitalist industry and commerce, ultimately conformed to objective needs. Accomplishment of the transformation was a matter of historic significance.

Establishment of the Socialist System in China and Completion of the First Five-Year Plan

In 1956, socialist transformation of private ownership of the means of production was carried out to a decisive victory in China. Private ownership representing individual ownership by the peasants, handicraftsmen and other labouring people was basically converted into public ownership characterized by collective ownership by the labouring people, while capitalist private ownership by the capitalists was basically converted into state ownership or public ownership by the whole people. After the introduction of joint state-private ownership in all trades, the capitalists were no longer in charge of their formerly owned and managed private enterprises, but were employed as staff numbers mf en*erpriscs, with duties commensurate with their abilities. Thev continued to receive a fixed interest which now, however las no longer related to the profits of the enterprises formerly owned by them. They drew interest according to the checked and approved assets represented by their privately owned shares (n wat estimated at that time that the assets owned by the nation s i- K totalled 2 42 billion yuan) and to a fixed interest rate Z Annual ^Tnmrest rate of 5 percent, which was slightly higher than the bank interest rate at that time). A term of seven years was set for receiving the fixed interest and later extended to ten vears Taking into account the tremendous development of former state-owned economy, the publicly owned socialist economy ScS ownership by the whole people and the collecttve ownership of the labouring masses, thus occupied a dominant nosition in China's national economy. . , This situation was reflected in the composition of the nauonal income. The proportion of the national income from the aUte owned sector rose from 19.1 percent in 195V°2 , e ^rcent to 1956' from the cooperative economy, it rose from 1.5 percent t 53 4 percent; from the economy under joint state-private ownership The proportion increased from 0.7 percent to 7.3 percent meanwhile in the individual economy, it dropped from 71.8 percent to 7 1 percent and in the capitalist sector, from 6.9 ™t to nearly zero. Thus the first three economic sectors accounted for 92.9 percent. As regards total industrial output value, socialist industry rose from 56 Per""VTrcent W ^ percent, and state capitalist industry from 26 9 ^ ^ percent while private capitalist industry dropped from 17.1 per cent to nearly zero. Of the total retail sales of commodities, state-owned commerce together with supply a"d "tarketing co_ operative commerce, rose from 42.6 percent to 68.3 percent, state capitalist commerce and cooperative commerce organized by former small private merchants increased from 0.2 percent to V'5 nercenr while privately owned commerce dropped from 57.2 percent'to 4.2 percent. Thus, by 1956, a socialist economic system had already been established in China. Economy is the basis of a social system. The leadership of the Communist Party of China, the state machine of the people's democratic dictatorship and the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field, were powerful socialist factors existing in the superstructure which guaranteed China's transition to a socialist society. Now, with the establishment of the socialist economic foundation, the Party, the people's democratic dictatorship and Marxist ideology have taken up the task of consolidating and developing the socialist economic foundation. Great Victory of the Socialist Reform and the Problems Remaining The tasks set by the Party's general line during the transitional period in terms of the socialist reform of agriculture, handicraft industry and capitalist industry and commerce were in the main completed by 1956. In this sense, the transitional period came to an end and the transition to socialism was realized. According to our present analysis, this -situation indicated that China had begun to enter the primary stage of socialism. Of course, the building of socialism will undergo a prolonged historical process and requires that the Party and people make tremendous efforts. During the period, they may even face unexpected hardships and setbacks. Nevertheless, the Communist Party of China did indeed lead the Chinese people to enter the socialist society. Whatever happens, this was a great victory and a significant milestone in the history of the country and the Party after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Proceeding with socialist transformation at an accelerated pace led to impetuosity and carelessness in the latter stages. Profound lessons should be drawn with regard to the leadership of the Party. The chief problem was that the Party became conceited in face of such a tremendous victory. It was no longer as cautious as before, or as careful in listening to the voice of the masses. It also failed to pay as much respect to inner-Party democracy as it had done in the past. However, there are two basic facts which 491 ne must recognize in regard to the completion of such a profound revolutionary change as that of eliminating private ownership in China— a large country with a population of hundicds of millions: first, steady growth of the national economy was al along basically guaranteed; second, it was carried out, by and large with the widespread support of the masses of people. This was extremely difficult to attain, yet it was, in fact, accomplished. Drastic change in the relations of production often results in damage to the productive forces for a time. In general, this did not occur during socialist transformation in China, although lack of enthusiasm for production on the part of some people did arise as a temporary problem. On the contrary, the transformation guaranteed and promoted development of the productive forces. Take grain output for example. It grew annually during the process of the founding of cooperatives. Farmland irrigation projects and the technical transformation of agriculture also developed correspondingly. Production and economic returns of former private enterprises increased considerably during the course of socialist transformation. Naturally, agricultural transformation could have aroused strong objections, rocking as it did the peasants' profound conception of land and draught animals as being privately owned, as well as contravening their traditional autonomous methods of management based on each family or household as an independent unit. But the Party presented t e peasants with facts, showing how cooperatives would benefit the poor and lower-middle peasants who, making up the majority of the rural population, were facing difficulties in production, and assuring them that cooperatives, at least, would not damage their interests. Therefore, the peasants supported cooperatives or went along with the main trend. At first, when the Party s policy ° mutual benefit and participation on a voluntary basis failed to be strictly implemented, relatively better-off peasants did suffer some losses. The Party, however, paid attention to correcting these deviations and showed them how the development of cooperative production would also benefit them. Realizing it was the trend of the times, they either supported the campaign or went along with the majority. The working class, of course, lul y supported the all-round introduction of the joint state-private ownership in private industrial and commercial businesses. Some capitalists beat drums and gongs to celebrate the event in the daytime but cried on each other's shoulders at night. They found the situation stressful, but had to accept it, however unwillingly. In dealing with national capitalists the Party did not adopt the methods of struggle used against landlords. Instead, fixed interest payments to capitalists continued without interruption. They were given jobs and the status of their representatives in state organs remained unchanged. Hence, they also could accept the conversion and follow the general trend. When ji capitalist, known as a "textile tycoon," was asked why he accepted the socialist road, he said, "It's true, I'm a capitalist, but first of all I am a Chinese." He explained how, as a Chinese national capitalist, he had all along dreamt of developing industry to bring salvation and prosperity to his country, but how in the old society, he had suffered continual oppression and extortion from imperialists and bureaucrat-capitalists. In the early days of national liberation, the government extricated his enterprise from its impasse by providing it with loans, entrusting it to process products and purchasing its products, enabling it to increase its profit year by year. He went on to say, "Following implementation of the First Five-Year Plan, many large factories were built throughout the country. Various places went in for large-scale construction, and achievements were made faster than I had dreamt was possible. What an encouraging situation! Where would we be today if it wasn't for the Communist Party and if we hadn't taken the socialist road?" "To me, it [abolition of the capitalist system] means losing what I personally gained from exploitation. Compared with the government's total investment during the First Five-Year Plan period, it was just too trivial. What we have gained is a powerful and prosperous socialist country in which everybody lives a comfortable life.... Materially, in fact, I didn't lose anything. I live quite well."19 These words vividly reflect the basis and results of the Party's policy of uniting with and remoulding national capitalists. In the course of this very complicated, difficult and profound social reform, the na 493 . nal economy grew steadily and the transformation was widely economy g Jhis enabled thc object,ves of the SUP'ahst transformation to be achieved fairly smoothly. This fact indicates that! in general, the socialist transformation led by the PaMyarToneeUenvisSaged that the socialist revolution might adopt a oolicy of peaceful redemption towards the capitalist class. After th!r October Revolution, Lenin drew an outline for this kind of Leful buving-out policy and plan. Owing to various reasons. Lentn's plany was not implemented successfully. The Communist Party ofP China entered into an alliance with the natl0"l capital ist class during the democratic revolution and continued to ma tain this alliance during the socialist transformation. This his torical background, as well as practical necessity and a real possibility, enabled the Communist Party to buy out the capitalist ciasS peacefully and effectively for the first time in thc history o socialism The Party led the masses of people to create a buymgout method which ruled out payment of large sums of state money in redemption in favour of allowing the capitalists to ™ominue to receive part of the dividend from enterprises for a relatively long period of time. Moreover, a series of forms ranging from primary to advanced state capitalism were created to steer capitalist industry and commerce towards a gradual transition to socialism During the cooperative transformation of agriculture, aserteof forms was also created for the socialist transport from the primary stage to the advanced stage. Thanks to these creative methods China's socialist transformation, while still taking t Soviet Union as the model to follow in its objectives, nevertheless acquired special characteristics of its own in the particular road it chose to follow. Thus, use of this new experience and thinki g served to enrich and develop Marxist theory on scientific socialiSmimpe,uosity and carelessness in the late stageofthesooalist transformation gave rise to many problems. The Party had make careful investigations and studies to bring about systemati readjustments and to gradually resolve problems in keepnng wi the need to develop the productive forces, and concern for the country's social life, as well as the will of the masses of people. There were several important questions which needed to be answered. One, socialist public ownership already occupied a dominant economic position, but was it necessary to make it the only economic sector, or should the individual economy and private economy which benefitted the national economy and enhanced the people's livelihood be maintained to a limited extent? Two, with the complete transformation of capitalism and individual economy and the extension of a highly centralized planned economic system to cover the whole sphere of economic life, should the role of market regulation continue to be developed, and if so, how? Three, how should the state-owned economy give play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the central authorities, the local governments at various levels and the enterprises? And should the proprietary rights and the managing power over the collective economy be divided into different administrative layers and give play to its initiative according to the different layers and different conditions? Other questions: As to public ownership, was the larger the scope the better? As to management, was the more concentrated the better? Most of these problems surfaced in different degrees during the course of transformation. However, they became submerged in the upsurge of the transformation before there was time to discuss them thoroughly and deal with them carefully. These questions and other problems brought on by impetuosity and carelessness in the later stages of the socialist transformation could have been gradually resolved in practice by relying on the accumulation of experience, if serious investigation and readjustment had been made in a calm manner of seeking truth from facts. The objective situation called for the Party to conduct readjustment and reform in this regard. Achievements of the First Five-Year Plan In 1956, when the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry and capitalist industry and commerce was in the main completed, the main targets set for the First Five-Year 495 « were mostly fulfilled ahead of schedule. The following year, r7WwaCs one of the years which witnessed the most successful 195 ' of the country's economic construction. By the end of set for the First Ftve-Year Plan had been "3KX St Untnent, investment in capUa, instruction of the economy and in culture, education and p health totalled 49.3 billion yuan, overfulfilling the original p Jan . 15 3 nercent With the addition of the funds raised by enter Jisls and vadous localities, the country's actual investment m capital construction totalled 58.8 billion yuan. Th» were 921 industrial and mining projects under construction over and above Ihe set mvestment limit. Of these, 428 had been put tnto oration an the founding of New China. A large number of basic industries which were non-existent in old China were established one by one. Since more than half of the investment for capital construction was pooled in the hinterland, a large number of industrial and mining enterprises mushroomed in these areas, initially improving the allocation of industries which had been irrationally concentrated in coastal areas in old China. The achievements attained in industrial production during the First Five-Year Plan period greatly outstripped what old China had accomplished in 100 years. The growth rate also ranked among the advanced in rates of performance by other countries when their industries first began to take off. In 1957, the country's total agricultural output value reached 60.4 billion yuan (according to 1952 prices as constant), fulfilling 101 percent of the original plan and showing an increase of 25 percent over 1952 and an average annual growth of 4.5 percent. Grain output hit 195.05 million tons, up 19 percent over 1952 and showing an average annual growth of 3.7 percent; and the output of cotton reached 1.64 million tons, up 26 percent over 1952 and registering an average annual growth of 4.7 percent. The growth rate of agriculture was not lower than the world's average level. However, compared with the speedy growth of the country's industry during the same period, relatively speaking, it lagged behind. The growth of grain and cotton production did not reach the level which people had optimistically expected. Tension remained uneased and pressure to increase agricultural production remained high. During the five years, the nation's prices basically remained stable. Except for the year 1956 which witnessed deficit, the state treasury registered a balance in revenue and expenditure, with even a slight surplus. The structure of the state revenue changed considerably. In 1950, it had mainly relied on income from taxes on industry, commerce and agriculture, which accounted for 75 percent. Income from state-owned enterprises and institutions had made up only 13.4 percent, of which the income from industry accounted for 6.8 percent. By 1957 the proportion of various tax incomes to the nation's revenue had dropped to 49.9 CHA1.TER sk founding of PRC and transition to SOCIALISM 497 t While the income from state-owned enterprises and mstiperCel1 had increased to 46.5 percent, of which the income Irom tutions had mcreaseu iu , q i nercent The people s to 205 yuan, a rise of 38.5 percent, wum, CreThe^acrhiCTements^nThina^cconomic construction during the The acnieven. foundation for the gssifssf#; |§§§S§§§^£Si - -—theoretical understanding and practical action.

Socialist Construction Advances Tortuously Through Exploration

The 8th National Party Congress and China's Probing of Its Own Road for Socialist Construction

could achieve the nationwide victory of the democratic revolution and then begin the building of New China, and had led this historical process systematically. But building socialism in China is far more difficult and complicated than carrying out the democratic revolution country-wide. China's revolutionary road should not be patterned on that of other countries, nor should its path of construction copy that of other countries. In the early days of socialist construction, the Party called on the nation to "learn from the Soviet Union." This practice was historically necessary and led to some positive results. However, the experiences of the Soviet Union were not all successful, nor were all its successful experiences applicable to China's conditions. After all, learning from the Soviet Union could not replace seeking one's own road. As for how China should strike out on its own road of socialist construction, it was impossible for the Party to make full theoretical preparation in advance. Only in accordance with the principle of combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's real situation could it sum up its own experiences, draw on the experiences of other countries and conduct practical explorations. In exploring China's own road for socialist construction, would it be possible to experience fewer big setbacks than was the case in searching for China's revolutionary road? The Party hoped so. Later, history proved that we failed to avoid big detours owing to the fact that we underestimated the difficult and complicated nature of building socialism in China. At any rate, this was a problem which could only be solved through the practice of exploration. In this respect, a good beginning had already been made. 1 he 8th National Party Congress was convened in September 1956 following tremendous changes in the domestic and international situation. At home, the situation was marked by the basic completion of socialist transformation and by China's entering into a new historical period of all-round socialist construction. Shifting the focus of the whole Party's work to economic construction began at the end of the revolutionary war. At that time, however, the heavy tasks of democratic reform and socialist transformation needed to be fulfilled simultaneously. Particular501 ,h-n socialist transformation was gaining momentum, the Iy: partv particularly the high-ranking Party leaders, really whole Pa h P deal Qf theif attention on social reform. Afte^sS transformation was basically completed, the focus ‘be conducted in the light of China's *»Wy ***** situation and needs of the development of Chinas productive f°The international situation underwent a change marked by sSsfcss £ ThHauIed widespread shock within the Soviet Union and all over the world. The imperialists seized this opportunity to s r worldwide upsurge of anti-communism and anti-socialism, crea Sees of ideological confusion among the masses o ‘Top, and brfngmg Lt pity 0^"! "ht^mpte repudiation of the history of the struggle for socialism carried out by the Soviet Fatly a"d J^°Ple the leadership of Stalin. The Party s principled stand was ex nressed in two articles published in the name of the editorial department of Remnin Ribao ( People's Daily) on the basis of dtsPcu" m enlarged meetings of the Pohtmal Buremr o the Party Central Committee. One, entitled On the Hlstorlc Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, appeared Experience o. i Qn ^ Hjstorical Experience of the doing away with blind faith in Stalin and Soviet experiences, emancipating the mind shackled by dogmatism, and striving to seek a road for revolution and construction suited to each country's own conditions. The 8th Party Congress highlighted the initial results gained by the Communist Party of China in exploring China's own road for socialist construction. Publication of "On the Ten Major Relationships" in April 1956 marked the beginning of this exploration and paved the way for the convening of the 8th Party Congress. "On the Ten Major Relationships" and a Series of New Policies In early 1956, the Party Central Committee made known to the Chinese people the draft of the National Programme for Agricultural Development (1956-67) and the policy of building socialism with greater, faster, better and more economical results, based on the ideas of Mao Zedong and leaders of some localities. The programme and policy, put forward under the situation in which the socialist transformation of agriculture was being speeded up, reflected the Party's intention of shifting its attention to agriculture and the construction of the national economy as a whole, and the desire of the Party and the people to quicken the development of the productive forces on the basis of the new socialist relations of production. Particularly, after the armistice of the Indo-China war was realized at the Geneva Conference, the international situation became more relaxed. The Party predicted that there might be a period of peace internationally, and planned to seize the opportunity to speed up the country's economic construction. However, in the surge of opposition to "Right deviationist conservatism," the Party failed to fully understand and respect the law governing economic construction and set excessively high and enormous demands on speed and scale for the development of agricultural production and construction in other fields, thus leading to impetuosity and rash advance. The Party took note of this problem and began to correct it. in the beginning, Zhou Enlai agreed with the strategy for Jedmg up development. Facing the ever-rising targets which "SUIed strain on finance and material supply, howler he Sglu.A nut earlv on at a State Council meeting in February ?956 "At present there are symptoms of impetuosity. We should raard against it. Socialist enthusiasm should not be dampened, but we should not carelessly make suggestions which are without good grounds, or beyond the limits of possibility, nor should we accelerate the speed arbitrarily. Otherwise, it will be very danger ous We should on no account raise the slogan, ‘Realize mdustri ■7ation at an early date.' If we think over it soberly, we hall recognize that we really cannot do it." When drawing up plans, whether a 12-year plan or a long-term plan, all departments should bear actual conditions in mind."' In accordance with this t hulking, the meeting of the Party Central Committee Presided over by Liu Shaoqi in May set the policy of fighting against both conservatism and rash advance. The 3rd Session of the 1st National People's Congress held in June accepted and adopted l this policy, which was put forward in the report by Li Xiannia _ LatcJ'in April 1957, Mao Zedong said, "In my mind, I began somewhat to crave greatness and success. I only began to change n Mmch and April last year. I had talks with comrades from more than 30 departments and later talked about the ten major relationships at the Supreme State Coherence. The Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee called conferences with comrades from 34 econonuc departments to make reports and discuss problems, preparation for the riSth Parly Congress On the basis of these discussions, Mao Zedong dratted fhe report which was entitled "On the Ten Major Re atmnshi^ It was discussed at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in April. After it was approved by the Political Buream the report was delivered at the Supreme State Conference on May 2. The report set one basic policy; this was to mobilize all positive factors at home and abroad to serve socialism. It dealt wlth te" (ten major relationships) which were put forward, on the one hand, through summing up China's own experiences and the problems in China's construction and development, and on the other, by drawing lessons from Soviet experience. Mao Zedong stressed that with regard to Marxist-Leninist theories, "What we must study is all that is universally true and we must make sure that this study is linked with Chinese reality. It would lead to a mess if every single sentence, even of Marx's, were followed."3 Foreign experience should neither be rejected out of hand nor copied indiscriminately. "Particularly worthy of attention is the fact that in the Soviet Union certain defects and errors that occurred in the course of their building of socialism have lately come to light. Do you want to follow the detours they have made?"4 This confirmed the basic thinking that in building socialism China should take its own road in the light of its own conditions. "On the Ten Major Relationships" chiefly discusses economic issues, stressing the need to mobilize all positive factors in all aspects of economic work. The first three questions focus on the relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and light industry and agriculture on the other, the relationship between industry in the coastal regions and industry in the interior, and the relationship between economic construction and construction for national defence. The report confirmed that we had not committed major mistakes while handling these relationships in the past, and stressed that we should make appropriate readjustment according to the situation and our experiences and devote greater efforts to developing agriculture and light industry, make use of and develop industry in the coastal regions, and cut the proportions of military and administrative expenditures as much as possible so as to spend more on economic construction. In the long run, this would help the development of heavy industry and industry in the interior and strengthen national defence. This, in fact, involved the question of blazing a Chinese road of industrialization which was different from that of the Soviet Union. The fourth and fifth questions, discussing the relationship between the state, the units of production and the producers, and the relationship between the central authorities and local governments, began to touch on the question of economic structural reform. Thus a number of new policies for China's socialist economic construction were advanced . Relationships" ?enfthTmlat"p between tie Han nationality and mideal Vkl • iitip leaps and bounds, and the human world is on the eve of a new scientific, technological and industrial revolution. We must rouse ourselves to catch up and "attain the heights of modern science Mao Zedong's speech at the meeting stressed the necessity of currymg out a technological and cultural revolution to innovate the backward technology and fight against ignorance. He called on the whole Party to study science and unite with non-Party intellectuals to work hard in order to quickly catch up with advanced world technological levels. After the conference, the State Council established the Scientific Planning Commission wh,ch, organized and led by Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi, Li Fuchun and Nie Rongzhen, was composed of several hundred renowned scientists. In a few months, the commission formulated the Outline of the Long-Range Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (1956-67) and adopted a series of emergency measures to put the plan into practice. Thus, several new policies for China's socialist cultural construction were initially put forward While discussing the Party and non-Party relationship, "On the Ten Major Relationships" advances the policy of "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision" between the Communist Party and all democratic parties. This clearly declared that under the new historical conditions after entering socialism, China would not practise the one-party system like that in the Soviet Union and confirmed that the united front under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and multi-party cooperation would continue to exist and give play to their roles. Regarding the question of how to deal with counter-revolutionaries, the report, on the premise of confirming the necessity of the former movements to ^suppress and eliminate counter-revolutionaries, estimated that "counter-revolutionaries still exist, although their number has greatly diminished"; put forward the principle that there should be fewer arrests and executions in the suppression of counter-revolutionaries in society at large, and that the policy started m Yanan of "killing none and arresting few" should be adhered to in clearing out counter-revolutionaries in Party and government organs. In his speech at the Shanghai municipal Party congress held in July, Zhou Enlai stressed, "With regard to ^pter seven socialist construction 507 the people's democratic dictatorship, we should continue to exercise dictatorship and at the same time to broaden democracy K With regard to the handling of inner Party contradictions, "On the Ten Major Relationships" reiterates the policy started in Yanan of "learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, and curing the sickness to save the patient" and opposes ruthless struggle and merciless blows." Thus, a number of new policies on China's socialist political construction were initially advanced. ~ In June that year, the Party proposed to strive for peaceful means to liberate Taiwan in order to realize the complete reunification of the motherland. It declared that "all patriots belong to one family" and "whether one embraces patriotism earlier or later brooks no distinctions." It also suggested the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang, in the interest of the nation and the motherland, join hands for a third round of cooperation. All this vividly shows how the Party sought in every way to find a road for building socialism suited to China's own conditions. Later, when recalling the history of this period, Mao Zedong said repeatedly: Economic construction in past years was learned mainly from foreign experience. The discussion of the ten major relationships in April 1956 signified that we had now begun to put forward our own line for construction with a content all our own. The 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China The 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held on September 15-27, 1956 in Beijing, lhis was the Party's first national congress after taking over power countrywide, one which manifests the solidarity of the Party and its thriving cause. It was attended by 1,026 delegates representing the nation's 10.73 million Party members. More than 50 foreign Communist Party and Workers' Party delegations, representatives of all the democratic parties in China, and democratic personages without party affiliation attended the congress on invitation. Mao Zedong made the opening speech. Liu Shaoqi, on behalf of the Party Central Committee, gave a political report. Zhou Enlai reported on suggestions concerning the Second Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy. Deng Xiaoping presented a report on the revision of the Party Constitution. Zhu De, Chen Yun, Dong Biwu and more than 100 other delegates addressed the congress or delivered written speeches. The basic task of this congress was to sum up the experiences since the 7th National Party Congress, and unite the whole Party and all the forces that could be united, both at home and abroad, to struggle for the building of a great socialist China. The congress correctly analysed the domestic situation and the changes in the major contradictions at home and put forward the Party's fundamental tasks for the future. The political report made by Liu Shaoqi not only systematically expounded the series of principles and policies highlighted in "On the Ten Major Relationships," but also advanced and resolved a series of strategic questions. The decision adopted by the congress concerning the political report clearly pointed out: Our Party has led the people to achieve the overall and decisive victory in the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry, and capitalist industry and commerce. "This indicates that the contradictions between the proletariat and the capitalist class in our country have in the main been resolved, that the several thousand years' history of the class exploitation system has basically ended, and that the social system of socialism has been basically established in our country." The Chinese people must also liberate Taiwan and fight for the thorough completion of the socialist transformation, the final abolition of the exploiting system and the continual elimination of counter-revolutionary remnant forces. "However, the main contradiction in our country has become that between the people's demand for the establishment of an advanced industrial country and China's actual situation as a backward agricultural country, between the people's demand for the rapid development of economy and culture and the situation in which the current economy and culture cannot satisfy the people's demand. The essence of this contradiction is the contradiction between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces in the situation where the socialist system has already been 509 wished in China. The main task of the Party and the people ef‘?he whole country at present is to concentrate forces to solve contradiction a'nd quickly turn China from a backward /he socialist system in China. The formulation on the essence the principal contradiction in China, however, was not e strength on developing the productive forces. History has pro th^ he ^ngres^ adhered°to The principle for economic construeona ba"ch is both positive and reliable, so as to ensure a fairly balanced growth of the national economy^ The congress resolution also pointed out: If we underestimate the possibi ihty of relying on favourable conditions to develop our c0™^y S pt^ tive forces fairly quickly we will °eCt°ve of vatism- and if we set an excessively high speed irrespective of various kinds of objective limitations, we will commit the mistake of adventurism. The Party must pay attention at all times to preventing and correcting these two erroneous tendencies. The congress also put forward the strategic plan of building a basically complete industrial system in China within a period of three five-year plans or an ever longer period of time. The congress adopted Suggestions on the Second Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy (1958-62) providing that by 1962, the nation's gross industrial and agricultural output value should increase over that in 1957 by around 75 percent, of which the total industrial output value should rise around 100 percent and the total agricultural output value around 35 percent. The nation's steel output should reach 10.5 million to 12 million tons, grain output around 250 billion kg, and the national income should increase around 50 percent. In his speech, Chen Yun pointed out: Our socialist economic situation will be like this: In industrial and commercial management, state and collective management should be the main form, supplemented by a certain amount of individual management! With regard to planning, planned production should be the main form of industrial and agricultural production supplemented by free production within the scope allowed by the state plan in the light of changes in the market. In the unified socialist market, the state-controlled market is the main form, supplemented by the free market led by the state within a definite sphere.10 The congress attached importance to this opinion and adopted it in the resolution. It was an important attempt to breach the socialist pattern of the past, both theoretically and practically, and to explore a path for economic structural reform. With regard to the work of the state, the congress proposed continuing to strengthen the people's democratic dictatorship, further expand the country's democratic life, and carry out the struggle against bureaucratism; strengthen the unity of all Chinese nationalities; continue to consolidate the people's democratic united front, and gradually to enact complete sets of laws and establish a complete legal system to ensure that there are laws which the activities of the Party and government can and must 511 be based on. Deng Xiaoping's report on revision of the Party Constitution put forward the main policy on strengthening Party building now that the Party has come to power in China. It pointed out the need to place importance on inner-Party ideological education, enhance the whole Party's ideological level of Marxism-Leninism, adhere to the Party's sole purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, carry forward the Party's fine traditions of seeking truth from facts and adhering to the mass line, develop innerParty democracy, strengthen the Party's democratic centralism, and tighten up supervision over Party organizations and Party members. He pointed out that since the personality cult was a long-standing social phenomenon, it would inevitably have some reflections in our Party's life and social life. The Party's task, he said, was to resolutely oppose, as a principle of the Party's central authorities, the practice of elevating individuals spectacularly and of sounding panegyrics over an individual's virtues and achievements, and to adhere unswervingly to the system of combining collective leadership with individual responsibility, in order to carry out the Party's democratic principle and mass line in all spheres. After much deliberation and consultation, the congress elected the 97-member 8th Party Central Committee on the basis of giving full play to democracy. The 1st Session of the 8th Party Central Committee elected 17 Political Bureau members and six alternate members to the Political Bureau. It elected Mao Zedong chairman of the Party Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Chen Yun vice-chairmen of the Party Central Committee, and Deng Xiaoping general secretary of the Party Central Committee, and these six people formed the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee included four secretaries elected at the 7th National Party Congress and two new, younger members. The 8th National Party Congress inherited the leading body of the Party Central Committee elected at the 7th National Party Congress and added some new members, making preparations for the future replacement of the old with the new. At the preparatory meeting to discuss the list of candidates for members of the Party Central Committee, Mao Zedong noted that the make-up of the list reflected the historical development of the Party and, as the focus of the Party's work had been shifted to construction and the economy, in the future, the Party Central Committee should have many engineers, scientists and mature cadres from among the workers, although there were none at present. This set a new standard for the future construction of the collective leadership of the Party central authorities. The Constitution adopted at the 8th National Parly Congress added the article: "The Party Central Committee holds that when necessary, an honorary chairman can be elected in the Party Central Committee." This was because Mao Zedong himself mentioned to the Party Central CommiLtee that he was preparing that at an appropriate time, he would no longer hold the post of Party chairman. He also proposed that he would not hold the post of state chairman at the next term of office, and suggested revision of the country's Constitution by entering the provision that the chairman and vice-chairmen of the state could hold their posts consecutively only for two terms. He believed that by giving up the position at the first front he could concentrate his energy on studying certain problems, and that he could still, in the capacity of a member of the Party's Political Bureau, make the major-topic report at appropriate meetings after he gave up the posts of chairman of the state and chairman of the Party. This suggestion can be considered as a deliberation of abolishing the existing life-long tenure of the posts of leaders and the preparation for the important reform of the Party and state system of leadership. The new Party Constitution stipulated that the National Party Congress should institute a permanent system with a term of five years, and a national conference should be held every year. This conference was thus made the 1st Session of the 8th National Party Congress. As a matter of fact, however, no other sessions were held during the term of the 8th Party Central Committee except for the 2nd Session of the 8th National Party Congress 513 WhThe Party'sliM swat thf 1st Session of the 8th National Party Congress was correct, and the many new principles and conceptions put forward at the congress were full of creative spirit Of course, many of these new concepts and principles could not be firmly' established or acquire common understanding as the time for working them out in practice was very short, so that they were unlikely to become very mature either theoretically or ideologically. Many ideas (including those put forward soon after the s Session of the 8th National Party Congress) suffered setbacks before they had been put into practice or fully applied. There were numerous unexpected, complicated tests ahead. Nevertheless when all is said and done, this congress did achieve initial results in exploring China's own road for socialist construction, and history has proved these results to be of important, farreaching significance for the development of the Party s cause. Further Exploration After the 8th National Party Congress After the 8th National Party Congress, efforts to further explore China's own road of socialist construction were devoted to the following two questions: One was how to formulate he construction plan for 1957 and readjust some aspects of the economic relations in accordance with the principles set at the 8t National Party Congress; and the other was how to make preparations for the rectification of working style throughout the Party and correctly handle the various kinds of contradictions among the people which were becoming increasingly obvious. In early 1956, although the trend of rash advance in economic construction was basically reined in, it was not completely curbed and rash advance persisted in some areas. The final .accounting of revenue and expenditure at the years end found it to be the first deficit year since 1953. As the problem of oyeranxiety to achieve quick results had not been resolved ideologically, the targets collected from various departments and localities tor the formulation of the 1957 plan still greatly exceeded the limits deemed possible for enabling the national economy to grow steadily through an overall-all balance. Major controversy arose over questions relating to the assessment of the economic work of 1956 and the formulation of the economic plan for 1957. Mao Zedong stressed that the incorrect part in the 1956 financial expenditure and investment in capital construction was not worth "a finger," and proposed that the budget targets should be set higher, Zhou Enlai and many others, however, suggested that it would be better to slow down the growth, make it more reliable, and cut down the budget targets for 1957. Throughout the discussions, Chen Yun kept emphasizing that the scale of construction should not exceed national strength and that a balance between material supply, finance and credit should be maintained in drawing up a plan. In a large country like ours, he said, economic stability is of primary importance. While discussing the 1957 plan and budget at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held on November 10, 1956, Zhou Enlai had proposed that the principle of "ensuring key projects and adequately scaling down" should be adopted in 1957. Everybody attending the meeting agreed with this principle. At a meeting during the session on November 15, Mao Zedong said: There are both progress and retrogression, but mainly progress; we should cherish the enthusiasm of our cadres and people and should not pour cold water on them. Actually, Mao Zedong had a different opinion from that of the session concerning the opposition to rash advance. However, he did not make any criticism. Instead, in keeping with the opinion of the majority, he agreed to carry out this principle in 1957. All this indicates that the leading body of the Party Central Committee at that time had kept a sober mind and worked in a style of seeking truth from facts and giving play to democratic discussion. The plan for 1957 thus formulated ensured the year's economic work to be the most effective since the founding of New China. But later Mao Zedong said that he had made a compromise at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee. This became one of the origins of the criticism Mao Zedong brought up at the Nanning Meeting held in January 1958 in regard to the opposition to rash advance. ^PTER seven socialist construction 515 Initial progress and explorations of new ideas were also made ■ the readjustment of the economic relations according to the 1 nnciple of "three main bodies and three supplements" set by the s h National Party Congress. Soon after the basic completion of thc socialist transformation of capitalist industry and c0™™rce Li the handicraft industry, the Party repeatedly stressed that individual handicraft works, small shops, small stalls and neddling which were closely related to peoples lives should ^main under private operation for a long time, and stated that drawbacks in the state monopoly for purchase and marketing should be overcome, market management relaxed, a certain de erce of free purchase and free marketing should be introduced to enterprises and a portion of farm produce should be permitted rn "e free market after the tasks for ~^d and contracted purchase by the state were full died. After the bth National Party Congress, the free market prospered conspicuous lv and the number of individual industrial and commercial operations markedly increased. Take Shanghai for exampk, there were 1,661 individual handicraft households m i September and the number rose to 2,8S5 in October, then jumped further to A, 236 by the end of 1956. To counter opinions which held that the growth of individual businesses went against the orientation of cooperatives, Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) published an edito ial which pointed out that the development of individual house holds engaged in the handicraft industry had, on the one hand, met the people's needs for increasing commodity supplies on the market and, on the other, expanded employment opportumties m the cities Thus, it was beneficial, and not harmful, to the state. Following the increase of such individual households larger self-managed handicraft households aud handicraft wor^h°Ps; which became known as "underground factories aPI»^ed, and so did "underground shops." What the attitude should be towards happenings like this following the socialist transformation aroused the interest of former industrialists and businessmen and the whole of society. ' . . . In December 1956, Mao Zedong gave many talks and held discussions on this question with responsible members of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and the Department of the United Front of the Party Central Committee. He expressed this opinion: Underground factories develop because society needs them. They should come above ground and be legalized. The number of such factories may increase as long as there are markets and raw materials. It should be permissible to open small "husband-and-wife" shops, hire labourers, and open up large privately run factories. It will also become an outlet for fixed interest paid to former capitalist industrialists and businessmen if individuals are allowed to invest and open up factories. Investment made by overseas Chinese will not be confiscated in a hundred years. We may practise capitalism after capitalism is eliminated. He called this "the new economic policy."12 These opinions of Mao Zedong were agreed to by other comrades of the Party Central Committee. Soon afterwards, at a meeting of the NPC Standing Committee, Liu Shaoqi said: Our country is more than 90 percent socialist, so, in my opinion, there is no harm in a capitalist development of several percent. On the one hand, this bit of capitalism may serve as a supplement to the socialist economy and, on the other, it can serve as a comparison with the socialist economy in certain respects.13 Zhou Enlai also said at a State Council meeting: In socialist construction, a bit of private enterprise with flexible operation is good and makes things more lively.14 These new ideas for enlivening the economy represented a new development of the policies of keeping the state and collective operation as the main body and allowing for a certain amount of individual operation as a supplement set by the 8th National Party Congress. A further consideration related to this was that capitalist private operation within definite limits under state leadership could also be made supplementary to the main body of the socialist economy. In his talks with personages of industrial and commercial circles, Mao Zedong was also in favour of extricating from the ranks of "capitalists" the large number of small proprietors and self-employed people engaged in industrial and commercial businesses who entered joint state-private enterprises together with capitalists, of no longer paying them a fixed interest (the amount was minimal), and of allowing them to join A HHm.ah these considerations and suggestions were ats—a siggsiis creased. In September 15, . agricultural production was proposed. In general, a 88 a producti0n team (now s ss farm output quotas to each group ior ou ^ each p]0t of &*££% contract the odd JObs in the fields to households. The major work should be done collectively and the minor, piecemeal work, by households or individuals, thus replacing such labour-wasting practice as that of having "all coop members work together like a swarm of bees," and so on. These instructions were formulated under the direction of Deng Zihui. They were creative ventures oriented towards the production responsibility system. The 3rd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held in autumn 1957 adopted the drafts of three stipulations drawn up under the leadership of Chen Yun for improving the management systems of industry, commerce and finance. The stipulations were meant to appropriately transfer management power downwards to localities and enterprises as called for at the 8th National Party Congress. In essence, the readjustment of economic plans and economic relations were designed to solve contradictions among the people. Systematically posing the question of how to correctly handle contradictions among the people and making it the main theme of the campaign to rectify the Party's style of work as well as of the state's political life was on the agenda only after Mao Zedong had issued an important speech on this question at the Supreme State Conference in February 1957.

The Rectification Campaign and the Anti-Rightist Struggle

Actually, rectification of the Party's style of work was also proposed at the 8th National Party Congress. In connection with the Yanan rectification movement, Mao Zedong pointed out in his opening speech to the 8th National Party Congress: At present, subjectivism, bureaucratism and factionalism still exist in the thinking and working style of many of our comrades; they are harmful to inner-Party unity and unity between the Party and the people; we must strive to overcome these serious defects, for only in this way can we successfully accomplish the great construction cHAKTER SEVEN socialist construction 519 *,ork ahead of us. At the 2nd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held in November 1956, what happened in Poland and Hungary15 was duly heeded as an admonition. Thus, while giving consideration to both national construction and the neople's livelihood, the session stressed, it was necessary to guard Lainst and prevent cadres taking on privileges and divorcing themselves from the people. A decision was taken to carry out a rectification campaign throughout the Party ranks in the nex year towards which discussions and preparations were to be instituted right away. The Rectification Campaign Focusing on the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People This rectification campaign centred on how to correctly handle contradictions among the people. Since contradictions between ourselves and the enemy were basically resolved (but not completely however) in the country, endlessly emerging contradictions among the people became increasingly conspicuous and prominent. These contradictions were reflected in a concentrated way as contradictions between the masses of the people and their leaders; i.c., the people's government and the ruling Communist Party. To resolve these contradictions, from the angle of ideological cduc^Jh it was necessary on the one hand to educate the Communist Par y members who held leading posts, government personnel, and stair members of economic and cultural organizations to listen seriously to the criticisms of the masses and strive, in their style of work to overcome subjectivism, factionalism and bureaucratism which divorce them from reality and the masses; on the other hand efforts should be made to enhance the consciousness of the masses through education and encourage them to foster a socialist spirit based on the principle of combining collective with individual interests. The first aspect should be given priority; therefore, the Party rectification campaign should stress this aspect in seeking to resolve contradictions between the masses and the leaders, and study the new problem of how to correctly handle contradictions among the people under the new situation in which the main task of revolution has shifted to construction. In the autumn and winter of 1956, instability arose. Internationally, the events in Poland and Hungary were bound to exert an influence on China. Domestically, the rapid progress of social transformation and the profound changes, plus the rash advance in economic construction which could not be totally overcome, resulted in some strain in the nation's economic and political life. In the second half of 1956, shortages of grain, meat and everyday necessities occurred in many cities. Many difficulties were encountered by a small number of students in continuing their education, by workers in finding employment, and by demobilized soldiers in getting proper arrangements for placement. A few people created disturbances. According to incomplete statistics, during the six months between September 1956 and March 1957, more than 10,000 workers staged a number of strikes and strikes, while more than 10,000 students became involved in strikes and drawing up petitions. In many places in the rural areas, after the summer harvest, peasants agitated to withdraw from the coops and complained about shortages of food grain. Most sensitive of all to changes in the political climate were the intellectuals, who became increasingly uninhibited in their thinking after the policy was put forward of "Jetting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend." They criticized dogmatism and aired differing views on questions related to culture, education, science and other fields. Some people also openly criticized shortcomings and mistakes in the work of the Party and the government as well as problems in the working style of some cadres. Their comments, some of which were erroneous, included many sharp criticisms. In face of these newly emerging contradictions, many Party members and cadres, lacking ideological preparation, found themselves in a passive position, or, still judging new things by old standards, they regarded all the disturbances and sharp criticisms by the masses as reflections of the class struggle and attempted to suppress them in a rude, simplistic manner. In February 1957, at an enlarged Supreme State conference attended by more than 1,800 people, Mao Zedong delivered an 521 q^pter seven socialist construction rfant soeech entitled "On the Correct Handling of Contraprions Among the People " He pointed out: Contradictions exist ntersaUy and socialist society is also full of contradictions. It nrecisely these contradictions that propel socialist society to onstan ly advance. In socialist society the basic contradicnons S, 'hose between the relations of production and the productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base^ However they are fundamentally different in character and have former should be resolved through methods of coercion an dictatorship while the latter can only be resolved through demo how to correctly handle contradictions among the people m by small numbers of people, and the schools of thought contend" and "long-term coexistence and mutual supervis » The quest n of practising economy and China's path to industrialization. Mao Zedong said, "Today, matters stand as follows. The large-scale, turbulent class struggles of the masses characteristic of times of revolution have in the main come to an end, but class struggle is by no means entirely over. While welcoming the new system, the masses are not yet quite accustomed to it. Government personnel are not sufficiently experienced and have to undertake further study and investigation of specific policies." He held that it was imperative for us at this juncture to raise the question of distinguishing contradictions among the people from those between ourselves and the enemy, as well as the question of the correct handling of contradictions among the people, in order to unite the people of all nationalities in our country to develop our economy and culture, consolidate our new system and build up our new state. Mao Zedong's speech at the Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work held in March 1957 by the Propaganda Department of the Party Central Committee and attended by more than 800 Party and non-Party ideological workers further expounded the Party's evaluation of intellectuals (the overwhelming majority support the socialist system; a small number do not quite welcome the socialist system but are still patriotic; the number of intellectuals who are hostile to our state is very small). He affirmed as necessary the reform of intellectuals and their integration with the masses of workers and peasants. "Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend," he declared, was a basic as well as a long-term policy. In leading our country, the "open wide" policy should be followed, and to "open wide" means to give people a chance to express their opinions, so that they dare to speak, dare to criticize and dare to debate. These two speeches, passed on to the broad masses of cadres and intellectuals to discuss, aroused enthusiastic repercussions. In the course of passing on and discussing these two speeches, contradictions among the people in various areas were also exposed and examined. As for the Communist Party, its rectification campaign had already begun. The Party Central Committee circulated a number of inner-Party directives and the Parly newspaper publicly issued a series of editorials to strengthen \nervision over the proceedings. Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi pni south on separate routes. Along the way they made reports, *kiL Party cadres to fully understand the profound transmon Lm revolution to construction, and to fully understand and Idoot the Party's policy of correctly handling contradiction among the people. In this way, "literature and art science and technology will prosper, the Party can always maintain its vital ity, the people's cause will flourish, and China will become a nowerful yet lovable country."16 P°Qn Aoril 27 the Party Central Committee formally issued its Direction the Rectification Campaign which pointed out. Since the Party has now attained the status of the party in powt throughout the nation and received the support of the broad masses of people, many comrades are likely to adopt the simple method of sending down administrative orders to deal with problems Some elements, lacking a firm stand, are prone to become tainted with remnants of the old society working style to tike on certain ideas of special privilege, and to even treat the masses with methods of retaliation. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an overall, profound rectification campargn throughout the Party against bureaucratism, factionalism and subjecMKm. This rectification campaign should be a serious ideological educational movement to be carried out in a gentle, mdd y' f well as a movement for making appropriate criticism and self criticism. The methods to be adopted should include heart to heart talks between individuals, small discussion meetings or group ‘meetings; in general, large-scale criticism meetings or public accusation meetings are not recommended. h . T Situation in the Summer of 1957," Mao Zedong sard. Th P V » aim in carrying out the rectification campaign is to create a nohtical shuation in which we have both centralism and democand freedom, both unity of will and personal 63 The advance^f the theory and policies on the correct handling of contradictions among the people, and also the proposal tor the rectification campaign, together with the politica designed to create, continued and developed the line of the National Party Congress; they represented new achievements in exploring China's own road for building socialism, with equally far-reaching importance and significance to the Party's cause. Rectification Shifts to Anti-Rightist Struggle After publication of the rectification instructions, the Party and government organizations at all levels, Party organizations of institutions of higher learning, scientific research institutes and cultural and art units each held discussion meetings and group meetings in various forms, listened to the opinions of the masses both inside and outside the Party and welcomed the "free airing of views" (a simplified phrase which developed in the course of discussing and implementing the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend). From May 8 to June 3, on 13 occasions, the United Front Department of the CPC Central Committee held the forums attended by responsible members of the democratic parties and nonparty democratic personages. From May 16 to June 8, on 25 occasions, the United Front Department of the CPC Central Committee and the No. 8 Office of the State Council held forums attended by personages from industrial and commercial circles. Large numbers of cadres and ordinary people both inside and outside the Party enthusiastically responded to the Party's call and put forward many criticisms and suggestions in regard to the work of the Party and government as well as the working style and ideology of Party and government cadres. The Party sincerely welcomed the well-meant criticisms and suggestions from all the personages in general outside the Party and from Party members. In May, the Party Central Committee issued innerParty instructions on several occasions pointing out that "in the past two months, open discussions of contradictions among the people have been conducted at various meetings participated by non-party personages and reported in newspapers and magazines, thus, with exceptional speed, all kinds of contradictions have been exposed. It seems that in the past we did not fully comprehend the situation of these contradictions in detail. It is a good thing «/ that they have been accurately exposed. The criticisms made HvThe majority of nonparty personages are, fundamentally speakyo sincere and correct, no matter how sharp they are. The e "Ifticisms account for well over 90 percent and are extremely Xrs and have be^ domineering. Although this was by no means true of all Party members, this situation was extreme y common. This wrong orientation must be nnd what is more, the sooner the better. These inner rany instructions showed that the Party sincerely hoped, through its rectification to handle contradictions among the people correc v inelud'ng those between the masses of the people and leading members and also hoped to overcome the unhealthy tendency in Tc Party and to strengthen unity between the Party and the Pe bureaucratism, sectarianism and subjectivism. This situation aroused the vigilance of the Party. That only a few people among the intellectuals harboured hostility towards socialism had already been soberly appraised and pointed out by the Party on several occasions. But, their current furious attack had not been foreseen. On May 16, the Party Central Committee issued relevant inner-Party instructions. While stressing that over 90 percent of the criticisms of our Party made by non-Party personages were sincere and correct, the Party Central Committee also pointed out that recently, out in society there were a few people with antiParty leanings who were eager to have a trial of strength. They had made some provocative remarks and tried to deflect the Party's direction (correctly handling contradictions among the people and consolidating the people's democratic dictatorship in the interests of socialist construction) to an erroneous orientation. The Party Central Committee decided that their incorrect and injurious remarks could be issued and published in the newspapers without interference, and for the time being no rebuttal would be made so that their true reactionary features would be exposed. That is to say, the Party changed its stance of opposing free airing of views" to one of favouring "free airing of views" so as to take over the weapon from the Rightists. On May 19, big-character posters appeared in some colleges and universities in Beijing. The Central Committee held the view that bigcharacter posters which could temper the masses while exposing problems and Rightists, had more advantages than disadvantages. Thus institutions of higher learning and units of the Party and government saw a rapid upsurge in speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters. This brought on an artificially aggravated, nationwide political tension and instability. "Things Are Beginning to Change," an article written by Mao Zedong in mid-May, marked the change in the guiding ideology of the Party Central Committee. The theme of the on-going movement switched from the correct handling of contradictions among the people to a struggle against the enemy, and from inner-Party consolidation to beating back the Rightists. On June r>ntral Committee issued inner-Party instructions for 8' 1 nizinu forces to beat back the attack of the Rightists. On the 0161 , dav Renmin Ribao ( People's Daily ) published an editorial Spiled "Why This'" A turbulent anti-Rightist mass movement 6 eid nadonwide The practices of speaking out freely, airing SP WS fully holding great debates and writing big-character post TwerfaL" Se in the struggle against the Rightists. The stage of studying documents, criticism and ^tros^cnans y 6 irH Plenarv Session of the 8th 1 artv uciuk RlThf rS""on and anti-Rightist movement ended in the summer of 1958. Consequences and Influence of Expanding the Anti-Rightist Struggle After the socialist transformation of private -ownership of the rasr-sti* socialist road. If we had given up the struggle and had not clearly beaten back the attack of a few Rightists in the spheres where problems had arisen, it would have led to ideological and political confusion. Experience gained by the Party in this respect is precious and is of far-reaching significance. However, the Rightists made up a very small number. At that time, the Party made an overly grave estimate of the class struggle and the Rightist attack and failed to adopt a prudent view towards the ferocity of the developing struggle. This resulted in a serious expansion of the struggle against Rightists. Originally, the article "Things Are Beginning to Change" encompassed the following considerations: criticize the Rightists; with some exceptions no names need to be mentioned, and room for manoeuvre should be left to facilitate compromise under appropriate conditions. The Party Central Committee issued instructions on June 29, 1957 to the effect that the number of Rightists who should be criticized by name in different fields should be 400 in Beijing and 4,000 nationwide. Already this did not, in the main, criticize the political and ideological trend as such, but placed more emphasis on specific mention of names, the number of which, nevertheless, was still quite limited. After only ten days, the number of people who were to be criticized by name in accordance with the Party Central Committee instructions was doubled. In August, as instructed, the movement was to be further spread to prefectures and counties, urban districts and large factories and mines (later to the teaching staff of primary and middle schools), and, as proposed, Rightists were to be "dug out" from in deep. According to statistics of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held in September, over 60,000 people were designated as Rightists; by the time the movement was over, the figure had jumped to 550,000. With regard to the determination of the nature of the Rightists, the suggestions of the United Front Department of the Party Central Committee approved by the Party Central Committee on July 11 still said that "among the people there is the division into left, middle and right." At the same time, it pointed out that there were indeed some ultraRightists among the Rightists and some of the ultra-Rightists 529 verged on the line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves politically. Only a few days later, the Party Central Committee concluded that the contradiction between the bourgeois Rightists and the people was contradiction between the enemy and ourselves. This led to a drastic expansion of the struggle against the Rightists both in regard to the numbers involved and the nature of the contradiction. The methods adopted of speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters during the movement were also important factors in seriously magnifying the struggle against the Rightists. Among those who were designated as "Rightists' only a very small number opposed the Party and socialism. Many persons simply made criticisms and suggestions about the Party's work and its cadres. Their criticisms were either correct or lopsided, but were not in opposition to the Party or socialism. However, many leading cadres regarded themselves as infallible, could not listen to unpleasant criticisms and tended to interpret these criticisms as being anti-Party and anti-socialism. Some people put forward questions and ideas about the reality and theory of socialism. Even if their remarks deviate from the proper direction, their errors should have been resolved through discussions and education, and should not have come under attack as opposing socialism. Many faithful comrades, many friends who had a long history of cooperation with the Party, many talented intellectuals and many young people who, politically, were lull of zeal but lacked maturity, were mistakenly designated as "Rightists." Because of this they felt grieved and wronged for a long time and could not play their due role in socialist construction. It was a great loss not only to them personally, but also a loss to the cause of the whole Party and state. Magnifying the struggle against the Rightists was a blow to the enthusiasm of many intellectuals and their faith in the Party to definite degree. This was also a loss to the Party and state. When rectification of improper working styles started, the Party Central Committee reiterated that we should not handle contradictions among the people with methods used in struggling against the enemy. However, the situation was complicated, a handful of Rightists had launched attacks; leading members of the Party at all levels tended to rely on the political experience they had accumulated and the habits that had become strengthened during fierce class struggles over a long period of time; they again struck out on the familiar route of directing a mass movement of struggle against enemies and interpreted a host of contradictions among the people which had newly emerged during the period of historical transformations as contradictions between the enemy and ourselves. This is a big lesson in the Party history since the founding of New China, showing how hard it is to deal with an unfamiliar, complicated political situation and to bring about historical changes in political life. Drastic enlargement of the struggle against the Rightists had an extremely untoward effect on high policy: the assessment which had been made at the 1st Session of the 8th National Party Congress on the principal contradiction in Chinese society was changed at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee. Mao Zedong pointed out in his speech in the early days of the plenary session that the main contradiction in Chinese society was still the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the contradiction between the socialist road and the capitalist road. Many comrades expressed doubts concerning this view at the plenary session panel discussions. They held that the answer to the question reached at the 8th National Party Congress was still correct; that this conclusion should not be changed because of the anti-Rightist struggle; and that the temporarily exacerbated class struggle should not be regarded as the longterm, main contradiction. Some other comrades were of the view that although class struggle in the economic sphere had been basically allayed, class struggle in the political and ideological spheres would persist for a long time and was still the main contradiction in society. In his speech at the later period of the plenary session, Mao Zedong disagreed with the former views. In accordance with Mao Zedong's opinions, the 2nd Session of the 8th National Party Congress further affirmed, "The experience of the rectification movement and the struggle against Rightists once again demonstrates that in the entire transition oeriod that is, before the completion of the socialist construction fhe struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and between the socialist road and the capitalist road to all along been the main internal contradiction in China The second Eon announced that there were "two exploiting classes and two abouring classes" in China. Rightists, the overthrown comprador and landlord classes and other reactionaries made up what was called one of the exploiting classes. "The national bourgeoisie, which is now gradually accepting the socialist transf°rmi,t'""' and its intellectuals" were called the other exploiting class. Work ers and farmers were the two labouring classes. In this way, intellectuals were, for practical purposes, classified within the scope of the second exploiting class. National Partv The judgement of the 1st Session of the 8th National 1 arty Congress on the change of the main contradictions (i.e., he principal contradiction within the country was no longer th contradiction between the proletariat and the bourge01"ie'b" between the need of the people for rapid economic and l cul dural development and the present state of the economy and cuUure that fell short of their need) in Chinese society was, fundamen tally speaking, correct. The session did not negate the existence of the class struggle and, what is more, it clearly pointed out "After the completion of the socialist transformation, struggle between socialism and capitalism in regard to stand, vtewpom and method will continue for a fairly long period of time. 1 he fact that Rightists launched attacks in 1957 proved that the struggle in the ideological field over which who would win out capitalism or socialism, had not naturally come to an end along with the completion of the transformation of private ownership of the means of production. However, how to handle the stru8g'® was a complicated matter. The Party lacked experiences in this respect The practice of drastically magnifying the struggle against the Rightists, once it found expression m theory unsettled and revised the scientific judgement made at the 8th Na* Partv Congress concerning the main contradiction in Chinese Tocilty The revised judgement became the theoretica basis on which the Party was to commit, again and again, mistakes, not only of class-struggle magnification, but even those of a purely fictitious nature. Exploring the way to build socialism in China involves a very difficult process, and must advance through complicated trials. At that time, in the main, two major problems confronted China: one was the class struggle under socialist condition, and the other, the scale and speed of socialist construction. Throughout the long period of about 20 years (1957-76), our Party, in dealing with these two problems, repeatedly made serious mistakes which were mutually exacerbating and which steered the explorations astray along a course fraught with ups and downs.

Emergence of the "Great Leap Forward" and People's Communes

The proposal to launch a "great leap forward" signalled the Party's intention to strive for the opening up of a new prospect in its exploration of the path for China's socialist construction. History has proved that this effort failed. But the proposal in 1958 for a "great leap forward" was made against the background of contemporaneous historical developments. First of all, there was the influence of the anti-Rightist struggle. The Party held that the victory of the struggle had greatly fired the enthusiasm of the people for socialist construction. During the rectification, a new atmosphere of rapid production growth emerged in some factories and rural areas. Many people were of the view that it was entirely possible that construction could be conducted at a faster speed nationwide than envisaged in the First Five-Year Plan. Mao Zedong believed all the more that the 1956 opposition to premature advance was wrong. At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held in late September and early October of 1957, apart from discussing rectification and the struggle against the Rightists, the topic of rural work also came under discussion. On listening to some leaders of local governments proposing to achieve greater, faster, better and more economic results, Mao Zedong became very S33 ^TEB SEVEN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION ,1 Tn his sDeech at the meeting he not only changed the eXrieement of the 8th National Party Congress on the mam 1 nntradiction in the Chinese society, but also changed the policy of struggle against conservative ideas, on the one hapd' and ™ advance on the other, in economic construction, as had been confirmed at the 1st Session of the 8th National Party g He criticized the 1956 opposition to premature advance as sweepf„g as^e the slogan of achieving greater, faster better and more economic results, as well as the Forty-Article Outline for Ag^ cultural Development; with the emergence of the Rightist cievia ion th "dPed the Rightist attackers with matter to gossip about. The session adopted and published the revised draft of he outline and decided that with the discussion of the outline as the ^emral task, a big debate over the rural produc«^»u dta conducted in the rural areas so as to promote the rapid develop ment of agriculture. On November 13, th c People s Da ly published an editorial to this end. The editorial pointed out, Some people have suffered from the disease of Right-deviatiomst conservatism trailed at a snail's pace and failed to understand that after the formation of agricultural cooperatives we have the conditions and the need for a big leap forward on the productio front. This heralded the "great leap forward. TonferMao Zedong led the Chinese delegation to attend the Confer ence of Communist and Workers' Parties held in November 1957 in Moscow, and the Communist Party of China enjoyed grea nrestige in the international Communist movement. The first man-made earth satellite launched into space by *e Soviet U, inspired socialists throughout the world. The Soviet Umon pu forward the suggestion that it would catch up with or surpass United States in fifteen years. Mao Zedong Propos^d at * meeting that China should catch up with or surpass Britain * fifteen years in steel output. At the 8th National Congress onhe Chinese Trade Unions held in December, on behalf of the Centra Committee Liu Shaoqi extended his congratulations and open y "ced^call tothe people of thecountrythatChmashou.d catch up with or surpass Britain in the output of iron and steel and other important industrial products in fifteen years. In winter that year, the Party committees of various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions held representative conferences at which they used the style of "speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters" to criticize Right-deviationist conservatism; at the same time, they mobilized and organized farmers to work day and night to set off a winter high tide of agricultural production centred on building water conservancy projects, raising pigs so as to provide more manure, and improving the soil. This raised the curtain on the great leap forward. The 2nd Session of the 8th National Party Congress In January and March 1958, Mao Zedong held work conferences in Nanning and Chengdu attended by some of the leading members from the central and local governments. With regard to estimating the economic work in 1956 and the debate over formulating the 1957 economic plan, Mao Zedong more sternly repudiated the struggle against premature advance; he criticized Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun, saying that the struggle against premature advance, or "rash" advance as it was called, discouraged the 600 million people and committed a mistake of political orientation. At the Nanning conference, Mao Zedong put forward the idea of "uninterrupted revolution" and held that in 1956 a fundamental victory of socialist revolution was won in the ownership of the means of production, and in 1957 a fundamental victory of socialist revolution was won in the rectification movement and the struggle against Rightists on the political and ideological front. Now a technical revolution should be conducted to shift the focus of the Party's work to technical revolution. It is true, the transfer of the focus of the Party's work can be considered a continuation of the correct strategic idea of shifting revolution to construction repeatedly stressed before and after the 1st Session of the 8th National Party Congress. However, this particular kind of transfer could not but depart from the correct orientation, integrated as it was with criticism of the struggle against rash advance and the launching of the great leap forward 535 as well as with the slogan of "carrying on a bitter struggle in three years" to basically transform backward conditions, and departing as it did from the track of seeking truth from facts to direct a steady advance. At the Chengdu conference, Mao Zedong stressed that it was necessary to do away with blind laith and to emancipate the mind. He also stressed combining study with independent creation and criticized the dogmatism characterizing the past eight years' economic work (mainly heavy industry and the work of planning) and held that this was owing to the pressure of foreign experience, the inability to think independently and the failing to take warnings from the dogmatism of Wang Ming. The Nanning and Chengdu conferences, inasmuch as they represented a new starting point in exploring China's own road lor building socialism, had a positive aspect, lhal enabled the Central Com mittee and the whole Party to open up a new train of thought; strive to carry forward the good traditions of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in one's own hands and the mass line- traditions which had been formed in the long revolutionary struggles of the Chinese people; enhance vigour and develop China's socialist construction with better methods and at a quicker pace. However, practice proved later that the conferences exerted a negative etlect on the work of the Cential Committee and the whole Party. The leaders of the Central Committee who had opposed rashness or advocated opposition to rashness in 1956 (they represented the majority of the Party Central Committee, and what is more, their stand was affirmed at the 1st Session of the 8th Party Congress and at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee) were inappropriately criticized at the two conferences; this made way for the following two influences: First, the new explorations actually negated the valuable, successful experience accumulated by the Party and the people from the time of the economic recovery to the First Five-Year Plan period and summed up by the 8th National Party Congress. The new explorations should have been conducted on the basis of these experiences. Totally ignoring them made it very hard to avoid action based on conjecture and rashness divorced from reality. Second, the new exploration actually negated the experience and wisdom of the collective leading body of the Party Central Committee and destroyed the principle of collective leadership and democratic centralism of the Party. Thus, furthering the tendency to make individual arbitrary decisions and easing the development of the personality cult was hardly avoidable. In May 1958, the 2nd Session of the 8th Party Congress was held in Beijing. On behalf of the Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi made a political report. In accordance with the suggestion of Mao Zedong, the session adopted the general line of "going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism." The explanation of the general line in the political report was that the main task of the Parly is to conduct socialist construction and implement technical and cultural revolution (here, the implementation of the cultural revolution was to develop culture, education and public health that serve economic construction). The political report also put forward the policy of walking on two legs (referring to a series of policies for balancing the relations between industry and agriculture, industries run by the central government and those run by local authorities, large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises). The explanation was correct. The advancement of the general line reflected the wishes of the broad masses of people who urgently wanted China's backward economy and culture to be changed as quickly as possible. However, it ignored the objective law of economic development, negated the comprehensive balance of the plan for the development of the national economy and exaggerated the role of the subjective will and conscious efforts. Moreover, in propaganda, the fundamental spirit of the general line was one-sidedly stressed as "Developing our socialist productive forces at the highest speed," "Speed is the soul of the general line" and "Faster is the central link in achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results." Consequently, blind pursuit of faster economic results became an overriding concern. The session held arbitrarily that the opposition to rash advance 537 launched in the second half of 1956 had led to "saddle-shaped" economic development; that is, a high ude in 1956' a .lo™ " years. The call to "take steel as the key link" pressed for a reduced period of only seven years, five years, or even three years, in which to fulfil in advance the steel output target of catching up with or surpassing Britain within fifteen years, as originally stipulated. High targets brought about high estimates of yet unharvested yields. During the 1958 summer harvest period, a wave of sending in false reports of high yields and launching high-yield "satellites" swept various parts of the country. The news media played it up with approval as denoting "how bold the people are determines how great the output of the land is," and openly criticized the "theory of limitations to grain output" increase and the way of proceeding on the basis of objective, practical conditions as the theory that "conditions determine all." The high targets and proneness to boasting and exaggeration in production promoted eagerness for the transition to a so-called higher form in the sphere of relations of production, and fostered the subjective view that the larger the scale of agricultural cooperatives and the higher the degree of public ownership, the greater the possibility to expand production. In April, the Central Committee issued suggestions on properly merging small agricultural cooperatives into large communes; thus large communes with one or several thousand households each were established on trial in various localities. Between July and August, Red Flag and People's Daily publicly propagated Mao Zedong's concept that workers, farmers, merchants, students and soldiers would make up each large commune to form the basic units of Chinese society. Henan, Shandong and other places immediately responded to the call and the establishment of rural people's communes began. Output of Iron and Steel Doubled by the Year and Upsurge of the People's Communes In August 1958, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting in Beidaihe. The meeting not only made no effort to correct the boasting, exaggeration and confusion that was already seriously harming everyday life, but 539 „„ the contrary, officially expressed support. Grossly overestimated vields falsely reflected enormous increases in agricultural nroduction. Leading members of the related departments of the central government and many localities were jubilant at the great ton forward and had not the slightest doubt regarding the misrepresentations indicating unusually large margins of : increase in production. The meeting went so far as P™8,1? v„ , expected 1958 grain output as reaching 300-350 billion kg (1 S in 1957) and 400-500 billion kg in 1959. The meeting made a formal decision that in 1958 steel output was to be double that of the previous year, reaching 10.7 million tons, and in It was to reach 27-30 million tons. The planned targets for the Second Five-Year Plan adopted at the meeting were in general double those adopted at the 2nd Session of the 8th Party Congress only three months earlier. The Resolution on Setting Up People s Communes in the Rural Areas adopted at the meeting was regarded as the "basic policy that should be followed for guiding farmers to accelerate socialist construction, finish building socialism earlier and gradually make the transition to communisnn The meeting stipulated that the people's communes should implement the principle of merging government administration with commune management and should include workers, farmers, merchants, students and soldiers; stressed that peoples communes should adopt the system of collective ownership at present and should not be in a hurry to change over to the system of ownership by the whole people. Nevertheless, the transition to ownership bv the whole people could be realized at the earliest in three or four years, or later on in five or slx somewhat longer period. The resolution also stated, The real.za lion of communism in China is no longer something in the distant future." The meeting rapidly pushed the great leap forward and the movement to form people's communes to a high tide. Lett deviations errors, mainly characterized by excessively high targets, messing things up by issuing wrong orders proneness to boasting and exaggeration and the "tendency to effect the transition to communism prematurely" spread unchecked, causing great harm. After the meeting, in order to fulfil the current steel production task which, with the additions made and the sum doubled that year, had reached 10.7 million tons (only 4 million tons were produced in the first eight months of the year), a nationwide mass movement for making steel was started. With the first secretaries of the Party committees at all levels taking charge, people in the tens of millions (about 90 million) were mobilized to go to the mountains, cut trees, excavate coal and find minerals for ironsmelting. Some one million small locally devised smelting furnaces and coking furnaces were put together for making steel by indigenous methods. All modern large- and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises also broke through various rules and regulations, went in for the mass movement in a big way and threw the normal production procedures into disorder. At the same time, with iron and steel as the centre, the "entire nation" also went in for other undertakings such as power, transport, water conservancy projects and cultural and educational activities. This was called "Taking steel as the key link, an all-round leap forward," and "One takes the lead and all go full steam ahead." Scientific research, writing articles and poems, or drawing pictures, these also needed to have a leap forward and to launch "satellites." This widespread blind activity on a mass scale which completely went against objective economic laws not only brought about an enormous waste of human and material resources, but also led to serious imbalance between the various branches of the national economy. By the end of 1958, China had produced 1 1.08 million tons of steel, but only 8 million tons were up to standard. Total industrial output value of the year was 54.8 percent higher than the previous year, while total agricultural output value, verified later, registered only a rise of 2.4 percent over the year before because several dozen million members of rural labour forces were used elsewhere. Investment in capital construction rose by 87.7 percent as against that of the previous year. The total number of workers and staff members throughout the country rose by more than 66 percent, burdening the state financial department beyond its means. Market supplies were tight and difficulties arose in production and the daily lives of the people. After the Beidaihe meeting, people in the rural areas throughthe country rushed headlong into mass action and organized ^ople's communes in a big way. Without any experimentation took just one month or so to basically accomplish this. By the end of the year, 740,000 agricultural cooperatives had merged into 26 000 people's communes and over 99 percent of the farm ers' households were now in communes. As to their characteristics the people's communes were "large in size and collective in nature"; for all practical purposes, this meant equaUtariamsm and indiscriminate transfer of resources. Large meant that a former cooperative with 100-200 households was merged with others into a people's commune of 4,500-5,000 or 10 000-20,000 households. There was, generally speaking, one commune in a township. "Collective" meant that after the _ merging of several dozen or even 100 cooperatives differing in economic conditions, some poorer, some better-oif, all their properties were handed over to the people's commune. Property of relatively greater amount would not be returned and that of less amount would not be made up. An account was made of all he property and it was distributed in a unified way within the commune. Partial implementation of the supply system (mclud ing the establishment of public canteens in a big way and ood provided free of charge, which were called communist factors) led to serious equalitarianism between the former cooperatives (they were called production brigades or teams after merging) and between commune members. At the same time, commune members' plots of land for their private use, domestic animals, fruit trees and so on, also came under commune ownership In the course of establishing various enterprises in a big way the local governments and communes often allocated and used land, materials and members of the labour force belonging to the production teams without compensation and even took over hous es and furniture of commune members. All this was nothing u expropriation of the farmers, who, very upset and discontented slaughtered pigs and sheep, and cut down trees; this enormous damage to the productive forces and had a disastrous impact on agricultural production. In the people's communes, the organization was strictly military. Activities were carried out as if in combat action and everyday life was led in a collective manner. Labour power was organized into squads, platoons, companies and battalions like a military establishment. The method of warfare by large contingents was adopted for industry and agriculture. Continuous operations went on day and night. It was also stressed that communes should strive for all-round self-sufficiency in production and efforts were made to expand the distribution of commodities in the commune. The former small peddlars and vendors, open markets and even household sideline occupations were banned as "capitalist tails." Many cadres were of the opinion that the less commodity exchange there was, the nearer communism would be. For instance, Xushui County in Hebei Province and Fanxian County in Shandong Province planned the "transition to communism" after two or three years' experiment. To this end, they proposed "eight guarantees" and "ten guarantees" and announced that the people's communes would sustain all the expenses for food, clothing, shelter, travel, childbirth, old age, sickness, death, and weddings. These situations show how deeply the people's communes at the initial stage were imbued with pronounced characteristics of equal itarianism and military communism. The "great leap forward" and the movement to form people's communes constituted one instance of a serious mistake made by the Party in the course of exploring China's own road for building socialism. The mistake had its source. "China's economic backwardness and poor material foundation have up to now landed us in a passive state. We are fettered spiritually and we have not emancipated ourselves in this respect" (Sixty Articles for Work Method ‘draft'). The above remarks made by Mao Zedong in launching the great leap forward spoke out the common feeling of the entire Party. To exert the maximum efforts to construct the country quickly so as to gain more initiative was the common demand of the entire Party and nation. All the people were willing to believe that, confronting the Chinese people who had speedily achieved a series of great victories, there was nothing they could not accomplish. Because we had established an excel543 ^pTFR SEVEN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION ema?hJn r certainly could mobilize and rely on ihe masses of Inle for economic construction and could achieve the high thC n we desired and which the world had never seen, it was not Sp^edlh, wish or sentiments of an individual; in a certain sense, Ss tlK Cv indeed existed Within the limits permitted by the economy indeed exisicu correctly led and organobjective conditions, so long as * conformed t0 PHiSi Sfiifgil tion and had failed to make an e»™^t analysi^and study^.^ experience accumulated during e mobilizing and war and political struggles. When they switched to leading economic construction, it was very easy for them to believe that if they adopted the methods of the mass movement, as in the revolutionary war and political struggles, economic construction could be conducted in a quicker and better way. During the revolutionary war period, life in the revolutionary ranks, bordering on military communism, not only left happy memories for many comrades, but also influenced their concept of the future ideal society. Because of the anti-Rightist deviation, the three transformations of socialism were greatly accelerated and rapidly completed. Many comrades saw only its victories, but failed to see the many rough and tumble problems that were left and that would require a long time to adjust and solve. As a result, it strengthened their self-confidence in relying on the anti-Rightist deviation and going all out to step up construction and accelerate progress. Many comrades did not completely fail to see numerous mix-ups and divergencies arising in the mass movement. However, they often regarded them as minor aspects in the development of the situation for which, unavoidably, the price had to be paid as progress went on. They held that what was most important was the enthusiasm of the masses of the people. They were worried that correcting deviation would undermine this enthusiasm. But what they did not understand was that only if the masses were correctly led to achieve practical results in construction, could their enthusiasm be really maintained; and that practices which ran counter to objective economic laws and natural laws as well as exaggerated and false reports of "leap forward results" which damaged production, would truly undermine the enthusiasm of the masses. In short, faced with a series of victories, many Cadres, including many leading cadres in the Party, gradually dispensed with modesty and prudence and gave way to their gradually expanding arrogance and self-satisfaction. They did not have sufficient appreciation of the arduousness of building socialism in a large country with a backward economy and culture, and did not have a sufficient understanding of the necessity to master economic laws and scientific knowledge. In 1956, proceeding from reality, many comrades such as Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun 545 , th. cuseestion to oppose impatient, rash advance. At the ffla A Mao "zedong" could still afford the ideas of respect (or tU" ' omise) However, after the struggle against Rightists, Mao -r " that developments entirely proved the error of ss irisrzs srx->r determination. Impelled by hotheads eager for quick results, the "great leap forward" could hardly have been avoided.

Initial Efforts to Correct "Left" Mistakes

j&sr&szx—as wstMm IMlssiSss He S the lead in pointing out and seeking to corre ct the "Left" mistakes he had already discovered, reahzmg that o ,nly rTnr^tr" VtS development. The Central Or—. " Meeting hddin July 1959, led the whole Party in initial efforts to accomplish this aim. Rectification of the People's Communes The First Zhengzhou Meeting was a work conference attended by some, not all, of the central and local leaders. Mao Zedong proposed to hold the meeting, for he had found that in the movement to form people's communes many people had become caught up in a "rash advance" and entertained all sorts of confused ideas. There was a tendency to immediately proclaim ownership by the whole people, abolish commerce and eliminate commodity production. He felt that it was necessary to talk with these comrades to bring them round, to let them calm down and read some works on Marxist theory "in the light of China's socialist economic revolution and economic construction ... so that they could clarify their ideas."17 An enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee was also held in Wuchang during November and December 1958. The two meetings made preparations for the coming 6th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee held in Wuchang. Following many discussions, the 6th Plenary Session adopted the "Resolution on Some Problems Concerning the People's Communes" which accords the rise of the people's communes a high evaluation. At the same time, it elaborates several major policy issues and theories, in an attempt to clarify the confusion which had already appeared in ideology and work. The resolution stands out against the erroneous tendency of over-zealousness to make the transition to ownership by the whole people and to communism. It points out: It is necessary to distinguish clearly between collective ownership and ownership by the whole people, and in particular, between socialism and communism. The people's commune is an economic organization which is at present basically still under collective ownership. The turning of the agricultural cooperative into the people's commune does not mean changing from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people, and in no way does it mean passing over from socialism to communism. To deny prematurely the general principle of "to each according to his work" and to attempt to replace it with the principle of "to each according to his needs"; that is to say, to enter communism under unripe conditions, is a 547 Utopian idea that cannot materialize. The relations of production ^ust suit the nature of the forces of production. Transition from Baalist collective ownership to socialist ownership by the whole Louie or from socialism to communism, must be based on a St level of development of the forces of product.on Since we are enthusiastic about communism, we must iirst of all be Tager to develop the forces of production and do our utmost to realize industrialization. No groundless announcemennthould be made that the rural people's communes are about to carry out the system of ownership by the whole people at once, much less ‘lhat we a" about to enter communism at once." Tins would only distort and vulgarize the lofty ideal of communism and encour age the tendency of petty-bourgeois egalitarianism, while faibrjg to promote the development of socialist construction in any ""The resolution countered the erroneous tendency to try to do away with commodity production and commodity exchange too eli-ly It pointed out: In the future, for a requrstte period of time it will be essential to promote an extensive development of commodity production in the people's communes as well as of commodity exchange between the state and the communes and among communes. This kind of commodity production and ex cZgeTT be conducted in a planned way on the basts of socialist public ownership; therefore, it is not capitalist. To con linue to develop commodity production and to practise dlstrl^ ion according to work are two major issues of principle for promoting the socialtst economy. This must be the common understanding of all members throughout the Party. ... U The resoluhon sttpulates: The means of hvelihood (mcludmg housing) and the savings deposits owned by commune members themselves are still to be owned by them after organization of the neoole's communes, and will always belong to them. ^The 6th Plenary Session also adopted "Resolutions On the 1959 National Economic Plan." As the mistakes of ambitious output quotas had as yet failed to be corrected, the meeting formally announced 2-fold and over 2-fold °xhe 1957 as the 1958 quotas for grain, cotton, steel and coal. quota for grain reached 375 billion kg and for steel, 1 1 million tons. Thus, although "reducing the pressure" was emphasized, the 1959 quota for grain output was raised to 525 billion kg and other quotas were also kept high in the 1959 plan set at the Beidaihe Meeting. On the other hand, capital construction investment was reduced from the original 50 billion yuan to 36 billion yuan and the quota for steel output from 27-30 million tons down to 18-20 million tons. For 1959, the plan stipulated an even "greater leap forward" than that of 1958. After the resolution was adopted, Chen Yun suggested that it was not necessary to announce the various quotas set for 1959 in a communique, but his view was not put forward formally. After the 6th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee, the work to rectify people's communes was conducted nationwide. The tendency to rush the transition to ownership by the whole people and to communism prematurely was stopped. However, the egalitarianism and over-centralization within the communes still prevailed. Moreover, due to the obligation to fulfill the high purchase quota resulting from the high estimated output, and the launching of inappropriate struggle against selfish departmentalism on the part of the production team and against the practice of hiding the exact production figures, tension in Party and government relationships with the peasants was not really alleviated. Mao Zedong learned of this situation during an inspection tour and deemed it necessary to further straighten out the problem of "the communist wind," which was to begin with the problem of ownership at the different levels within the commune. Therefore, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee (also known as the Second Zhengzhou Meeting) was convened in Zhengzhou in February and March 1959. At the meeting, Mao Zedong made an important speech which pointed out: The main problem in the people's commune movement was that we have gone a little too far in our efforts to improve the relations of production; that is, the system of ownership in the commune. We did not understand that ownership by the commune must also undergo a process of development. 549 ownership by production team was canceled as soon as communes were established and complete ownership by communes was instituted. The "egalitarianism and indiscriminate remuncs (draft)." The "Eighteen Questions Concerning the People's Communes" were also laid down in March and April at the Shanghai Meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The two documents stipulated: The production team (about the size of the former advanced agricultural producers' cooperative; it was called production team in some areas, production brigade in others) is the basic accounting unit of the people's commune. Ownership by the production team, at present, is the basic form of ownership in the commune. The second document further stipulated that the production teams (called production brigades in some areas, generally they were equivalent to the elementary agricultural producers' cooperatives) under the production brigade as a contracted unit, should own part of the means of production and exercise limited powers of management; all old accounts arising from the organization of the people's communes should be settled and compensations paid, either the requisition of manpower, funds and material by counties or communes from production teams or that done by production teams onto commune members. The latter provision went against the related regulation provided by the second Zhengzhou Meeting. Mao Zedong stressed: Only by settling accounts is it possible to put into effect the law of value that exists objectively. This law of value is like a great school, and only by making use of it can our cadres in their tens of millions and our people in their hundreds of millions acquire some knowledge as to how to build up our socialism and communism. Otherwise, nothing can be accomplished. After the Second Zhengzhou Meeting, the Central Committee urged provinces and counties to hold multi-level meetings of cadres. The five-level cadre meetings at county level included cadres from production brigades and production teams, as well as some commune members, so as to make the principles and policies of the central authorities known to cadres and masses at the grassroots levels. Ihese meetings aimed to fully unveil contradictions and seek unity of thinking and actions. Mao Zedong wrote letters several times to cadres at various levels on holding these meetings and discussed issues and methods with them. He 551 repeatedly stressed, "In short, we must act according to the masses' suggestions. No matter what methods they are, they will do if they meet the demand of the masses. Otherwise, the method won't work in the long run." "We must show concern for the interests of the masses every day and every hour without fail and must always see that our policy and measures suit the present level of consciousness of the masses and the urgent current demands of the people. They won't work and are bound to fail if these two factors are missing."18 Quotas for the "Great Leap Forward" and Production Arrangements Readjusted At the 7th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee convened in Shanghai in April 1959, the draft regulating the people's communes was reaffirmed and the draft national economic plan for 1959 was discussed. The convening of the 2nd National People's Congress was suggested by some central committee members as an opportunity to openly revise certain high quotas set in the past. But they failed to elicit the support of the majority of central committee members. Except for investment in capital construction, which was reduced from 36 billion yuan to 26-28 billion yuan, the high quotas set in the 1959 nationa economic plan adopted at the session remained unchanged. Steel was still 18 million tons, 16.5 million tons of which were said in inner Party circles to be good steel. In 1958, good steel accounted for 8 million tons of the 1 1 million tons of steel produced. The 1st Session of the 2nd National People's Congress was convened in Beijing from April 18 to 25. At the session, the 1959 national economic plan set at the 7th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee was approved and these high quotas were announced. . , . At the session, in accordance with the suggestion made by the CPC Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi was elected chairman of the People's Republic of China, Soong Ching Ling and Dong Biwu vice-chairmen, and Zhu De chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. It was decided that Zhou Enlai should continue to serve as premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. Meanwhile, the 1st Session of the 3rd National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was held in Beijing. Mao Zedong was elected honorary chairman and Zhou Enlai chairman of the National Committee. In 1956, 1957, early 1958 and at the end of 1958 Mao Zedong requested within and outside the Party that h'e should not serve as chairman of the People's Republic of China, for he wished to withdraw from this leading post to the "second line." However, because of the new situation after the great leap forward, he stressed at the 7th Plenary Session that power should be concentrated in the Standing Committee of the CPC Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Central Committee under his supreme command. Therefore, in fact, he still remained at the front line. After the 7th Plenary Session, Mao Zedong became aware of problems among cadres who dared not reflect the real situation to levels above them and dared not express differing opinions from them. At the 7th Plenary Session, he urged people to learn from Hai Rui, a Ming Dynasty official who was honest, upright, outspoken and bold enough to state his views in criticism of the Emperor Jiajing. At the end of April, he wrote a letter for inner-Party circulation to cadres at all levels from the provincial to the production team, on speaking the truth. He said, "When fixing output quotas, say the amount you can fulfil, and say the exact amount you have harvested. No lies should be told falsifying the ceal situation." "Honest people who dare to speak the truth, in the last analysis, benefit the people and do not harm themselves. Those who are fond of telling lies bring harm to both the people and themselves." "We must admit," he added, "a great number of lies were told owing to pressure from above. Subordinates are placed in a difficult position if the superior is boastful, puts pressure on them and promises rewards. Therefore, enthusiasm should be there to work with, and definitely no falsehood."19 Entering the second quarter of 1959, serious consequences resulting from imbalance in the national economy became more 553 apparent. First of all, the situation in agriculture was very unfavourable. The area sown to summer crops of that year was 20 oercent less than that of the previous year. (This was because the 1958 grain output was over-estimated and therelore the slogan "strive for a high yield on a smaller area and bring in a big crop was raised.) The output of summer grain and oil-bearing crops dropped by a large margin. Vegetables, meat and other foodstuffs were in even shorter supply. There were also many problems m industry, while the quotas for iron and steel failed to be fulfilled. According to the plan, 6 million tons of steel would have been produced in the first four months of 1959, but actually the output was only 3.36 million tons. The problem could not be solved through the "iron and steel campaign." The principle of taking steel as the key link worked to the disadvantage of other industrial sectors, particularly of light industry, which caused the production of people's daily necessities to drop drastically, lhe amount of commodities in storage shrank, and supply shortages appeared everywhere. . In this situation, Chen Yun pointed out that it was nccessai> to economize in the use of grain and to control the volume to be sold; the raising of pigs, chickens, ducks and fish should be conducted by the state, the collectives and by individuals; raw and semifinished materials should be specially allocated for the production of daily necessities; the number of surplus workers who were over-enrolled the year before should be cut down to reduce the pressure on consumer goods. Following this, he was entrusted by Mao Zedong and the Secretariat of the Centra Committee to work out a quota for steel production. After careful investigation and study, Chen Yun in mid-May suggested to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee that steel outpu for 1959 should be cut back to 13 million tons. He also pointed out in a letter to Mao Zedong, "I don't think that it would be discouraging to fix the production figure a little lower (it is a reliable figure actually). Just as Comrade Liu Shaoqi stated at the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, it would be disappointing if the quota was too high to fulfil."20 The Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong attached great importance to Chen Yun's views. During May and June, the Central Committee issued a series of urgent instructions: to reduce the steel output from 18 million tons (16.5 million tons) to 13 million tons; to restore private plots of land in the rural areas and allow commune members to raise livestock and encourage them to make full use of scattered pieces of land on which to grow crops without being required to hand in any part of it as public grain to the state, and to plant trees by houses and roadsides which would be owned by themselves. The Central Committee also clearly pointed out that for over a long period of time it would be necessary to allow small private ownership of this kind to exist along with large collective ownership. To permit such small private ownership actually is to protect the fruits of labour gained by commune members after their collective labour hours, and cannot be considered "developing capitalism." The Central Committee held a meeting at Lushan in early July. With the meeting all prepared for and about to begin, Mao Zedong, in talking with some leading cadres, clearly affirmed that Chen Yun's view on "placing market in good order before capital construction" was correct, and that good arrangement for people's clothing, food, housing, daily necessities and transport were matters of vital bearing on stability among 650 million people. He also proposed to arrange the national economic plan in the order of agriculture, light industry and heavy industry instead of heavy industry, light industry and agriculture, as had been arranged in the past. This meant stressing agriculture as the basis of the national economy. It is necessary, first of all, to do a better job in agriculture. He also pointed out that overall balance was a fundamental problem in economic work. One of the major lessons in the great leap forward was the failure to achieve an overall balance. After nine months of efforts following the First Zhengzhou Meeting, the "communist wind," boasting and exaggeration, high quotas and issuing orders blindly, were brought under initial control. The situation began to take a turn for the better. Some correct theoretical viewpoints and thinkings based on which the policies were formulated, which were put forward during that 555 period, were of great and far-reaching significance. However, as Mao Zedong at that time lacked a clear understanding of the seriousness of the mistakes, he still completely confirmed the general line, the great leap forward and the people's communes. Therefore efforts to rectify "Left" mistakes were conducted within the framework of the "Left" guiding ideology expressed m the great leap forward of 1958 and the people's communes, though the general understanding of the mistakes gradually deepened. Moreover, with the idea regarding class struggle as the main contradiction in society, some people held that anyone who doubted or denied the great leap forward and the people's communes was "taking a wait-and-see attitude," or "biding their time to take revenge" or was an out-and-out hostile element. Since the Central Committee's measures to correct the "Left" were not at all adequately implemented, the "Left" mistakes failed to be corrected completely and the situation did not take a 1 undamental turn for the better. In the later period of the Lushan Meeting, particularly, when a major reversal occurred, the situation took a turn for the worse.

Errors in "Anti-Right Deviationist" Struggle and Continuation of the "Great Leap Forward"

An enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee was convened in Lushan from July 2 to August 1, 1959. At the beginning of the meeting, Mao Zedong put forward 18 questions mainly concerning the current situation, future tasks and some concrete policies. He considered that the general situation could be described as: the achievements are great, the problems are many and the future is bright. He proposed that all of the members, under the prerequisite of fully affirming achievements, should conscientiously sum up experiences and lessons, further unify thinking and mobilize the whole Party to fulfil the 1959 task of the great leap forward. The meeting was divided into six large groups for talks and discussions. During the discussion, all the participants supported, in principle, the general line, the great leap forward and the people's communes. However, many participants, from varying angles, stressed the seriousness of the problems which had arisen after the great leap forward. They felt that the correction of "Left" mistakes, though achievements had been made in the previous stage, was not thorough enough, and they proposed that it should be deepened. Some of them felt genuinely sorry about the mistakes they had committed in their work, and made earnest selfcriticisms; while many others, not willing to spell out the setbacks and errors in their work, were even less willing to listen to criticism from others. They even believed that the correction of "Left" mistakes had gone too far which had made the cadres and masses feel disappointed, and appeared as a Right deviation. A Letter of Peng Dehuai to Mao Zedong Peng Dehuai, member of the Political Bureau and National Defence Minister, felt anxious about the fact that the meeting had not completely solved the problem and had failed to achieve unity of ideas. Therefore, on July 14, he sent a letter to Mao Zedong, expressing his sincere views and hoping to get Mao Zedong's support and understanding, so that the meeting could correctly sum up experiences and lessons. After affirming the 1958 achievements in his letter, he laid emphasis on some serious problems in work following the great leap forward of 1958, and analysed the underlying reasons for them. He noted, "The outstanding contradiction facing us in construction is the tension in all fields caused by disproportions." Judging from its character, the contradiction "assumes a political nature." Objectively the reason why we made mistakes is because we lack experience in construction, while subjectively there existed many problems in the way of thinking and style of work. First of all, there is the tendency towards boasting, exaggeration and one-sided thinking, and the mistake of "failure to adequately 557 seek truth from facts." Secondly, there is "petty bourgeois fanaticism," and "uppermost in our minds the thought of entering communism in one stride." He also mentioned that correcting "Left" tendencies was more difficult than eliminating Right conservative ideas. So arduous efforts were needed to thoroughly correct "Left" thinking. Peng's letter reflected objective reality and the demands of the masses. The basic content is correct. For a member of the Political Bureau to air his own views in a letter to the chairman of the Party also conformed to the Party's organizational principle. On July 16, according to Mao Zedong's instruction, Peng Dehuai's letter was printed and issued to all the participants. Mao Zedong also proposed among several standing committee members of the Political Bureau to "comment on the nature of the letter." During the small group discussions, some people noted that the letter had exaggerated mistakes, underestimated achievements, and carried a note of complaint and discouragement. They went so far as to consider the letter actually denied the achievements of the great leap forward and the people's communes, and that it was directed against Mao Zedong. Also there were other people who expressed basic agreement with the contents of the letter, thought that it was good to air one's views, but disagreed with some statements in the letter (such as that concerning petty-bourgeois fanaticism). Zhang Wentian, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Huang Kecheng, general chief of staff of the People s Liberation Army, Zhou Xiaozhou, secretary of CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, spoke at the group meeting, and clearly expressed their support for the basic views in Peng's letter. Zhang Wentian also made a systematic theoretical analysis of the serious problems which emerged after the great leap forward, and he stressed the necessity to study the reasons for the errors and shortcomings from the angle of ideological views, methods and style of work. He also mentioned that victory was apt to give people a "swell head," make them conceited and unable to accept different opinions. So, it was very important to develop a democratic style in the Party. Leaders should create a kind of environ ment for encouraging subordinates to dare to put forward their suggestions. "We shouldn't fear that no one will eulogize our virtues and achievements," he stressed. "What we fear is that nobody dares to make suggestions to us." Peng Dehuai's letter and Zhang Wentian's speech aroused Mao Zedong's strong dissatisfaction. Mao held that after the Zhengzhou Meeting, the Central Committee had been leading the whole Party to correct "Left" mistakes, while Peng and Zhang had not been involved in it. Mao Zedong considered the orientation of the great leap forward and the people's communes to be correct. So from beginning to end, he had not given up certain illusory aims in regard to the great leap forward and the people's communes. He believed that in 1958, the achievements predominated, while shortcomings and mistakes only belonged to problems in work; that is to say, counted for only one finger out of ten. Moreover, he considered that the problem of the "communist wind" of the people's communes had, in general, already been resolved by the Shanghai meeting, at which the decisions on 18 questions concerning the people's communes were made. He believed that when the steel quota was reduced to 13 million tons in May 1959, "It completely reflected possibility based on objective reality."21 The Lushan Meeting only needed to reach a common understanding on this basis. Then the situation would take a turn for the better through a decision to readjust the quotas, which all would follow in their work. But Peng Dehuai and others asked to further deepen correction of the "Left" errors, demanding that the roots of the "Left" errors be cleared away from the guiding ideology. Therefore, Mao believed that Peng Dehuai and others had not followed him to correct shortcomings and mistakes in work, but had actually expressed doubts and opposition to the "great leap forward" and the people's communes, and had drawn up the letter as a challenge to himself and the leadership of the Central Committee. Therefore it was an expression of Right deviation. Because of dissatisfaction with Peng and Zhang which had accumulated in the past, Mao Zedong felt even greater distrust and aversion towards them after reading Peng's letter and the written record of Zhang's speech. Peng Dehuai, he believed, was a "Right559 ■ , Hai Rui " with evil intentions, and had formed a so-called "miUtary club" with Httang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Y^aozhou At that time, people inside and outside the Party and home and abroad were talking about the "great leap forward * a the neonle's communes. Worries about the present situation S criticism 01 shortcomings and mistakes in the leaders' work from many cadres and masses of people (including staff member of0governmen! institutions. Party school students, PLA comma Hers and soldiers and personages outside the Party, as/ well as some representative figures who had been labeled as Right is s) were ah reported to the Central Committee through various channels. Among the criticisms made there were some which denied the "great leap forward" and the people's communes. Mao Zedong tookSthese opinions and criticisms as attacks on the Part.v "them with the disputes between leaders at the central level at the Lushan Meeting. He also linked criticism a trove rsies on ^h c home front with the imperialists' attack on China and Khrushchov's criticism of China. Therefore he co eluded, "The Party is under attack by inner and outer forces and Right deviation has become the main danger at present Acting on such an erroneous judgement he determined to launch a counterattack. On July 23, Mao Zedong convened a meeting f which he made a speech saying, "Now there are some people inside and outside the Party- Rightists outside the Party and a group of people inside the Party— who talk as if we had no saving Laces AUhe same time they fling themselves onto the boundary of the Rightists He refuted point by point the opmions raised by Peng gehutand others, considering that they could not adopt a correct attitude towards the revolutionary mass movement and that they were repeating the mistakes made during the opposi ">n to rash advance. He also criticized them for bourgeois vacillati under the pressure of imperialism. On July 26, in a letter writte bv someone in charge of Party work in reflecting opinions to the Central Committee, which criticized the "Left" adventurist misfakes made m the previous year (1958), Mao Zedong wrote some remarks pointing oul that new circumstances bad appeared mside the Party; that was, Right deviations feelings, Right deviation ideology and Right deviationist activities were increasing their power of a furious attack. The "Left" was sure to appear while fighting against the Right, the Right was sure to appear while fighting against the "Left." "This is natural. Now it is time to fight against the Right," he noted. Owing to lack of understanding of the "Left" errors in the guiding ideology for the 1958 economic work, the fact that Mao Zedong had long enjoyed high prestige in the whole Party and the personality cult inside the Party was growing, as well as that a lew people added fuel to the flames, the atmosphere at the Lushan Meeting suddenly became tense after Mao's speech. The subject of the meeting was changed from correcting the "Left" to opposing the Right in a struggle directly targeted on Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou, which formed a situation tilted to one side. On Mao's suggestion, the 8th Plenary Session of the 8 Hi Central Committee was convened from August 2 to 16. Criticism was leveled at Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou at big and small meetings. Moreover, the tone of the criticism grew sharper and sharper. Connecting Peng and Zhang's history, these criticisms "settled old and new accounts together." Lin Biao, calling Peng Dehuai a "hypocrite," "schemer" and "careerist," set the shrillest tone of all in the criticism. A batch of political labels were pasted on Peng including "bourgeois democrat," "fellow traveller in the democratic revolution, opponent in the socialist revolution," and "opportunist who has sneaked into the Party." Peng Dehuai was groundlessly accused of "maintaining illicit relations with foreign countries," and of organizing a "military club" to "split the Party" and to force Chairman Mao to step down." Finally, the session adopted a "Resolution on the Errors of the Anti-Party Clique Headed by Peng Dehuai" and the document "Safeguard the Party's General Line and Oppose Right Opportunism." The resolution affirmed that the anti-Party clique organized by Peng, Huang, Zhang and Zhou, in essence, denied the victory of the general line and achievements of the "great leap forward"; that they opposed high-speed development of the national economy, opposed the movement for high yields on the agricultural front,' the mass iron and steel movement, the movement of the people's communes and the mass movement for economic construction, and the slogan "politics in command" reflecting the leadership of the Party over socialist construction. These were "mistakes of a Right opportunist line which, in nature, opposed the Party, the people and socialism." It was decided to remove them from the posts of Ministry of National Defence, the Foreign Ministry and the secretarial post of a Party provincial committee. At the same time, they were allowed to keep their original posts in the Central Committee and the Political Bureau, with careful watch over their behaviour. The resolution formally affirmed that the "Right opportunism had become the main danger in the Party at the present" and "safeguarding the general line and fighting back the attack of the Right opportunists has become the present major combat task of our Party." . Out of consideration for maintaining Party unity and the reputation of Mao Zedong and the Party Central Committee, Peng Dehuai and others admitted and examined their "mistakes. Mao Zedong welcomed their doing so. Serious Results of the Struggle Against Right Deviation After Mao Zedong's speech of July 23, Liu Shaoqi once proposed transmitting an anti- Right deviationist resolution to only the provincial level, and bringing out another resolution on continuing to correct "Left" errors, to be issued to grassroots units below county level. However, it was not possible to air this idea in the Party Central Committee under the prevailing circumstances. The anti-Right-deviationist resolution was gradually made known Party-wide and a large-scale anti-Rightdeviationist struggle was unfolded throughout the country. A large number of cadres and Party members were wrongly criticized and many people, labelled "Right opportunists, were dealt organizational punishments which should not have been administered. In November, the Central Committee stipulated that the anti-Right-deviationist struggle should be carried out only among Party cadres; therefore it did not affect members of democratic parties or intellectuals outside the Party. In rural areas, large numbers of peasant Party members and ordinary people outside the Party were criticized, but were not labelled. According to statistics on the re-examination and rehabilitation of cases in 1962, more than 3 million cadres and Party members were made the focus of major criticism and categorized as Right opportunists. Politically, the "anti-Right-deviationist" struggle had serious consequences. Mao Zedong concluded, "The struggle which arose at Lushan was a class struggle, a continuation of the life-anddeath struggle between the two antagonistic classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, occurring in the course of the past ten years' socialist revolution."22 This conclusion regarded and dealt with the normal inner-Party discussion of different opinions on principles and policies as a life-and-death struggle between the two antagonistic classes. This, both in theory and practice, served to further escalate the mistake of expanding the class struggle in the wake of the anti-Rightisl movement, and to extend it to the inner-Party ranks and top leading levels of the Party. That is to say, in this connection, the struggle caused serious damage to democratic life in the Party from the CPC Political Bureau and the Central Committee right down to the basic units. Large numbers of comrades who, in seeking truth from facts, dared to reflect the real situation and put forward criticisms and suggestions to the Party, were attacked. This only encouraged the unhealthy tendencies of by-passing principles, fearing to speak the truth, acting worldly-wise and playing safe to keep out of trouble, to the extent of actually creating opportunities for hangers-on to flatter, toady, and seize every chance to gain advantages through trickery. The harmful trends of the personality cult and arbitrary decision-making by one person spread widely throughout the Party. All these factors made it difficult for the Party to prevent, oppose or correct in time the greater mistakes which arose later. Economically the "anti-Right-deviationist" struggle curbed the positive progress of correcting the "Left." This caused many of the mistakes, which had arisen during the movements of the great leap forward and the people's communes and which had 563 been singled out for correction, to develop once more. Problems which had come to be recognized not long before, now did not seem like problems at all. For instance, one of the main lessons of the great leap forward was the failure to maintain comprehensive balance and proportion in the national economy. However during the anti-Right deviation, this correct thinking was criticized as a "fallacy," and it was stubbornly maintained that "the major proportions in China's national economy are balanced and normal." Disregarding the tense situation m economic and political life, some insisted that the political and economic situation in the country is excellent." Some correct measures taken to reduce overly high quotas in the first half of 1959 were subjected to censure as "shaped like a smal saddle" under the "influence of the trouble stirred up by Right opportunists." The system of contracting work and output quotas to households, which appeared in the process of recti fying the people's communes, was regarded as taking the "capitalist road" and suppressed. The main slogan then was. Fight against the Right deviation, and go all out to set otf a new upsurge of the great leap forward. The Lushan Meeting reduced the steel output target for 1959 to 12 million tons. As a political task, by means of indiscriminate use of equipment and resources, 13.87 million tons of steel was produced by the end of the year. In 1960, the Party Central Committee demanded achieving an even better great leap forward than the previous year. The target for the output of steel was set excessive y high at 18.4 million tons, which in spite of everything was duly fulfilled Plans were aired for the transition of ownership in the people's communes from ownership basically by the Production team to that by the commune within the next three five or eight years. In order to create conditions for the transition, various methods were adopted to set up commune based economic projects "in a big way" by indiscnmina c requisition of manpower and resources from production teams. The community canteens of the rural areas, their appearance seen as a big event facilitating the "transition from socialism to communism," were to be set up nationwide, without cxception. People's communes were also organized in many small and medium-sized cities. In short, "Left" errors, primarily represented by overly-high production quotas, exaggeration and the "communist wind," as well as by issuing blind orders, again spread rampant, persisting for a more prolonged period and resulting in even greater harm. The great leap forward with steel as its key link continuously aggravated the serious imbalance in the national economy. First of all, the movement led to disproportion between accumulation and consumption. In the three years from 1958 to 1960, the rate of accumulation reached 33.9 percent, 43.9 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively, greatly exceeding the 24.2 percent average rate during the First Five-Year Plan period, which was already relatively high. It is true, this laid a foundation for the construction of a large number of factories and mines. Nevertheless, reliable production capacity could only take shape through readjustment. Secondly, the movement brought about an imbalance between industry and agriculture, with heavy industry undergoing over-expanded development. From 1957 to 1960, heavy industry increased 3.3-fold, while agricultural production declined by 22.8 percent. The third setback was the imbalance between various branches of industry itself. Iron and steel production asked for such large amounts of energy, raw and semifinished materials and transport as to interfere with the normal production of other branches. Because of large-scale capital construction and the great increase in the number of employees and the scale of investments, financial revenues and expenditures became imbalanced, while social purchasing power far out-stripped the supply of commodities. The result was huge financial deficits and market shortages. Worst of all, agricultural production was drastically undermined. Owing mainly to the renewed development of "Left" errors during the great leap forward and the people's communes movement, especially the overly-high estimates of output and of state purchases, the peasants' enthusiasm was seriously undermined. In addition, vast areas of China's farmland were hit by natural calamities for several years running, beginning from 565 ,959 while the output of agricultural and sideline production Li sharply. Grain output in 1959 was only 170 billion kg, 30 , lion kg less than the 1958 real output of 200 billion kg. But ", to. toe *e grain output was estimated at 270 billion kg supposedly Representing an increase of 8 percent as compared Jh the 1958 output of 250 billion kg set at the Lushan Meeting "after verification" (in fact, there was still some exaggeration). Due to overestimation of the output, gram p chases from peasants that year increased by 8.65 billion kg over the previous year, reaching 67.4 billion kg and exceeding one-third of the real output. In 1960, gram output dropped further to 143.5 billion kg, a figure 26.5 billion kg less than the 1959 output and down to the 1951 level. The output o cotton also kept falling and reached the 1951 level while the output of oil-bearing crops declined to the level J?1 p . Production of light industry also went down steeply. The Party *°d the people were confronted with the most serious >—difficulties since the founding of New China. The I960 average erain consumption of urban and rural people was down by 19 fement "Compared with that of 1957. Of thts, per-capi consumption in the rural areas fell by 23.7 percent. Per-capita consumption of vegetable oil was down by 23 percent, of meat, by 70 percent. Malnutrition leading to edema was conunoo in many amas, and in not a few provinces the^ numbe rtf deaths among the rural population mcreased. As the birth rate tell y a wide margin ove" large areas, the mortality rate increased conspicuously. According to official statistics the conn y total population in 1960 dropped by 10 million over the previous year. For example, in Xinyang Prefecture of Henan Province the 1960 death rate in nine counties exceeded per thousand, representing a number several times that of mrmal year This was a sad outcome, contrary to the original tope of enabling people to live a better life sooner and earlier That was the most disastrous result and most serious lesson of the* faded "great leap forward" and people's commune movements.

Further Investigations While Readjusting Policies and Overcoming Difficulties

Severe difficulties and setbacks gradually awakened the whole Party and the Central Committee. They were determined to take up conscientious investigations and study, correct mistakes and readjust policies. In November 1960, the CPC Central Committee issued an "Urgent Directive Letter on Current Policies for Rural People's Communes." The 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the CPC held in January 1961 formally adopted the principle of "readjustment, consolidation, filling out and raising standards" for implementation in the national economy. The two events marked a turning point in the Party's guiding principles in this historical period. The movement of the "great leap forward" and the transition to ownership by the communes were halted. The whole Party shared comforts and hardships with the masses of people and united to wage an unremitting struggle to overcome difficulties. At the same time, during the readjustment of policies and overcoming of difficulties, the Party Central Committee continued the efforts made between the Zhengzhou Meeting and the earlier period of the Lushan Meeting, as well as efforts made before and after the 1st Session of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Thus new experience was accumulated for further exploration of China's own road to socialism. Investigation and Readjustment of Rural Policies From October 1960, the Party Central Committee began to rectify the style of work and consolidate the communes, so as to eliminate the five winds: namely the "communist wind," the wind of exaggeration, of enforcing arbitrary orders, of blind guidance in production and the wind of cadres acceding to privileges. But this task was first proposed in a formal, systematic way only after the issuance of the Urgent Directive Letter, which had been worked out under the guidance of Zhou Enlai. The core of the Ser was to call on the whole Party to make the utmost efforts n correct the "communist wind" as the Central Committee and Chairman Mao had instructed agam and again since the winter nf 1958 Since then, it was felt, some localities, communes and nroduction brigades basically had not committed the error again, hut most of the localities and communes had failed to rectify the mistakes thoroughly. The wind blew again after last winter. Some other localities, communes and production brigades made no correction at all, and the wind blew continuously, to the serious detriment of the agricultural forces of production. The Urgent Directive Letter stipulated the Twelve-Article Policy which mainly reiterated: "The three-level system of ownership with the production team as the basic accounting unit is the fundamental system of the people's communes m the present stage. (Mat Zedong added that "beginning from 1961, it would remain un changed for at least seven years,' which was stipulated in lig various experimental places and plans for the transition of ownership by the communes.) The error of egalitarianism and indis criminate requisition of manpower and resources should be thor oughly rectified, and property unlawfully taken must be leturned in full, dr compensation paid for it. Basic ownership by the production team must be strengthened and ownership of minor means of production by the production team should be carried out. Commune members should be allowed to cultivate a sn < private plot of land and engage in household sidelines on a small scale. The principle of distribution according to work should be persisted in. (Mao Zedong added, "This will for at least twenty years") Rural trade fairs sho^ld^reSrlti0nr^' and so on. At that time, the letter also stressed: We cannot commit mistakes of principle" so long as we persist in the threelevel system of ownership, uphold a partial supply system and persist in running the rural community canteens well. After the Urgent Directive Letter was issued, the entire Par y was mobilized. Leaders and cadres at all levels were organized to go deep into the villages to publicize and explain the letter to grassroots cadres, and then join together with them in working hard to correct mistakes, implement policies and to turn the situation around in the rural areas. The Central Committee also went on to approve and transmit reports on implementation of the Directive by various localities, so as to supervise and expedite the work. In a document drafted for the Central Committee, Mao Zedong wrote, "Comrade Mao Zedong ... as he himself has said, is willing to share a common fate with those comrades who wish to correct their mistakes. He said he himself had made mistakes and must correct them."23 He mentioned as one of his mistakes that he had written in the Beidaihe resolution that at the eai liest, in three to four years, or at the latest, five to six years, collective ownership could be transformed into ownership by the whole people. (He also explained in "The Summing-up of the Past Ten Years" that he had agreed to the excessive steel quotas at the meetings held in Beidaihe, Wuchang and Shanghai, and that he had committed mistakes the same as other people involved at the time.) Mao Zedong made a self-criticism in the Party and hoped to arouse the awareness of the cadres that "now is the time to make up our minds to correct our mistakes."24 The 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the CPC was convened in Beijing in January 1961. Mao Zedong delivered many speeches at the plenary session itself as well as at the CPC Central Committee's preparatory work conference, calling on all Party members to resume the work style of seeking truth from facts and of conducting investigations and study. He said, "Our Party is by tradition one of seeking truth from facts. In recent years, we conducted fewer investigations, and did not know the real situation, probably because we acted like high officials. 1 myself am just a high official and now seldom make the kind of investigations I had formerly carried out in Jiangxi Province." He asked comrades to persist in the work style of investigations and study and to proceed in all cases from actual conditions. Mao also noted that socialist construction should not be carried out in haste, but would probably take half a century. It must go slowly for a few years, and targets should not be so high, to avoid disasters brought on by seeking an undeserved reputation. 569 Following this, the CPC Central Committee issued a "Letter to the Central Bureaus and Provincial, Municipal and Autonomous Regional Party Committees on Making Assiduous Investigation. AUhe same time, it reprinted and distributed "On Investigation Work " a piece written by Mao Zedong m the spring of 9a0 which had been lost for many years but discovered not long before (the title, as revised, was Oppose Book Worship when published later on). The Central Committee required the leading members above the county level to study these documents in depth in the light of actual conditions. The letter pointed out. I he mistakes and shortcomings in our work during the jast several years occurred because many leaders slackened the work of investigation and study which had been so successful during t e War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation l -or a time, some judgements and decisions were made on the basis of lopsided and unrealistic materials. This is a major lesson. The Party leaders at all levels must under no circumstances neglect or forget this costly lesson. The letter stated: Investigation and study deep down at the grassroots levels make up the primary task of leadership work. "In everything, proceed from actual conditions no investigation, no right to speak. This must be made the first and foremost principle in the thought and action of all cadres of the Party." While conducting investigation, We must not be afraid of listening to opinions that are different from ours but contain substance, still less of seeing judgements and decisions negated through the test of practice." This actually pointed out to the leading members of the Party that the problem was one of rectification of the ideological line. It stressed taking practice as the standard for testing truth instead of previously-made judge ments and decisions, and thus paved the way for using the test of practice to correct past decisions and mistakes. Investigation study and seeking truth from facts as an ideological line was restored to a definite degree; this was an ideological prerequisite for the definite degree of important change which was made m the actual work of this period. . , , Following the session, Mao Zedong directly organized guided three groups to make separate investigations in the countryside of Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong provinces. Also Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Deng Xiaoping each went down to grassroots units in Hunan, Hebei and Sichuan provinces, and in Beijing. The secretaries of Party committees of all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions did the same. In the process of investigations, Mao Zedong discovered that the Urgent Directive Letter had failed to completely solve two major important problems— egalitarianism among production teams within a production brigade and egalitarianism among commune membeis within a production team. In order to systematically solve various problems in the rural people's communes including the abovementioned two, in March in Guangzhou Mao Zedong presided over and drafted Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Communes (for short, the Sixty Articles for Agriculture). Major amendments were made in the text of the regulations several times after repeated discussions and on-the-spot experiments by large numbers of cadres and peasants. In the revised draft issued in June, the provisions in the original draft concerning community canteens and the partial supply system, which were universally opposed by peasants, were deleted. Yet the Urgent Directive Letter and the draft of the Sixty Articles for Agriculture still stated the two provisions as requirements which had to be carried out. Abolishing or suggesting the abolition of community canteens were once condemned as big "Right opportunist" crimes. In September, based on opinions from several provinces, Mao Zedong proposed placing the basic accounting unit of the people's commune lower down to the level of the production team, which was equivalent to the former elementary agricultural producers' cooperative. (The original production team, which was equivalent to the former advanced agricultural producers' cooperative, was later called a production brigade.) In his letter to the Central Committee, Mao Zedong said that under the original system, the right of production was at the production team level while the right of distribution was at the production brigade level. This serious contradiction still fettered the masses' enthusiasm for production. "On this issue, we spent six years muddling along in the past (from the founding of the advanced agricultural producCHARTER SEVEN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION ers' cooperative in 1956). In the seventh year we ought to wake "25 This indicated that the work to rectify the policies of the neo pie's communes was a continuation not only of the efforts made following the Zhengzhou Meeting, but dated back to the formation of the advanced agricultural producers cooperative and the efforts to readjust the relations within the agricultural cooperatives before and after the 1st Session of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The final revised Sixty Articles for Agriculture stipulated: I he three-level system of ownership in the rural people's communes with the production team as the basic accounting unit is a fundamental system which will remain unchanged for a long period, at least for thirty years. Although some fundamental problems existing in the peoples communes were not completely solved, the article played an important role in mobilizing the enthusiasm of the masses and in restoring and developing agricultural production, since it solved a number of urgent problems which had stirred up the biggest complaints of the masses. The article also played a positive role in curtailing any further blasts of the "communist wind" for quite a long time to come. With the initial correction of the ideological line and gradual readjustment of the rural policies, the work to re-examine cadres and Party members who were criticized in the past was put on the agenda. The CPC Central Committee's instruction on discussion and trial implementation of the revised draft of the Sixty Articles for Agriculture worked out in June 1961 clearly stipulated that decisions in the cases of those who had been correctly criticized in previous years would not be changed; and the verdicts on those who had been wrongly criticized would be corrected, their reputations rehabilitated and their posts restored. If only part of a problem had been wrongly criticized and dealt with, the conclusion on this part of the problem would be corrected. An apology should be made to the masses (including well-todo middle peasants) who had been criticized. If punishment had been incorrectly meted out, it must be corrected. Actually reexamination work was for the purpose of eliminating the negative influence of the "anti-Right-deviationist" struggle, and readjusting political relations within the Party, and also between the Party and the masses who had been wrongly criticized. During the discussions and trial implementation of the Sixty Articles for Agriculture, the Party Central Committee also issued and called for trial implementation of the Thirty-five Articles on Handicraft Industry and the Forty Articles on Commerce which had been worked out in the same spirit. Readjustment of Industry The eight-character principle of "readjustment, consolidation, filling out and raising standards" was suggested by Zhou Enlai and Li Fuchun in August 1960 when they presided over study of the controlled targets for the 1961 national economic plan. The principle was formally approved by the 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of CPC in January 1961. There was no great progress in the readjustment of industry at first, for they originally planned to keep the 1960 targets for the output of iron and steel and other heavy industrial products. On this basis, the 1961 planned targets were neither raised nor reduced. Therefore, the 1961 planned figure adopted by the 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee was 19 million tons for steel, a little higher than the 1960 figure; grain was 205 billion kg, a rise of 10.8 percent over the output of 185 billion kg estimated at that time for 1960. Owing to overestimation of the actual agricultural output and too high expectation for possible increase of output, the decision to lower the industrial target was difficult to be made. The results of a half-year's implementation indicated that the output of steel and many other industrial products had dropped by a large margin. Urged by Zhou Enlai, the economic and planning departments did their best to clarify the figures for the actual grain output of the previous several years. Grain for 1958 was not 250 billion kg "checked" at the Lushan Meeting, but 200 billion kg; in 1959 it was 170 billion kg instead of the 255 billion kg reported; in 1960, it was 143.5 billion kg instead of the estimated 185 billion kg. The summer harvest in 1961 was down by 8 billion kg as compared with the previous year. As the 575 agricultural situation was made quite clear, the crux of problems in industry was also fully revealed. So it was impossible to keep on with the 1961 plan proposed at the 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the CPC. In September 1961, the CPC Central Committee convened a work conference in Lushan. After discussion, it adopted a "Directive on the Question of Industry at Present." It pointed out that we had already lost more than twelve months. We can no longer hesitate. We must make a prompt decision to resolutely cut back where cutting back is indicated, and reduce the production quotas of industry and capital construction to a reliable level which may allow for unforeseen circumstances. It also pointed out that in the next three years, implementation of the eight-character principle must focus on readjustment. If we do not make up our minds to make necessary cutbacks, but still persist in those unrealistic quotas, our industry and even our entire national economy can fall into a passive position, or into an even more difficult situation. Following the conference, with the approval of the Central Committee, the State Planning Commission made a bigger adjustment to the 1961 plan adopted by the 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee. The investment in capital construction was reduced from 16.7 billion yuan to 8.7 billion yuan; the quota for steel was put down from 19 million tons to 8.5 million tons, and the quota for grain down from 205 billion kg to 135 billion kg. After implementation, the results at the end of that year showed that those quotas were generally met. Grain reached 147.5 billion kg, a slight rise over 1960. Another aspect in industrial readjustment was to rectify enterprise order. The "great leap forward" gave rise to many problems in the enterprises. There was confusion in management work. The responsibility system and the system of business accounting became lax. Equipment was damaged, product quality lowered and labour productivity declined. Egalitarianism dominated wages and bonuses. Deng Xiaoping stressed many times that industrial enterprises must be rectified. Under his auspices, Li Fuchun and Bo Yibo were responsible for sending eleven working groups to a large number of factories and mines to make investigations. On this basis, the "Regulations on the Work of State Industrial Enterprises (draft)" (also known as the Seventy Articles Concerning Industrial Enterprises) was worked out. Adopted at the Lushan work conference of the CPC Central Committee, it was distributed by the Central Committee in September for trial implementation. In the draft, there were some guiding principles for readjusting state industrial enterprises such as the "five fixed quotas" (for product programme and production scale; the number of workers and administrative setups; the consumption of the main raw and semi-finished materials and sources of supply; fixed assets and circulating funds; and for cooperative relations). Enterprises also carried out "five guaranties' to the state (product variety, quality and quantity; operation not to exceed gross payroll; fulfilment of cost plan; handing over profit to the state; and utilization period of the main equipment). This served to stabilize the sequence of production of the state enterprises under the then mandatory plan system. It also made a detailed stipulation providing for a system of overall responsibility by the factory director under the leadership of the Party committee, a system of workers, representatives congresses, and for the operations and duties to be carried out under an administrative system of management over the whole factory's united production headed by the factory director. As the regulations were implemented, a series of necessary rules and regulations in state enterprises was rehabilitated or established, thus playing a positive role in the implementation of the principle of readjustment, consolidation, filling out and raising standards. Scientific, Educational and Cultural Policies Readjusted To co-ordinate with the economic readjustment, all cultural fields underwent amendment. Repeated studies were made and opinions in science circles were widely polled. The leading Party groups of the State Science and Technology Commission and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by Nie Rongzhen, put forth the Fourteen Suggestions on Current Work at Research Institutes of Natural Sciences (draft) (abbreviated to be Fourteen Articles for Science). Nie Rongzhen also wrote a special report to the central authorities, asking for instructions on some major policies touched on in the document. In July, the draft was approved by the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee after discus sion It was put into effect on a trial basis. Directed by Deng Xiaoping, the leading Party groups of the Central Propagand Department and the Ministry of Education sketched the Provisional Regulations on Work in the Institutions of .Higher Lean* ing Under the Ministry of Education (draft) (abbreviated to be Sixty Articles on College Education). After thorough discussion, the Party Central Committee approved the dralt at the work conference held in Lushan. It went into effect on a trial basis in September. (Fifty Articles for Middle Schools and Forty Articles for Primary Schools were drafted and discussed at the Lushan meeting They were approved and promulgated by the centr authorities in^March 1963.) In August, urged by Zhou Enlai, he leading Party groups of the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Culture and China Federatton of Literary and Ar Circles followed up with Suggestions on CcIta" P"bta at Present Work in Literature and Literature andArt (draft)(a breviated to Ten Articles on the Arts and later to Eight Articles on Literature and Art). It was approved by the central committee and issued in April 1962. One special concern of these articles was to readjust the rela tionship between intellectuals and the Communist Party. Since the "great leap forward" in 1958, excessive and erroneous criticism had been heaped on intellectuals to keep them from becoming "bourgeois academic authorities" (in other words profession alfy proficient but not socialist-minded' ) Party leaders in some cultural institutions went so far as to take intellectuals as the target of socialist revolution, believing that most intellectuals were part of the bourgeois class. In December 1958, Mao Zedong had written a comment on a report about this situation. Please print this and pass it on to Party committees and branches of all institutions of higher learning, research institutes art and btterary groups, mass media and publishing houses. Ask them to read mid discuss it. It's imperative to grasp the correct orientation and try to unite all professors, assistant professors, assistant lecturers and research personnel who can be united with and who can serve the proletarian educational, cultural and scientific causes."2" But the endeavour made in line with this spirit had been suspended by the "anti-Right Deviationist" campaign. The drafting and promulgation of the Eight Articles was, in fact, a continuation of the earlier effort. The Central Committee, when ratifying the Fourteen Articles for Science, pointed out: In recent years, quite a number of comrades have developed a lopsided view in regard to knowledge and intellectuals. There have also been more instances of intellectuals being treated rudely. This must receive serious attention. The Central Committee demanded that all work institutions and departments employing intellectuals clear up the criticisms made among them since the "anti-Rightist" campaign. While correct criticisms should be confirmed, wrong ones—whether totally or partially—should be corrected after investigation and a distinction should be made between right and wrong. Things should be explained to them by leading Party persons and those who were wronged must be rehabilitated in order to relieve the strain on them, develop democracy and strengthen unity. Another crucial problem dwelt on in the articles was that of implementing the policy called "let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend" in the fields of science and art. This is closely related to adjustment of the relationship between the Party and intellectuals. In view of the problems that had cropped up in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts and literature, these articles spelled out in detail a whole set of principles for implementing, in a specific way, the "doublehundred" policy. One principle was that when a concept considered to be wrong was to be criticized, political ideas should be differentiated from academic and artistic ones; a clear distinction must be made between contradictions among the people and those between the enemy and the people. While dealing with different views among the people on academic and artistic questions, the use of methods of political struggle would be impermissible, to say nothing of adopting methods used against the enemy. Moreover, these articles were directed against chaotic happen 577 ;ngs such as assigning too much manual labour in production and too much social activities for people in scientific, educational and cultural units, and also the proneness to boasting, exaggeration and messing things up in these work units by giving impractica orders in professional work. The regulations clearly stipulated that the key task for research institutions was to strive tor scientific achievements and cultivate talents to serve socialism Research work at institutes should remain stable. Five-sixths of the researchers' time should be devoted to professional work. Schools should focus on teaching and students should concentrate on learning. The slogan that "art should serve politics should not be understood in a too narrow sense. Literature and art works should not only inspire people's revolutionary enthusiasm and broaden their political horizon, but also offer aesthetic enjoyment and healthy entertainment. Any piece of art that fulfills one of the above-mentioned criteria qualifies as serving the people an socialism. . _ , , The promulgation and implementation of the regulations igated the tense relationship between the Party and intellectuals. Normal work schedules resumed. All this played an important role in making China to gradually form, by summing up expenence, a series of principles, policies and specific measures for socialist science, education and culture. Though problems arising from expansion of the "anti-Rightist" campaign in 1957 were not totally resolved, the majority of intellectuals were relieved of worries and felt more at ease. The conditions for concentrating on professional work, by and large, were adequately established. Some intellectuals said, "We would like to have the regula tons inscribed on stone tablets." This remark fully reflected heir support for the regulation, but also betrayed their fear that the policies would change. . The readjustment work done for intellectuals should have led to a scientific reassessment of their class nature. But the regulations did not touch on this basic question. Though the Seventy Articles on Industry did broach it by reiterating that in enterprises the technicians and staff are "part of the working class it made no mention of intellectuals working in scientific, educational and cultural institutions. The question was not solved thoroughly until the work conference on science and technology and the work conference on arts were held in Guangzhou in March 1962. In a speech, Zhou Enlai reinstated the Party's assessment made at the 1956 conference on the question of the class nature concerning intellectuals. According to this assessment, the overwhelming majority of them belonged to the category of labouring people and not to that of the bourgeois class. Chen Yi, in his speech, particularly emphasized that the test of time in the past 12 years, especially in China's most difficult years, had proven that the majority of Chinese intellectuals were patriotic, and believed in the Party, sharing weal and woe with the Party and the people. If the Party cannot test a person in eight, 10 or 12 years, it only shows that the Party is too devoid of insight, he said. He announced the removal of all the stigma attached to intellectuals as being "bourgeois" and insisted on placing them in the category of the labouring people. Shortly after, Zhou Enlai, in his report on the work of the government at the 3rd Session of the 2nd National People's Congress, again announced this scientific judgment. The work report had been approved by the Party Central Committee earlier. Zhou Enlai's Report on the Question of Intellectuals made at the Guangzhou conference in 1962, his Report on Intellectuals delivered in 1956 and his report On the Transformation of Intellectuals made in 1951—convey a continuous inner consistency. They are historical documents representing the Party's correct policies toward Chinese intellectuals following the founding of New China in 1949. But the Party Central Committee had not entirely eliminated "Leftist" ideological and political views. A small number of Party Central Committee members were in disagreement with or in outright opposition to Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi's speeches at the Guangzhou conference. When asked by Zhou Enlai to state his position on the issue, Mao remained silent. This circumstance foreshadowed the subsequent emergence of another major reversal in the Party's policy in regard to intellectuals, knowledge, culture and education. The 7, 000-Person Conference From January 11 to February 7, 1962, an Enlarged Work Conference of the Central Committee was held in Beijing. It was presided over by Mao Zedong and attended by top leaders and those from the Central Committee, the affiliated bureaus and departments of the CPC and Party committees of various provinces, municipalities, prefectures and counties, as well ^ fr01?^ major factories, mines and army units - altogether some 7 0) persons It is usually called the "7,000-Person Conference. This unprecedentedly large conference was held when the domestic situation began to change after a years readjustment of th economic difficulties resulting from the three-year great leap forward " The problems were still great; people in and outside th Partv were very much confused. The purpose of the conference was 'to sum up previous experience, torcachaconsensuson some issues, to strengthen unity and to mobilize the Paity Tor further victory through implementation of the readjustment principles. At fhe initial stage of the conference, the participants discussed the written draft report, delivered by Liu Shaoqi on behalf of the Party. The draft was not yet formally approved by the Centra Political Bureau, and was directly handed to the conference lor discussion, so as to pool collective wisdom and bring out suggestions for amendment. After repeated discussions and modifrcatiom a formal document was born entitled Report on the Enlarged Work Conference of the Central Committee. Deng Xiaoping, then the Party's secretary general, was responsible for the preparation of the conference. The d^af}ing the conference report was first supervised by Deng and then by Liu The report systematically summed up the experience an lessons in economic construction since the great leap forward After enumerating the achievements made in the years socialis construction, the report went on to the major shortcomings a mistakes: (I) The indexes set in the production plan were too high and the battle line for capital construction was overex^™^These would cause severe imbalance between the various branch es of the national economy. (II) In the peoples communes the demarcation between collective ownership and ownership b> the whole people was once blurred. The eagerness to rush transition from one to the other violated the distribution principle of "to each according to his work" and the principle of "exchange at equal values." This stirred up the "communist wind"—haste to transfer to communism prematurely—and the practice of equalitarianism. (Ill) The improper practice of setting up a large number of integral industrial systems countrywide led to excessive transfer of power to the lower levels and overdecentralization. (IV) There was an over-estimation of the increase in agricultural production and overly urgent demands made in regard to the development of construction. This led to overpopulation in cities, burdening them with supply shortages and adding to difficulties of rural production. The report analysed the reasons for the shortcomings and mistakes, holding that on the one hand we lacked experience in construction; on the other hand, many Party leaders had not been modest enough over the years, and had abandoned the Party tradition of seeking truth from facts and following the mass line. These weaknesses undermined the Party's democratic centralism and deterred the timely recovery and correction of mistakes. The report emphasized that the basic directions and main principles of socialism, the "great leap forward" and the people's communes the "Three Red Banners"—were correct. The achievements over the years were great; the shortcomings and mistakes were secondary, the report said; the Central Committee, including the departments under it and those under the State Council shouldered the major responsibility for the shortcomings and mistakes. Besides, the provincial leading organs should bear secondary responsibility for them. On January 27, Liu Shaoqi delivered a speech to explain the written report. He offered some important insights on questions causing ideological confusion within the Party. He emphasized that the "Three Red Banners" (the general line for socialist construction, the great leap forward and the people's communes) would not be abolished. Instead, consistent efforts would be made to keep them. At present, some issues may be unclear by now, he said, but if we look back after five or ten years, we will be able 581 to understand better, summarize experience again and draw conclusions. As to our mistakes and achievements, we used to comoare them to the relationship between one finger and nine fingers, hut now probably the same thing might not apply. In view of the whole country, perhaps the relationship was that between three fingers and seven fingers. In some regions, the mistakes added up to more than three fingers - they could be as many as seven fingers. As to the causes for the economic dilficulties, natural disasters were only one aspect, mistakes in our work were> l° 11 large extent, another aspect. In some places, ‘30 percent of e difficulties came from natural disasters, the other 70 percent were man-made." These opinions moved a step further in the direction of facing reality and bravely acknowledging, in a down-to-earth way, the mistakes made in the actual work and guiding thoug since the "great leap forward." Liu's speech and reports were warmly applauded at the confer ence. Since the participants still had much they wished to say at this meeting sponsored by the Central Committee, Mao Zedong suggested prolonging the conference. The delegates spent the Spring Festival in Beijing. "During the day, they aired views; at night, they watched operas, drama or films. With two meals of staple food and one of porridge, everyone was satisfied. At the latter half of the conference, grassroots leaders ottered their suggestions to the central authorities and to the Party committees of various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Several main leaders of the central committee delivered speeches. Mao Zedong made a long speech on January 30, focusing on democratic centralism. He underlined the importance of sufficient democracy both in and outside the Party so that the masses could speak their mind. If we have made mistakes, we should do self-criticism and let others criticize, he said. Mao made a sel criticism, saying, "I'm directly and indirectly responsible for all the mistakes made by the Central Committee because Im the chairman." "1 should be the first person to be held responsible He also emphasized that the Party was still afflicted with a lot of blindness in carrying out socialist construction. "As far as we are _ j o^nrimv manv unrecognized realms of necessity. From now on, we should put forth our utmost efforts to study it, do research and, through practice, deepen our understanding of it, so as to gain a clear grasp of its laws," he said. Mao also pointed out that China has a large population; it has a weak foundation to start with and its economy is backward. "1 think it will take at least over a hundred years to develop its productive forces and to catch up with and surpass the most advanced capitalist countries," he said. Both Deng Xiaoping, representing the Central Secretariat, and Zhou Enlai, the State Council, in speeches delivered at the conference, made self-criticisms. Deng focused on the restoration of the Party's fine traditions and Zhou talked about the major ways to overcome the difficulties. Zhu De spoke at the panel discussion of the Shandong delegates. Chen Yun spoke to the Shaanxi representatives after the conference. Both Zhu De and Chen Yun focused on inner-Party democracy. Several provincial delegates criticized the shortcomings and mistakes in the work and work style of their local leaders. Under the prevailing historical conditions, the conference did achieve important results. The truth-seeking attitude adopted towards shortcomings and mistakes, the democratic atmosphere, and the spirit of self-criticism inspired the whole Party. In general, the Party members felt relieved and relatively free from worry. The conference played a positive role in mobilizing the Party to work closely together to overcome difficulties. Of course, at the time, the term of "Three Red Banners," a premise confirmed in principle, was not changed. As to the "anti-Rightdeviationist" campaign, the conference only urged rehabilitation of the lower-level Party members who had been wrongly criticized. Nothing was done to rehabilitate Peng Dehuai though his so-called mistake in writing the "Lushan letter" was no longer mentioned. He was said to be leading an "anti-Party group" and had "international support." All these accusations, of course, were purely fictitious and completely groundless. Thus, it was impossible to thoroughly rectify the mistakes and clear up the guiding thought in the "great leap forward" and "anti-Right-deviationist" campaigns. Lin Biao, in his speech, said that Mao Zedong 583 Thought was always correct. The occurrence of mistakes and difficulties in the recent years resulted from not actmg according to Mao's instructions, or from interference either by Leftist or Rightist ideas. Had we listened to Mao, we would certainly have had fewer difficulties by far and we would have encountered fewer detours. Lin deviated from the principles of seeking truth from facts and of applying the test of practice. He appealed to the soirit of the personality cult in summing up the bitter lessons of experience. This had a negative effect on correcting shortcomings and mistakes as well as on implementing inner-Party democracy. Further Readjustment and Exploration After the 7 000-Person Conference, readjustment in the country's economy' and political relationships underwent further development. The household contract responsibility system in agricultural production was tried boldly on a large scale. The 7 000-Person Conference assumed that the most djtticult period for the economy had been tided over. After the meeting, however, it was discovered that insufficient preparation for difficulties still existed in terms of budgetary deficit and inflation In February 1962, Liu Shaoqi held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau Standing Committee (Meeting in the West Building at Zhongnanhai) and pointed out that the country was undergoing an "usual period." Unless resolute measures were taken the national economy would further deteriorate. Chen Yun offered a systematic review at the meeting. On February 26 according lo Liu's proposal, Chen Yun delivered a long speech at a meeting of the members of the Party groups of the ministries under the State Council. It was entitled Present Financial Status and Several Measures to Overcome Difficulties. I pointed out that in the pace of agricultural recovery, we should strive tor speed but be prepared for slowness." The scale for capital con struction then was based on the erroneous assumption that grain output would reach 350 billion kilogrammes and cotton output 3 5 billion kilogrammes, in 1958. The decision was also affected by the predicted steel output of about 50 million tons. It turned out that the designed scale of capital construction was more than industry and agriculture could support. Chen Yun proposed arranging a stage of recovery of about five years in the national economic programme starting from 1960. In the recovery stage, the lirst thing to do was to increase agricultural production so as to meet the demand for iood and clothing. The indexes for capital construction and certain heavy industries should at first be resolutely lowered, then later raised again. The urban population should be reduced on a wide scale and measures taken to check inflation. Chen Yun's speech was warmly applauded and fully supported by leaders of the various departments under the central authorities. It was approved by the Central Committee and became the guiding document for economic work at the time. The Central Committee decided to restore the government's Financial and Economic Group, to be headed by Chen Yun. In May, the standing committee of CPC's Political Bureau held an enlarged meeting, at which the report on the 1962 readjustment plan, which had been drafted by the Financial and Economic Group, was discussed and adopted. The report signaled a determination to readjust the national economy drastically. Its major provisions included: First, streamlining the number of employees and reducing the urban population. In 1961, according to the deployment plan of the central government, the staff was reduced by more than 8 million and the urban population was cut down by 10 million. In 1962, a reduction of 10 million more employees would be made and the urban population would be further reduced by 12 million. Between the start of 1961 and June 1963, the staff of employees was cut down by about 20 million and 26 million city residents were re-settled. Zhou Enlai exclaimed that deploying such a large number of people was the same as moving a medium-sized country; it was quite unprecedented. Second, cutting down the scale of capital construction and eliminating or slowing down the construction speed of a large number of projects. Compared with the situation in 1960, the 1962 investment in capital construction was reduced from 38.4 billion yuan to 6.7 billion yuan. The accumulation rate dropped 585 from 39.6 per cent to 10.4 per cent. Construction projects were reduced by over two- thirds. Third, reducing industrial projects. Wherever necessary, factories or projects were to be shut down, closed temporarily, merged or transferred. After the readjustment, the number of industrial enterprises was reduced by 38 percent in 1962 as compared with that in 1959. The indexes for most heavy industries were also lowered. Compared with 1960, industrial output value plummeted by 47 percent in 1962. Of this, the output value of heavy industry was reduced by 57 percent. Steel target was cut Irom 18.66 million tons to 6.67 million tons. Weak links like mine excavation, oil and chemical industries and the production of supplies needed in agriculture were reinforced. Fourth, further support for agriculture by assigning more hands and materials. Leadership in the rural areas was also strengthened. These resolute measures, coupled with efforts from residents and leaders at all levels, proved very effective. By the end of 1962, the national economy had started to revive. Agricultural production was the first to pick up. That year, grain output hit 160 billion kilogrammes, 12.5 billion kilogrammes more than the year before. The total agricultural output value increased by 6.2 percent over the previous year, thus ending three consecutive years of recession. Moreover, national finances showed a balance of revenue and expenditure in 1962, with a cash surplus of 830 million yuan. This ended four continuous years of deficit. Market supply was better and trade prices dropped by approximately 35 percent as compared with 1961. Urbanites' living standards started to look up. Compared with the previous year, annual percapita consumption of grain, pork and cloth increased by 5.5 kilogrammes, 0.8 kilogrammes and 0.8 metres, respectively. Economic difficulty, however, had just barely been tided over. People's living standards and the production level of industry and agriculture remained low. The Party and its people had yet to make more efforts in the readjustment and recovery of the national economy. As to the readjustment of political relationships, Liu Shaoqi held a top-level state conference after the 7, 000- Person Conference and the Meeting in the West Building at Zhongnanhai. ]t was followed by the 3rd Session of the 2nd National People's Congress and the 3rd Session of the 3rd National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, both of which had been postponed for a year. At the meetings, Liu Shaoqi briefed the participants, both Party and non-Party, on the 7,000-Person Conference. He explained that the Party, particularly the Central Committee, was responsible for the shortcomings and mistakes which had occurred over the years in domestic work. On behalf of the State Council, Zhou Enlai made a sincere self-criticism in regard to problems existing in governmental work. Those from democratic parties who attended, as well as democratic personages without party affiliation, were moved by the Communist Party's open-heartedness and boldness in admitting and correcting errors in these fields. They expressed their determination "to cross the river in the same boat" with the Party, united in a common purpose and overcome all difficulties. After the meeting, the Central Committee held the National United Front Work Conference and the Nationality Work Conference in order to investigate and correct "Leftist" errors. The two meetings underlined the importance of correctly handling the relationship among different classes, nationalities and religions, as well as the work concerned with overseas Chinese, so as to strengthen the unity of the various social strata and different nationalities. As to the rehabilitation of leaders and Party members who were wronged during the anti-Right Deviationist campaign, Party committees at all levels had started the work after the Central Committee passed out instructions in June 1961. But progress in different regions was uneven. Some regions and work units failed to give the instructions adequate attention. Because of this, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, led by Deng Xiaoping, drafted and issued the Circular on Speeding up Re-examination of Party Members and Cadres in April 1962. Experience accumulated in army work served as a basis for the suggestion that all wronged cadres below county-level be rehabilitated. Except for 587 specific cases involving serious offenses, no case should be left unsolved. It was in this way that the rehabilitation work opened up smoothly and comprehensively. By August 1962, more than six million cadres, Party members and ordinary people countrywide had been cleared. The rehabilitation of "Rightists" started around October 1959 according to Mao Zedong's suggestion. By 1962, the label of "Rightists" was removed from most of them. As for people who were wronged, the removal of the label did not mean the thorough solution of their problem. But removal of the label brought improvement, to some extent, in their political status, work and living conditions. In July 1962, The Party Central United f lont Office proposed that "‘Rightists' and their families who request re-assessment should be re-examined," "those who were wrongly labelled should be rehabilitated." The Central Committee did not consent to the proposal at the time. When the central government assigned the basic accounting unit to the production team, which corresponded roughly to the elementary cooperatives, the initiative of the farmers received quite a boost. At the same time, various forms of the household contract responsibility system emerged spontaneously in many places. Ever since the establishment of cooperatives, moves for the "household responsibility" would spontaneously surface whenever the Party called for readjustment of the relations of production inside rural collective economic organization. 1 hey would be stopped again and again only to emerge whenever the opportunity arose. This fact showed that household management within the economic structure of the rural collective economy of peasants in many ways suited the Chinese rural forces of production which consisted mainly of manual labour, and also answered to the needs of the vast majority of peasants. In 1961, provincial leaders in Anhui proposed to support these moves under the premise that the principal means of production were still collectively owned and the farmers should "unify" their management to the state production plan. They proposed to set the "production quota on the field, responsibility on the individual." By July 1962, more than 20 percent of the rural areas all over the country had been carrying out many different forms of fixing farm output quotas for each household. They proved highly effective and were welcomed by the peasants and grassroots leaders. After extensive investigation and research, Deng Zihui aired his support for the measures adopted in Anhui. He said that to inspire the labourers' enthusiasm, there needed to be a strict responsibility system, that a system of responsibility for the farm work in production would be hard to carry out unless it was related to output. Both Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yun approved of the idea. Deng Xiaoping, at a Secretariat meeting and a meeting with the Communist Youth League leaders in July 1962, gave briefings on the responsibility system emerging in the vast countryside. According to him, "The best production relations should be those that most easily and most quickly recover and develop agricultural production in the localities. What the masses like, we should adopt. If the form is illegal, we can legalize it." He quoted the popular saying Liu Bocheng often used: "It does not matter if it is a yellow cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice."27 He announced that his was a tentative opinion, which might not count. The Central Committee would look into the responsibility system at a meeting in August, he said. In the ten years between the mid-50s and mid-60s, major changes took place in the international situation and China's foreign relations. In the early years of this period, due to cessation of the Korean War and the war in Indo-China, the international atmosphere surrounding China tended to relax. The Party hoped to further such a situation and grasp the opportunity to speed up development of the domestic economy. The resolution adopted by the 1st Plenary Session of the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1956 defined the fundamental prin 589 Holes advocated by the Party for China's dealing with international matters. In early 1957, Mao Zedong made an analysis to the effect that on a world scale at the time, except tor the forces 0f socialism, there existed three kinds of forces: the forces of U. . imperialism persisting in policies of war and aggression; the forces of other developed capitalist countries; and the force of countries having national independence, together with national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, n regard to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the Pat y stood for continuously strengthening unity and cooperation with them As for the oppressed nations' liberation movements and countries fighting to gain national independence, the Party advocated giving them active support and developing extensive friendly relations with them. Regarding capitalist countries other than the United States, the Party held that they also belonged to an intermediate zone between the socialist countries and the United States. (Later, Mao Zedong called these particular countries the Second Intermediate Zone, and the countries in Asia Africa and Latin America the First Intermediate Zone.) Therefore, China should also win them over and develop friendly relations with them. As to the United States, the Party advocated determined opposition to U.S. armed aggression and threats to China, on the one hand, while still striving for peaceful co-existence with the United States and settling disputes between the two countries through peaceful consultation on the other. From the end of the 50s to the mid-60s, the world situation was turbulent. Between the four forces mentioned above as well as within each of them, relations splintered and were formed anew. The international situation on China's borders was growing strained. China was facing open and potential threats of aggression war provocations and military pressure from many directions. In such a turbulent and intense situation, the heart of the Party's concerns in international relations was how China could preserve her independence and sovereignty and light against hegemonism which loomed on all sides, for the purpose of maintaining her national dignity and interests, safeguardmg Chinas socialist cause and defending world peace and the interests of national liberation and of the entire socialist cause. At that time, the Party made a grim appraisal of the danger of war; and preparing for the worst possibility, made ready to fight an early war, a big war, and a war launched from several directions. Preparation for war became the major factor affecting the Party's political and economic strategies. Relations Between China and the Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America Relations between China and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America vigorously surged forward in the years after the mid-50s. The Chinese warmly expressed their support for the Egyptian people's struggle to maintain their sovereignty over the Suez Canal in the face of British and French intervention, the Algerian people's struggle against French colonial rule to win national independence, the struggle of African people in the area south of the Sahara against colonialism and racism, and the Cuban people's struggle against U.S. armed intervention. In the ten years, a large number of Asian and African countries established diplomatic relations with China, as did Cuba, a country in Latin America. Besides, the people of China and Japan developed friendly exchanges, albeit through non-governmental channels because there were no diplomatic relations between the two countries at the time. In 1964, China established diplomatic relations with France. This was an important achievement in the expansion of its diplomatic activities in countries outside of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Between January 1960 and March 1963, according to principles of peaceful co-existence and good-neighbourly relations and through consultation based on equality and in a spirit of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, China signed agreements or treaties with Burma, Nepal, Mongolia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, properly settling boundary questions unsolved in the past. China and India are two big Asian countries with ancient civilizations. Peoples of the two countries always expressed mu , ,1 sympathy and support in the struggle for independence. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 the two countries actively cooperated in international str"gg*"' ,»ther nutting forward the famous five principles of peaceful co-existence. China sincerely hoped to maintain and develop her friendly relations with India. In 1959 when the armed rebellion launched by Tibetan reactionary elements was quickly sup pressed, some Indian authorities either overtly or covertly adopted a supportive attitude towards the few national splittists in Tibet, thus casting a shadow over Sino-Indian relations The boundary disputes between China and India grew more acrimom°ln the past, there were no formally delimited boundaries, only a iraditional and customary line formed in accordance with administrative jurisdiction by both sides. The bounds ^advocated by the Indian government went far beyond 'hose actu ly within its jurisdiction. It put a vast expanse of Chinese administered territory north of the traditional and customary line under Indian jurisdiction. China advocated an overall solution to the boundary discord through friendly consultation. Before de limiting boundaries, both sides should maintain the status q . But the Indian government refused to negotiate^ After Angus 1959, Indian troops invaded Chinese territory many tunes This led to armed conflicts over the boundary. On November 7 1959 the Chinese government suggested that the armed forces of ea country immediately withdraw 20 km from their actually controlled positions. This was rejected by the Indian government On October 17, 1962, Indian troops launched large-scale attacks °n Chinese frontier troops. The Chinese frontier troops, forced o fight back in self-defence, recovered the Chinese territories occu pfed by Indian troops. To show the sincerity of the Chinese government for the peaceful settlement of rfL^fire bv on November 21 the Chinese government declared a cease fire by the Chinese frontier troops along the entire length of Indian boundary. Furthermore, from December 1, the Chinese frontier troops unilaterally drew back 20 km from the November 7 1959 line of actual control by both sides. Subsequently, the Chinese frontier troops repatriated all Indian prisoners of war and returned all captured weapons and military supplies to the Indian side. All these actions proved that China tried to limit and calm down the boundary conflicts, and place friendship between the two countries above everything else. However, following this, threats of reoccurring boundary provocations still existed for a long period. Sino-U.S. Relations Throughout the ten years, the United States maintained an attitude of open hostility towards China. The two most acute questions were: One, the presence of American armed troops in Taiwan— a matter of intervention in China's internal affairs; the other, U.S .armed aggression in Viet Nam, which posed a threat to China's security. U.S. intrusions into China's territorial air were frequent. With the Bandung Conference finished, the SinoU.S. ambassadorial talks were begun in Geneva in 1955 as a result of a statement made by Zhou Enlai. An agreement was reached regarding the repatriation for ordinary people of both sides. Consequently, a large group of Chinese students, whose return to China was being thwarted by the U.S. government, were able to go back home to serve the motherland and the people. On the question of eliminating the tense situation in the Taiwan area, the United States asked China to commit itself not to liberate Taiwan by force and to acknowledge the right of the United States to conduct so-called "unilateral and collective self-defence" on the Chinese territory of Taiwan, in a ploy to substantiate "two Chinas," or "one China, one Taiwan." China upheld her principled stand: the Chinese government would like to negotiate with the Taiwan authorities, to liberate Taiwan together with Penghu, Quemoy and Matsu by peaceful means to finally realize the reunification of the motherland. But this is an internal affair, in which the United States has no right to interfere, and which can not become a topic for Sino-U.S. talks. The diplomatic negotiations between China and the United States on mutual relinquishing resort to force must lead to the removal of U.S. military 593 threats in the Taiwan area. China can in no way recognize the , talus quo of U.S. infringement upon Taiwan. The talks had to he suspended at the end of 1957 when all reasonable suggestions made by the Chinese side were stubbornly rejected by the United States. In order to suppress Kuomintang troops' harassment and wrecking activities on frontline defense of the mainland coast, the People's Liberation Army began bombarding Quemoy in August 1958. The United States hurriedly reinforced its troops m the Taiwan Strait and, furthermore, sent its fleet to escort the Kuomintang fleet. This constituted an invasion of Chinese territorial seas. The Chinese government sent many serious warnings to the U.S. government against this. At the same time, the Chinese government reiterated its wish to solve Sino-U.S. disputes through peaceful negotiations. . In September, Sino-U.S. ambassadorial talks were resumed in Warsaw. The United Slates attempted to "give up Quemoy and Matsu in exchange for China's promise not to appeal to force over Taiwan and Penghu. In fact, the United States was still trying to create "two Chinas." The Chinese government by no means agreed with the idea, nor were the Taiwan authorities satisfied with it. In consideration of the common ground shared by the Chinese people and the Kuomintang group which opposed the "two Chinas" advocated by the U.S., the Chinese government decided to leave Quemoy and Matsu in the hands of the Taiwan authorities for the time being. On October 6, Mao Zedong wrote a "Message to Taiwan Compatriots," which was published m the name of Peng Dehuai, minister of national defence, declaring the temporary cessation of shelling Quemoy on the condition that there would be no further U.S. escort. On October 25, Another Message to Taiwan Compatriots" was published, announcing that there would be no shelling of Quemoy's airport and docks on even dates, in order to let Quemoy and other islands bring in supplies, it was not certain whether or not there would be shelling on odd dates. But to avoid possible losses, boats, ships and airplanes of the Taiwan side should not come over. At the same time, the message advised the Kuomintang authorities not to rely on others too much, pointing out that "matters concerning Chinese can be settled only by the Chinese people. Matters that are hard to solve in a short time can be taken care of later through long-term consultations." The stalemate between China and the United States on the question of Taiwan lasted for many years. An armistice was realized on the Indo-China Peninsula after the 1954 Geneva agreement was reached. With 17 degrees north latitude as the boundary line, north Viet Nam was put under the administration of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. After the French troops withdrew from Indo-China in 1955, the United States seized the opportunity to replace France, using military assistance to cultivate pro-American forces, especially through active support to the Ngo Dinh Diem ruling clique of south Viet Nam in its cruel persecution of the people who had fought in the former war of resistance against foreign aggression and other patriotic personages. At the end of 1960, the south Vietnamese people were forced to take up arms to resist the reactionary rule of the U.S.-Ngo clique. In 1961, the United States dispatched "special troops" to south Viet Nam, and in the following year, founded the "U.S. Military-Aid Headquarters in Viet Nam," thus intensifying suppression of the south Vietnamese people and getting ready to raid north Viet Nam. In order to support the Vietnamese people's resistance against U.S. aggression, China gave the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam large quantities of free military assistance. In August 1964, the U.S. started bombing north Viet Nam. The Chinese Government published a statement, saying that "U.S. aggression against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam means aggression against China. The Chinese people must on no account sit back and watch without going to the rescue." In March 1965, U.S. marine corps landed at Da Nang in the northern part of south Viet Nam, ready at any time to attack northward. U.S. planes frequently intruded into Chinese territorial air over Yunnan, Guangxi and Hainan Island. Under the circumstances, the Party Central Committee called on the army and the people of the whole country to get ready to deal with the most serious situation possible. By request of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, China began sending relief troops to Viet Nam to operate in spheres such as ground-air missiles, 595 antiaircraft artillery, engineering, railways, mine sweeping and loeistics- By the end of March 1968, Chinese relict troops involved a total of 320,000 people. Together with soldiers and civilians of Viet Nam, Chinese reinforcements, with blood and lives defended north Viet Nam's territorial air and its transportation lines. The toll of the Chinese troops reached more than 5,000, and the materials in aid of Viet Nam amounted to more than U.S.S20 billion. With the support of China and other countries, the Vietnamese people waged arduous struggles, finally driving the U.S. aggressive troops into the hopeless predicament of no victory in sight. In November 1968, the United States had no choice but to declare the cessation of bombing and gunfire in north Viet Nam, and to prepare for negotiations to end the war. Their firm resistance to U.S. imperialist hegemonism and aggression policies demonstrated a high degree of national dignity and a -pirit of national independence on the part of the Chinese people led by the Communist Party of China. Matching its threat of force, the United States also adopted a "peaceful strategy to win victory" over socialist countries. In 1959, Mao Zedong exhorted us to heighten our vigilance against U.S. peaceful methods, namely, by means of infiltration and corruption, inducing socialist countries to evolve peacefully into capitalist countries. Later, Mao Zedong repeatedly raised the question m all earnestness, and linked it with the danger of revisionism arising within the socialist countries. Prevention of peaceful evolution is an important strategic ideology of far-reaching significance. How to correctly and effectively prevent peaceful evolution is an everpresent problem that needs to be settled properly and seriously in exploring the road to build a socialist country. Sino-Soviet Relations The Communist Party of China has always stood lor maintaining relations of friendship between the two Parties and the two countries, unity of the international communist movement and unity among the various socialist countries. In 1957, Mao Zedong led a delegation to take part in a meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties of various countries held in Moscow. By way of conducting internal consultations, the Communist Party of China put forward different opinions on some questions of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As a result of the eflorts of the two Parties in co-ordinating their stand and making mutual concessions, the Moscow Declaration drafted by both sides was passed. Even so, later on contradictions between China and the Soviet Union nevertheless gradually sharpened. The contradictions and clashes between China and the Soviet Union fell into two categories: 1. Differences in the ideological field. The two Parties had sharply contrasting opinions on the international situation, the international communist movement's line and tactics, and each other's international and domestic policies. 2. On the other hand, the then leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union considered their party as a sort of patriarchal Party," demanding that the Communist Pa ty of China should follow its baton, in an attempt to control China and make China militarily and diplomatically submit to the strategic needs of "Soviet- U.S. cooperation for domination of the world." In 1958, the Soviet Union demanded the establishment of a jointly-controlled long-wave station on Chinese territory and a jointly-commanded fleet in China's territorial waters. Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders promptly delivered a stern rebuff to a demand such as this which would impair Chinese sovereignty. In the same year, Khrushchov was deeply worried that the mainland's shelling of Quemoy would hamper "Soviet-U.S. cooperation." So he demanded that China make a commitment not to resort to force on the question of Taiwan. Of course, China could not agree. When the Sino-Indian boundary conflicts broke out, the Soviet Union did not bother to look into the rights and wrongs of the case, but issued a statement partial to the Indian side, thus exposing Sino-Soviet divergences to public view. In April 1960, on the occasion of marking the 90th anniversary of Lenin's birth, the Communist Party of China published Long Live Leninism! and two other articles, criticizing some views of the Soviet leaders without mentioning names. In June, during the 3rd Congress of the Romanian Workers' Party, Khrushchov I, Vied a meeting of Parties of several countries in Bucharest, where he made unwarranted charges against the Chinese Commu■ . party The Communist Party of China refused to submit to foreign pressure. In July, the Soviet government suddenly notified China of its unilateral decision to immediately withdraw all Soviet experts working m China and to terminate all agreements on economic and technological cooperation between the two countries This breach of faith, which greatly impaired the rela tions between the two Parties and the two countries, ^s co"inutted just when China was suffering serious economic difficulties. In October 1960, Liu Shaoqi led a Chinese delegation to attend a meeting of various Communist and Workers Parties in Mos cow After heated debates and necessary concessions, the Moscow' Statement" was adopted. The Communist Party of China hoped that the unity of the international communist movement could be maintained on the basis of this statement. However, as it hap^nS, controversies in the international communist movemenTecame more and more acute after the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961. Leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet oc^papers as well as leaders of Communist Parties of many other countries influenced by the Soviet Communist Party, published many resolutions, statements and articles, attacking ‘h^Am^e Communist Party and Parties of other countries. From D=« 196p to March 1963, the Communist Party of China published seve'n articles answering and criticizing several Soviet-influenced Parties that had denounced China. In July 1963, Deng Xiaoping led a Chinese delegation t0 atlcn talks in Moscow between the Parties of the two countries. Aroun this period, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China published "A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement At the same tune jt Central Committee of the Soviet Union published an Open Letter to the Party Organizations at All Levels and to All Par y Members. ' The controversy between .he Chinese an^Sovie parties was further opened up to public view. The talks were without result. From September 1963 to July 1964, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, under the name of the Renmin Ribao editorial department and the Red Flag Magazine Editorial Department, published nine commentaries on the open letter of the Soviet Central Committee. In these articles, "Khrushchov revisionism" was openly criticized by name, and lessons drawn from world history concerning "peaceful evolution" and "capitalist restoration" in socialist countries were expounded. This controversy, which was unprecedented in scale, led to the disintegration of the international communist movement and Communist Parties of many countries. In October 1 964, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dismissed Khrushchov from his leading position, and appointed Brezhnev First Secretary of the CPSU. Out of a desire to improve relations between the two Parties, the Communist Party of China sent a delegation headed by Zhou Enlai to the Soviet Union to take part in activities celebrating the October Revolution. But the new leadership of the CPSU claimed that their policies on China did not have "even minor differences" from those of Khrushchov. In March 1965, Brezhnev compelled the convocation of a preparatory meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties of various countries for the purpose of collectively denouncing the Communist Party of China. The Communist Party of China and six other fraternal Parties refused to attend. From then on, the Soviet Union kept increasing its armed forces on the boundaries between China and the Soviet Union, and stationed troops in the People's Republic of Mongolia. In March 1966, when the Soviet Communist Party convened the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of China decided not to send its representatives to attend. Following this, relations between the two Parties broke off. In reviewing the history of the controversies, it is just as Deng Xiaoping later said: When a Communist Party comments on the actions of a foreign fraternal Party, it may often judge them according to some rigid formula or established pattern. Facts show that this approach gets one nowhere. The correctness or incorrectness of the domestic principles and line of a Party in a given country should be judged by that Party itself and by the people of that country. In 599 the last analysis, the answer is made through the practice of the Party and the people concerned. It is not for others to write articles affirming or contradicting them. Whether big, medium-sized, or small, Parties should respect each other's choices and experiences. We can't criticize others for conducting experiments in line with their own conditions. Even if they are wrong, it is up to them to sum up their own experience and try a different path. They should treat us in the same way, allowing us to make mistakes. Even if we make mistakes, it is up to us to correct them. We object to being ordered about and we, for our part, will never issue orders to others. When Deng Xiaoping met with some visiting comrades of a foreign fraternal Party, he talked about the relations between the Communist Party of China and other foreign Parties and the past controversies. He said: Looking back, however, we can see that we haven't always acted correctly. We have previously expressed some incorrect opinions concerning another Party. The visiting foreign comrades also said that they hadn't always acted correctly either. This was one aspect of the past controversies, that is, the ideological divergencies. The key to the problem lies in integrating the universal principles of Marxism with the concrete practices of revolution and construction of each country, using new thinking and new viewpoints to understand, inherit and advance Marxism-Leninism in the face of ever-changing world situation. As to the other aspect of the controversies, Deng Xiaoping said: "If a Party and the country which it leads pursue a foreign policy of interference in the internal affairs of other countries, or invasion or subversion of them, then any other Party is entitled to make its stand known and express its criticism. We have always opposed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union acting like a patriarchal Party and displaying great-power chauvinism. It pursues a hegemonist line and policy in foreign relations."28 In dealing with the international communist movement and relations between socialist countries, the Communist Party of China upheld the independence and sovereignty of various Parties and countries, and opposed hegemonism of any big Party or any big country and their treating of other fraternal Parties or other socialist countries unequally or ruling by force. With dauntless spirit, the Communist Party of China withstood the pressure from that quarter. This demonstrated the genuine Marxism and true principles of proletarian internationalism of the Communist Party of China. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people are proud of this, and have won the respect of the Communists of various countries and the people of the world.

Further Development of "Left" Deviationist Political Mistakes and Successful Completion of Economic Readjustment

During almost two years of readjustment before and after the Enlarged Work Conference of the Parly Central Committee, which was attended by 7,000 people, the domestic situation gradually took a turn for the belter. However, the erroneous "Left" deviationist guiding thought on the issue of economic development, especially in the issue of class struggle, had not been basically corrected. Actually, there still existed different views within the Party and among the leaders of the Party on the situation and policies. In face of serious difficulties, these contradictions and divergencies remained latent. After the situation took a favourable turn, the deepening of domestic policy readjustment (following the West Building Meeting and on to the proposal for assigning farm output quotas to the household) and the further intensification of the Sino-Soviet polemics made inner-Party divergencies gradually surface again over appraisal of the situation and guidance of work. The Party met new twists and turns in its exploration of China's own road for building socialism. The 10th Plenary Session of the 8th CPC Central Committee In August 1962, the Central Committee held a meeting on work at Beidaihe. Originally, the topic had been discussion of the work in agriculture, commerce and other fields, including the 601 question of fixing farm output quotas to the household. However, right at the start, Mao Zedong raised the problems of classes, the general situation, and contradictions for discussion. These topics also became the major content of the 10th Plenary Session of the CPC 8th Central Committee held in Beijing in September. At both the Beidaihe Meeting and the 10th Plenary Session, Mao Zedong made speeches in which he criticized Khrushchov's ideas in the Soviet Union and discussed the questions of classes and class struggle in China. He regarded differences in understanding within the Party as the reflection of class struggle, and opinions differing from his own, but which in fact, conformed fairly well with objective conditions, as indications of Right opportunism; that is, revisionism. All this he denounced as a "foul wind blowing towards individual farming" and "reversal of previous verdicts." Now some people see the situation as entirely dark, he said. They are ideologically confused, have lost confidence, and fail to see the brightness, therefore concluding that socialism is no good and that individual farming is the only choice. The higher up the wind swept, the stronger it blew. Mao criticized Deng Zihui and others who supported the policy of fixing farm output quotas to the household as representing the well-to-do middle peasants who wished to go in for private farming, and even standing by the side of landlords, rich peasants and the capitalist class in opposing socialism. The recent tendency to reverse previous verdicts was not correct, he added. The cases arising in the campaign against Right deviation in 1959 could not be reversed in one gust of wind. At that time, Peng Dehuai had handed over a lengthy letter appealing to the Central Committee. Mao Zedong considered it an action to reverse previous verdicts, adding that Peng could not be rehabilitated. During the plenary session, Kang Sheng asserted that the novel Liu Zhidan was written to "overturn Gao Gang's case," which received the support of Mao Zedong. Xi Zhongxun and others who had stood by the work were called an "anti-Party group" out to redress Gao Gang's case. (Of course, criticism of the novel is permissible, but that kind of political analysis and repudiation was groundless.) The session thus decided to set up two commissions for making separate inquiries into the cases of Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun. After the session, Deng Zihui was dismissed from his position as minister of the central committee department of agricultural work. The reform to fix farm output quotas to the household on an experimental basis was thus once again cracked down on. With this, the work of rehabilitating "Right opportunists" came to an end. Those who preferred suggestions to reexamine and rehabilitate "Rightists" who carried out the work on a trial basis were beat back amidst censures of their "extreme recklessness." "The 10th Plenary Session of the CPC 8th Central Committee pointed out that throughout the historical stage of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship and as well as the whole historical stage of transition from capitalism to communism (which needs several decades, or even a much longer period), there exists class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road." This sentence in the communique was written by Mao Zedong himself. On the questions of the class struggle and the danger of restoration of capitalism, he said, from now on, we must remind ourselves of this every year, every month and every day so that "we can retain a relatively sober understanding of this problem and have a Marxist-Leninist line." Thus this important, yet complicated problem concerning how to understand and deal with class struggle in socialist society was once again put before the whole Party in a serious, yet very simplistic way. After basic completion of the socialist transformation of private ownership of the means of production, besides the external enemy's invasions and subversions, internally in socialist society, class struggle will continue within certain limits for a long time, and can even become sharp under certain conditions. This is an important fact. It was proved by the attack launched by an extremely small number of Rightists in 1957. It was further proved by the emergence of speculation and profiteering, graft and theft, sabotage by hostile elements and the appearance of "restoration records" written by a small number of landlords during the period of economic recession and readjustment. It is quite necessary to face 603 the reality of class struggle, handle it correctly, and acquire a sober understanding of the problem. At the same time, we must understand clearly that even though class struggle exists in certain areas we should not widen and absolutize it. In 1957, as the scope of the anti-Rightist struggle widened, it was asserted that the struggle between the two classes and between the two roads would remain the principal contradiction throughout the entire stage of transition prior to the completion of socialism (estimated at that time to be more than ten years). This was certainly both in practice and in theory, failure to keep a clear head. In 1959, at the Lushan Meeting, struggle against the Right deviation was also regarded as class struggle within the Party, and as a kind of struggle which would continue for at least twenty years, even possible for half a century. At the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee, the criticism of Peng Dehuai, Xi Zhongxun and Deng Zihui was regarded as a struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. A completely wrong judgement was passed on the nature of this matter. Then came a new assertion that the period of transition with class struggle as the principal contradiction would continue right up until the higher stage of communism is reached. The period would be longer than several decades, possibly one hundred years, or several hundred years. This conclusion was even more arbitrary and less clear-minded. Not long after, the assertion was defined as the Party's "basic theory and basic practice" and during the "cultural revolution" it came to be called "the Party's basic line in the whole historical stage of socialism." Just as "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" pointed out, at the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee, Mao Zedong "widened and absolutized the class struggle, which exists only within certain limits in socialist society, and carried forward the viewpoint he had advanced after the anti-Rightist struggle in 1957 that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie remained the principal contradiction in our society." This indicates that the viewpoint of the widening of the class struggle had become further systematized, and served as the theoretical preparation for further escalation of the Party's "Left" deviationist mistakes. When the 10th Plenary Session came to end, Liu Shaoqi expressed full support for Mao's theoretical viewpoints and analysis of the situation. At the same time, in view of the fact that the criticism of Peng Dehuai's "Right opportunism" within the whole Party after the Lushan Meeting in 1959 had hampered the work to correct "Left" mistakes that would have continued in their actual work, Liu Shaoqi proposed that the situation concerning criticism of Peng, Xi and Deng at the 10th plenary session be passed on only to high-ranking Party cadres, not to cadres at the lower levels. The Central Committee adopted his proposal. Mao Zedong also said, do not relax economic work on account of the stress on class struggle. We should "give work the priority." The plenary session discussed and passed several resolutions concerning consolidation of the collective economy to develop agricultural production and commercial work. The session also passed a revised draft of sixty articles on the people's communes, and decided to continue implementation of the eight-character principle for readjusting the national economy. After the 10th Plenary Session of the Party's 8th Central Committee, a complicated situation arose in the Party's and nation's work. On the one hand, politically, the "Left" mistake of widening class struggle grew steadily more serious. On the other hand, the task for economic readjustment and restoration basically continued as scheduled, and was successfully fulfilled by 1965. The two factors were mutually contradictory, but the contradiction was temporarily controlled within definite limits. "Four Clean-Ups" and "Five- Anti" Movements, and Criticism in Political and Ideological Spheres After the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee, the Party Central Committee decided to launch a widespread socialist education movement and wage a large-scale class struggle in the cities and countryside. At a meeting of the Party Central Committee held in February 1963, Mao Zedong introduced the experiences summed up by Hunan and Hebei provinces and other places, and advanced the 605 notion that "once class struggle is grasped, all problems will be solved." A decision was made to launch a socialist education movement in rural areas to clear up accounts, warehouses, property and work-points (known as the "four clean-ups") and a "five-anti" movement in cities against corruption and theft, speculation and profiteering, extravagance and waste, decentralism, and bureaucracy. In May, Mao Zedong himself in Hangzhou directed and worked out The Draft Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Certain Problems in Our Present Rural Work (known as the First Ten-Point Decision). The decision's estimate of the domestic political situation was overly serious, considering that serious, sharp class struggles had surfaced in current Chinese society. The "four clean-ups" and the "five-anti" movements are "revolutionary socialist struggles to attack and smash the furious attack launched by capitalist forces." The decision urged various localities to train cadres and make on-the-spot experiments in preparation for the widespread socialist education movement. In September, in the light of some questions arising in the experiments, the Party Central Committee formulated "The Draft Regulations on Some Specific Policies in the Socialist Education Movement in the Rural Area" (known as the Second Ten-Point Decision). Based on fully affirming the First Ten-Point Decision, the Second TenPoint Decision clearly defined the principle of "taking class struggle as the key link." This is a principle of "Left" deviation. However, the regulations also stipulated relatively correct specific policies on uniting more than 95 percent of cadres and masses and relying on organizations and cadres at the grassroots level. From the winter of 1963 to the spring of 1964, the "four clear-ups" movement was carried out in a large number of rural communes and brigades throughout the country, and the "five-anti" movement was in its trial stage in a small number of cities. After the autumn of 1963, the polemics between the Chinese and Soviet Parties grew fiercer by the day. Under the circumstances, Mao Zedong held that revisionism had already appeared within our Party. The correct proposition on rural work, which Deng Zihui and others had advocated, was epitomized as san zi yi bao (the extension of plots for private use, the extension of free markets, the increase of small enterprises with sole responsibility for their own profits or losses, and the fixing of output quotas based on the individual household) and was regarded as a "revisionist domestic programme." In the spring of 1962, Wang Jiaxiang, head of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee, suggested to the central committee that to gain time for overcoming difficulties and speeding up construction, it is necessary to strive for a relative relief of tension in foreign relations; in the struggle with the United States, the Soviet Union and India, careful consideration should be given to tactics; in the field of foreign assistance, we should be realistic and act within our capability. The general spirit of these suggestions was correct, and as to making suggestions to the central committee, this was in complete conformity with organizational principles. But these suggestions were distortedly generalized as san he yi shao (liquidation of the struggle against imperialism, the reactionaries and modern revisionism, and reduction of assistance and support to the revolutionary struggle of other peoples) and regarded as a "revisionist international programme." Many suggestions on a united front made by Li Weihan, head of the United Front Department of the Central Committee were also criticized as "capitulation to the bourgeoisie." Both Wang and Li were severely criticized as "revisionists in the Party" and dismissed from their positions. The "four clean-ups" and "five-anti" movements were looked upon as important strategic measures in fighting against revisionism, preventing revisionism and digging out the domestic roots of revisionism. In the movements, some units conducting on-thespot experiments came up with material describing examples of the "class enemy usurping leadership" or cadres involved in "peaceful transition" (i.e. to capitalism). In May and June of 1964, Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi made a further estimate that leadership in roughly one-third of the grassroots units in the country was not in our hands, but in the hands of the enemy and their allies. With this in mind, the central committee, under the direction of Liu Shaoqi, revised the Second Ten-Point Decision. 607 In it the domestic situation was grossly exaggerated and even further out of keeping with the actual circumstances, and it was asserted that the enemy was trying to entice and corrupt the cadres that "establishing a dual counter-revolutionary political power" was the "principal form adopted by the enemy against us, and that "the current movement is a large-scale mass movement that is more extensive, more complicated and more deep-going than the land reform movement." It was decided that "the whole movement is to be led by work teams," that is, organizations and cadres at grassroots level were to be put aside. Liu Shaoqi also urged sending large numbers of work teams to concentrate forces for a battle of annihilation, and using the work methods of the land reform movement, such as visiting poor peasants, showing concern for them and striking roots among the commune members. The central committee continuously transmitted ^documents which later were proved to be wrong, such as the "Report on Taking Back Leadership of the Baiyin Nonferrous Metal Company " submitted jointly by the Gansu Provincial Party Committee and the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry, the "Report on the Struggle to Seize Back Power in the Xiaozhan Area," submitted by the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee and a document on summarizing experience m the socialist education movement of the Taoyuan Production Bridge of Funing County in Hebei Province, all of which stressed the struggle to seize power. Because many local cadres had doubts and resentments, the central committee stressed that the major danger then was "Right deviation," urging cadres at prefectura and county levels to criticize fear of "Left," but not of Right ideas. Therefore, in the second half of 1964, "Left deviation developed a step further. From the latter part of 1964 to early 1965, the Central Committee held its working conference. Mao Zedong presided over it and worked out "Some Current Questions Raised in the Socialist Education Movement in the Rural Areas (i.e., the 23-Point cument). The document, affirming that most of our cadres were good or fairly good, stipulated that we should free them as quickly as possible from being examined and gradually realize the "three-way combination" representing the masses, cadres and work team. The work method we advocated was to take the mass line, and not create an aura of mystery or adopt the "human sea" tactics that smacked of the military. The results of the "four clean-ups" movement were to be seen in doing the work of construction well, and raising production should be one of the criteria of how well the movement is being conducted. These regulations partially corrected the overly "Left" practices which influenced various localities while Liu Shaoqi was directing the "four clean-ups" work during the second half of 1964. However, the 23-Point Document unduly emphasized that the nature of the movement was to solve the contradiction between socialism and capitalism, pointing out that "this movement targets the Party persons in power taking the capitalist road." (Later, this became the major slogan of the "cultural revolution.") Some, such as the Party persons in power were out in the open, others were behind the scenes; some of the people supporting the Party persons in power were at the lower levels, others were in higher levels. There were even some people working in provincial departments and the central organs who opposed socialism. Mao Zedong wrote instructions in inner-Party documents, pointing out that the leaders taking the capitalist road were "bad cadres of the bureaucratcapitalist class." They "have become or are becoming bourgeois elements who suck the blood of the workers." "The bureaucrat class on the one hand and the working class and the poor and lower-middle peasants on the other are two bitterly antagonistic classes." The spearhead of the struggle was thus pointed at Party leaders at various levels. This served to develop "Left" deviationist error of broadening class struggle to a new stage, that is, a stage of so-called "class struggle" created artificially, arbitrarily and systematically. According to the provisions of the "23-Point Document," the socialist education movement in both the cities and rural areas should be called in short the "four clean-ups" movement (i.e., four clean-ups in the political, economic, organizational and ideological fields). By the spring of 1966, the "four clean-ups" movement had been conducted in about one-third of the counties 609 and people's communes in China's countryside, and in about 3.9 oercent of the nation's total state-owned industrial enterprises and communications departments. As for the rest, such as the financial, trade, cultural and educational departments, the "four cleanups" movement had been conducted as on-the-spot experiments in only a few units. The socialist education movement in both the cities and rural areas, which had been carried out for three years and more, played a positive role in correcting unacceptable behavior among cadres such as grabbing more than their share, issuing mandatory orders, bullying people and oppressing the masses, as well as many shortcomings in management of the collective economy. It was also useful in cracking down on graft, embezzlement, speculation and profiteering, and in checking unhealthy activities tending to foster feudal superstitions^ But due to "taking class struggle as the key link," many problems differing in nature were regarded as class struggle or as reflections of the class struggle within the Party. This led to confusing the two different types of contradictions and caused many cadres and ordinary people to suffer under attacks which should not have been made against them. Some correct policies and measures for helping to enliven the rural economy, develop farm production and improve peasants' living standards could not be carried out well because more often than not they would be censured as a "capitalist tendency" or a "capitalist tail." Nevertheless, this movement was conducted only in some areas under unified leadership, in stages and in groups. Moreover, certain deviations arising in the movement were corrected, thus limiting and alleviating to some extent the negative aspects of the movement By and large, industrial and agricultural production had not been adversely affected nationwide, and no widespread social chaos eVeintthleideological sphere, the criticism and struggle were also aggravated. As early as in the autumn of 1962 Jiang Qmg censured a new kunqu opera Li Huimang as a ghost play a ghost appears on the stage as a character) incompatible with socialism. In May 1963, Jiang Qing organized some people to write articles criticizing Li Huimang and former articles praising the opera. This created a tense atmosphere in literary and art circles. In December 1963, Mao Zedong wrote these comments: "Problems abound in all forms of art such as the drama, ballads, music, the fine arts, the dance, the cinema, poetry and literature, and the people involved are numerous; in many departments very little has been achieved so far in socialist transformation." "Isn't it absurd that many Communists are enthusiastic about promoting feudal and capitalist art, but not socialist art?" He also said on many occasions that the Ministry of Culture was a "ministry of emperors, kings, generals and ministers," a "ministry of scholars and beauties," and a "ministry of foreign dead people." The Ministry of Culture and the literary and art circles immediately organized a rectification campaign to study these instructions. In June 1964, after reading the "Report on the Situation in the Rectification Campaign Carried Out in the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Associations Under It (Draft)," Mao Zedong wrote an instruction: "In the last fifteen years these associations, most of their publications (it is said that a few are good), and by and large the people in them (that is, not everybody) have not carried out the policies of the Party. They have acted as high and mighty bureaucrats, have not gone to the workers, peasants and soldiers and have not reflected the socialist revolution and socialist construction. In recent years, they have slid right down to the brink of revisionism. Unless they remold themselves in real earnest, at some future date they are bound to become groups like the Hungarian Petofi Club." At that time, in the sphere of literature and art, there really existed some unhealthy phenomena. It is necessary to point out the problems in this field and solve them by the means of normal criticism, strengthening leadership and improving work. However, Mao Zedong's two written instructions did not objectively appraise the whole situation in literary and art circles. Hence this led to launching mass movements and political struggles to settle problems in culture and art. In cultural departments, culture and art units and in nationwide periodicals and newspapers, Li Huiniang, Xie Yaohuan and other operas, Jiangnan in the North, Early Spring and other films, and many theoretical views on literature 611 and art were subjected to open political criticism. From the summer of 1964 onward, this kind of criticism was expanded to academic circles. A number of representative figures and theoret ical viewpoints in the spheres of philosophy, economics and history and all other academic spheres were vigorously criticized in' research institutes, schools of higher learning, and publications throughout the country. Among the criticized works, many were excellent or rather good. Some had shortcomings, but were groundlessly criticized as having anti-Party and anti-socialist political problems. Among the theoretical viewpoints which were criticized, some were correct, while the others could be discussed. In either case, it was also groundless to criticize them as ant Party and anti-socialist political problems. Among the represent ative figures criticized, most were important leading cad«S' " complied writers and scholars who were Party members in cultural and academic spheres. After being criticized, many of them were dismissed from their leading posts, or unable to "ng^e SSl of 1964, Mao Zedong held a forum Soon'later, on many occasions, he issued written directive^nd made speeches, advancing many extreme proposals for reform ^ With°criticism intensified in the spheres of literature, art science and education, the large majority m the whole continge involved were once again called "bourgeois intellectuals The erroneous and aggravated criticism carried out in the ideological sphere trampled on the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought ^nteni Tins brought about a tense atmosphere among the broad tanks of intellectuals who were thrown into a state of extreme anxiety an nervousness, [t impaired their enthusiasm and hindered the development of cultural, scientific and educational undeitakmgs^ At the lime when "Left" deviations criticisms were growing increasingly exacerbated, Deng Xiaoping made efforts trying to control the' situation. In March 1965, the Secretariat erf : the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on correcting toe Lett deviation which arose in the socialist education movement carried out in experimentation at Beijing University. In speaking of the current situation in ideological and cultural spheres, Deng Xiaoping said: Now people dare not write articles, and the theatres put on plays only about soldiers and fighting. As to the cinemas, this film can't be shown, that film can't be shown. What film can you find that's ever so perfect? Those "revolutionaries" want to achieve fame by criticizing others and try to climb up by stepping on other people's shoulders. He proposed that such practices should be stopped at once. In September 1965, Peng Zhen in a speech at a national meeting of directors of cultural departments and bureaus under the Ministry of Culture, also attempted to ease the tense atmosphere in literary, art and academic circles by leading the criticism into the orbit of argument and reasoning. However, the developing situation could not be held up for long. In November 1965, Yao Wenyuan's article "Comment on the New Historical Opera ‘Hai Rui Dismissed From Office'" was published. It stirred up an even more erroneous, violent tide of criticism, and which acted as a fuse touching off the "cultural revolution." Three Years of Economic Readjustment from 1963 to 1965 After the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the CPC, although "Left" deviationist mistakes had developed further, they had not yet come to dominate the situation countrywide before the launching of "cultural revolution." The major attention of the Party and the people throughout the country was focused on readjustment of the national economy, while restoring and developing production. In the first half of 1963, the overall situation of the national economy took a favourable turn. With this, a mood of impatience began to gain ground, the feeling was that the task for national economic readjustment had been basically completed, therefore we could now turn to speeding up national economic development. In September the same year, the Party Central Committee made an objective analysis of the current economic situation; the conclusion was that agricultural production had not yet been restored to the level of 1957; some 613 nroblems had not been solved properly such as imbalance m the structure of industry, poor quality of products and low productive efficiency; many problems remained in enterprise manag ment as well. Therefore, the central committee stipulated that from 1963, three more years should be spent in continuo implementation of the principle of "readjustment consolidation, filling out and raising standards" as a transitional stage between the second and third Five-Year Plans. That is to say 1962 was the last year of the Second Five-Year Plan, and the .I^tathe Year Plan would be put off and would begin from 1966. In the three years of transitional stage, the readjustment would be conducted under conditions of the basic completion of he largescale reduction and retreat of the national economy. major tasks and targets were: Agricultural production should reach or exceed the level of 1957; industrial production should be around 50 percent higher than the level of 1957; ^ajor relations in the national economy would be basically balanced on the new base of 1962; the managerial and administrative work f various departments would be led onto a normal path of development' enterprise labour productivity and the economizing of raw Tnd processing materials and fuel should reach or -rpass former top records. To realize the above-mentioned tasks and targets, was imperative to implement the general principle of developing the national economy with agriculture as the base and industry as the leading factor. The economic plan should be drawn up according to the order of first solving the problems of food clothing and daily necessities, then strengthening basic industry, while giving consideration to the development of national defence and breakthroughs in top-level science „ln.ri_ ln the three years of continuous readjustment, some experi menu were made on reform of the economic system Jwo reform measures merit attention. One was the trial establishment of industrial and transport trusts. Many enterprises that produced and managed similar products were integrated into special corporations They were managed according to economic laws rather ton by administrative means. In March 1963, on the motion of Liu Shaoqi, China's first trust— the China Tobacco and Cigar Company— was set up on a trial basis. Subsequently, a dozen or so national, provincial and municipal trusts were founded, thus accumulating experiences for future reforms. The other measure was reform of the labour system. In 1957, Liu Shaoqi advocated the idea of employing fewer regular workers, but more temporary workers who were both workers and peasants. In 1958, he further advocated two labour systems and two educational systems: one was a full-time working system and full-time schooling systemthe other was a work-study, or farm-study labour system and educational system. In 1964, Liu Shaoqi again made the above proposals, which were confirmed by the central committee. Since then, the labour system of employing both permanent workers and temporary workers was gradually introduced on a nationwide scale. I he work-study, or farm-study programme was carried out in some experimental units. After May 1964, as the United States and the Soviet Union were intensifying their military threats against China, the problem of war preparations in economic work became an important item on the Party's agenda. Large-scale construction of the ThirdLine Region (strategic rear) in southwest China was laid out. To help promote it, the central committee decided to carry out the principle of "stopping" (all new projects), "reducing" (projects under construction), "moving" (some enterprises and institutions to the Third-Line Region), "separating" (some enterprises and institutions into two, with some of them moving to the Third-Line Region) and "helping" (enterprises in the Third-Line Region with technical force and equipment from enterprises of the same category in the First-Line and Second-Line regions). Actually, this was another large-scale readjustment of the national economy. To consider economic construction from the angle of war preparation involved not only the re-distribution of industry Mao Zedong advanced the slogan: "Be prepared against war, be prepared against natural disasters, and do everything for the people ; this was especially aimed to develop agriculture and mobilize local enthusiasm for construction. He said: "First, be prepared against war. The people and army must first solve the 615 problem of food and clothing, then they can fight a war. Otherwise, firearms would be useless. Secondly, be prepared against natural disasters. Once a famine year comes, and localities have no stores of grain, cotton or edible oil, they have to rely on assistance from other provinces for support. It's not a permanent solution. Once we have a war, we would have many more difficulties. No matter which province is involved, local national disasters are unavoidable, to say nothing of several provinces combined. Third, the slate should not accumulate too much. We should give consideration to sections of the population who still haven't enough food and clothing; furthermore, we should consider storing grain locally among the people in preparation, for war and natural, disasters; and thirdly, consider accumulation of funds by localities for use in expanded reproduction." He also said that we have had several years' experience of draining the pond to get all the fish (referring to high purchase quotas), with many localities unable to maintain simple reproduction in famine years. We should take warning from this. Preparing against war and natural disasters and doing everything for the people is at the same time the best method for serving the state according to the old saying that if the common people have ample food and clothing, how could the monarch be hard up?29 After five years of readjustment between 1961 and 1965, the relation between industry and agriculture, the relations within industry and the relation between accumulation and expenditure were brought into relative balance. Industry had increased its ability to support agriculture. Enterprise managerial levels and economic results were somewhat improved. On this basis, industrial and agricultural production was revived and developed; market supply was improved; revenue and expenditure were balanced; prices nationwide were stable, and the market was brisk. At a time when the task of readjusting the national economy was in the main accomplished, the 1st Session of the 3rd National People's Congress met during the end of 1964 and the beginning of 1965. At the session, Zhou Enlai announced that the national economy as a whole would soon enter a new stage of development and that China would begin to carry out the ihird Five-Year Plan beginning from 1966. The Chinese people should redouble their efforts to make China a socialist power with modern agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. This was the first time the Party had taken such a solemn occasion to call on the people of the whole nation to realize the task of the four modernizations. But owing to the outbreak of the "cultural revolution" this great task could not be implemented according to plan. The ten years from the 1st Session of the 8th Central Committee of CPC to the eve of the "cultural revolution" (1956-66) witnessed a tortuous development in the Party's exploration of how to build socialism in China. In the ten years of large-scale socialist construction, although China suffered serious setbacks, it nevertheless won great achievements as well. In one year and more following 1956, efforts were made to continue carrying out the original tasks set in the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), and to surpass them. It was then followed by the Second Five-Year Plan period (1958-62). However, the five years were marked by three years of the anomalous (i.e., casting aside scheduled tasks) "big leap forward" and a serious economic recession brought on by it. To overcome the difficulties, the Party and the Chinese people waged an arduous struggle. In the latter two years of the Second Five-Year Plan (1961-62), China went in for readjustment of the national economy. Then followed three years (1963-65) of continuous readjustment. This was regarded as a transitional stage between the Second Five-Year Plan and the Third Five-Year Plan (beginning from 1966). The readjustment, resulting in smooth economic development, required a total of five years. The achievements scored in various fields were notable. 617 Taking 1962 as the base period (which marked the lowest point in the readjustment process), in the three years from 1963 to 1965 the average annual total output value of industry and agriculture increased 15.7 percent; the average annual total outnut value of agriculture rose 11 percent; and the average annual total output value of industry went up 17.9 percent. While m the First Five-Year Plan period, the rates of growth in the three fields were, respectively, 10.9 percent, 4.5 percent and 18 percent. Considering that the base numbers in 1962 were very low, economic growth in the following three years of the readjustment period was restorative in nature; therefore, it cannot be t ully compared with that in the First Five-Year Plan. With 1957 as the base period, in the eight years between 1958 and 1965, investment in capital construction reached 93.8 billion yuan, with which 531 large and medium-sized projects were completed. Total industrial and agricultural output value increased by 59.9 percent. Of this, total agricultural output value rose by 9.9 percent, and total industrial output value by 98.1 percent. In major industrial products, steel increased 2.3 fold, to 12.23 million tons; raw coal 77 percent, to 232 million tons; electricity 3.5 fold, to 67.6 billion kwh; crude oil7.75 fold, to 11.31 million tons; and synthetic ammonia 8.7 fold, to 1.484 million tons. In the major agricultural products, the output of cotton reached 2.098 million tons, up 27 9 percent; grain 194.55 billion kg, close to 195.05 billion kg in 1957 (original estimates of grain output stood at 185 billion kg, not including the output of soybean.); ups and downs in the year of big leap forward" lowered the average growth rate during the period from 1958 to 1965. However, due to the painstaking efforts made by the Chinese people nationwide, agricultural production was restored at a fairly quick paced and even increased in some fields. Industrial production rose in every branch, and even showed a considerable growth in some fields. The "big leap forward" inflicted tremendous damage and waste on China's industrial and agricultural production and construction. However, these years still saw development. There was the beginning of an overall arrangement for industrial construction for the most advanced branches of scientific research, and national defence, construction of water conservancy works, mechanization of agriculture, and for many other projects in modernization. Statistics showed that from 1949, the year of the founding of New China, to 1 964, over two-thirds of the total large and medium-sized projects in various departments of heavy industry were put into operation in the three years of the "big leap forward." The growth of steelmaking capability in the three years accounted for 36.2 percent of the total increase in steel-making capability from 1949 to 1979; coal mining capability made up 29.6 percent and cotton spinning spindles amounted to 25.9 percent. After carrying out the principle of readjustment, consolidation, filling out and raising standards, newly-begun work projects, and capacity added to old, made steady gains. In the development of industry, the nation's total industrial fixed assets in 1966 were four times that of 1956. In the iron and steel industry, besides further development of the Anshan iron and steel base, the largest in China, two big iron and steel bases, Wuhan and Baotou in the interland, as well as a number of large and medium-sized iron and steel plants in other parts of China, were also built in the ten years. In addition, the construction of a strategic rear iron and steel base in Panzhihua of Sichuan also started in this period. In the machine-building industry, China was able to manufacture equipment for metallurgical, mining, power and petrochemical industries, as well as to set up factories in the fields of aircraft making, automobile manufacturing and mechanical engineering. China was also able to design and manufacture some kinds of large modern equipment. In 1964, China could independently supply over 90 percent of its major machines and equipment. Industry in support of agriculture had developed considerably. In the ten years, tractors and chemical fertilizers used in the countryside increased by seven fold, and the supply of electricity for the rural areas went up by 71 fold. There was an improvement in the regional distribution in the composition of industrial departments. The most outstanding was the development of the petroleum industry which was vital to China's national economy at that time. In 1959, industrial oil currents were discovered in the area 619 nf Daqing, and in 1960, the most difficult year, the Party Central Committee decided to muster workers, cadres and technicians from various fields to conduct oil prospecting and exploitation on the boundless grasslands. In only one year, they ascertained the area of the oilfield and conducted experimental exploitation. In three years, they built up the largest oil-producing base in China, with an oil output covering two-thirds of the national total. They also made breakthroughs in the geological theory of oil reserves, oil exploitation and oil refining technology. Subsequently, Shengli and Dagang oilfields were also opened up. By 1965 China was self-sufficient in oil. The Chinese people proudly proclaimed: Gone are the days when the Chinese people had to depend on "foreign" oil. The petrochemical industry, closely related to the oil industry, was also gradually built up. In the ten years, a total length of 8,000 km of new railways were built. Of these, the Yingtan-Xiamen, Baotou-Lanzhou, Lanzhou-Haiyan, Lanzhou-Urumqi, Chongqing-Guiyang, and Guiyang-Liuzhou railways were completed and opened to trattic. The Chengdu-Kunming, Guiyang-Kunming, Liuzhou-Guiyang and Xiangfan-Chongqing railways were speeding up construction. Apart from Tibet, various provinces and autonomous regions were linked by local railways. For the first time, Fujian and Oinghai provinces, as well as Ningxia and Xinjiang autonomous regions, saw railways running through their land. 1 he proposal and plan for building the Third-Line Region gave an important impetus to railway construction. In the ten years, scientific and technical achievements were outstanding. Many specific requirements in the Twelve-Year Long-Range National Plan for Development of Science and Technology worked out in 1956 were fulfilled. In 1963, China went ahead in advance to work out another ten-year national plan tor the development of science and technology (1963-7,.). Mao Zedong gave instructions in regard to drawing up the new plan: The battle for science and technology must definitely be I ought and moreover, must be fought well. Without science and technology, the productive forces can not be increased. The achievements made in the fields of science and technology for national defense were particularly striking. The work in these fields, presided over by Nie Rongzhen, started in 1958. In 1961, the Central Committee made an important decision to speed up the development of scientific research and industry for national defense, with the research and production of atom bombs and guided missiles as the central tasks. In November 1962, the Central Committee established a fifteen-member special commission headed by Zhou Enlai, including Nie Rongzhen and Luo Ruiqing, to be in charge of the research and production involved. Mao Zedong instructed: "Make major efforts for coordination to do the work well."31 Zhou Enlai devoted a great deal of energy to this task. After strenuous efforts made by the broad masses of scientists, technicians, commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, as well as by workers, staff members and cadres of concerned departments, China successfully exploded its first atom bomb on October 16, 1964. This was a concentrated expression of the new level in science and technology reached by China at that time. This brilliant achievement attained through the policy of self-reliance effectively broke the nuclear monopoly and defused the nuclear blackmail of the superpowers and raised China's international status. The Chinese government stated: China has consistently advocated the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. China is forced to conduct nuclear tests and develop nuclear weapons for defense and for protection of the Chinese people from nuclear threat. The Chinese government hereby solemnly declares that China will never at any time or under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons. In the field of basic sciences, in 1965 China first produced synthetic crystalline bovine insulin, taking the leading position in the world. In the ten years, educational undertakings forged rapidly ahead. From 1957 to 1966, graduates from institutions of higher education totalled 1.4 million and graduates of technical secondary schools numbered 2. 1 1 million, or respectively, 4.9 times and 2.4 times that of the period from 1950 to 1956. After readjustment, educational quality was improved greatly. 621 particularly worth notice was that these economic and cultura achievements were attained under conditions in which China was suffering serious economic difficulties at home and facing wai threats and tremendous pressure from abroad (capitalist countries had been enforcing a blockade and embargo on China for a long time and the Soviet Union had torn up contracts and withdrawn its assistance). During the period, China also paid oil all its debts to the Soviet Union (mainly debts incurred lor munitions during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea). Upholding the policies of maintaining independence and self-reliance, the Chinese people and the Chinese Communists braved the foreign pressure and overcame the difficulties. Jhe heroic spirit of the Chinese people should go down unrivaled m history It is in this period that shining examples emerged, such as that of Jiao Yulu, Lankao County Party Secretary of Henan Province, who displayed the spirit of serving the people wholeheartedly and giving his all till his heart stopped beating; Wang Jinxi, a Communist oil worker at the Daqing Oilfield, who came to be known was as "Iron Man" for his hard work and spirit of fearing no difficulties; the Communist commune members of Dazhai Production Brigade of Xiyang County, Shanxi Province, who together with the local people, demonstrated the spirit of persisting in self-reliance in their arduous efforts to prevail over natural disaster and to conduct construction and production in farming; Lei Feng, a Party member and PLA soldier, who displayed a selfless Communist spirit. The Party called on all cadres, Party members and broad masses of people to learn from them. This became a tremendous spiritual force for building socialism^ Just as the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China pointed out in expounding the achievements made in the ten years- "The material and technical basis for modernizing our country was largely established during that period. It was also largely in the same period that the core personnel for our work in the economic, cultural and other spheres were trained and that they gained their experience. This was the principal aspect of the Party's work in that period." In ten years of exploration, there were two trends of development in the Party's guiding ideology. One trend was correct or relatively correct. That is to say, the Party had developed some correct or relatively correct theoretical viewpoints, principles and policies, and accumulated some correct or relatively correct practical experiences in its exploration of a road of its own for building socialism. This correct trend was in force mainly during the period of exploration lasting over a year before and after the 1st Session of the 8th Party Central Committee held in 1956, the eight- or nine-month exploration before the 1959 Lushan Meeting, and the five-year exploration for readjustment after the winter of 1 960. The other trend was erroneous. That is to say, the Party had formed some erroneous theoretical viewpoints, policies, ideas and practical experiences in the exploration of its own road for building socialism. In thinking back on the Party's history, Deng Xiaoping said on many occasions, "From 1957 on, China was plagued by ‘Left' ideas, which gradually became dominant."32 He was referring mainly to the "big leap forward," which had led to overanxiety for quick economic results and the "Left" deviationist mistakes from the broadening of the anti-Rightist struggle, to the "anti-Right deviation" fight at the Lushan Meeting, and to the magnifying of the class struggle after the 10th Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee. Just what is correct needs to be analysed; so does what is incorrect. Errors are often caused by going beyond the limits of truth. As to the speed of socialist economic construction, we should strive for a possible, effective, sustained, stable and balanced high speed. This is necessary and correct. If we go beyond limits and subjectively seek rash advance, we will go astray and do great damage to economic construction. On the question of class struggle under socialist conditions, it is necessary and correct to attach importance to the existence of class struggle in certain spheres and to maintain vigilance against the danger of peaceful evolution and revisionism. It would be extremely erroneous if we failed to see the class struggle and its dangers. To exceed the limits of truth by broadening and absolutizing 623 class struggle which does exist in certain spheres or by virtually fabricating class struggle, is wrong and harmful. Equally detn mental is overestimating the practical possibility of peacefu " olution in a particular setting, as well as opposing many correct ideas and policies by dubbing them revisionist. At the same time we must see that in the ten years of exploration, the correct trend and the erroneous trend did not each separately go their own way but were often interspersed and intertwined. They co-existed not only in the process of the whole Party's exploration, but also in the developmental process of the individual's cognition. Sometimes this trend got the upper hand in the wh°l® Part^' ""et,meS that trend, or different trends co-existed in different spheres. Ten years' development and accumulation of "Left deviationist errors eventually prevailed for a time over the correct trend of development to bring on the launching of the ^cultural revo lution." Of course, the mistakes made before the cultural revolution" cannot be equated with those of the cultural revolution, whether in scope, gravity, or in nature. In 19 7, when speakmg about why it was necessary to launch the cultural revolution, Mao Zedong stressed that it was because all the past struggles launched in the rural areas, factories and literary and art circles, as well as the socialist education movement, "could not solve the problem." This clearly indicates that the errors which occurred in the struggles before the "cultural revolution" and the errors of the "cultural revolution" itself were different in nature. One cannot fail to see the difference between them, just as one cannot fail to see their inner links. The former was the precursor of and preparation for the latter. , , In the ten years, correct and relatively correct trends of development also spread. However, because the correct trend itself was not yet mature or thoroughgoing enough, it was powerless in the end to prevent the erroneous trend from developing further, so that later, on the contrary, it was overwhelmed for a period of time by the development of erroneous trend. But m the long run, the correct trend could not be completely abandoned and destroyed. A considerable part of the correct trend (for example, the Sixty Articles for Agriculture) still played a positive role among the broad sections of cadres and masses during the "cultural revolution." This is one of the reasons why, when the guiding ideology of the "cultural revolution" was fundamentally wrong, the broad masses of cadres and people still during the period scored definite achievements in their actual work. More important is the fact that these correct things which had accumulated served as preparation for the subsequent process of correcting the mistakes and the erroneous guiding ideology of the "cultural revolution." Of course, while pointing out this kind of historical sequence, it is necessary also to sec that after things which were in disorder had been set to rights and the policies of reform and opening were in effect, the Party's guiding ideology advanced to a completely new historical eight on the basis of the thorough correction of the error of the "cultural revolution." This new advance, as compared with the correct trend which had grown in the ten years before the "cultural revolution," is much broader and much more profound. It embraces many new creations and new development which never existed before. The two advances cannot be put on a par. The successes and correct things which accumulated during the ten years of construction and exploration were achieved by the Party and the Chinese people through collective struggle. Among the leaders of the Party Central Committee, Mao Zedong undoubtedly played the most important role. Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Y un and Deng Xiaoping all played important roles. Many correct ideas and decisive policies were advanced by Mao Zedong and won the support of the Party Central Committee's collective leadership. With the support of Mao Zedong, other leaders' correct suggestions could also be passed and carried out in practice. Undoubtedly, Mao Zedong should bear major responsibility for the mistakes made in the ten years. It is not only because he was chairman of the Central Committee at that time, but also because he advanced and supported some major erroneous ideas and decisive policies. Sometimes, these even resulted from his personal arbitrariness which impaired the Party s democratic centralism and suppressed relatively more correct ideas. But just as Deng Xiaoping said: "When we talk 625 about mistakes, we should not speak only of Comrade Mao 7edong, for many other leading comrades in the Central Com mittee made mistakes, too. Comrade Mao got carried away when we launched the ‘great leap forward,' but didn't the rest of us go along with him? Neither Comrade Liu Shaoqi nor Comrade Zhou Enlai nor I for that matter objected to it, and Comrade Chen Y un didn't say anything either. We must be fair in regard to these questions and not give the impression that only one individual made mistakes while everybody else was correct, because this doesn't tally with the facts. When the Central Committee makes a mistake, it is the collective rather than a particular individual that should bear the responsibility."33 In short, in the ten years of construction, whether achievements or failures, were results occurring in the process of Paity s exploration of a road of its own for building socialism. So long as they are correctly summed up, all experiences, whether positive or negative, are the Party's precious treasures.

The "Cultural Revolution": Ten Years of Nationwide Chaos

The "Cultural Revolution" Initiated

Bv 1966 China had successfully readjusted the national economy had overcome serious economic difficulties, and had begun implementing its Third Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy. Just at such a time, the cultural revo u tion" look place. It was called "cultural revolution at the time but it was not a revolution at all. Actually, it was an internal disorder which damaged the development of China's socialism. This so-called "great revolution" was initiated and led by Mao Zedong to prevent the restoration of capitalism, maintain the Party's purity and search for China's own socialist road. However, he did not recognize as incorrect the broadening of class struggle during the socialist stage, and he misjudged the political situation of the Party and state. These mistaken ideas had developed to a very serious extent. He confused right and wrong in regard to a series of important theoretical issues and policies. I his led to blurring the distinction between ourselves and the enemy, to the conclusion that revisionism had in fact appeared in the Party central authorities, and that the Party and the state were facing the danger of a capitalist restoration. He held that the four clcan-ups" movement in the rural areas and the "five-anti movement in the cities launched in the past several years, as well as criticism in the idelogical field, had proved ineffective in solving these problems. Only through the form of a "cultural revolution"—mobilizing the broad masses from bottom to top in an open, all-round way—could the dark side in the Party and the state be thoroughly exposed and the power usurped by so-called "persons taking the capitalist road" be taken back. This "great revolution" was entitled "cultural" because it had been started with "criticism" in the cultural field. Mao added that the "great cultural revolution" was in essence a "political revolution." Because he had misjudged the situation and wrongly applied his theories, policies and methods, things went contrary to his wishes, and moreover created opportunities for conspiratorial activities by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others who evinced out-and-out support for Mao's proposals but, in reality, entertained wild ambitions of their own. These careerists used what power they held in the Party Central Committee to flaunt the reddest banner of "revolution," fan up a fanatic personality cult with Mao Zedong as the idol, and swung the "Left" deviation as far as it could go. They instigated and connived with a batch of opportunists, adventurers and degenerates, stirred up the masses to "made revolution by way of kicking out Party committees." This raised a relentless, anarchical tide of "down-with-everything" and brought on nationwide chaos, with untold damage to the work of the Party and the state and to normal and social order in general. The most serious setbacks and losses were inflicted on the socialist cause in China since the founding of the People's Republic. Fuse of the "Cultural Revolution" On November 10, 1965, the Wenhui Bao in Shanghai carried Yao Wenyuan's article "Comment on the New Historical Opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" This served as the fuse which touched off the "cultural revolution." In February 1965, Jiang Qing who held no post in the Party except that of Mao Zedong's secretary, had gone to Shanghai to meet Zhang Chunqiao, who was then secretary of the Secretariat CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 629 of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee. They organ Yao Wenyuan, a member of the writing group under the Shanghai Municipal Parly Committee to write an article criticizing the olay Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. The whole writing process was conducted in a highly abnormal, secretive atmosphere. In the article Wu Han, a famous historian and a vice-mayor of Beijing at the time, was criticized by name. In 1960, Wu Han had written an opera Hai Rui Dismissed From Office after Mao Zedong had advocated the mentality of Hai Rui, a figure in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) history. Yao groundlessly insinuated that returning farmland" and "redeeming unjust cases" as mentioned m Hai Km Dismissed From Office alluded to the "tendency to go it alone in agriculture" and the "pressure to reverse correct verdicts that had been criticized back in 1962. On the strength of this imputation lie launched a fierce political attack on the opera, calling it a reflection of the bourgeoisie's struggle against the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, the article touched upon a large number of important political differences existing "Jim th leading stratum of the Party Central Committee since 1961, with its range of attack not limited to Wu Han alone. For more than ten days following publication of the article, no newspaper in Beijing, including the People's Daily reprinted it. As to an article published in Shanghai, newspapers elsewhere in China have al ways had the right to decide whether or not to reprint it. However, this instance deepened Mao's suspicions as well as his dissatisfaction with some major leaders in the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the Party Central Committee. He felt convinced that Peng Zhen, first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and mayor of Beijing, was Wu Hans backer behindthe-scenes and that Beijing was an independent kingdom, impenetrable and watertight." Later, when Beijing newspapers reprinted the article, they treated it as a toptc for academic discussion. Meanwhile, in a talk with a small number of officials Mao said: "The crucial point (of Hai Rui Dismissed From Office) is ‘dismissed from office'; the Emperor Jiajing dismissed Hai Rui from office, and in 1959 we dismissed Peng Dehuai, and Peng Deliuai is ‘Hai Rui.'" These words of Maos added political stringency to the criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed From Office. By early 1966, the criticism had developed into a movement. Ideological and cultural criticism spread widely throughout the circles of historical studies, literature, art, and philosophy. What position and attitude one adopted towards Hai Rui Dismissed From Office (and later towards any propaganda or comments on Hai Rui as well) seemed to have become the only criterion for judging whether he or she was against the Party and socialism or not. On February 3, 1966, Peng Zhen, head of the Cultural Revolution Group established in 1964, held a group meeting at which an "Outline Report on Current Academic Discussion" (later known as "The February Outline") was worked out. In the Outline they tried to set appropriate restraints on the ultra-left tendency which had already arisen in the academic discussion regarding its nature, principles and objectives, and to keep the movement under the leadership of the Party and within the limits of an academic discussion. They did not agree to turn it into a movement of serious political criticism. The Outline was passed by the Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee then in Beijing, reported to Mao Zedong in Wuhan, and then on February 12 transmitted to the whole Party. According to the spirit of the Outline, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee did not agree to publish the so-called "crucial-point" article by Guan Feng and Qi Benyu in criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed From Office. When Jiang Qing saw that the criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was meeting with resistance, she secured the support of Lin Biao, vice-chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee and minister of National Defense, and from February 2 to 20 in Shanghai held a forum on work in literature and art in the armed forces. In its summary, the forum wrote off the tremendous achievements of the revolutionary literature and art since the founding of New China under the leadership of the Party, slandering the literary and art circles as having been "under the dictatorship of a sinister anti-Party and anti-socialist line." It declared, "We must resolutely carry on a great socialist revolution on the cultural front." Mao Zedong 631 revised the summary three times, and suggested it be reported, in the name of the Military Commission, to the Party Central Committee for approval. On April 10, it was transmitted to all levels of the Party. The grave political censure in the summary was directed not only against leaders of the literary and art circles, but also against some leaders in the central authorities. The drawing up of the summary also marked the beginning of collusion between Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, each using the other for personal ends. At the end of March, Mao Zedong had talks with Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao, one after another; he severely denounced the "February Outline" as wrong, as blurring class lines and as mixing right with wrong; he called the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee the Palace of Hell, where it was necessary to overthrow the king and set the little devils free, adding that the Central Committee Propaganda Department and the Beijing Municipal Party Committee were shielding scoundrels, suppressing the Left and disallowing revolution; if they continued to shield undesirable persons, the Central Committee Propaganda Department, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the Cultural Revolution Group should be dissolved. He also said, I have always proposed that if the central organs did harmful things, I would call on local organizations to rebel and launch an offensive against them. After Mao finished speaking, the Secretariat of the Central Committee suspended Peng Zhen from work in April. Around the same time that Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was being criticized, a political frame-up was perpetrated in the army at the instigation of Lin Biao against Luo Ruiqing, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, vice-premier of the State Council and general chief-of-staff of the People's Liberation Army. Believing the false accusations lodged by Lin Biao and Ye Qun, Mao in November 1965 suggested, "We should be on guard against those who have no faith in giving prominence to politics but feign agreeement with it while spreading eclecticism (that is, opportunism)." Mao's remarks showed that he did not trust Luo Ruiqing. Because of this, Luo was wrongly criticized, and isolated II to undergo investigation on fabricated charges of "usurping military power and opposing the Party." At this time, Yang Shangkun, alternate member of the Secretariat and director of the General Office of the Central Committee, was transferred on the basis of fabricated charges. Lu Dingyi, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, vice-premier of the State Council and minister of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, was also calumniated and forced to stop work. These serious political incidents arising in succession and implicating high-ranking leaders of the state and Party, added to the strident political criticism echoing through the press, shook the people with rousing forces both in and outside the Party, and created a hectic atmosphere of ubiquitous, omnipresent, "class struggle." This gave people an overwhelming, false impression that revisionism had really appeared in the Central Committee. Two Meetings of the CPC Central Committee Mark All-Round "Launching of the ‘Cultural Revolution"' An enlarged meeting of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau held in May 1966 and the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee in August marked the all-round launching of the "cultural revolution." On the 16th of May, the meeting adopted the "Circular of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China" (the "May 16 Circular," for short), and the session of August passed the "Decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (for short, the "Sixteen-Article Decision," a document having sixteen articles). The two documents and the reshuffling of leading organs of the Central Committee put the "Left" deviationist principles of the "cultural revolution" in a dominant position in the Central Committee. The "May 1 6 Circular" began with criticism of the "February Outline," then put forward the problem of representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and all spheres of culture. The Circular grossly distorted CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 633 the Outline and censured it, stating that it covered up the political nature of the academic criticism, and that it was a revisionist program to prepare public opinion for the restoration of the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the "May 16 Circular" called upon the whole Party to "hold high the great banner of the proletarian cultural revolution, thoroughly expose the reactionary bourgeois stand of those so-called ‘academic authorities' who oppose the Party and socialism, thoroughly criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois ideas in the sphere of academic work, education, journalism, literature, art and publishing, and seize leadership in these cultural spheres. To achieve this, the Circular pointed out, it was necessary at the same time to criticize and repudiate those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and all spheres of culture, and to clear them out or transfer some of them to other positions. Above all, we must not entrust these people with the work of leading the cultural revolution." In light of the assessment that representatives of the bourgeoisie had sneaked into the Party, the government and the army, the circular warned of the danger of a bourgeois restoration, pointing out that "those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and all spheres of culture are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Some of them we have already seen through, others we have not. Some are still trusted by us and are being trained as our successors, persons like Khrushchov, for example, who are still nestling beside us. Party committees at all levels must pay full attention to this matter." The circular was a concentrated reflection of Mao Zedong's serious miscalculation of the political situation in the Party and state at that time. The incisive remarks quoted above were all added by Mao himself. He considered that the struggle in the country between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had reached a very serious pitch. Under the fierce attacks of the bourgeoisie, quite a large majority of units in the cities and countryside were not in the hands of Marxists, or of the masses. More serious was the fact that revisionists had appeared in the leadership of the Party. As he saw it, a bunch of veteran cadres, who had been able to cooperate with him in the stage of the democratic revolution, did not agree when, in the socialist stage, it became necessary to combat the bourgeois class and carry out collectivization in the countryside. They had already become the persons in authority within the Party taking the capitalist road. These persons already constituted a bourgeois headquarters inside the Central Committee, and they had a revisionist political and organizational line. They had agents in various provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and departments of the Central Committee and the central government. He felt that they were obstructing the implementation of a series of ideas and methods he had advocated for the construction of socialism and that there was no way to carry them out. Therefore, Mao harbored increasing dissatisfaction and distrust towards Liu Shaoqi and other leaders of the central authorities. When Mao linked these firm convictions about the situation with the lessons he drew from the occurrence of Khrushchov revisionism within the Soviet Party, he was filled with anxiety about the future of the Party and the country. In a talk with Ho Chi Minh soon after the "May 16 Circular" was passed, he said: "We are all over seventy years old. We are bound to be invited by Marx some day. Who on earth will be our successors? Bernstein, or Kautsky or Khrushchov? Nobody knows. Prepare at once while there's still time." That was Mao's reason for mentioning in the "May 16 Circular" that there were "persons like Khrushchov" within the Party. In May, at an enlarged meeting of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau, Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing, Lu Dingy i and Yang Shangkun were wrongly criticized for their "anti-Party clique." At the meeting, Lin Biao listed instances of coup d'etats in ancient and modern times, in China and elsewhere. While attacking Peng, Luo, Lu and Yang, Lin spilt preposterous lies that there were people within the Party Central Committee who wanted to stage a coup d'etat. At the same time, he did his utmost to create a personality cult, proclaiming that "Everything Chairman Mao says is the truth. A single sentence of his carries more weight than ten thousand ordinary sentences." "Whoever is against Chairman Mao will be punished by the entire Party and condemned by the whole nation." In an abnormally tense atmosnhere the "May 16 Circular" was passed without proper discussion and in compliance with Mao's suggestion, the meeting decided to suspend Peng Zhen, Luo Ruiqing and Lu Dingyi from their posts as members of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and Yang Shangkun from his post of alternate secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The meeting also removed Peng Zhen from his posts as first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and mayor of Beijing, and Lu Dingyi from his post as head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee. Furthermore, the meeting decided to cancel the Cultural Revolution Group headed by Peng Zhen, and founded the Central Cultural Revolution Group directly under the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. The Central Cultural Revolution Group was set up with Chen Boda as head, Kang Sheng as adviser, and Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao deputy heads. Its members included Wang Li, Guan Feng, Qi Benyu an Yao Wenyuan. (Some of its other appointed members were before long persecuted and expelled.) Actually the group, operating as a special setup, was not subject to any restraint whatever by he Political Bureau and became the de facto headquarters of the "cultural revolution." Before the meeting came to a close, Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng had already spread these decisions to the general public. Fierce attacks were launched against the Beijing Municipal Party Committee in the newspapers. A work team headed by Chen Boda went to the office of the People's Daily to seize power. On June 1, the People's Daily published an editorial entitled "Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons," calling on the masses to make cultural revolution." Next day, the newspaper published a bigcharacter poster written by Nie Yuanzi and a few others o Beijing University, which slanderously attacked the Party Committees of Beijing University and of Beijing Municipality. The poster, supported by Mao, was also broadcast nationwide. The newspaper also carried a congratulatory commentary. Students of universities and middle schools in many cities were the first to rise in response to its call. They started with the struggle against so-called "sinister gangs" making their presidents and teachers the targets, wreaking havoc in the schools. Many school Party committees were helpless in the face of it, their work brought to a standstill. In early June, the CPC Political Bureau's Standing Committee, then presided over by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, decided to send work teams to universities and middle schools in Beijing to lead the "cultural revolution," and also drew up the "Eight-Point Directive" which was designed to put the movement under the Party's leadership and restore order. Then in many universities and schools strife arose between two or more student factions, and incidents occurred of some students opposing the work teams. Jiang Qing, Chen Boda and Kang Sheng first fomented discord among students, then unilaterally reported to Mao. Mao scathingly censured the work teams, saying that they "have done a disservice and obstructed the movement." Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping bore the responsibility and examined their mistakes. In compliance with Mao's suggestion, the Central Committee ordered the withdrawal of all work teams on July 28. Mao considered that the just rising "cultural revolution," which had just risen after the enlarged meeting of the CPC Political Bureau in May, had been suppressed. In order to clear away the "obstruction," it was necessary to mount another allround launching of the revolution. On August 1, Mao himself presided over the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th Party Central Committee. At the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau on August 4, Mao Zedong again scathingly censured the dispatch of work teams as "an act of suppression to the students' movement" and "a mistake in matters of political line." And he added, "There are ‘monsters and demons' among people present here." At the session on the 7th, Mao made public his big-character poster "Bombard the Headquarters," asserting that "in the last 50 days or so, some leading comrades from the central down to the local levels ... have adopted the reactionary stand of the bourgeoisie, enforced a bourgeois dictatorship and struck down the surging movement of the great cultural revoluCHAPTKR EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 637 tion of the proletariat. They have called black white and stood the facts on their heads, encircled and attacked the revolutionaries, suppressed opinions differing from their own, and imposed a white terror, and they have done all this with great smugness. They inflated the arrogance of the bourgeoisie and clamped down the morale of the proletariat. This is utterly vicious!" In light of the disputes on the question of socialist construction within the leadership in the Party, the big-character poster pointed out: "Associating this with the erroneous tendencies of the Right deviation in 1962 and the apparently ‘Left' but actually Right deviation in 1964, shouldn't this awaken people and make them ponder?" In his big character poster, he mentioned there was a bourgeois headquarters in the Central Committee. Obviously, he was accusing Liu Shaoqi and other leaders who presided over the routine work of the Central Committee, although he did not mention their names. From criticism of Hai Rui Dismissed From His Office to the "May 16 Circular," and to the big character poster of Mao's, the spearhead of struggle kept escalating. Now, finally, the meeting clearly pointed out the principal target of attack in the "great cultural revolution." In light of Mao's suggestion, the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee adopted the "Decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (the "Sixteen- Article Decision," for short). The decision stipulated that "our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic ‘authorities' and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes, reform education, literature and art and all superstructures unsuitable to socialist economic basis, in order to consolidate and develop the socialist system. The main target of the present movement is those within the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road." The decision stressed that young people's main revolutionary orientation has been correct from the beginning; let the masses educate themselves and liberate themselves in the movement; they should put daring above everything else and not fear creating disturb ances; they cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. They should make the fullest use of big-character posters and great debates to argue matters out. The "Sixteen-Article Decision," like the "May 16 Circular," failed to set clear criterions for distinguishing between persons taking the capitalist road, Leftists, Rightists and middle elements, or to provide specific regulations concerning how to realize the Party's leadership. Although the "Sixteen-Article Decision" also proposed that we should distinguish the two different types of social contradictions, it actually fostered a blind, spontaneous mass movement which largely confused friends with enemies. As a result, those correct regulations were never followed later on in the movement. In compliance with Mao's suggestion, the plenary session reorganized the leading body of the CPC Central Committee. It elected eleven instead of seven as members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. The additional members were Tao Zhu, Chen Boda, Kang Sheng and Li Fuchun. Tao Zhu, former first secretary of the Bureau of Central South China, was transferred to the post of standing secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and head of the CPC Propaganda Department, according to the decision of the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau held in May. But he was soon removed after being elected a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. (He was later persecuted to death.) Not long after, Li Fuchun was also removed from his position. Liu Shaoqi was demoted from the second to the eighth place on the name list of Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. Although no vicechairman of the Central Committee was elected, Lin Biao was named vice-chairman of the Central Committee soon after the session. Former vice-chairmen Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Chen Yun were no longer mentioned. During the session and in the days following the session, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and other central leading comrades were criticized one after another. The two meetings made it possible for the erroneous "Left" leadership by Mao Zedong himself to replace the collective leadership by the Party Central Committee. CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 639 This meeting, just as the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in May, was held in a very tense political atmosphere. Many of the participants were utterly astonished at such a sudden ^r.d important change of personnel in the central leadership; their minds were filled with all sorts of perplexities and suspicions. The of the "Sixteen-Article Decision" at the Pfary session marked the fulfillment of the legal procedure within the Par y for the launching of the "cultural revolution. Nationwide Chaos On the same day the Uth Plenary Session of the 8th > Party Central Committee was convened, Mao Zedong wrote to R Guards of Z middle school attached to Qinghua University expressing his warm support for their rebellious spirit The ^ Guard movement soon spread throughout the August 18 to November 26, Mao Zedong received over 11 million college and middle school teachers, students and Red Guards Shi occasions in Beijing. The CPC Central Commit ee and the State Council jointly issued a circular on inviting students or representatives of students of colleges and middle schools, representatives of revolutionary students of middle schools, and representatives of teachers and other staff members of various ,parts °{ he country to Beijing, free of charge, to look around and see the "great cultural revolution." This brought the spreading exchanges of experience between these groups to a nationwide high tide. This was a grave step which led to social chaos throughout the country. The Central Cultural Revolution Group launched a so-called defense of Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought In feverish response, Red Guards of various parts of the country charged into the' premises of cultural and educational circles, Pany and government organs, as well as social "feting widespread damage on whatever they ■ deemed to be feudal bourgeois and revisionist." Many people in cultural units ; and educational institutions. Party organs and government offices were criticized and denounced as members of sinister gangs "representatives of the bourgeoisie," "reactionary academic authorities" and "counter-revolutionary revisionists." They were subjected to criticism, humiliation, beating and persecution, and their homes were searched. Many patriotic, democratic personages who had cooperated with the Communist Party over a long period, former industrialists and businessmen and returned overseas Chinese were also assaulted and persecuted. This kind of behavior which cut deep rifts in the social order and trampled democracy and legality underfoot evoked universal resentment among the masses. The Red Guard organizations, which contended head-on because of differing views or interests, kept disintegrating and reorganizing. Under this or that signboard, they waged fierce factional struggles. Some persons among them came to realize that any behavior opposing and assaulting Party and government organs was wrong, and they determined to resolutely oppose any such destructive behavior. Party and government leading cadres at various levels filled with skepticism towards the movement, were thrown into a state of extreme anxiety over the situation. The "May 16 Circular" said that the overwhelming majority of Party committees "have a very poor understanding of the movement and their leadership is far from conscientious and effective." This created a problem which obstructed the movement. In a continued effort to overcome this so-called "obstruction," the Central Committee held a work conference in Beijing in October 1966. The meeting focused on criticism of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, accusing them of pursuing "an erroneous line of repressing the masses and attacking active revolutionaries," which was a "reactionary bourgeois line" opposing the masses' self-liberation. In his speech at the meeting, Chen Boda lauded the Red Guards' acts of sabotage to the skies, but accused people who harbored reservations and vigilance as fearing the masses and revolution, or even as repressing the masses and opposing the revolution. After the meeting, a storm of criticizing the "reactionary bourgeois line" was whipped up nationwide. Afterwards, any behavior beyond normal or legal limits suffered no restraint; but any intervention in such impermissible behavior had slapped on it the label of "reactionary bourgeois line." Society was thus caught in continuous chaos. In early October, the Central ComCHAPTF.R EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 641 mittee distributed an emergency directive issued by the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee. It rescinded the decision that the cultural revolution in military academies an schools should be led by the Party committees. After that, To ClTout Party committees in making revolution" became a popular slogan which opened wider the floodgates of anarchisnr Instigated by the Central Cultural Revolution Group, rebels urned their attacks on Party and government leading organizations at various levels. As a result, many Party and government cadres from central to local levels were struggled against and criticized leaving the work of Party and government bodies in a state of paralysis or semi-paralysis. All Party activities at the grassroots levels as well as the regular activities of Party members Ca?n November 1966, a national meeting of industrial and transport enterprises was held. In their speeches, the participants suggested that the "cultural revolution" in industrial and tram port enterprises be led by the Party committees and that the relation between revolution and production be handled correctly. They were against stopping production to make revolution, which in essence negated the "Left" draft regulations put forward by the Central Cultural Revolution Group. However these «.rrect suggestions at the meeting were scathingly censured by L Biao and Jiang Qing. Upon their intervention, two documents were issued Tn the name of the Central Committee concerning the "cultural revolution" in industrial and transport enterprises and in rural areas (the "ten-point regulations on tndustry and^he "ten-point directive on agriculture," for short). The two docu menbTwere intended to push the cultural revolution beyond the origtaThmits, which confined it to cultural units, educational circles Party organs and government bodies, into industrial en terprises and the rural areas. This was another grave step .toward nationwide upheaval. The countryside was not affected by the cultural revolution for very long, since the thev could not "stop production to make revolution. Neverthe less many rural cadres, activists of the Party and model workers were struggled against and criticized. More destructive was th large numbers of industrial enterprises became involved in the cultural revolution. As a result, backbone members of the leading core of these enterprises were criticized, and a large number of workers left their posts in production, and the enterprises were thrown into confusion. From beginning of the movement, Mao Zedong took an affirmative attitude towards the serious confusion in society. In his July 8 letter to Jiang Qing, Mao held the opinion that great disorder under heaven could bring in great order across the land. In his view, this demonstrated that the masses were fully mobilized; it threw the enemy into disorder, and tempered the masses. In a very perilous position, Zhou Enlai did his best to get the agreement of Mao Zedong to protect a group of veteran cadres, outstanding personages of democratic parties, experts and scholars! He tried his utmost to lead Party and government departments which were still functioning to keep social production going and the 1 unctions of state power in operation. However, now that the great disorder under heaven had already begun to take on startling dimensions, it inevitably burst out of control and could only get worse. Fraught with enormous destructive force, it advanced fiercely along its vicious course, wreaking catastrophe difficult for people to have imagined in the early stages of the "cultural revolution " The "cultural revolution" initiated by Mao Zedong had undergone deliberation and preparation for a period of time. Later, he regarded it as one of the two great things he had done in his life (the other was the revolution led by him to establish the new China). This shows clearly how important the "cultural revolution" was in his eyes. As a leader of the proletarian party in power, Mao Zedong showed great concern for consolidation of the Party and people's power which had been established with such great difficulty, maintained strict vigilance against the danger of capitalist restoration, and tried hard to find out a way to solve this problem. This was priceless and far-sighted. And his unremitting efforts to eliminate corruption in the Party and government bodies, as well as to prevent cadres becoming divorced from the people, also won the support of the Party and the masses. But he magnified the class struggle in socialist society and V 643 considered it absolute, to the point of confusing friends with enemies. He still held to the concept of attaining great order under heaven through great disorder, even in a situation where power was still in the hands of the people. The series of "Left" deviationist fantasies which Mao developed were completely wrong, and were not only opposed to Marxism, but also to the real situation in China. Mao stressed that there were revisionists within the Party and in the Party leadership; his assessment was also not true. The implications of what he referred to as revisionism were very vague. Consequently, many things that were not revisionist, and many that were actually principles of Marxism and socialism, were criticized as revisionist. For example, the so-called "dark wind," "rush towards private farming" and "pressure to reverse verdicts," which Mao had repeatedly criticized as revisionist since 1962, were nothing but the reasonable and correct suggestions put forward by some officials and people inside and outside the Party for redressing mistakes made in the movements of the Big Leap Forward and the People Communes as well as the anti-Rightist deviation at the Lushan Meeting in 1959. Now, as clearly seen, the proposals and support for many kinds of farm production responsibility systems, such as the "fixing of farm output quotas for each household," by Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Deng Zihui and others heralded the rural reforms made since 1978. However, these proposals were called a revisionist programme by Mao Zedong. For a long time, Mao Zedong was loyal to Marxism and the people's interest, continuously observed and thought deeply about problems in the real life of the newly rising socialist society and strived to perfect the ideal of socialism. His basic train of thought about socialism was consistent with the basic principles of Marxist scientific socialism. Mao's unique concept of socialism includes both some valuable foresights and some unrealistic ideas. Several days before the "May 16 Circular" was adopted, after reading a report submitted by the General Logistics Department of the PLA on developing agricultural production and sideoccupations in the armed forces, Mao wrote a letter of approval (which came to be known as the "May 7 Directive") to Lin Biao in which he described the ideal society he had been looking forward to. In his letter, he said that all trades and professions in the country should be made a social organization in which people engage in industrial and agricultural productions, study cultural knowledge and military affairs. They also should criticize the bourgeoisie. The organization would be run as one in which social division of labour and commodity production should be gradually limited, and so should the principle of distribution according to work and the principle of material interest. The social organization also should be economically self-sufficient or semi-selfsufficient. (Mao considered that ignoring these limitations would give rise to capitalism.) Mao's concept was then highly valued by the People 's Daily as the guideline for establishing "great schools of communism" throughout the country. As a matter of fact, this was a further development of his 1958 concept of the people's communes. But his concept of socialism characterized by equalitarianism with Utopian coloration got us absolutely nowhere. Therefore, the concept could not but be resisted in various degrees by many comrades within the Party. Some leading comrades in the Central Committee, who did not agree with Mao's erroneous suggestions, but put forward some correct proposals, were accused of fostering revisionism or taking the capitalist road. He considered that serious resistance from the leadership of the Central Committee was blocking his efforts to seek a just, perfect socialism. In conclusion, he saw them as an independent kingdom or a bourgeois headquarters within the Party. Such an assessment was obviously groundless and completely wrong. There are reasons rooted in social history which led to the formation of Mao Zedong's erroneous viewpoints, determined the inability within the Party to resist them and enabled many people to accept them. As the Party rapidly entered the new historical stage of socialism, it did not make ample ideological preparation or proper scientific investigation of how to carry out the all-round construction of socialism in a country with a poor economic and cultural background. In the past periods of revolutionary wars, the Party had accumulated a great deal of experience in class struggle. In observing and dealing with new problems and diffiCHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 645 culties arising in socialist construction, people were susceptible to mechanically copying former practices and experience. As a result they saw problems which were not related to class struggle as class struggle, took the class struggle which existed l to ' a limited degree under the new conditions as occupying a dominant posi tion and continued to adopt methods of mass struggle on a large scale as a solution. It was easy to resume the practices which resembled their life experience under military communism and had proved so effective in the revolutionary ranks in past periods of war and to take them as a sort of basis to plan an ideal society. Although the founders of Marxism expounded and proved the historical trend that capitalist society would inevitably be transformed into socialist society, they could only proceed from the status quo of the relatively developed capitalist society to draw a general inference about a future socialist society which they had not experienced. Using only one or two particular theses of theirs and then misunderstanding them certainly can never solve concrete problems in China and makes it very easy to fantasize socialism. For a long time, Mao's senes of Left devia fionist theoretical viewpoints on class struggle in the socialist period and his concepts of socialism which were tinted with Utopianism had been regarded as an important development of Marxist theory and spread far and wide; thus people thrown into a situation of broadened class struggle were confused and misled. Upholding the erroneous deviation was even regarded as defending the sacred cause of Marxism. Those who took a skeptical attitude towards the erroneous deviation still found it hard to oppose it with perfect assurance. . In the 60s, our Party was compelled to conduct intense polemics with the Soviet Party on the line and principles of the international communist movement. This mfernational background also exerted a great influence on domestic polmcallife; Normal debates arising among comrades m the Party holdi g different opinions were often looked upon as serious struggles between Marxism and revisionism. As a result, inner Party relations became more strained with each passing day. Maos great merits in the Chinese revolutionary cause and the cause of socialism made him an indisputable political leader and ideological authority. For this reason, though broad masses of Party members and cadres, including many high-ranking officials, had growing reservations about many abnormal phenomena in the "cultural revolution," they still found it hard to resist the series of "Left" deviationist viewpoints advanced by Mao and to hold back the outbreak and development of the "cultural revolution." In leading the unfamiliar cause of socialist construction, our Party specially needed prudence. However, some leading cadres had gradually become arrogant in midst of a series of successes. At that time, Mao Zedong's prestige was at its peak among the Chinese people. He also gradually became conceited, divorced from the masses and isolated from the reality. His subjectivism and arbitrary style became more serious as times went on. The cult of Mao Zedong was so widespread that it had gradually became a craze by the time the "cultural revolution" was launched. Just as Deng Xiaoping said: "After criticism of the opposition to rash advance in 1958 and the campaign against ‘Right deviation' in 1959, democratic life in the Party and state gradually ceased to function normally. There was a steady growth of such patriarchal ways as only one person having the say, one person making important decisions, practising the cult of personality and one individual placing himself above the organization. Lin Biao propagated the ‘peak theory,' saying that Chairman Mao's words were supreme instructions. This theory was widespread throughout the Party, army and country."1 Consequently, this led to the sabotage of the collective leadership principle and democratic centralism in Party and state political life. In this aspect, Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng and other careerists played the most abominable role. Among them, some had been Party members for many years, had done useful work for the Party and assumed important Party and state important positions, while some had only a few achievements during their official careers and had formerly occupied low positions. But they had one point in common; that is, they joined the Party with a strong blend of exploi ting-class ideology and a thirst for personal power and influence which developed as conditions changed. In ordinary circumstances, their erroneous words and acts were, after all, somewhat restrained by Party organization and discipline and, therefore, their true colors could not be sufficiently exposed. Once they had the extremely abnormal opportunity like the "cultural revolution," their wild political ambitions and conspiratorial methods for usurping Party and state power could be carried to extremes. Due to various historical reasons, after the founding of New China, the process of democratization of the Party and State political life had not been able to develop smoothly. And there were many defects in the system of Party and state leadership and the organizational system. These defects in our systems made it possible for Mao Zedong, the people s respected leader, to make mistakes unchecked, for careerists like Lin Biao and Jiang Qing to run amok for a time, and for the disasterridden "cultural revolution" to take place and develop without any restriction.

"Overthrow Everything" Brings On All-Round Civil Strife

"All-Round Seizure of Power" Evokes Escalation of Nationwide Turbulence In January 1967, a violent storm of rebels seizing the power of leadership at various levels of Party and government organizations first started in Shanghai, then spread throughout the country. The "cultural revolution" had entered a new stage of so-called "all-round seizure of power." This stage brought about more serious social turbulence and greater disasters than the previous stage. In early January 1967, under the command of Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, rebel organizations in Shanghai headed by Wang Hongwen of the Shanghai No. 17 State-Owned Cotton Mill, seized leadership power from the Party and government of the city. Mao Zedong vigorously supported the action of seizing power and saw it as an effective method to thoroughly reorganize the leadership at various levels in implementation of the principles of the "cultural revolution." On January 16, the Red Flag published a commentary which transmitted Mao's remarks, saying: "The seizure of power from a handful of Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road was a revolution in which one class overthrew another under the conditions of proletarian dictatorship." On January 22, the People's Daily also published an editorial calling on all the proletarian revolutionaries to "launch an all-round struggle of seizing power throughout the country and successfully fulfill the great historical mission entrusted by Chairman Mao." Then rebels in Shanxi (January 14), Qingdao (January 22), Guizhou (January 25), Heilongjiang (January 31) and other provinces proclaimed the all-round seizure of power from provincial and municipal Party and government leading organs, and their seizure of power was approved by the Central Committee. In a short period, the storm of all-round seizure of power swept from departments under the Central Committee and the State Council to local Party and government organs, as well as to all walks of life. This gave rise to a sharp struggle between persons intent on taking over power and the masses inclined to support the existing Party and government leadership, and between one power-seizing faction and other ones. As a result, a raging tide of anarchism stemming from all-round civil strife marked by stampedes of "down with everyone" forged ahead, got out of hand, and threw China into unprecedented chaos. Although Mao Zedong expressed his support for "great disorder under heaven," nevertheless, in face of the daily worsening crisis, he could not but try to restrain it. At that time, newspapers and magazines published editorials and articles, one after another, repeatedly transmitting Mao's instructives on seizing power, mainly urging people to "realize great alliances of proletarian revolutionaries" and "set up a ‘three-in-onc combination" composed of "leaders of the rebel organizations, representatives of the PLA troops stationed in the locality and revolutionary leading cadres." The temporary power organs established after seizure of power were called "revolutionary committees." To form the "great alliances" and "three-in-one combinations," Mao urged the cor rect handling of cadres and various rebel organizations, that various rebel organizations should be rectified and the anarchist idea of "suspecting everyone and overthrowing everyone be °P In order to stabilize the situation, the CPC Central Committee, the Military Commission of the Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Cultural Revolution Group published a series of circulars and directives, urging teachers and students of colleges and middle schools to stop exchange of experiences with other localities and to resume school classes and carry on the revolution; asking factories, mines, enterprises and rural production teams to persist in making revolution in their spare time, that is to grasp revolution and promote production; demanding the return to normal order of railways, ports, communications and transportation, and the protection of radio stations, banks, warehouses, prisons and other units. Most important was Maos decision to dispatch PLA troops to carry out the task of three supports and two militaries" (supporting industry, supporting agriculture, supporting the broad masses of the Left, military control, political and military training). In appraisal of the situation, Mao considered that the allround seizure of power" would signalize a positive outcome in February, March or April 1967. But things were far from what Mao imagined. Many requirements and regulations published in above-mentioned editorials and directives had produced very little effect. The "great alliances" and "three-in-one combination as the basic principles in the process of seizure of power had not been carried out; but, on the contrary, they became the focus o further struggles. Two or more sharply contrasting large rebe organizations in various places had somewhat different political inclinations, but, in general, they all operated the mfluence of "Left" deviationist principles and ultra- Lett trends of thought. Some rebel organizations chose their own favorite leading cadres as prospective members for the "three-in-one combination " and strived to realize a "great alliance" and the seizure o power with their own faction as its nucleus. Alter being overthrown, many leading cadres were unwilling to, or could not. come out to join leading groups. Some were "combined" with this rebel organization, but soon overthrown by the other. Following their own interests, each faction took only those directives of Chairman Mao or those of the Central Committee which were favourable to itself and each thought what it did was right. On the fundamental issue of "power," the contention among rebel organizations was so acute that countless disputes and conflicts occurred which led to ruthless armed struggles. After getting involved in supporting the "Left," the PLA troops found it hard to avoid supporting this faction or that faction. As a result, this brought about many disputes and conflicts between rebel organizations and troops supporting the "Left." Some rebel organizations in various places assaulted military units, giving rise to bloody incidents. People showed universal discontent with the chaos that had seriously endangered the security of the state, society and the troops. Confronted by such a situation, revolutionaries of the older generation came out boldly and rose up to resist the turbulence. At an enlarged meeting of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Ye Jianying, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen and others demanded that the stability of the army must be maintained, and did not agree to the free airing of views as practiced in civilian life (in the forms of speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters). Over this problem, they had a sharp dispute with Jiang Qing, Chen Boda and Kang Sheng. At two meetings, on February 11 and 16, with many members of the Political Bureau participating, Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen, leaders of the Political Bureau or Military Commission, sharply criticized many of the wrong actions taken by the Central Cultural Revolution Group and spoke out, justly denouncing Chen Boda, Kang Sheng and Zhang Chunqiao. Ye Jianying said: "You have caused chaos in the Party, government, factories and the countryside! As if that is not enough for you, you still want to cause chaos in the army! If you go on like that, what is it you're trying to do?" "Can we make revolution without the leadership of the Party, without the CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION 651 army?" Tan Zhenlin said: "You don't want the leadership of the Party, always letting the masses liberate themselves, educate themselves and make revolution themselves. What's this anyway. It's metaphysics." He added, "Your purpose is to overthrow veteran cadres." These criticisms spoken out with the force of justice represented the will of the Party and the people and demonstrated the qualities of selflessness and uprightness of the proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation. On hearing the report from the Central Cultural Revolution Group, Mao was highly dissatisfied with these veteran cadres, because their arguments and resistance were actually aimed at completely correcting "Left" deviationist errors of the "cultural revolution,' and also directed against the absurd practices of the "cultural revolution." Mao severely criticized these veteran comrades. At a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC, the Central Cultural Revolution Group attacked them on charges of stirring up an "adverse current of bourgeois restoration." Following this, the functions of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee were basically taken over by the Central Cultural Revolution Group. , . . . The crux of these questions put forward by revolutionaries of the older generation came down to whether Party leadership was necessary. This was the root cause of the chaotic situation featured by "overthrowing everyone" in the "cultural revolution. The "Left" deviationist theories and principles of the "cultural revolution," under the signboard of criticizing revisionism and capitalism, denied the Party's basic policies and basic achievements made in the seventeen years since the founding of New China, wrongly accused the majority of leading cadres who upheld the Party's correct line and policies from the Central . Committee down to the localities as capitalist roaders and attempted to strike them down, and further to overthrow all the Party and state leading bodies. The "all-round seizure of power which confused right and wrong, the enemy and ourselves, was absolutely wrong. How could it be said to correctly handle cadres and let "representatives of revolutionary cadres come out to make revolution? Nominally, the "cultural revolution" relied directly on the masses, but, in reality, in the "cultural revolution," large numbers of leading Party and state cadres were ferreted out and persecuted, the Party's leading bodies and organizations at various levels lapsed into a state of paralysis or semi-paralysis, the broad masses of Party members and activists were unable to play their roles, Party disciplines and state laws were discarded, and the state's judicial and public security organs were unable to perform their functions. These circumstances provided just the right conditions for a handful of careerists, adventurers, opportunists, degenerate elements and all sorts of social dregs habituated to destructiveness to get together, grow and run riot without restraint. This horde of anti-socialist forces flaunting the most "revolutionary" banners provided the social base on which careerists Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and their likes relied to create chaos. Out of their Irusl in the Party and Mao Zedong, in the early stage of the "cultural revolution," many people became involved in the movement, but they definitely did not support cruel struggles and ruthless attacks of the ultra"Left." Later, as their consciousness was raised through different experiences they had, they kept leaving the rebel organizations. Many of them in turn used different forms to resist and oppose the "cultural revolution." They were therefore persecuted in varying degrees, and some even lost their lives. In reality, the "cultural revolution" divorced them both from the Party and the masses. So how could there be realization of "great alliances" among the masses? Facts proved that it was hard to stabilize the turbulence through the self-contradictory way which one had to uphold the "cultural revolution" as a whole, but as to details, one was also asked to correct some activities which went too far. After resistance from revolutionaries of the older generation in February was suppressed, anarchism ran increasingly rampant. Jiang Qing and her group denounced the resistance as the "February adverse current," and even spread news of it out into society by way of agitating the masses to launch a widespread counter-attack against the "February adverse current sweeping down from above." This started a new wave of ferreting out, attacking and persecuting Party and state leading cadres at variCHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 653 ous levels, as well as assaulting leading organs of the Party and state. In addition, factional struggles among rebel organizations escalated continuously. In April 1967, the People's Daily published Qi Benyu's article clearly criticizing Liu Shaoqi, though his name was not mentioned. This touched off a high tide of so-called "great revolutionary criticism" consisting of a series of all-round attacks on "China's Khrushchov." This kind of "great criticism" did everything possible to slander and frame Liu Shaoqi, by obscuring right and wrong, confusing friend with foe. This helped spread and abet "Left" deviationist ideological trends and exerted a very bad influence. Mao Zedong considered that the "great criticism" would promote the great alliances, but things went contrary to his wishes. The great criticism promoted great chaos. In many places for a long time, it was not possible to found revolutionary committees. In May, armed clashes took place in some places. From June to early August, instigated by the Central Cultural Revolution Group, tens of thousands of people were mustered by around 1,000 rebel organizations of Beijing and other places to besiege Zhongnanhai (the gathering was dubbed the "Frontline of Ferreting Out Liu Shaoqi") and to assault the highest organ of state power. On July 22, Jiang Qing provoked violence by raising the slogan of "attack by reasoning, and defend by force" among rebel organizations. In his August 7th speech, the minister of Public Security Xie Fuzhi, in league with the gang of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, incited the smashing of judicial and public security organs. On the same day, Wang Li made speeches provoking the seizure of power from the Foreign Ministry leadership. In the first half of August, large-scale armed conflicts flared up in Shanghai, Nanjing, Changzhou, Zhengzhou, Changchun, Shenyang, Chongqing, Changsha and other places. Many more public security, judicial and procuratorial organs throughout the country were assaulted. In the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rebel organizations of the ministry recklessly issued directives to Chinese embassies abroad to rebel, and even set fire to the office of the British Charge d'Affaires in Beijing. After Lin Biao advanced the slogan of "Down with the Palace of Hell in the General Political Department" in the second half of July, newspapers and other publications raised the slogan, "Down with a handful of capitalist roaders in the army!" Thus, many local rebel organizations started a wave of storming military institutions. Conflicts between rebel organizations and troops helping the Left increased. Illegal incidents such as ransacking banks, warehouses, vehicles, vessels, files and confidential documents, and sabotaging railway traffic— were perpetrated one after the other in many localities. A large number of people were wounded or killed in armed conflicts. In particular, the city of Wuhan on July 20 witnessed crowds surrounding Wang Li, representative of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, and hemming him in, while a demonstration took place numbering hundreds of thousands of local armymen and people. (Mao Zedong was in Wuhan just at that time.) These events reflected the growing dissatisfaction of broad masses of people, army officers and PLA soldiers towards the "Left" deviationist errors committed by the Central Cultural Revolution Group. The developing tension created a situation almost beyond control. In face of the spreading disturbances, Mao Zedong was compelled to adopt a series of urgent measures. At the end of August, he approved a report submitted by Zhou Enlai requesting that Wang Li and Guan Feng, both members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, be kept in isolation for investigation. The Central Committee kept issuing orders to maintain public order, ensure the safety of state-owned materials and equipment, and protect the life and property of the people. It also took measures to protect foreign embassies and foreigners residing in China. Military control was also instituted over the most turbulent provinces, municipalities and Party and government departments. In October, the CPC Central Committee transmitted throughout the country a summary of the talks given by Mao Zedong during his inspection tours of north, south central and east China between July and September. In view of the endless conflicts among many rebel factions, Mao once again called for the realization of "great revolutionary alliances," and criticized the Red Guards, saying, "Now is just the time they are apt to make mistakes," so we must help them through education. In regard to the overthrow of large numbers of cadres, Mao reiterated the necessity of "correct handling of cadres, and helping more people through education and narrowing the target of attack " We must "liberate a number of cadres," he added, an "let cadres step forward." In compliance with Mao s suggestion, the central authorities, provinces and municipalities ^ study courses in rotation, thus extricating a number of leading cadres from the ordeal of investigation. Newspapers, by n«ensi fving criticism of factionalism and anarchism, helped somewhat o suppress Xa "Left" activities. In January 1968, Qi Benyu was also isolated for the convenience of investigation. Although these measures' taken by Mao Zedong could not change the situation basically, they did prevent in certam degrees the situation from detln1the'1winter of 1967 and the spring of 1968, the chaotic situation in society changed for the better, comparatively speakins As long as ultra-"Left" thought and ultra- Leftists were held under a certain degree of restraint, there was growing suspicion of1he "grem cultural revolution" and of the Central Cultura Revolution Group among the masse. People ofmn ^pressed views against the "January seizure of power and Febr^ adverse current" and complained of the injustice to a large number of veteran cadres who had been overthrown In Shanghai and Beijing, there appeared big-character posters cnticiz^g ^ Boda and Kang Sheng, and calling for the overthrow of Zha g Chunqiao and Xie Fuzhi. Ninety-one leading cadres of the Min istry of Foreign Affairs (most of whom were ambassadors in foreign countries, or occupied other important positions) put up ^character poster thoroughly criticizing the reactionary slogan of "Down with Chen Yi" and demanding his t0 the ministry to preside over the work. These trends threw Lin Bia , Jiang Qing and others into a panic. Following the last ten days March 1968, newspapers came out with one article afteran criticizing the "Right-deviatiomst trend to reverse verdicts^ Lin Biao and8 Jiang Qing collaborated to frame up false charges against Yang Chengwu (acting chief of the General Staff of t e PLA, Standing Committee member of the Military Commissio and deputy secretary-general of the Military Commission), Yu Li j i n (political commissar of the PLA Air Force) and Fu Chongbi (commander of the Beijing Garrison). They were all removed from their positions in the army for "having made extremely serious mistakes." Meanwhile, Huang Yongsheng was appointed as chief of the General Staff of the PLA and head of the General Office of the Military Commission. It was not long before the functions of the Military Commission of the Central Committee were actually being performed by its General Office. This gave Lin Biao and his gang more powerful control in the army. The raging tide of anarchism that had somewhat abated now began running high again as fanned up by opposing the "Rightdeviationist trend to reverse verdicts." Factional struggles among rebel organizations and bloody incidents caused by violence became accelerated. This led to deterioration in public order again in some localities. The incidents of violence increased again such as assaulting PLA units, looting state-owned property, damaging public facilities, and inflicting casualties on PLA officers, soldiers and ordinary people. Armed conflicts among rebel organizations in some universities and colleges escalated, causing casualties. Once again, Mao Zedong had to take emergency measures to control the situation. Apart from military control over some serious chaotic provinces and municipalities, Mao also instructed departments concerned to dispatch "Mao Zedong Thought propaganda teams" (made up of workers, PLA officers and men) to schools to exercise leadership over them. In his talks with a few heads of rebel organizations, Mao criticized them for resorting to violence. He said: "Now, workers, peasants, soldiers and residents are displeased with what you have done; so are the great majority of your students, as well as some who had supported your faction. You are isolated from workers, peasants, troops, residents and the vast majority of the students." After two years of practice, Mao Zedong gradually realized that these Red Guards who had been praised as rebels at one time were not a reliable force for carrying out his ideas and proposals. Two years earlier, sending work teams to schools had been completely discredited. However, this time, sending "workers' propaganda teams" and "PLA propagan 657 aa teams" to schools and some Party and government departments was called a revolutionary measure for realizing the aim that "the working class must exercise leadership m everything. For two years, all universities and many middle schoo s throughout the country still failed to respond to the repeated cal from the central authorities to resume classes while making revolution. After entering schools, the workers' and PLA propaganda teams set about the work of resuming classes. The struggle to seize power lasted twenty months and proceed ed amidst wave after wave of grave social turbulence. All twentynine provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions throughout the country managed, in the end, to establish their revo utionary committees. Though the "three-in-one combination was comprised of "army representatives, revolutionary leading cadres and leaders of the rebel organizations," actually, in many places and units, the army representatives were in of the 5 revo utionary committees. In the complicated situation, the PLA troops did a lot of work in carrying out the task of "three supports and two militaries." They played an active role in easing tension, maintaining social order and reducing losses caused by turbulence. But, influenced by the "Left" deviations general prmcip e in effect at that time, they could not avoid mistakes which had some negative consequences. Many of the PLA olficers taking up administrative duties in civil organs found they were not familiar with the work. Among the small number of former leading cadres admitted into revolutionary committees, some were competen , but found it hard to play more than a limited role due to the prevailing conditions. Some bad cadres and bad leaders of rebel organizations in revolutionary committees ganged up on each other, or worked in opposition. They continuously stirred up trouble in and outside revolutionary committees, becoming major factors of instability. Interrupted by frequent disputes and disorders, many revolutionary committees could not 1 unction normally Revolutionary committees exercised a centralized leadership system incorporating the Party and government functions, or integrating government administration with economic manage ment, therefore, they formed a highly concentrated locus of power which had to carry out "Left" principles in every field of work. As a matter of fact, they represented a serious retrogression in the state's political system and administration. The 9th National Congress of the CPC After the setting up of the revolutionary committees in 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, Mao Zedong decided to convene the 9th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. To make preparations for the congress, the enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the CPC 8th Central Committee was held in Beijing October 13-31, 1968. The circumstances were extremely unusual. At that time, members and alternate members who had succumbed under the label of "renegade," "enemy agent," "having illicit relations with foreign countries," or "anti-Party element," had reached 52.7 percent of the 8th Central Committee. They were deprived of the right to attend the session. Many of the members of the Central Committee who were allowed to attend the plenary session had just been liberated from the "cowshed" (referring to the place where people were isolated for further investigation during the "cultural revolution"). Of the 97 full members, with 10 having died since the 1 1th Plenary Session, only 40 were qualified to attend the session. When it began, 10 alternate members were elected to fill the vacancies of full members in order to have a quorum. Among the alternate members, only 9 were qualified to attend the session, with 10 having been elected to full membership and 12 having died since the 1 1th Plenary Session. On the other hand, members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group and the General Office of the Military Commission, principal leading members of the provincial, municipal and autonomous region revolutionary committees and the major military commands, totalling 74, were invited to the session, accounting for over 55 percent of the total participants. Mao Zedong presided over the session. In order to maintain that the fundamental direction of the "cultural revolution" was correct, in his speech, Mao persisted in praising the "cultural CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 659 evolution " in spite of the facts and asked the session to discuss [he issue. Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others took this as an oppoiunity to launch attacks on Chen Yi, Ye Jianymg, L. Fuchun, U Yiannian Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen, who had been involved in the "February adverse current" (Tan Zhenlin was deprived of the right to attend the session), and to organize criticism of Zhu De, Chen Yun and Deng Zihui as die-hard rig i dC Due0toSthe extremely abnormal state of inner-Party life, and without thorough investigation or serious discussion, the plenary session wrongly approved the "report on the examination l of th crimes of Liu Shaoqi— renegade, hidden traitor and scab < made the erroneous decision "to expel Liu Shaoqi from the Party forever a n? remove him from all the posts he has held in and outside the Party." Chen Shaomin, who was present at the session, refused to agree to the decision in the face of great pressure. During his period of examination, Liu Shaoqi had been completelv deprived of the right to defend himself. Liu suffered all kind of torture and died of illness under the weight of Yalse ^charget * in K a if eng of Henan Province on November 12, 1969. Later, alter serious°re-examination, facts proved that the charges against Liu Shaoqi of "renegade," "hidden traitor," and "scab" were false and had been all put up by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and company. It was completely wrong for the session to reach such a political conclusion^ Pand mete out such an organizational punishment m Liu Shaoqi's case. This is the most serious case of injustice in the p tv\ historv According to statistics drawn up by the Supreme People's'court before September 1980. more than 28 00 peo^e who were implicated in the case were penalized. As early as March 1967 Kang Sheng and Jiang Qing stirred up a sinister campaign of "feneting out renegades." Rebel organizations throughout the country set up this or that kind of special case Soup They dished out materials on historical problems involving many cadres on whom the Party had already longbefore^ correct conclusions. They even fabricated a large number of cases such as the so-called "61 -person case," the "Xinjiang renegades clique," the "northeast renegade clique" and the "south China renegades clique." Many faithful veteran Party members who had st e 0f socialism which were further developed in the cultural fought heroically under enemy rule and many non-Party person- revolution." It was also the general guiding ideology during t e ages who had made special contributions to the Party were "cultural revolution," and was indivisibly connected with the labelled "renegades," "special agents" and so on. Some of them practice of the "cultural revolution." The report expounded t e were even persecuted to death. Besides, many innocent cadres and formation and meaning of the theory, recalled the prepardhon ordinary people, accused of being "counter-revolutionary ele- and execution of the "cultural revolution" under the guidance of ments," became involved in many wrong cases framed by Lin the theory, extravagantly lauded this "revolutionary theory" as a Biao, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng and company. They were also "great contribution" and praised the "great achievements score persecuted, and some died without being cleared of the unjust in the "cultural revolution." However, the report did not expound accusations. It is another bitter lesson to be learned in the Party's on how the party was to lead and organize the socialist economic history, following the magnified compaign of the 1930s to ferret construction and cultural advance. The ™ out undercover counter-revolutionaries in the early Soviet areas. I -■ p t Constitution which wrongly reversed the correct content of The 9th National Congress of the CPC was held in Beijing on the old Party Constitution adopted at the 8th National C^ngress April 1, 1969. One thousand five hundred and twelve deputies } CPC The "theory of continued revolution under the representing nearly 22 million Party members attended the con- dictatorship of the proletariat" was put down » the ^ general gress. At that time, various provincial, municipal and autono- programme, while development of the productive forces and mous regional Party committees and primary Party organizations construction of socialist modernization were not mentioned at at the basic level had not yet recovered or been re-established. Articles on the rights of Party members were deleted, and The large majority of Party members had not yet resumed their furthermore, Lin Biao was put down in the general programm organizational lile. In view of this situation, conditions lor con- «c0mrade Mao Zedong's close comrade-in-arms and succes vocation of the congress were not ripe. Deputies to the congress sor » j^js meaSure was in outright violation of the Party s organcould not be selected through voting, but were recommended izational principles of democratic centralization, and had never through consultations by the Central Committee and the Party before occurred in the Party's history. core leading groups of revolutionary committees in various prov- In March 1969 before the convening of the 9th Congress inces, municipalities and autonomous regions. This provided the incidents of armed conflict at the border area occurred as Soviet chance for Lin Biao and Jiang Qing to arrange their company into iroons intruded into the area of Zhenbao Island in Heilongjiang the ranks of the 9th Congress, making the congress far from pure Province on several occasions. Before the congress met, Mao organizationally. ' Zedong discussed the question of preparedness against war at a At the congress, Lin Biao, on behalf of the Party Central briefin° with members of the Central Cultural Revolution Cr roup. Committee, delivered the political report. The "theory of contin- Four years earlier, in 1965, in light of the international situation ued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" was the China faced, the Party Central Committee had made a grim basic idea in the report, and was looked upon as the latest aonraisal of' the danger of war. This time, it exaggerated the development of Mao Zedong Thought. The term "theory of possibility of war breaking out as even more imminent. The continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" report to the 9th Congress contained references to making ready had specific implications determined by the particular historical lo ^ an eariy war? a big war and a nuclear war with the Soviet background. It was the generalization and summation of Mao's Union and the United States. Preparations against war not only erroneous "Left" deviationist viewpoints on class struggle in the became an important topic for discussion at the congress, but also was a guiding principle for all work. Before long, a nationwide campaign was begun to dig air-raid shelters, speed up construction of the third line region and undertake other work in preparation against war. The congress elected 170 members and 109 alternate members to the Central Committee. Only 32 percent of the original members or alternate members of the 8th Central Committee (not counting the deceased) were admitted into the 9th Central Committee. A large number of prestigious veteran cadres were excluded from the Central Committee. Quite a number of followers and trusted supporters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing became members or alternate members of the Central Committee. At the 1st Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the CPC, Mao Zedong was elected Chairman, and Lin Biao, the only vicechairman of the Central Committee. The members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee were Mao Zedong, Lin Biao (the following were listed in the order of the number of strokes of the surnames), Chen Boda, Zhou Enlai, and Kang Sheng. Among the newly-elected members of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee, more than 50 percent were the followers and trusted supporters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing. Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, Chen Yi, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen were elected as members of the Central Committee, but excluded from the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee. As an outstanding feature, the 9th National Congress was dominated from beginning to end by an atmosphere full of "Left" deviationist thinking and fanatical worship of the personality cult of Mao Zedong. Mao's brief opening address to the congress was interrupted as many as several dozen times by strident slogans of "Long live ... long, long live..." The congress had legitimized the erroneous theory and practice of the "cultural revolution," and solidified the position of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing in the Party Central Committee. The ideological, political and organizational guidelines of the 9th Congress were utterly wrong. The congress failed to play any positive role at all in the Party's history. On many occasions, Mao predicted that "cultural revolution" CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 663 would show good results in one to two years, or two to three years. Even to a leader like Mao, it was still hard to have the situation well in hand, and many of his predictions failed to materialize. The 9th Congress had been convened, but it had not initiated any trend towards bringing the "cultural revolution" to a victorious end as he had expected. On the contrary, because ideological and political "Left" deviationist errors escalated, while organizational life deteriorated and there were more undesirable persons in the Party, actually, a more profound crisis smoldered behind the scenes; sharper and more complicated struggles were brewing.

The Downfall of the Lin Biao Clique and Frustration in Correcting "Left" Errors

Implementing the "Left" Policy of Struggle-Criticism-Transformation After the 9th Party Congress, the movement of strugglecriticism-transformation was unfolded throughout the country according to Mao Zedong's plan. Mao said, "Struggle-criticismtransformation in a factory, on the whole, goes through the following stages: Establishing a three-in-one revolutionary committee; carrying out mass criticism and repudiation; purifying the class ranks, consolidating the Party organization, and simplifying the administrative structure; changing irrational rules and regulations and sending office workers to the workshops." Although here only factories were mentioned, the same method was actually applied in all other fields. Mao personally participated in the experiment of struggle-criticism-transformation in six of Beijing's plants and two of its universities (namely, the Beijing General Knitwear Mill, the Xinhua Printing House, the Beijing No. 3 Chemical Plant, the Beijing Beijiao Timber Mill, the Beijing "February 7" Locomotive and Rolling Stock Plant, Qinghua University and Beijing University), and demanded that other places sum up their experiences and follow suit. Mao Zedong attempted to realize his ideal of "great order across the land" through struggle-criticism-transformation, which also by implication included his intention to end the "cultural revolution." However, the movement itself was an expression of the "Left" policy. As a matter of fact, the struggle-criticism-transformation carried the "Left" errors of the "cultural revolution" to specific embodiment in all fields. As a result, social contradictions as well as contradictions within the Party continued to intensify and there was little improvement in the social order or in stale affairs. Party consolidation and Party building was an important task during this period. One of Mao's instructions called the "fiftycharacter guiding principle for Party-building," read: "The Party organization should be composed of the advanced elements of the proletariat; it should be a vigorous vanguard organization capable of leading the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in the fight against the class enemy." Under socialist conditions, in which the exploiting class had been eliminated as a class and class struggle only existed in a certain situation, the "fight against the class enemy" was regarded as the sole purpose of Party building, with not a word on state construction of material and spiritual civilizations. The "class enemy" then mainly referred to the so-called "bourgeois headquarters" represented by Liu Shaoqi and its "agents" all over the country. Such a Party building principle was obviously wrong and harmful. In Party consolidation and Party building, the Party organizations were required, in accordance with this principle, to carry out rectification and absorb new Party members. That was called "getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh." As a result, some qualified Party members couldn't resume their regular membership activities in the Party, or were erroneously expelled from the Party, while among the new Party members taken in, some were by no means qualified. Because of the incorrect guiding principle, many problems emerged during that period of Party consolidation and Party building. Outrageous ideas and behavior during the "cultural revolution" involving the personality cult, the scramble for power and profit, sabotage of the Party's organization and discipline and CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 665 rampant factionalism which undermined and harmed the Party, were basically impossible to overcome. The relations between Party members and between the Party and its members were abnormal. But of course the re-establishment of Party organizations at all levels and the restoration of regular activities for most Party members helped in some degree to stabilize the situation and promote industrial and agricultural production. The so-called "educational reform" was carried out in this period. With the launching of the "cultural revolution," institutions of higher learning stopped enrollment and "suspended classes to make revolution" for four years. According to Mao's instruction that "students should be selected from among workers and peasants with practical experience, and they should return to production after a few years' study," in June 1970, the Party Central Committee decided to resume enrollment experimentally in some colleges and universities and instructed that the past nationwide entrance examinations and the method of enrolling those with excellent marks be abolished in the institutions of higher education. Instead, students were to be enrolled "through recommendation by the masses, approval by their leaders and re-examination by the school authorities." Students enrolled in this way were called "worker, peasant and soldier students." The period of schooling was shortened to two or three years. Later, the students were assigned the task of "studying in the university, administering it and transforming it with Mao Zedong Thought." This so-called reform entailed harmful results: teachers were relegated to the status of having to be reformed, making it difficult for them to fulfill their proper role; normal teacherstudent relationships and procedures were thrown into disorder; the educational level of many new students was quite low; professional and cultural courses were drastically reduced, seriously lowering the quality of education; the practice of entering university "through the back door" came into vogue. But most teachers, under the extremely unfavorable conditions, remained devoted to their work and many students did their best to achieve good records. However, generally speaking, the prolonged "suspension of classes and making revolution" and "educational re form" seriously weakened education and the growth of a whole generation of teenagers. In 1971, a National Educational Conference was held in Beijing. The conference passed the summary, finalized with modifications by Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, which made "two assessments," namely, in the seventeen years since the founding of the New China, "Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line has not been implemented in the main, as a result of which the bourgeoisie has exercised dictatorship over the proletariat"; and the great majority of teachers "still remain basically bourgeois in their world outlook." At the time, Mao Zedong pointed out: Don't go too far in assessing the seventeen years, it is not the majority; instead, it is only a handful of people who have implemented an erroneous line under the proletarian dictatorship; most intellectuals still support the socialist system. Nevertheless, disregarding these opinions, Zhang Chunqiao and others pushed the "Left" tendency to the extreme. The completely wrong two assessments written into the conference summary acted as heavy spiritual shackles on the teachers and other intellectuals for a long period of time. Since colleges enrolled no students and factories recruited no workers following the launching of the "cultural revolution," the commercial and service industries stagnated and middle school graduates in cities could neither continue higher education nor be assigned to jobs. In December 1968 Mao sent out the call: "It is highly necessary for young people with education to go to the countryside to be re-educated by the poor and lower-middle peasants." This brought about an upsurge of educated young people going to mountainous areas and the countryside. The movement was advocated as highly significant for "combatting and preventing revisionism" and "reducing the differences between town and country, industry and agriculture, physical and mental labor." In a few years, over 16 million educated youths went to the mountainous areas and the countryside. Although they tempered themselves and made contributions in developing China's backward rural and frontier areas, they lost the opportunity to receive formal schooling when they were young. This left a gap in the training of professional personnel, and brought CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION1 667 long-term difficulties to the country's modernization drive. To settle them down, the government, the enterprises and other institutions spent at least 10 billion yuan. In addition, the movement aggravated the burdens of the teenagers' families as well as of the peasants in some areas. That constituted one of the main factors in the social unrest at that time. During this period, a large number of cadres and intellectuals from governmental organizations and institutions went down to the countryside to do manual labor in various "May 7" cadre schools. Although they were tempered by the labor and had a better understanding of the countryside, they for a long time were deprived of the opportunity to carry on their professional work and scientific and cultural research, causing heavy losses to China's modernization construction. What is more ludicrous is that some workers in state-owned plants were also sent to the countryside "to learn from the poor and lower-middle peasants" because of insufficient production tasks or factional strife, thus artificially aggravating social contradictions. After the Lin Biao incident, struggle-criticism-transformation was seldom mentioned. The Downfall of the Lin Biao Clique Mao Zedong thought that the issue of Party building had been initially resolved and he shifted the emphasis to government building. On March 8, 1970, Mao proposed to convene the 4th National People's Congress and revise the Constitution. Meanwhile, he proposed to abolish the state chairmanship. The Lin Biao clique visualized the coming 4th People's Congress as an opportunity to grab more power. This factional group was gradually formed on the basis of personal ambition during the "cultural revolution." Since Lin held the position of "deputy commander" during the early stage of the "cultural revolution," the clique's power rapidly swelled and reached its peak through the 9th Party Congress and the 1st Plenary Session of the 9th Party Central Committee. By that time, Lin's position as "successor" had been formally written into the Party Constitution and the clique's other principal members including Huang Yongsheng, Wu Faxian, Ye Qun, Li Zuopeng and Qiu Huizuo had all entered the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. Through the special organization of the General Office of the Military Commission of the Central Committee, they were actually in charge of the routine military work. Chen Boda, who became powerful through the "cultural revolution," joined the Lin Biao clique at a time when his contradiction with Jiang Qing was sharpening. These people plotted to take advantage of the 4th National People's Congress and the revision of the Constitution to raise Lin Biao to the state chairmanship. Although Mao declared time and again that the office of chairman of the People's Republic of China should be abolished and that he himself would not take up the post, on April 11, 1970, Lin made a counter proposal by suggesting that Mao be the chairman. The real intention, however, was revealed by Ye Qun privately in their group in July 1970 when she asked: "What about Lin Biao if the state chairmanship is abolished? Where will he be placed?" During the "cultural revolution," the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing cliques colluded with each other on the one hand, while on the other hand, fought without scruples against each other for more power. These careerists took every opportunity available to make trouble and played vile tricks under the most high-sounding pretexts. In examining the draft revised Constitution, contradictions between the two cliques surfaced. At a meeting of the Constitution working team on August 13, 1970, and at the Political Bureau meeting the following day, Wu Faxian insisted on adding three qualifiers to the Constitution— "with genius, comprehensively and creatively"— in the sentence stating that Mao had developed Marxism. Kang Sheng and Zhang Chunqiao opposed the addition, bringing on a fierce debate. Superficially, that was only an argument over wording, but actually, it was seizing on an incidental difference of opinion to exaggerate matters, and symbolized the prelude of a bigger strife. On August 23, 1970, the 2nd Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the CPC was held in Lushan, presided over by Mao Zedong. Right at the beginning of the session, Lin Biao seized the CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION669 initiative to make a speech in which he persisted in his proposal not to abolish the office of the state chairman. He directed the spearhead at the Jiang Qing clique by advocating the idea that "Mao Zedong is a genius." Group meetings were held on the afternoon of August 24 to discuss Lin's speech. Previously, Chen Boda had compiled some material entitled "Quotations trom Engels, Lenin and Mao Zedong on Genius." At the meetings, the members of the conspiratorial group made speeches explaining the material— Chen Boda in the North China Group, Ye Qun m the Central China Group, Wu Faxian in the Southwest China Group, and Li Zuopeng in the Northwest China Group. In a veiled attack on Zhang Chunqiao without naming him, they also brought up two issues: namely, the need to resume the office of state chairman, and the title of genius, in accordance with the proposals in Lin's speech. Their speeches, printed in Bulletin No.2 of the North China Group that evening, aroused strong responses in all the other groups. Most of the participants were indignant on hearing that some people "deny that Mao Zedong is a genius, "depreciate Mao Zedong Thought" and "don't agree that Mao Zedong should be state chairman." They demanded that people like that be "ferreted out," bringing on a strained situation. At this point, Mao became aware of the factional activities carried on by Lin Biao and his followers in scrambling for personal power. On August 25, at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee called by Mao Zedong, it was decided to stop discussing Lin Biao's speech, recall Bulletin No.2 of the North China Group and instruct Chen Boda to make a self-criticism. On the 31st, Mao wrote "An Opinion of Mine" in which he severely criticized Chen Boda's "launching of a sudden attack, stirring up trouble and fearing only failure to bring on nationwide chaos, striking with powerful bravado, as if to blast Lushan flat and stop the rotation of the earth." Mao said that "on no account should the people get mixed up with Chen Boda's rumors and sophistry" or "be fooled by those who claim to know Marx but actually know nothing about Marx." The plenary, on the proposal of Mao Zedong, exposed and criticized Chen. Wu Faxian and others were also criticized. The plenary session resumed its pre-planned agenda on September 6, passed in the main the revised draft Constitution and suggested that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress hold its 4th National Congress at an appropriate time; approved the State Council's report on the National Planning Conference and the National Economic Plan for 1970 and the report of the Military Commission of the Central Committee on strengthening preparedness against war. During the session, the Central Committee proposed that Chen Boda be investigated. After the session closed, the Central Committee issued a directive in November calling on senior cadres to study Marxist and Leninist works, saying that "only after reading some basic works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin can the highranking cadres distinguish genuine from sham Marxism." Then the Central Committee held the North China Convention and for more than one month, exposed and criticized Chen Boda. In addition, the Central Committee appointed new persons into the General Office of the Military Commission controlled by the Lin Biao clique. In April 1971, the Central Committee convened a meeting to report on "criticism of Chen Boda and Party rectification" at which Huang, Wu, Ye, Li and Qiu of the Lin Biao clique were instructed to make self-criticisms. On April 29, the Central Committee issued a circular announcing a decision to expand the campaign of "criticism of Chen and Party rectification" to grassroots units throughout the country. Measures taken by the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong after the 2nd Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee weakened the power of the Lin Biao clique. The clique, thrown into confusion, fell into a passive position, and seeing that the situation was unfavorable, decided, in a reckless move, to stage an armed coup d'etat. Early in October 1969, the then Air Force Commander Wu Faxian appointed Lin Liguo, the son of Lin Biao, as deputy director of the General Office and concurrently of the War Department of the PLA Air Force Headquarters. In October 1970, Lin Liguo took advantage of his position and power to secretly organize members to form the backbone for the coup CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 671 d'etat, the code name of which was "combined fleet." They set up secret strongpoints in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and stored up firearms, ammunition, transceivers and taping devices, and collected confidential documents of the Party and state. Meantime, they organized "fighting platoons" and "training units" made up of meticulously culled members in Guangzhou and Shanghai to receive special training. In March 1971, the main figures of the "combined fleet" met in Shanghai and settled on the plan for an armed coup d'etat, the code name for the plan being "Outline of ‘Project 571'" (in Chinese pronunciation, 571 sounds similar to "armed rebellion"). The "outline" analyzed the situation and stipulated the main points in the procedure, the slogans and the tactics. In mid-August just when the "combined fleet" actively prepared to trigger the crime, Mao went on an inspection tour of south China. In Wuhan, Changsha and Nanchang, Mao Zedong had conversations with Party, government and army leaders of provinces and autonomous regions including Hubei, Henan, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Fujian. In the talks, he stressed the struggle at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 9th Party Congress and criticized by name Lin Biao, Huang, Wu, Ye, Li and Qiu. He pointed out: "Someone is impatient to be chairman of the state and wants to split the Party and seize power." "The recent Lushan meeting was another struggle between two headquarters." He also said that "What has happened at Lushan is not over yet. The problem remains to be solved" and Lin Biao "should, of course, be held responsible to some extent." By sharply raising the problem of Lin Biao, Mao made known that he did not trust Lin any longer. On the contrary, he thought Lin had become the head of another headquarters against him. Lin Biao and Ye Qun, who were at Beidaihe then, learned of Mao's remarks from reports sent by their followers and were thrown into a panic. On September 7, Lin Liguo ordered the "combined fleet" to enter into "first-degree combat readiness." On the 8th, Lin Biao issued his hand-written order for approving the act and decided to assassinate Mao during his tour. Simultaneously, they made preparations to flee south to Guangzhou with their followers and to set up another Party center there. On September 3, Mao arrived in Hangzhou from Nanchang. After he had been alerted to certain suspicious circumstances, he returned to Beijing promptly on the 12th ahead of schedule, thus defeating the plot of the "combined fleet." At 10:30 pm on the 12th, Zhou Enlai received a telephone report from the Central Guards Bureau saying that Lin Liguo had flown a Trident plane from Beijing to Shanhaiguan that evening. Zhou ordered an investigation into the sudden flight of the plane to Shanhaiguan and demanded that the plane immediately return to Beijing. Seeing that their intrigue to flee south was exposed, Lin Biao, Ye Qun and Lin Liguo hurriedly got on board the plane and fled the country in the small hours of the 13th. The plane crashed at Undur Khan, Mongolia, killing them all. The remaining principal figures of the "combined fleet" either committed suicide or were arrested. The plot to mount a counterrevolutionary armed coup d'etat was thus scattered to the winds. These were the events making up what is now known as the "September 13th Incident." The incident of the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary clique intriguing to seize supreme power and plotting the armed coup d'etat was a disastrous effect of the "cultural revolution" due to overthrowing a series of basic Party principles. In the five years following the "cultural revolution," the Party's leading role was greatly weakened and the Party's organizational disciplines were undermined. A large number of experienced veteran cadres who stuck to revolution were overthrown or expelled. The Party organizations at all levels were lax and the state's democracy and legality were trampled on. Factionalism and strife over power and profit burst into the open and became legitimized. The whole country was plunged into chaos. All these created conditions in which the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary clique could run amuck and dare to hatch a reckless plot. From this imbroglio, people saw clearly that Lin Biao, the very person who so enthusiastically advocated the personality cult, went so far as to plot the assassination of the chairman of the Party, the "great teacher, great leader, great commander and great helmsman" whom he 673 had lauded so vociferously; that he, named as the chairman s "successor," in the Party Constitution, went on to commit treason and flee the country; that six newly-promoted Political Bureau members altogether engaged in the counter-revolutionary activities— all this, and more. The events roused people to serious thought: What result and prospect did the "cultural revolution" bring to the Party and nation? Was the "cultural revolution" necessary and rational? Why must great order across the land be reached through great disorder under heaven? Was it necessary to "continue revolution" under the proletarian dictatorship? Was it true that those overthrown by the "cultural revolution" were people in authority taking the capitalist road? Was China really faced with the danger of capitalist restoration then? In other words, could the cultural revolution" possibly advance the interests and hopes of any stratum of the Chinese people? What social support had the "cultural revolution" relied on in the five years since it was launched? What was the significance of all the losses and disasters it brought on? What point was there in continuing it any longer. The "Incident of September 13" woke up many cadres and masses to the fanatical personality cult and objectively declared the bankruptcy of the "cultural revolution" both in theory and practice. Mao himself was also painfully disappointed by it. Readjustment of the National Economy Following Ups and Downs in the Turmoil During 1967-68, the national economy speedily deteriorated in the social turmoil following the "cultural revolution." In the second half of 1966, the Red Guard movement and the travels made by the so-called revolutionaries to other cities to agitate and to exchange experiences in making revolution across the country brought great losses to industry, communications and transportation Because the turmoil mainly took place in cultural and educational departments and Party and governmental institutions at that stage, the system of production, by and large, remained intact, which, together with the relatively sound foundation in the national economy as a result of the preceding five-year readjustment, all fields of production made comparatively satisfactory achievements in 1966. Industrial and agricultural output value reached 253.4 billion yuan, an increase of 13.4 percent over 1965. The output of major industrial and agricultural products also increased by a great margin. The state's financial revenue increased by 18 percent over the previous year and there was a surplus of 1.72 billion yuan after revenue and expenditure were balanced. Many production and construction projects were completed or surpassed the state's annual quotas. But soon by the end of 1966 the turmoil spread to industrial and communications enterprises, wreaking disaster to economic construction. "Going all out to seize power" threw the leadership, adjustment and management systems in economic work into a state of semi- or complete paralysis, throwing the national economy out of control. The 1967 national economic plan was impossible to implement and as a matter of fact, it was cast aside. It was not even possible to draw up a 1968 annual economic plan. These were the only two years in which the annual planning failed to be implemented since China first established the economic planning system. Many effective rules and regulations in the enterprises, especially the relatively complete policies formed in the previous five years of readjustment, such as the seventy articles for industry, were trampled on as "revisionist" rules to "interfere, block and suppress." Even the system of overall leadership by the factory director led by the Party committee, the distribution principle of "to each according to his work" and profit targets were discarded as bourgeois trappings. Thus followed chaotic enterprise management, low product quality, high cost, lax labour discipline and increased industrial accidents. With workers leaving their posts, transportation obstructed, materials supply blocked, cooperation discontinued and poor social security, many industrial, mining and transport enterprises completely or partly suspended operation. Production during the two years dropped drastically. In 1967, industrial and agricultural output value fell by 9.6 percent compared with that of 1966, and in 1968, the figure dropped another 4.2 percent lower than that in 1967. The national income CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 675 in 1968 was 13.3 percent lower than that of 1966 The ftnancial revenue greatly decreased, market supplies tightened and the people's livelihood deteriorated. Residents received fewer ration coupons for heating-coal and cotton cloth. With the establishment of provincial, city- and county-level revolutionary committees, together with the convocation of the Party's 9th Congress and restoration of Party organizations at all levels, China's domestic situation gradually stabilized and the national economy slowly recovered. In February 1969, the national planning conference was re sumed after two years of abeyance. The 1969 National Econ°™‘c Planning Outline (draft) was discussed at the meeting and later distributed to lower levels as a key document to while being implemented. At the time, leaders like Zhou Enlai, who was in charge of government work, grasped the opportunity to restore the work in the major industrial departments and other comprehensive economic fields, thus strengthening the macrocontrol over the national economy. Their efforts were instrume tal in reviving the 1969 national economy to some degree^Industnal and agricultural output value for the year reached 261.3 billion yuan, an increase of 23.8 percent over the preceding year and the national income hit 161.7 billion yuan, an increase of 19.3 percent However, the increase was obviously of a recuperative nature for most production indexes of major industria and agricultural products were still below or equivalent to the levels of 1966. Many difficulties and problems in economic work caused by the "Left" errors still remained as serious repercussions^ The national planning conference during February and March 1970 drew up the Outline for the 1970, and the Fourth Five-Year National Economic Plan (draft). Due to over-estimation of the possible war danger caused by foreign aggression interna lonally and over-optimism in regard to the domestic economic situation, emphasis was placed on "preparation against war as the guiding principle, concentration on strengthening the strategic rear area, establishing self-sufficient area of economic cooperation Mmd promoting a "new leap forward" in the economy. The Planning outline drawn up according to this guideline repeated the prob lems of over-anxiety to get quick results and blind pursuit of high indexes and high speed. Also problems arose because of a rapid and blind transference of enterprise managing power to local authorities. In 1970, measures in economic construction were adopted to expedite the swift, extensive building of a strategic rear area against war (mainly construction of the national defense industry). The local "five small" (small iron-and-steel, machinery, chemical fertilizer, coalpits and small cement works) industries developed swiftly and the widespread transfer of enterprises and institutions from the central departments to local authorities triggered abrupt changes in the economic structural system. Consequently, the 1970 national economy underwent a relatively big development. The actual levels of the year's economic progress basically fulfilled the major indexes of the Third Five-Year Plan. The output of most industrial and agricultural products surpassed the 1966 indexes. But the blind and rash construction and structural changes inevitably gave rise to many serious problems. By the year's end, economic development was beset by a series of contradictions. For instance, the production of grain and economic crops fell short of the requirements of industrial development and population increase; the raw materials industry could not keep up with the development of the processing industry; the many, large scale capital construction projects made the rate of accumulation exceedingly high; product quality deteriorated, maintenance of equipment was neglected, accidents increased and so on. Economic construction in 1971, however, was carried on without regard for all these contradictions and without hesitation in pressing for the high indexes stipulated in the Fourth Five-Year Plan outline. loo much enterprise managing power being too quickly transferred to the local authorities greatly weakened the central government's macro-control. In order to establish their own "small but complete" economic system, the localities mounted their work on too large a scale, proposing to "double production." Meanwhile, the proportion of investments in rear area construction and military projects remained steadily high. Thus, in 1971, the scale of capital construction did not diminish but further expanded and the rash drive for economic CHAPTER EIGHT TIIE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 677 construction only accelerated. By the end of 1971, a serious nroblem of "three breakthroughs" emerged in Chinas national economy, namely, the number of workers and of lice stalf exceeded 50 million, the total payroll was over 30 billion yuan and the volume of marketable grain sales topped 80 billion jin, all three figures much higher than the pre-planned mdexes. In 1972, the problem of the "three breakthroughs" continued to mount so as to seriously affect the nation's supplies of grain in storage which, in turn, led to a series of disastrous results such as severe imbalance in the national economy, tight market supplies and deterioration of the people's living standards. During 1972-73, according to Zhou Enlai's instruction, the State Council adopted all kinds of measures for readjusting the national economy. First of all, great efforts were made to solve the problem of the "three breakthroughs," by reducing the scale of capital construction, streamlining the payroll, strengthening the management of labour wages and rectifying the work of grain marketing. Etlorts were also made to readjust the ratio between agriculture, light industry and heavy industry and accord agriculture the first place in the national economy; readjust the relationships between the national defense construction and economic construction and cut down national defense expenditure to a proper level; lower the excessively high economic indexes in the Fourth Five-Year Plan, strengthen the centralized and unified leadership in economic work and stress unified planning and discipline. Although the overall "Left" errors were not basically corrected and lots of problems still remained in economic work, readjustment for nearly two years alleviated to a large degree the disastrous effects of the rash advance in economic work, particularly in the second half of 1973. The economic situation took an obvious turn for the better and economic work, including foreign economic and technological exchanges, developed decisively. In 1973, China imported a number of technologically advanced single pieces of machinery as well as complete sets of equipment, including thirteen complete sets of equipment for chemical ferti izer four sets for synthetic fiber manufacture and three sets for the petrochemical industry. Major targets of the 1973's national economic plan were fulfilled or surpassed. Industrial and agricultural output value hit 396.7 billion yuan, with an increase of 9.2 percent over the previous year; the national income reached 231.8 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3 percent, and the financial revenue, 80.97 billion yuan, an increase of 5.6 percent, while revenue and expenditure were balanced. The year 1973 turned out to be economically the best in that period. The achievements in construction by no means represented any merits of the "cultural revolution" but rather the concerted, successful efforts of cadres at all levels together with the broad masses. This period of time also witnessed conspicuous achievements in some key engineering and scientific projects. In railway construction, the Chengdu-Kunming railway was completed in July 1970, the Zhuzhou-Guiyang railway in October 1972 and the Xiangfan-Chongqing railway in October 1973. These railways, together with the previously built Baoji-Chengdu, ChongqingGuiyang and Guiyang-Kunming railways, opened up southwestern China which had languished in prolonged seclusion from the outside world because of underdeveloped transportation. These arterial railways were constructed under extremely arduous and harsh conditions. Their completion was not only an outstanding feat of pioneering in China's railway history but also rare in the world. In the realm of science and technology, April 1970 saw the successful launching of China's first man-made earth satellite which signalled a historical breakthrough in China's astronautics. The Daqing Oilfield, as a major pillar of China's energy resources construction, was not immune to "Left" obstruction either. But the Daqing people staunchly withstood the disturbances and steered exploitation of the oilfield onto normal channels beginning from 1971. Crude oil production increased steadily and rapidly over a long period. By 1975, annual output reached 46.259 million tons, laying a foundation for the country to surpass 100 million tons in crude oil output. In addition, China accumulated rich technological and managerial experience in building extra large oilfields like Daqing. All these demonstrate that despite the long social turmoil, workers, engineers, technicians and cadres on the industrial, scientific and technological fronts, like the cadres CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 679 and masses on other fronts, had always put the Party s, nations and people's interests above everything. At their own positions, they worked hard and surmounted untold difficulties to make contributions to the socialist cause. Their contributions are an embodiment of the Chinese people's great strength released under the banners of patriotism and socialism. Frustration in Efforts to Correct "Left" Mistakes After the Lin Biao incident, Mao Zedong, with the assistance of Zhou Enlai, adopted a series of measures to solve important problems related to it. The CPC Central Committee dismissed Huang Yongsheng, Wu Faxian, Li Zuopeng and Qiu Huizuo tro their official positions to reconsider and make a clean breast of all they did. The Central Committee also decided to disband tbe General Office of the Military Commission and established the Military Commission Work Council, with Ye Jianying in charge of the daily affairs of the Military Commission. The Lir i Biao incident was reported to cadres and Party fromf entral to lower levels. Beginning from December 1971 the CPC Central Committee successively distributed three installments of materials concerning the struggle to put down the counter-revolutionary coup d'etat of the Lin Biao clique. A rectification campaign to criticize Lin Biao was conducted nationwide to expose and condemn the crimes of the Lin Biao clique and to ferret out people and clarify events related to its intrigues and activities. The results of all the measures were useful and considerable. However although Mao learnt some lessons from the incident and readjusted policies to a certain degree, he failed to fully realize the encompassing mistake of the "cultural revo ution itself. He let Jiang Qing and her followers continue to play an important role in the political life of the Party and state. With the problem remaining basically unresolved, big relapses in the political situation were bound to appear later. . Following the Lin Biao incident, Mao himself took care of implementation of the cadre policy. Zhou Enlai's close cooperation proved a good help. On November 14, 1971, when he met with the participants in the Chengdu Forum, Mao said, indicating Ye Jianying, "Don't call him an exponent of the ‘February adverse current' any longer. What was the nature of the ‘current'? It was opposition to Lin Biao, Chen Boda, Wang Li, Guan Feng and Qi Benyu." Thus Mao reversed the verdict on the case of the "February adverse current." On January 10, 1972, Mao attended the funeral ceremony for Chen Yi. Mao's words and Zhou Enlai's memorial speech delivered at the ceremony confirming Chen Yi's great, life-long contributions to the revolutionary cause rehabilitated Chen. During April 1972, acting on Zhou's instruction, the People's Daily carried an editorial which pointed out that veteran cadres who had been tempered in long years of revolutionary struggles were precious assets of the Parly; and that it was necessary to carry out correctly the Party's cadre policy, to criticize Lin Biao's erroneous political and organizational line and to remove obstacles from both the "Left" and the Right. To implement the policy, many veteran cadres or their relatives wrote to Mao and the Central Committee asking to have the facts set straight. Mao wrote instructions or comments on some of the letters and Zhou repeatedly urged departments concerned to speed up their investigations of special cases so that some former important officials could have their reputations restored and a large number of responsible Party, governmental and military cadres at all levels, who had gone down to the countryside to labor or who had been directed to "stand aside," could return to leading positions. A number of specialists, scholars and professors also came back to their working posts. Although their situation was still hard, most of them tried their best to promote the difficult development of the socialist undertaking, difficult as were the prevailing conditions. On March 10, 1973, the CPC Central Committee decided to reinstate Deng Xiaoping to enable him to participate in the regular activities of the Party and to work in his former position as vice-premier. In December the same year, during a conversation with participants in a Military Commission conference, Mao suggested that He Long, Luo Ruiqing, Yang Chengwu, Yu Lijin and Fu Chongbi be rehabilitated. Mao made a self-criticism, admitting that he had CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION 681 believed one-sidedly in Lin Biao's words and made mistakes These actions had a powerful political influence within and outside the Party. f ,, , • During this period, Zhou Enlai combined criticism of the L Biao counter-revolutionary clique's crimes with criticism of t c ultra-"Left" trend. The action was an extension of the correct proposals put forward in February 1967 by many leading comrades of the Central Committee who early on had called tor correcting the errors of the "cultural revolution." Zhou raised the issue of criticizing the ultra-"Left" tendency at some important national conferences as well as on other occasions. He pointed out that the people would lack courage to implement the Party s correct line unless the ultra-"Left" tendency was completely repudiated. As to the cadres' misgivings regarding the production and professional work, he pointed out, "The movement and vocational work should not be placed in opposition and politics in command" "should be expressed in one's vocation." He encouraged cadres at all levels to engage in production and professional work with perfect assurance. In accordance with his suggestions, economic departments under the State Council worked out specific rules and measures to rectify the enterprises and strengthen economic management. With regard to work in the countryside, the CPC Central Committee reaffirmed that rural work must be conducted according to the sixty articles on agriculture. Additionally the Central Committee issued instructions on distribution m the commune, to solve problems such as failure to honor commitments and equalitarianism in remuneration, which serious y dampened the peasants' enthusiasm for production. In regard to culture and education, Professor Zhou Peiyuan of Beijing University, in line with Zhou Enlai's opinions, proposed three points for strengthening teaching and research in basic theories. The article was carried in the Guangming Daily for propaganda. 1 he People's Daily also published experiences of Shacheng Middle School in Huailai County, Hebei Province, in educational reform. It was proposed that middle school education should center around classroom teaching and book knowledge. This sort of propaganda reportage reflected the earnest hopes of scientists, researchers, teachers and students. However, the Jiang Qing clique which had established itself through the "cultural revolution" and the ultra-"Left" trend were certainly not about to leave the matter at that. They continued to grasp at the supreme power, in the path of which the downfall of Lin Biao meant to them only one less obstacle. The efforts made by cadres in all fields to fight off the effects of the ultra"Left" tendency, restore production and a proper routine of work, achieved results. These were welcomed by the broad masses, but opposed by Jiang Qing and her followers. They denounced the articles carried in the Guangming Daily and the People's Daily, repudiating the u!tra-"Left" trend, and directed the People's Daily office internally to carry out proceedings criticizing the comeback of Right deviation among its staff members. Meantime, they directed the Shanghai-based Werihui Bao to attack Zhou Peiyuan's views emphasizing the basic theories of natural sciences. In 1973, the State Planning Commission, according to instructions given by Zhou Enlai, drafted "Regulations on Adhering to Unified Planning and Improving Economic Management" to be submitted for discussion at the National Planning Conference. Twenty-eight provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions were all in favor of the document, while only Shanghai under the control of Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, opposed it. Zhang brazenly said, "I am strongly opposed to pressure from the majority. It's an honor to be isolated." Consequently, the 1972 and 1973 documents of the National Planning Conference were not officially distributed. Mao Zedong was not completely wakened by the Lin Biao incident. He was still dreaming that the "cultural revolution" might have a certain satisfactory end close to the one he originally envisioned. When the leading cadres headed by Zhou Enlai came into sharp confrontation with the Jiang Qing clique on the issue of criticizing the ultra-"Left" trend, Mao erroneously supported the stand of Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao. The "cultural revolution" was an outcome of "Left" errors. Criticism of the ultra-"Left" trend, if it developed, would inevitably lead to repudiation of the "cultural revolution." That was unbearable for 683 Mao; he made the erroneous decision that the Lin Biao clique was ultra-Right beyond all doubt, and by no means ultra-"Left"; therefore it was permissible to criticize only the ultra-Right. This cut short Zhou Enlai's efforts to correct "Left" mistakes. During August 24-28, 1973, the 10th National Congress of the CPC was held in Beijing. This was one year in advance of the Party Constitution stipulation that a congress be held every five years. Presided over by Mao, it was attended by 1,249 deputies representing 28 million Party members throughout the country. The 10th Party Congress continued the "Left" errors of the 9th Congress. It passed the political report and Party Constitution drafted by Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, which did not correctly analyze the reason for the Lin Biao incident, nor sum up necessary lessons. On the contrary, it affirmed that "both the political and organizational lines of the 9th Congress were correct." As formerly, the whole Party was called upon "to persist in the continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" and the "proletarian cultural revolution." It maintained, as an "objective law," that "great disorder across the land leads to great order and it will be repeated every seven or eight years." In addition, it was predicted that "the struggle between the two lines within the Party will exist for a long time to come." The criticism of Lin Biao's "ultra-Right nature" was listed as a primary task. Guided by such a wrong "Left" policy, the "cultural revolution" was slated to go on and on with increasingly disastrous results. The congress elected 195 members and 124 alternate members to the Central Committee. Some veteran cadres including Deng Xiaoping, Wang Jiaxiang, Ulanhu, Li Jingquan, Tan Zhenlin and Liao Chengzhi, who had been persecuted during the "cultural revolution" and excluded from the 9th Party Central Committee, were elected to the new Central Committee. Although more core members of the Jiang Qing clique were balloted in, the re-entry of some revered veteran cadres displayed another significant trend. On August 31, 1973, the 1st Plenary Session of the 10th Central Commmittee of the CPC elected the Party's central organs. Mao Zedong was made chairman, and Zhou Enlai, Wang Hongwen, Kang Sheng, Ye Jianying and Li Desheng vicechairmen, of the CPC Central Committee. Wang Hongwen made his name as a rebel in Shanghai. Then merely because he was relatively young and had been a soldier and factory cadre, he was suddenly promoted to the high, position of vice-chairman. Kang Sheng, although a veteran Party member, had made many serious mistakes, but because of his close link with Jiang Qing and her followers during the "cultural revolution," he was also elevated to the high rank of vice-chairman. After the 10th National Party Congress, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen formed the "gang of four" in the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee. The force of the Jiang Qing clique was strengthened and they became more reckless in their ambitious attempts and activities to usurp supreme Party and state power. However, through the Lin Biao incident, many cadres and Party members had their political consciousness and discernment raised. The issue of whether to affirm or negate the "cultural revolution" was becoming an increasingly intense struggle

Creating a New Situation in Diplomatic Work

Diplomatic Disputes Caused by "Left" Mistakes In the early period of the "cultural revolution," the work of the Party on foreign affairs was seriously disrupted by "Left" way of thinking. Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng and their cohorts created a great deal of trouble by meddling in departments which handled foreign affairs. They even went so far as to usurp the power of the Central Committee in that sphere. They wilfully negated the major achievements of the previous seventeen years in this field by attacking the relevant Party line of that period. They repudiated the conduct of foreign affairs as tantamount to "three capitulations plus one liquidation" (capitulation to imperCHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 685 ialism, revisionism and reactionaries of various countries and the liuuidaiion of people's revolution). At their instigation, leading officials in departments which handled foreign affairs became targets of attack. Work in these departments was sabotaged for a considerable period of time. Practically all the ambassadors were recalled from abroad to take part in the "cultural revolution and many of them were persecuted. Under the influence of anarchism and ultra-leftist thinking, some people in these departments skir ed state policies and acted according to their own inclinations^ Violations of discipline occurred from time to time In Publicity oriented to foreign audiences, no attention was paid to the pr cinle of drawing a distinction between propaganda geared to the outside and that devoted to the home front. The propagation of Mao Zedong Thought was made the main task in China sforeig activities This led to the mistake of assuming ourselves to be the only revolutionary Party or country in the world and °f.trylng " impose our own ideology on others. Our mistaken dealings with fordgn countries also included adopting overly rude attitudes or overreacting in disregard of the norms for international exChTwas natural that all this should have aroused the suspicion and uneasiness of the governments and officials of the countries in which Chinese embassies had been established. China r tions with the Western countries became very strained, particu larly as a result of the serious incident that took place in August 1967, when some 10,000 people m Beijing encircled the British charge d'affaires' office and set the office building on fire. Within a year or more, among the over forty countries which had established full or partial diplomatic relations with China, close to thirty had become drawn into disputes Some of these result of mishandling by China. This seriously impaired Chinas image in the world and made its diplomatic work increasingly difficult. Premier Zhou Enlai and most cadres dealing with foreign affairs always opposed such ultra-"Left mistakes and tried^their best to prevent them. Mao Zedong also criticized these mistakes and asked for their correction. The deviations in handling foreign affairs were rectified and abnormalities eliminated soon after remedial measures were taken. Compared with other fields, the damage done to the work in foreign affair was smaller, and the time of the disruption shorter. On May First International Labour Day in 1969, Mao Zedong met with some of the foreign diplomatic envoys to China on the grandstand over the Tiananmen rostrum and had a friehdly talk with them. This was to pass on a message that China wanted to improve and develop its relations with other countries. Not long after that, China began sending out its diplomatic envoys, charged with adopting the initiative in mending relations with their resident countries and repairing the damage, which had been done mainly because of ultra-"Left" actions on the part of China. In this way, China's foreign relations were again put back on the track of normal development. Relaxation of Sino-U.S. Relations and Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Between China and Japan Tremendous changes took place in the world situation in the 1970s following the enormous development of events in the more than twenty years since the end of World War II. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, after making a careful examination of the new world situation, made an important and timely policy decision which showed their farsightedness, courage and resourcefulness. This, coupled with the adoption of flexible measures, enabled China's foreign relations to take a turn for the better, resulting in a new situation for Chinese diplomacy. The key link in the favourable change was the amelioration of Sino-U.S. relations. For twenty years, ever since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the United States had maintained a hostile attitude towards it. Under the impetus of a changed world, leaders of both China and the United States saw the need as well as the possibility of holding talks to improve and normalize their relations. From the point of view of the United States, the serious problem facing it was the antagonism between itself and the Soviet Union. However, a few power centers had already arisen, with China as an important force among them. The United States found it necessary to improve its relations with China in order to CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION1 687 eliminate the after-effects of the Viet Nam war as soon as oossible, to stop the decline of its world position as a superpower, and to meet the challenge of the Soviet Union. The worsening o Sino-Soviet relations made this idea feasible. From its own perspective, China also wanted a rapprochement with the Um ed States in order to deal with the direct, serious threat posed by the concentration of large numbers of Soviet troops along its northern borders to achieve the great cause of national unification by solving the Taiwan issue, and to restore and expand its relations with other countries. After Richard Nixon became president m January 1969, tne United States began to approach China through various channe In July 1971, Dr. Henry Kissinger, special assistant to the president in national security, made a secret trip to China, rhe news, when published, shook the world. In February 1972, Pres ident Nixon visited China, met with Chairman Mao Zedong and held talks with Premier Zhou Enlai. Through the talks the Sino-U.S. Joint Communique was signed on February 28 in Shanghai. This marked the beginning of the process of norma 1zation of relations between the two countries. In the joint communique, both sides stated their own principled positions and recognized the need to implement the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence and oppose the threat of hegemonism. On the Taiwan issue, which had impeded the lm provement of Sino-U.S. relations for a long time, the American side expressed its recognition that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China. Later, leaders of the two governments held talks on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Chinese government stated that, in order to achieve this objective, the U.S. government should sever its "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan, withdraw all its armed forces and military equipment from the island and abolish the Mutual Defence Treaty" it had signed with Taiwan, and recognize th Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China. In accepting China's stated principles with regard to the Taiwan issue, the United States constantly put up obstacles to normalization by expressing certain reservations, such as demanding a statement by China pledging peaceful solution of the Taiwan issue as a pre-condition for U.S. troop withdrawals and abolition of the said treaty. The Chinese government, for its part, clearly pointed out that the Taiwan question is its own internal affair and how the question will be solved should be decided by China alone. In December 1975, President Gerald Ford visited China and held talks with Vice-premier Deng Xiaoping. At that time, the attitude of the U.S. government indicated a retrogression from the previous commitments made by the Nixon administration on the Taiwan question. Sino-U.S. normalization was delayed owing to the fact that the American government had not made up its mind to solve these problems. However, a liaison office was established in each other's capital in 1973, and for several years exchanges in trade, science, culture and technology experienced substantial growth. The protracted hostility between the two countries was ended and initial steps were taken towards normalization. This was without a doubt a major event in the history of Sino-U.S. relations. It also had a great impact on the international situation. Sino-U.S. detente made way for improvement in Sino-Japanese relations. The Japanese government had long toed the line of the U.S. government by maintaining a hostile attitude towards China. I he fact that the United States had taken the lead in carrying out diplomatic activities aimed at rapprochement with China produced profound repercussions in Japan both in the government and the public at large. Public opinion strongly demanded diplomatic relations with China as quickly as possible so as to attain a favourable competitive position politically and economically vis-a-vis other countries. With the help and support of many political parties, social organzations and personages friendly to China, the Japanese Premier Tanaka Kakuei began his visit to China on September 25, 1972. Chairman Mao Zedong met with the Japanese premier and other guests. Premier Zhou Enlai held talks with him which resulted in the signing of a joint statement on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries on September 29. The statement declared the ending of 689 the abnormal situation in Sino-Japanese relations. The Japanese side, sharply aware of its responsibilities in causing tremendous losses to the Chinese people during the war, expressed the desire to make a deep self-examination. The Japanese government recognized the government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, and Taiwan as an inseparable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China. Consequently, Japan severed its "diplomatic relations with t Taiwan authorities. In early 1973, each country set up an embassy in the other's capital and the two countries exchanged ambassadors A series of agreements were signed regarding trade, aviation, ocean transport, fishery, science and culture resulting m the rapid development of exchanges in all these spheres. The two countries commenced their talks on the signing of a treaty of peace and friendship beginning 1975. The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan put an end to their history of long-standing hostility and opened a new chapter in the history of neighbourliness and friendship between the two nations. This was of great significance for both countries as well as for world peace and development. Those years were also a peak period in which many Western European countries established diplomatic relations with China. With the increase in their political and economic strength since the end of the war, their drive to compete with the two superpowers became increasingly stronger. Their tendency toward mutua support and cooperation with China in defending world peace and the independence and prosperity of their countries was also growing. China had the same desire as these countries. Betore 1969 of all the Western, Northern and Southern European countries* only six had full diplomatic relations with China, while Britain and Holland had such relations with China as were compatible with maintaining a charge d'affaires' office in respective capitals. By the end of the 1970s, Chma had established diplomatic relations with all the countries in these regions, with the exception of Andorra and three other small nations. Relations were also normalized between China and the European Economic Community. In the early 1970s, China successively normalized diplomatic relations with Canada, Australia and New Zealand in North America and the southwest Pacific region, respectively. Since then, China has developed cooperative exchanges with these countries in the economic, scientific, technological and cultural fields. The Restoration of China's Rightful Seat in the UN On October 25, 1971, the 26th General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution on the restoration of the rightful seat of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations and the immediate expulsion of the representatives of the Kuomintang clique from all UN organizations. For a long time since its founding, the People's Republic of China had been deprived of its rightful seat in the United Nations due to obstruction by the United States. The Chinese government had waged a consistent struggle for its restoration. With China's position steadily improving in the world community, and the successive admission of newly-independent Asian and African countries into the United Nations, the United States found it more and more difficult to go on putting up obstacles. In the course of deliberation on China's seat at the 26th UN General Assembly, obstructions put up by the United States and some other countries, now in the form of a "two Chinas" scheme, were removed, and the problem finally resolved, thanks to the joint efforts of many Asian, African and other countries which upheld justice. This was a major victory on China's diplomatic front. From then on, as a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, China has worked unceasingly for the realization of the objectives of the United Nations—the maintenance of world peace, the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among nations, and the promotion of the cause of human progress. Sino-Soviet Negotiations and the Worsening of Sino- Vietnamese Relations The crucial issue between China and the Soviet Union in the 1970s was the threat to China's security posed by the latter. While CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 691 intensifying a political campaign against China, the Soviet Union concentrated large numbers of troops along the Sino-Soviet borders sent troops into the Mongolian People s Republic and pro voked armed conflicts on the borders. Under these circumstances, China was forced to strengthen war preparations while at the same time seeking to improve the strained relations between the two nations. In September 1969, when Premier Zhou Enlai met with Soviet Prime Minister Kossigin in Beijing, an understanding was reached between the two sides that negotiations on the border question should be held under circumstances where no threat existed, and that in order to achieve this, an agreement should be signed first of all to maintain the status quo along the border avoid armed conflicts and disengage the armed forces of both sides in the disputed areas. The Soviet side initially opposed the discussion of signing such an agreement. Later when they could not icfuse to carry on discussions, they denied the existence of disputed areas, a question which Kossigin had agreed to discuss. From the middle of the 1960s onwards, the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the decline of the United States asasuperpower intensified its expansion abroad in its rivalry with the United States for world hegemony. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government, while opposing the hegemomsm of the United States, waged a resolute struggle against the hegemomsm and big-nation chauvinism of the Soviet Union which were manifested in the way they handled Sino-Soviet relations and other international affairs. A deep-rooted friendship between the peoples of Chma and Viet Nam was forged through their long-term struggles against imperialism and colonialism. After the founding of New Chma, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Government, despite their own difficulties and hardships at a time when everything had to be started from scratch, gave full support to the Vietnamese people's resistance against French and American aggression and later to reconstruction of their country, rendering them tremendous and selfless assistance both militarily and economically. However, after the Vietnamese completed the liberation of their whole territory in 1975, following the withdrawal of the American troops from south Viet Nam in 1973, the Vietnamese authorities pursued a course of regional hegemonism in an attempt to set up a "federation of Indo-China states." It was natural that China should adopt an attitude of opposition to this scheme. The Vietnamese authorities reacted by adopting an anti-China policy. In a flagrant manner, they provoked border disputes, invaded Chinese territory, and ruthlessly persecuted and expelled large numbers of Chinese residents from Viet Nam. Since 1975, China had repeatedly proposed negotiations on the border question, but Viet Nam used various pretexts to postpone the talks. After the invasion of Kampuchea by Viet Nam, its leaders closely linked this action with their attack on China, claiming that China was their "most direct and dangerous enemy." Proceeding from the fact that China always treasured the traditional friendship between the two peoples, the Chinese side gave them repeated warnings and remonstrations. But since the Vietnamese leaders thought they could count on the support of the Soviet Union, they went farther and farther down the road in their opposition to China, resulting in a serious deterioration of the Sino-Vietnamese relations. After the 1970s, China's relations with several East European countries, including Poland, Democratic Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, improved in various degrees. Trade and exchanges in science and technology were restored. Since both China and Rumania advocated the principle of independence in international affairs, they were able to support each other and cooperate closely in the international arena. China's relations with Yugoslavia also improved outstandingly after 1970. Developing Friendship and Cooperation with Third-World Countries Building friendly and cooperative relations with the thirdworld countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America was one of the notable achievements made by China during the 1970s. The number of third-world countries which had established normal relations with China greatly increased, reaching another hightidc of diplomatic successes on a more extensive scale. During this period, a large number of countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, South America, including the Caribbean region, Western Asia and Oceania, established diplomatic relations with China. The friendship and cooperation between China and these countries and their coordination in international affairs was strengthened all round. The overwhelming majority of the thirdworld countries, though they had gained national independence, were still faced with the serious task of fighting imperialism, colonialism and hegemonism. Some faced the task of combating racism in South Africa, and foreign expansionism of Israel. China gave resolute support in various ways to these countries in theit just struggle to defend their national independence and state sovereignty, oppose foreign aggression and interference, and maintain peace in their respective regions as well as in the whole world. China always worked earnestly in the common struggle to promote third-world unity, change the old international order under which big nations bully small ones, rich countries exploit poor ones, and to set up a new international order based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. In the first half of the 1970s, while engaged in an appraisal of the international situation, Mao Zedong gradually formed a concept of the three worlds. He maintained that the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, belonged to the first world, and the other developed countries in the West, as well as the East European countries, belonged to the second world, while the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America which were great in number, belonged to the third world. In making this distinction, he highlighted the contradiction between the Soviet Union and the United States, countries which were on a head-long course of hegemonism on the one hand, and the world forces who opposed them on the other, and emphasized the important role of the third-world countries in the fight against world hegemony. The importance of uniting with the secondworld countries in this fight and exploiting the contradictions between the two superpowers was also stressed, as was the fact that China belonged to the third world and therefore it should unite with all possible forces in the world to form the broadest international united front in a common struggle to defeat aggression, control and oppression by the superpowers, and work for world peace. From a theoretical point of view, although some of these analyses did not accord with reality, they certainly played a positive role in providing guidelines for Chinese diplomacy in the fight against superpower hegemonism and the threat of war, as well as in the work to build friendly and cooperative relationships with third-world and other types of countries, including the work on Sino-U.S. normalization. To a certain extent, these guidelines also paved the way for the implementation of China's open policy in later years.

The Downfall of the Jiang Qing Clique and the Conclusion of the "Cultural Revolution"

Although the 10th National Party Congress fully reaffirmed the "cultural revolution," the masses of cadres and people felt growing weariness, doubts and grievances toward it. Zhou Enlai's efforts to rectify the "Left" mistakes, though thwarted halfway, won general approval and support. Mao Zedong wanted to see the end of the abnormal situation that had existed for a long time, and had already corrected some of the mistakes he had come to recognize, in the hope that there would be stability and unity and China's economy would recover and grow. On the other hand, he was worried about a possible "restoration and retrogression," and the negation of the "cultural revolution." In fact, he was experiencing a sharp mental conflict. Re-Emergence of the Turmoil and Struggle Around the 4th NPC Around the time when the 10th National Party Congress was in session, on several occasions, Mao Zedong stated that the criticism of Lin Biao should be linked up with the criticism of CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 695 Confucius and Confucianism and the promotion of the legalist school of thought. In his talk with Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao in July 1973, he said that Lin Biao, like the Kuomintang, was a worshiper of Confucianism and an opponent of the legalist school of thought. In January 1974, a selection of statements by Lin Biao on the one hand, and Confucius and his disciples on the other, which was entitled "Lin Biao and the Doctrines of Confucius and Mencius," was issued to all Party organizations for the purpose of criticism. A nationwide campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucianism soon swept the country. Mao Zedong launched the campaign not only because he wanted to bring out criticism of Lin Biao and his clique who were promoting the ideological principles of Confucius and Mencius—criticism which was to be made by tracing the clique's ideology to its origin—but also because he wanted to uphold the "cultural revolution" by propagating the idea that historically speaking, the exponents of the legalist school of thought were in favour of reforms while the followers of Confucianism were always against them. The Jiang Qing clique, in order to consolidate and expand the power they had gained during the "cultural revolution," tried their best to make use of the campaign. When they realized that in July 1973, Mao Zedong had criticized the work of the Foreign Ministry, which was under the leadership of Zhou Enlai, and the work of the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which was in the charge of Ye Jianying (in December), the situation seemed to offer opportunities for them to spearhead the attack on Zhou Enlai and other revolutionary veterans in the course of the campaign. On two occasions in January 1974, Jiang Qing made speeches at large assemblies attended by army cadres in the Beijing area and by officials from central Party and government organizations, calling on them to take an active part in the criticism of Lin Biao and Confucianism. Assuming herself to be the leader of the campaign, she attacked by name a number of cadres at the central and local levels and cadres in the army, and thus put Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying in a position facing all the blame. In another speech, she openly declared that there was a "very important Confucian" and called for the criticism of the "present-day Confucian." Using her own name, she wrote letters to some army units and government organizations and sent them relevant materials, instigating them to "ignite the fuse and fire the cannon" and to "seize power." She also sent people to some army units, instructing them to "start a prairie fire." A group of writers under her control published many critical essays attacking by innuendo certain correct policies and measures of the pre-"cultural revolution" period which had been abandoned for some time only to be resumed recently. The measures included the re-appointment of some revolutionary veterans to official posts in keeping with the Party's policy on cadres. All these innuendoes were made under the name of criticizing the Confucian doctrines of "restraining oneself in order to restore the old rituals," and "restoring the toppled state, re-establishing heirless family line and reappointing dismissed officials " Jiang Qing and her followers resorted to distortions and provocations in opposing what they called "attempts to turn the tide and make a comeback" while at the same time, they set up models for "going against the tide." At their instigation and direction, meetings were held in all possible places to denounce revolutionary veterans and to criticize personages in cultural and educational circles. This again created a highly strained political atmosphere. Factional strife recurred following the re-appearance of liaison offices, of visiting groups from the localities to seek help from higher authorities, groups sending up reports and of other factional cliques. Some people raised slogans such as "Stop production under the erroneous line," aimed at provoking strikes and walkouts. Some of the leading cadres were again toppled or forced to leave their posts, while others became involved in factional strife, helping one faction to push aside another faction. This, again, paralyzed the leadership in many areas and departments. The campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius wrought new havoc on the initial political stability and economic growth—both of which had been but recently achieved through arduous efforts following the Lin Biao incident. Industry again took a downward turn. According to statistics gathered from January to May of 1974, the production of coal dropped 6.2 percent as compared with the corresponding period in the previous year, railway freight transport dropped 2.5 percent, steel production, 9.4 percent, and chemical fertilizers, 3.7 percent. Financial revenues were 500 million yuan less, while expenditures were 2,500 million yuan more than the previous year. Mao Zedong, while supporting the campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius, did not want to see the recurrence of a big social upheaval. To prevent a more turbulent situation, the Party Central Committee, with the approval of Mao Zedong, issued a notice on the 10th of April, instructing that no fighting squads or similar mass organizations should be formed, and no effort should be made to establish tics between the different trades and regions. In the notice issued by the Party Central Committee which was entitled "Circular on Grasping Revolution and Promoting Production," fallacious slogans such as "Stop working for the erroneous line" were criticized. The circular pointed out that the manipulators who were instigating strikes behind the scenes should be exposed and criticized. Mao Zedong, who had detected the ulterior motives of Jiang Qing and her ilk in making use of the campaign to further their own interests, criticized them on many occasions. On July 17, at a meeting of the Politburo, he warned her against "establishing two plants—an iron and steel works and a label making factory—and sticking labels on people at her own will." He openly declared before many people: "She doesn't represent me; she only represents herself." Mao Zedong also criticized Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen for their factional activities and admonished them: "You should watch your step and avoid forming a small faction of four!" These criticisms made them pull in their horns for some time. On October 11, 1974, the Party Central Committee issued a circular on the decision to convene the 4th National People's Congress within a short period. The circular passed on Mao Zedong's comments: "It is already eight years since the beginning of the proletarian Cultural Revolution. At present, it would be good if stability prevails. The whole Party and the whole army should unite." Disregarding Mao's opinions, the "gang of four" intensified their underhanded activities, as they saw in the forthcoming NPC new opportunities for them to seize more power. On October 4, Mao Zedong proposed Deng Xiaoping for the post of first vicepremier of the State Council. Jiang Qing and her cohorts were very dissatisfied with this. On many occasions at Politburo meetings, they created trouble and attacked Deng, who justly and forcibly refuted their attacks. After plotting for a long time, the "gang of four" sent Wang Hongwen to Changsha on October 18 to make a report to Mao Zedong, which consisted of false accusations against Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. This was done behind the back of the majority of the Politburo members with a view to preventing Deng from becoming first vice-premier and "forming a cabinet" by the "gang of four." Mao Zedong warned Wang Hongwen on the spot, asking him to set a watch on Jiang Qing and not to gang up with her. Mao then asked Wang to go back and see the premier and Ye Jianying for a talk, saying that if he had any comments to make, he should make them in front of the people concerned. Mao dismissed Wang's way of accusing Zhou and Deng behind their backs as no good. On October 20, Mao sent a message to Zhou Enlai and Wang Hongwen by word of mouth reaffirming that the premier was still the man to exercise over-all control, and that the preparatory work for the 4th N PC and the appointment of senior officials at the congress should be handled by the premier and Wang Hongwen. On December 23, 1974, Zhou Enlai, who was seriously ill, went with Wang Hongwen to Changsha to make a work report to Mao Zedong. In his talk, Mao again warned Wang against "forming a gang of four," advising him to "refrain from forming any cliques, since those who do are bound to trip and fall." He also said: "Jiang Qing has wild ambitions. Don't you think so? I think she has." Mao asserted that Deng Xiaoping was strong politically and ideologically and that he was a rare talent not easy to find. He proposed that Deng should hold three posts simultaneously—first vice-premier, vice-chairman of the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee and the chief of the general staff of CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 699 the PLA. Back in December 1973, at the suggestion of Mao Zedong, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided that Deng should become a member of the Politburo and take part in the work of leadership of the Central Committee a decision to be confirmed by the 2nd Session of the 10th Central Committee of the Party. It was also decided that Deng should become a member of the Military Commission and take pan in the work of leadership of the commission. On January 5, 1975, at the suggestion of Mao Zedong, the Party Central Committee issued a document appointing Deng Xiaoping as a vice-chairman of the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee and concurrently the chief of the General Staff of the PLA, and Zhang Chunqiao as the director of the General Political Department of the PLA. At the 2nd Session of the 10th Party Central Committee held in early January, the decision to make Deng Xiaoping a member of the Politburo was al firmed and he was elected a vice-chairman of the Party Central Committee and a member of its Standing Committee. The fact that Mao Zedong continued to criticize Jiang Qing and her ilk on many occasions, his re-assertion that Zhou Enlai was in charge of the day-to-day work of the Party Central Committee and of the government, and the fact that Deng Xiaoping was again entrusted with important jobs—all these played an important role in thwarting the "gang of four" in their plot to form a cabinet of their own, and in ensuring the smooth convocation of the 4th NPC. Between the 13th and 17th of January 19/5, the 1st Session of the 4th NPC was held in Beijing. In his report on the work of the government, Zhou Enlai re-asserted the blueprints proposed by the 3rd NPC in December 1964 concerning the two steps to be taken in developing the Chinese economy—the first step was to use fifteen years to accomplish, before 1980, the building of an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system, and the second step was to fully realize the modernization of agriculture, industry, national defence, science and technology within this century so that China's economy would be in the forefront of the world. The NPC re-elected Zhu De chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, and elected Dong Biwu, Soong Ching Ling and twenty others vice-chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee. The congress decided that Zhou Enlai continue to be the premier and Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Chunqiao, Li Xiannian, Hua Guofeng and eight others to be the vice-premiers. The congress reaffirmed the objective of achieving the four modernizations (although the time set for their completion was too short to be realistic). The appointment of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping to the key posts of the State Council was a great inspiration to the Chinese people and aroused new hopes in them. Work of Consolidation in 1975 and Reversals After the 1st Session of the 4th NPC, Zhou Enlai's illness became more serious. With the support of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping took charge of the day-to-day work of the Party Central Committee and of the State Council. By that time, work in every field had suffered from interference and sabotage by the "gang of four" and was in a state of serious chaos. It was at this critical juncture that Deng Xiaoping was entrusted with the important job. Disregarding the fact he had just been rehabilitated and was beset with a great number of difficulties, he showed great revolutionary courage, wisdom and leadership talent and soon succeeded in changing the situation. Basing himself on Mao Zedong's instructions on the need to maintain stability and unity and to boost the economy, he presided over various types of meetings where he clearly and firmly put forward the guiding principle of consolidation in all spheres of work. He stressed that every sphere of work in the country required consolidation, which was essential for industry, agriculture, commerce, finance and trade, culture and education, science and technology, as well as for the armed forces. He pointed out that the central issue was the consolidation of the Party, with the consolidation of the leadership as the key to the solution of all other problems. Through the work of consolidation, it was essential to set up a leadership which was powerful and bold. He emphasized the need to maintain stability and unity and develop the socialist economy; it was also necessary to strengthen Party leadership, to give play to the 701 Party's good style of work and wage a resolute struggle against factionalism. Those involved in factions had all sorts of wild ambitions, he said. They jostled for power and gain, resorted to vicious plots and intrigues, stirred up trouble and strife. Deng maintained that one must not budge an inch in the struggle against factionalism. He called the attention of people to the implementation of the Party's policies, including the policies towards cadres of old, middle and young age, the policies towards model workers, veteran workers and intellectuals—all this was aimed at calling into play the initiative of people in all spheres. He also set forth the important Marxist viewpoint that science and technology represented a force of production and stressed the need to do a good job in these fields. These and other statements made by him awakened a lot of people who had long been influenced by the trend of "Left" thinking and gave them great encouragement and inspiration. Under Deng's leadership, and with the full support and cooperation of Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian and many other veteran comrades who had resumed work in leadership posts, bold and resolute steps were taken to consolidate the work in every field, with the result that notable achievements were soon registered. Because of factional contention and strife, rail transport under the railway bureaus at Xuzhou, Nanjing, Nanchang and other places was obstructed for a long period, preventing smooth operation of the four trunk lines of the Tianjin-Pukou, BeijingGuangzhou, Lianyungang-Lanzhou and Hangzhou-Nanchang Railways and interfering with transportation over other trunk lines. This posed a serious threat to industrial production and normal city life and stood as the major obstacle to improvement of the situation countrywide. In late February, the Party Central Committee convened a meeting of Party secretaries in charge of industry and made a decision on March 5 on the solution of railway transportation and other problems. Work teams were sent out which cooperated with the local Party committees in starting the work of reorganization at railway bureaus with serious problems. The work teams aroused the masses and mobilized them to criticize factionalism, removed a number of trouble-making fac tionalist leaders, rehabilitated people who had been wronged, reshuffled the leadership in certain organizations, and reinstituted and improved relevant rules and regulations. These measures, which proved highly effective, won the support of the great majority of railway workers and staff members. By April, nineteen out of twenty railway bureaus had overfulfilled their transportation plans. The daily average loading of freight cars amounted to more than 53,700, which was more than 10,000 over the February figure of the same year. The numbers of freight cars loaded with coal daily reached 7,800. This was the first time in five years that the plan for coal transport by rail was completed. The work of railway consolidation served as an example for all other industries, first of all, for the iron and steel industry. The total amount of iron and steel produced in the first four months of 1975 fell short of the original planned target by 1.95 million tons. This was attributed primarily to the unsatisfactory performance of the big iron and steel mills in Baotou, Wuhan, Anshan and Taiyuan. In May, the Party Central Committee held a forum on the iron and steel industry. After a month's work of consolidation, the production of iron and steel showed a clear upward turn. In June, the average daily production of steel reached 72,400 tons, which exceeded the planned daily average figure for the whole year and helped to make up for the shortfall of the previous months. After several months of consolidation, the economic situation showed steady improvement. According to a State Council report on industrial production for the first half of the year, "Industrial production and communications have improved month by month since March." In May and June, the production of crude oil and coal, electricity, chemical fertilizers, cement, diesel engines, paper and paperboard, railway transportation—all these recorded their highest monthly level in history. In 1975 the total production value of industrial and agricultural production was 11.9 percent higher than the corresponding period of the previous year. Industrial production increased 15.1 percent; agricultural production increased 4.6 percent. This shows that the work of consolidation in this period was highly fruitful. In the same period, vigorous measures were also taken to carry on the work of consolidation in the armed forces, agriculture, science and technology, culture and education. Outstanding results were achieved in every field. Great progress was made in consolidating the army with regard to reshuffling the leadership of some major units and implementation of the Party's policies on the question of cadres. Jhe Science and Technology Commission for National Defence succeeded in solving the knotty problem of factional strife between two large groupings in the Seventh Machinery Ministry. In literature and art, the Party's policy of "let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend" was emphasized, and the ban on the publication and performance of a number of good works was lifted. The literary field, which had been lying fallow, with all the flowers withering, began to show signs of life. ~ , Particularly noteworthy were two documents—one, drafted by the State Planning Commission entitled "Certain Questions on Speeding Up the Development of Industry" (abbreviated as the "Twenty Articles for Industry") and the other drafted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences entitled "A Report Outline on the Work of the Chinese Academy of Sciences." Both documents were important for their systematic rectification of "Left" mistakes, and the restoration and formulation of correct policies in the fields of industry, science and technology. Not confined to the work on consolidation, the two documents put forward many important, far-sighted ideas on the reform of industry, science and technology. In fact, they paved the way for the reform in these fields which took place in subsequent years. From the very beginning, the "gang of four" obstructed and resisted the all-round consolidation carried out under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, seizing every opportunity to raise objections. On October 20, 1974, while discussing the theoretical question of the dictatorship of the proletariat in meeting with Danish Prime Minister Paul Hartling, Mao Zedong said, "In a word, China is a socialist country. Before liberation she was much the same as a capitalist country. Even now she practises an eightgrade wage system, distribution according to work and exchange through money, and in all this differs very little from the old society. What is different is that the system of ownership has been changed." On December 26, he also touched upon this question in his talk with Zhou Enlai and others in Changsha. He said, "Our country at present practices a commodity system; the wage system is unequal, too, as in the eight-grade wage scale, and so forth. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat such things can only be restricted. Therefore, if people like Lin Biao come to power, it will be quite easy for them to rig up the capitalist system." These statements made by Mao Zedong led people to think that distribution according to labour and commodity exchange were of a capitalist nature or apt to turn capitalist. They were an extension of his conceptions about socialism which were tinted with utopianism. These erroneous statements were exaggerated and played up by the "gang of four" and were used as weapons in their opposition to the work of consolidation. On February 9, 1975, the People's Daily published an editorial entitled "Do a Good Job in Studying the Theory of Dictatorship of the Proletariat," making public Mao Zedong's statements on theoretical questions. A movement to study these statements soon swept the country. At the direction of the "gang of four," a large number of articles were published in the press in refutation of "empiricism," calling on people to "abolish bourgeois right" and instigating them to "attack the strongholds." They slandered the various measures adopted in the work of consolidation as "empiricist," which was a direct attack on Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other Party and state leaders with rich experience. By "attacking the strongholds," they meant that the cadres, intellectuals and the rank and file of people who opposed the "Leftist" mistakes, were like the enemy in the strongholds in the period of the democratic revolution, and should be subjected to "over-all dictatorship." Mao Zedong detected the ulterior motive behind the gang of four's opposition to empiricism and criticized them for this. In the light of Mao's opinions, the Politburo held several meetings to criticize the "gang of four." But their wild ambitions proved to be irrepressible. They seized upon every chance to create trouble. On August 14, 1975, in answer to a request from a woman teacher 705 at Beijing University, Mao Zedong gave his personal views on the classical Chinese novel Outlaws of the Marsh. The gang of four immediately seized on this subject to launch a country-wide publicity campaign in the press for so-called comments on Outlaws of the Marsh. Jiang Qing brazenly fabricated the story that "the crucial thing in Outlaws of the Marsh was isolating Chao Gai and and turning him into a mere figurehead." By innuendo she falsely accused Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping of havmg deprived Mao Zedong of his power. Learning this, Mao Zedong refuted Jiang Qing's statements. This was another blow to the arrogance and aggressiveness of the "gang of four. The situation in 1975 took a noticeable turn for the better, thanks to the common effort and struggle of many leading comrades in the Politburo and the State Council represented by Deng Xiaoping, a measure of restraint put on the gang of tour by Mao Zedong, the popular desire for law and order and the enthusiasm of the broad masses of people as well as of the Party members and the cadres in their work and production. The various regional armed conflicts were brought to a halt, social order became stabilized in most areas, and the reviving economy swung rapidly upward. However, the work of consolidation carried out in each sphere inevitably went against many of the "Leftist" policies and theories implemented during the cultural revolution," and gradually constituted a systematic rectification of these erroneous policies and theories. This represented a tendency towards a radical negation of the "cultural revolution This situation aroused not only the frenzied opposition of the "gang of four," but also the dissatisfaction of Mao Zedong After Mao Zedong fell seriously ill in the winter of 1971, his condition varied, sometimes taking a turn for the better, sometimes for the worse. Nevertheless, he continued to be responsible for all major decisions of the Party and the state As the persons who could approach him and enjoy his trust grew fewer and fewer in number, his understanding of the real situation became poorer and poorer, and therefore his proposals and ideas on important matters of the Party and the state became more and 1 more ablatter half nf 1975. to such a degree that he could hardly walk or speak. The little contact he had with other members of the Politburo was maintained through a liaison person. Under such circumstances, he failed even more to have a complete picture of actual conditions. The distorted and provocative information provided him by the "gang of four" played an extremely insidious role in eliciting erroneous policy decisions from him. In November 1975, Mao Zedong believed the false accusations of the "gang of four" against Deng Xiaoping, and his trust in the latter wavered. He decided to remove Deng from most of his posts. Not long after, Deng Xiaoping was accused of supporting Liu Bing, the deputy Party secretary of Qinghua University who had written a letter of complaint against two confidants of the "gang of four." Tiic pretext was that Liu's letter had been handed to Mao through Deng and that the letter was directing an attack on Mao. Thus a campaign to "criticize Deng and counter the Rightist wind to reverse verdicts" was launched. However, after ten years of turmoil, the masses of cadres and people now had an understanding which was quite different from what they had entertained in the early period of the "cultural revolution." The achievements of the consolidation work sponsored by Deng Xiaoping were universally acknowledged. The campaign to "criticize Deng and counter the Rightist wind to reverse verdicts" went against reason as well as the will of the people, and was widely boycotted from the very beginning. From the printed materials prepared for the criticism of Deng, people in fact acquired a better understanding of him. They developed a greater trust in Deng as a person who persisted in the Party's correct principles and policies.2 Obviously, this was far from what the "gang of four" had anticipated. In early February 1976, leaders of the Party Central Committee convened several meetings, to which responsible comrades of the provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and the area military commands were invited in groups. These meetings were held to inform them of the statements made on many occasions by Mao Zedong concerning the current campaign. In these statements, Mao Zedong stressed repeatedly that "Class struggle is the key link, all other things are secondary." He also said, "What is the Cultural Revolution? It is class struggle." According to him, the reason why some veteran revolutionaries were "dissatisfied with the cultural revolution" was that "their thinking still remained at the stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution." He said, "You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don't know where the bourgeois is. It is right in the Communist Party—those in power taking the capitalist road. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road." Mao Zedong assessed the "cultural revolution" in general as "30 percent versus 70 percent; i.e., 70 percent representing achievements, with 30 percent consisting of mistakes." The mistakes were: 1. down with everything; 2. a full-scale civil war. To the great majority of cadres at lhat time, the arguments he put forward in these statements in favour of the "cultural revolution" were hardly convincing. This campaign, which was very unpopular, upset the relatively stable situation which had just emerged. Many correct policies and measures pul forward in the course of consolidation were negated, leading officials who resolutely implemented these policies were persecuted, while factionalists and leaders of factions who had been dismissed or removed from office now returned to their jobs. Factional strife again raged in certain regions, bringing on work stoppages and communication tie-ups. Chaos again reigned throughout the country. This situation aggravated the dislike which the masses of people had for the "cultural revolution" and helped them see the real features of the "gang of four," who had brought disasters upon the nation and people. Feelings of uncertainty, discontent and indignation, which had accumulated in their minds over a long period, grew very quickly and could easily explode like a huge keg of gunpowder with a fuse which could be lit at any time. Victory in Smashing the Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Clique On January 8, 1976, Zhou Enlai, one of the main leaders of the Party and the state, passed away. He was boundlessly loyal to the Party and people to the last breath of his life. Placed in a ver> difficult position during the "cultural revolution, he put the overall interests of the nation above everything else, worked very hard and tolerated all kinds of unjust criticism. He spent all his energies and wisdom in a tireless effort to carry on his normal work for the Party and state, to reduce to a minimum the losses caused by the turmoil, and to protect large numbers of cadres both inside and outside the Party. He waged a struggle against the "gang of four" in various ways. His death aroused boundless grief within the Party, army and among all nationalities of the country. The tragic and moving scene of tens of thousands of people lining the street when the hearse carrying his body drove through Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, reflected the infinite sorrow of the people in losing their leader at a time when the Party and the state were in great jeopardy, and their sincere yearning for a way to free the nation from its disastrous situation and open up the prospect for a bright future. During the preparations for Zhou Enlai's funeral, the "gang of four" issued a series of prohibitions in an effort to obstruct and malign the mourning activities of the people which were being carried on an immense scale. This could not but arouse the indignation of the great numbers of cadres and people involved. Commencing in late March, people from all walks of life in Nanjing, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Taiyuan and other cities broke down the restrictions put up by the "gang of four," and held solemn commemorative activities to honour the late premier by making use of the old Chinese tradition of paying respects to one's ancestors during the Qing Ming Festival on April 5. At the end of March, people in Beijing began to converge spontaneously at Tiananmen Square to hold memorial activities in honour of Zhou Enlai, and this continued for several days on end. Wreaths and baskets of flowers were laid at the Monument of the People's Heroes. People also put up handwritten memorials, recited poems of their own composition, and delivered speeches in honour of the late premier and also in denunciation of the evil deeds of the "gang of four." On April 4, the commemorative activities in Beijing reached their climax. Some two million people, including many from other parts of the country, went to Tiananmen Square in disregard of repeatedly stated official restrictions. The scene was just magnificent! Popular indignation mounted, with the "gang of four" as the target of censure. On the evening of April 4, Hua Guofeng presided over a meeting of the Politburo (Ye Jianying and Li Xianman being absent) to discuss the situation at Tiananmen Square. Hua Guofeng had worked in Hunan province for many years both before and after the outbreak of the "cultural revolution," and was transferred to work in the State Council in 1971. He was a member of the 9th and 10th Central Committees of the CPC and a member of the Politburo of the 10th Central Committee. In January 1975, he was appointed a vice-premier by the 4th National People's Congress. After the death of Zhou Enlai, during the campaign to "criticize Deng and counter the rightist wind to reverse verdicts," he was appointed acting premier and was put in charge of everyday work of the Party's Central Committee by Mao Zedong in February. Under the manipulation of Jiang Qing and her ilk, the Politburo meeting defined Tiananmen event as a counter-revolutionary incident, which had allegedly interfered with the orientation of the campaign. It was also decided at the meeting that all the wreaths and slogans be removed from Tiananmen Square that very night. A report of the proceedings as well as the decisions of the meeting were written up by the liaison person and handed by him to Mao Zedong, who gave his approval after reading the report. In the early morning of April 5, on discovering that all the wreaths, poems and memorial couplets had been removed from the square, people became very angry and some of them came into serious conflict with the militiamen, police and soldiers who were on the spot. At 9:30 that evening, 10,000 militiamen and police armed with wooden clubs were ordered to march into the square to drive away, beat and arrest people in the square. On the night of April 7, it was broadcast nationwide over the radio that at the suggestion of Mao Zedong, and with the approval of the Politburo, Hua Guofeng had been made first vice-chairman of the Party's Central Committee and premier of the State Council, and Deng Xiaoping had been removed from all posts both inside and outside the Party, while still retaining his Party member ship. The Tiananmen Incident was a concentrated expression of the people's protest movement against the "gang of four," an event which had developed under the influence of the correct leadership of the Party. The disastrous "cultural revolution," which had lasted almost ten years, was increasingly detested by the masses of cadres and people, who pinned their hopes on veteran revolutionaries like Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping for the restoration of social order and of the correct policies of the Party. Yet it was these veteran revolutionaries who were now receiving unjust treatment. This poured oil on the flames of the people's anger against the "gang of four," which finally burst out so vehemently with the outbreak of the Tiananmen Incident. This movement of protest was also an expression of support for the correct leadership of the Party represented by Deng Xiaoping. Clearly demonstrating what the people supported as well as what they opposed, it helped to dig the grave of the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique. On July 6, 1976, Zhu De, another important leader of the Party and the state, passed away, only to be followed by the death of Mao Zedong, the principal leader of the Party and state, on September 9. The death of the three outstanding leaders within less than a year immersed the whole Party, the whole army and the people of all nationalities in great sorrow. This was because millions upon millions of people had high respect and a deep sense of gratitude for the three leaders for the great achievements and magnificent contributions they had made in founding the Party, the army and the state, in leading the Chinese democratic revolution and socialist construction, and in applying and developing Marxism under China's own circumstances. After the death of Mao Zedong, the "gang of four" intensified their activities to seize the supreme power of the Party and state. Wang Hongwen circumvented the official unit on 24-hour duty under the Party Central Committee's General Office, and on September 11 set up a separate office for similar functions in Zhongnanhai. He informed the Party committees of all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions that they should report to CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 711 Wang Hongwen and company through this office and ask for instructions. This move on the part of the "gang of four" was an attempt to sever contacts between the Party Central Committee and the various localities and put the whole country under their direct control. Moreover, the "gang of four" ordered their faithful followers in Shanghai to redouble their arms build-up of the militia which could be called into use as a strong backing in their eventual bid for power. They also falsified what they called the last words of Mao Zedong which stated: "Act according to set principles." They publicized this statement time and again in the press, posing as the legitimate arbiters of the Party's principles and policies. An openly menacing press release of theirs stated that "any revisionist ringleader who dares to temper with the Chairman Mao's set principles will come to no good end. This insinuating remark was a slanderous attack on Hua Guofeng, Li Xiannian and others then in charge of the work of the Party Central Committee. ■ „ The blatant intrigues of the "gang of lour to seize the supreme power of the Party and state aroused the deep concern and anxiety of the veteran revolutionaries. Although most of them were in a difficult position, they exchanged information through various channels and discussed ways to solve the problem. Under attack by the "gang of four," Hua Guofeng, who directed the work of the Party Central Committee as its first vice-chairman, was well aware of the need to eliminate this bane, which festered in the body of the Party and the state like an ulcer. He repeatedly studied the matter and discussed it with Ye Jianying and Li Xiannian. With the approval of the majority of the Politburo members, a decision was made to adopt resolute measures. Representing the Politburo and fulfilling the will of the Party and the people, Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying put Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan and the faction s core members in Beijing under investigation on the night of October 6. That same night, the Politburo held a meeting to discuss the major issues to be dealt with by the Party and the state after heading off the conspiracy. The meeting passed a resolution naming Hua Guofeng as chairman of the Party Central Committee and of its Military Commission; this was later confirmed by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 10th Central Committee of the CPC held in July 1977. On hearing the news that Jiang Qing and others were being held under investigation, their faithful followers and the core members of their faction desperately mobilized an armed rebellion. This was a last-ditch struggle to save the Jiang Qing counterrevolutionary clique from demise. The Party Central Committee, through effective measures to control the situation in Shanghai, thwarted the plot to launch an armed insurrection. The news of the overthrow of the "gang of four" was published by the Party Central Committee on October 14. It was received with the greatest of joy and excitement. People could hardly wait to be the first to inform their friends and neighbours. It was difficult to list all the crimes the "gang of four" had committed during the "cultural revolution." Their downfall realized the common hopes of the Party and the people and crowned the combined, long-term struggle that had been waged against them. Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying and Li Xiannian played an important role in smashing the "gang of four." The Party and the people, after ten years of hardships and setbacks, at long last put an end to the disastrous "cultural revolution" by overthrowing two counter-revolutionary cliques, one headed by Lin Biao, the other by Jiang Qing. These victories helped social order to return to normal, and put the work of the Party and the state back onto the track of sound development. They also ushered in a new era of development in the history of the Party. This was a great triumph of the Party and of the people; it was also a great triumph of Marxism and socialism. The "cultural revolution" which lasted more than ten years, marked a period when "Left" mistakes dominated for the longest time in the history of the Party, and caused the greatest damage; when all kinds of social contradictions were revealed in sharp focus and full range, and when extremely rich experiences and lessons were accumulated and learned. The protracted upheavals in the "cultural revolution" caused great losses and reverses to the Party, state and Chinese people of 713 all nationalities. These setbacks, the most serious since the founding of the PRC, greatly weakened the Party organizations and state power. Large numbers of cadres and ordinary citizens were persecuted. Democracy and law were trampled upon and the whole country was gripped in a political and social crisjs. during the ten years, national income suffered a loss of about 500 billion yuan, and the living standard of the people declined. Science, culture and education were seriously damaged, and the gap in science and technology between China and the advanced countries of the world widened. The cultural heritage left by history was destroyed on an enormous scale. The fine traditions of the Party and the excellent moral fibre of the people were seriously undermined. Metaphysics and idealism ruled the day. Anarchism and extreme individualism ran riot. The "cultural revolution was not in any sense a revolution or a form of social progress. It was a tumult of civil strife which had been launched under wrong leadership and made use of by counter-revolutionary cliques, and which brought serious internal disorder to the Party, the state and the people of all nationalities. During the "cultural revolution," the Party and people never ceased their struggle against "Left" mistakes and the two counterrevolutionary cliques, one headed by Lin Biao, the other by Jiang Qing. The struggle was extremely difficult and took a zigzag course The severe test of the "cultural revolution showed that the Party's 8th Central Committee, and the overwhelming majority of the members in the Politburo, the Standing Committee of the Politburo, and the Secretariat elected by the Central Committee stood on the correct side in the struggle. Many of them suffered severe attacks and persecution. Nevertheless, they took the interest of the whole nation into account, showed great tolerance, and kept a close watch on the major acts and future prospects of the Party and state. They did everything within their power to render valuable service to the Party. Some, out of a strong sense of justice, made outright criticisms of Left mistakes Others persevered in cool-headed deliberations, took up writing in all seriousness, and produced theoretical works or memoirs of past events in order to sum up positive experiences in Party history. Still others drew up suggestions and proposals to the Party concerning certain major issues in practical work, or made known the Party's fine traditions to the people they came in contact with. In fact, all these activities represented the various forms of combatting or boycotting the "cultural revolution." Unfortunately, some of these comrades, such as Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, He Long and Zhang Wentian, who were members of the Politburo of the Sth Central Committee before the "cultural revolution," failed to survive its ordeals. These leaders of the Party and state had made outstanding contributions to the people's revolution and construction in China. Their boundless loyalty and selfless spirit of dedication to the Party and the people will live forever in the minds of the people of various nationalities. The overwhelming majority of the Party cadres, whether they had unjustifiably been toppled, or had been able to persist in their work, or had resumed work earlier or later, were loyal to the Party and people and had displayed a firm faith in socialism and communism. Those intellectuals, model workers, patriotic democrats, patriotic returned overseas Chinese, and cadres and people of different social strata of the various nationalities who had been under attack or had suffered in other ways, never wavered in their love for their motherland or their support for the Party. It was precisely because of the struggle and boycott launched by the Party as a whole, along with the masses of workers, peasants, soldiers and commanders of the PLA, intellectuals, young people and cadres at various levels, that the destructive role of the "cultural revolution" was held in abeyance to a certain degree. Despite all the tremendous losses during this difficult period, the Chinese economy continued to make some progress thanks to the joint efforts of the masses and the cadres. Grain production was steadily on the increase, reaching 286.3 billion kilogrammes in 1976, an increase of 91.75 billion kilogrammes over the 1965 figure. A number of major achievements were made in industry, communications, capital construction, science and technology. The production of crude oil in 1976 was 6.7 times the 1965 figure. The construction of certain new railways, at times involving CHAPTER EIGHT THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION' 715 exceptional feats of engineering, was completed, and these were opened to traffic along with the magnificent bridge spanning the Changjiang River at Nanjing. A number of large enterprises equipped with advanced technology went into production. Success was scored in the crossbreeding of a new strain of rice and in its promotion. Outstanding achievements were also attained in the fields of nuclear technology, artificial satellites, carrier rockets and other branches of high-tech research. Under the circumstances of a nationwide turmoil, the PLA continued to pertorm its duties in safeguarding the security of the country. A new situation was created in China's diplomatic work. Quite understandably, all these advances were by no means results of the "cultural revolution." Greater achievements would have been made if the "cultural revolution" had not taken place. During the "cultural revolution," the Party, the people's government, the people's army and the society as a whole did not change in nature. History again proved that the Chinese people are a great people, and that the Communist Party of China and the socialist system have immense, powerful vitality. „ The "cultural revolution" was launched and led by Mao Zedong and, therefore, he was mainly responsible for this over-all "Left" mistake which lasted for so long. However, the mistake was made after all, by a great revolutionary of the proletariat in his pursuit of a pure, perfect socialist society and a new way to prevent capitalist restoration and build socialism. In actual tact, Mao Zedong was tied to an abstract conception which was divorced from reality. When he was making serious mistakes, he always thought that his theory and practice were Marxist, and were necessary for the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is where his tragedy lies. While insisting on carrying out the "cultural revolution," which was an overall mistake, he stopped and corrected a number of mistakes on specific questions, such as giving protection to certain leading Party officials and celebrities outside the Party, and helping to put a number of responsible comrades back to important posts. He had entrusted members of the Lin Biao clique with important jobs. But it was also he who was leading the struggle to liquidate this counter-revolutionary clique. He had once placed high trust in Jiang Qing and other members of the counter-revolutionary clique. But he also made important criticisms and exposures of them and prevented them from attaining their ambition of usurping supreme power. This was vital to the Party's subsequent struggle to smash the "gang of four." Even in his late years, he was on the alert in safeguarding the security of the country, and stood up against the great pressure exerted on China by Soviet big-power hegemonism. He implemented a correct foreign policy, and gave resolute support to the peoples of various countries in their just struggles. During the "cultural revolution" our Party was not destroyed and was able to retain unity, the State Council and the PLA were still able to perform duties which were required of them, the foundations of socialism continued to exist, socialist economic construction was still in progress, and our country retained its unity and played an important role on the international stage; all these facts were part and parcel of the great role which Mao Zedong had played. The "cultural revolution" was the consequence of going astray in the effort to explore China's own road in building socialism; it was an incorrect practice carried out under the guidance of an incorrect theory. It fully revealed, in very stark forms, the defects of our Party and state, both in respect to their work and structure. It also presented profound lessons to be learned so that a serious mistake like another "cultural revolution" or any similar disastrous upheavals would never be repeated. A scientific summing up of the lessons of the "cultural revolution" will help us to find the correct road to build socialism with Chinese characteristics and march triumphantly along this road. 717 liched article entitled "A Discussion on the General Guidelines for _ the Work in * i, cnheres for the Whole Party and Country," which was written by the Poll y Research1 2 De par t men t of the Stite Council on the basis of the instructions given by Deng Xiaoping.

Dawn of a New Prospect in Socialist Construction

Two Years of Hesitant Progress

The liquidation of the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique was greeted with joy and enthusiasm throughout the nation. People rejoiced to see the final collapse of the "gang of four" and with it an end to the ten years' turbulence of the "cultural revolution." The fact that the Communist Party of China was able to excise the malignant tumour in its own body strengthened the people's confidence in the Party. In Beijing and many other cities, the masses of people celebrated by joining in huge parades and rallies to express their heartfelt happiness, their support for the Communist Party, and their demand for the restoration of social order and a return to a normal, regular life. A great many serious political and social problems had accumulated during ten years of turbulence. The Party faced an arduous task. Monumental, urgent work was required to restore normal order in all Party organizations, revive the fine traditions and working style of the Party, re-establish normal order in the political life of the nation, invigorate the organs of political power at all levels to ensure their smooth operation, consolidate and develop the people's democratic united front, and restore normal order in economic, cultural and educational undertakings which had been disastrously undermined. Countless collapsed endeavours cried out for resuscitation, numberless slackening enterprises awaited invigorating. In a word, reconstruction had to be undertaken in practically all fields. 718 719 Despite the downfall of the "gang of four," the power in some party and state organs remained in the hands of remnants of the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary faction. In certain localities, they had struck deep roots and still had a definite influence, and in some places, turbulence had not ended. These were the most pressing problems that had to be solved. On October 18, 1976, the Party Central Committee issued a document entitled "Circular on the Incident of the Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qmg and Yao Wenyuan Anti-Party Clique." Commencing on December 10, the Party Central Committee issued three documents providing more evidence of their crimes. The documents exposed and criticized the attempts of Jiang Qing and others to seize the supreme power of the Party and state, and to frame Zhou Enlai and other veteran revolutionaries, as well as the harm caused on all sides by their ultra-"Left" line. At the same time, a nationwide screening was carried out to find out their entire factionalist organizational connections, and the events and persons involved in their plot to usurp the supreme power of the Party and state^ The leadership at various levels was gradually readjusted and strengthened. Resolute measures were taken to expose the factionalist leaders and core members and to put them under investigation The Party Central Committee sent work teams to the remaining few turbulent areas to stop the armed conflicts and restore normal social order. By the first half of 1977, the armed conflicts and turmoil caused by factional strife were basically stopped and a stable political situation gradually emerged. By 1978 the work of screening was basically completed in the grea majority of areas and work-units, and the counter-revolutionary political force which had brought great disasters to the people throughout the country for a decade was thus destroyed and the power usurped by them retrieved. With the situation in the whole country returning to normal, the 3rd Plenary Session of the 10th Party Central Committee was convened between July 16 and 21, 1977. The session decided to expel Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qmg and Yao Wenyuan from the Party once and for all and remove them Irom all posts both inside and outside the Party. To reverse the unjust verdicts made during the "cultural revolution" and rehabilitate the innocent victims was one of the most pressing tasks at the time. But the work in this field made very slow progress. At a Party Central Committee's work meeting convened in March 1977, Chen Yun made a written proposal to restore the work of Deng Xiaoping, and to reverse the wrong judgment concerning the Tiananmen Incident as well as other major unjust verdicts. At the meeting, Wang Zhen also expressed the same opinions. It was not until the 3rd Plenary Session of the 10th Central Committee that an official decision was made to restore Deng Xiaoping to his previous posts as member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, Standing Committee member of the Politburo, vice-chairman of the CPC Central Committee and its Military Commission, vice-premier of the State Council and chief of the General Staff of the PLA. At the same time, work had started on sorting out and solving the problems left over from the political movements preceding the "cultural revolution." In the fields of science, education and culture, a completely new situation emerged, thanks to the leading role of Deng Xiaoping. Setting things right in these fields was particularly significant because it was just there that the "cultural revolution" had started. Science and education were put under Deng Xiaoping's leadership after he had resumed work. In August 1977, at a forum on the work of science and education held by the Party Central Committee, he pointed out that the main aspects of the work in the seventeen years since the founding of the PRC on the educational and scientific fronts represented a red (correct) line, and that the overwhelming majority of Chinese intellectuals served socialism willingly and voluntarily. By making this statement, he negated the claims made by Lin Biao and Jiang Qing that "a dictatorship of the black line" had existed in the field of literature, art and education. Deng Xiaoping called on people to respect mental labour and talents. In March 1978, at the National Science Congress held in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the Marxist viewpoint that science and technology were forces of production. He also pointed out that mental labourers in the 721 service of socialism were part of the working people. From then on the leftist policy towards intellectuals which had been practised for so many years was corrected and attention was again paid to the importance of knowledge and intellectuals. This was a great inspiration to the intellectuals working m the fields of science, education, literature and art. The ban on a great number of good films and plays and other literary and art works, both Chinese and foreign, was lifted. Mass organizations such as the Chinese Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Chinese Writers' Association resumed their activities. Creative work in various spheres of literature and art began to be revitalized step by step. From late 1977 to early 1978, the examination system in schools that had been abandoned during the "cultural revolution was restored, and new college students were once again enrolled through a nationwide unified examination. In the economic field, chaotic conditions prevailed in production as after-effects of the "cultural revolution," particularly in manufacturing, mining, communications and transportation. Harmful consequences were also reflected in obtructions in commercial transactions, serious imbalances between the various sectors of the national economy, and the lack of improvement over a long period in the people's material well-being. Soon after the smashing of the "gang of tour, the State Council adopted resolute measures to eliminate traffic jams along the railway lines. Beginning in December 1976 and during the first half of 1977, the Party Central Committee and the State Council held a series of meetings to discuss the urgent need to put things in order in the enterprises, and to work out various rules and regulations for restoring and developing production. After the work of consolidation, a number of enterprises on the brink of collapse began to emerge from their previous chaotic situation in production. National economy recovered rapidly and even made some progress in certain respects. In agriculture, a bumper harvest was reaped in 19/8, with grain production exceeding 300 billion kilogrammes, the highest figure on record. The total value of industrial production, which increased 14.3 percent in 1977 over the previous year, again increased 13.5 percent in 1978. Financial revenues, which increased 12.6 percent in 1977 over the previous year, registered an even higher increase of 28.2 percent in 1978. A financial balance was achieved both years, even with a little surplus. The living standards of the people were also on the rise. For the first time in many years, 60 percent of the workers and other employees throughout the country received various raises in pay in 1977. In 1978, the level of consumption among both the urban and rural residents rose 5.1 percent as compared with the previous year. Between August 12 and 18, 1977, only four years after the 10th Party Congress, the 11th Party Congress was held. Its convocation ahead of schedule was obviously necessary in order to decide on the major principles in the work of the Party and to elect a new Central Committee. Some 1,510 deputies attended the congress, representing more than 35 million Party members. Hua Guofeng made the political report on behalf of the Parly Central Committee. Ye Jianying gave a report on revision of the Party Constitution. Deng Xiaoping delivered the closing speech. The congress summed up the struggle against the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique and announced the conclusion of the "cultural revolution," which had lasted ten years. It re-alfirmed the building of China into a powerful modernized country within the present century as the fundamental task in the new period. The congress also revised the Party Constitution. The new Party Central Committee elected Hua Guofeng chairman of the CPC Central Committee, and elected Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Wang Dongxing its vice-chairmen. In February and March 1978, the 1st Session of the 5th National People's Congress was held. As the previous National People's Congress was elected in early 1975 when the "gang of four" still posed a serious threat to the country, the election of a new National People's Congress ahead of schedule was completely necessary. At the session, Hua Guofeng made a report on the work of the government on behalf of the State Council. The congress elected Ye Jianying chairman of the Standing Commit tee of the NPC, re-appointed Hua Guofeng as premier of the State Council, and appointed Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian and nine others as vice-premiers. ^ , Simultaneously with the National Peoples Congress, the 1st Session of the 5th National Committee of the Chinese People s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was also held. Deng Xiaoping was elected chairman of the National Committee. The revival of the CPPCC, which had been completely inactive during the "cultural revolution," was highly significant in enhancing cooperation between the CPC and the democratic parties and strengthening the people's democratic united front. The 11th Party Congress and the 1st Session of the 5th were unable to accomplish the task of formulating a correct hne and policies for the new period following the c0"c u , the ime "cultural revolution." The reasons for this were that at the time the Party Centra! Committee, in its basic flunking had ^not yet been able to make a clean sweep of the Left mistakes not on y of the "cultural revolution" but also of many years standing within the Party, and that Hua Guofeng, then chairman of the CPC continued to make "Left" mistakes on a series of major ^ifwas indeed not easy lo eliminate within a short time the political and ideological confusion caused by the cultural revolution" which had lasted ten years. The confusion was due partfy to the interference and sabotage by two counter-revolutionary cliques one headed by Lin Biao, the other by Jiang Qing; it was also the result of some of the decisions and measures adopted by Mao Zedong under a "Left" guideline, and was connected with the "Left" tendency that had existed within the Party for a long time Although Hua Guofeng had performed a meritorious role in the struggle to smash the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique and had attempted lo put an end to the confusion caused by the "cultural revolution," he failed to have a fundamental understanding of the problem of the "cultural revolution, particularly of the relationship between the "cultural revolution and Mao Zedong's mistakes in his late years. Hua Guofeng also lacked "e insight and courage to solve the complicated problem of dealing with and eliminating thoroughly the mistakes of the "cultural revolution," and at the same time upholding the historical position of Mao Zedong and the role of Mao Zedong Thought as the guiding ideology of our Party. He failed to realize that, only by honestly pointing out Mao Zedong's mistakes in his late years in launching and persisting in the "cultural revolution" and correcting them, would it be possible to carry on the fine traditions of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese revolution with Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought as their banner. He maintained that in order to uphold Mao Zedong's heritage, it was impermissible to negate his important ideas and decisions in the "cultural revolution." Proceeding from this wrong position, Hua Guofeng continued to persist in promoting the idea of "taking class struggle as the key link," and "continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" even afier the liquidation of the "gang of four." It was due to his obstructions that progress was slow and further advance was difficult with regard to restoring the work of veteran cadres and reversing unjust verdicts in history (including that of the 1976 Tiananmen Incident). These ideas of Hua Guofeng's found concentrated expression in two of his statements: "We should firmly uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made; we should always follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao issued."1 In fact, this "two-whatevers" approach, which denied the necessity to do any analysis, far from upholding the historical position of Mao Zedong and the authority of Mao Zedong Thought, could only serve to destroy them. Hua Guofeng regarded himself as the successor to Mao Zedong. While maintaining the old personality cult, he cultivated and accepted a new personality cult of himself. The tact that the 11th National Party Congress and the 1st Session of the 5th NPC, instead of correcting the erroneous theories, policies and slogans of the "cultural revolution," fully confirmed them, of course had something to do with the historical limitations of the time, but it was mainly the result of the influence of Hua Guofeng's mistakes. The Party Constitution that had been revised by the 1 1th Party Congress still contained "Left" mistakes. The work on revising the 725 PRC Constitution at the 1st Session of the 5th NPC restored many good points in the contents of the 1954 constitution. Nevertheless, it failed to thoroughly correct the mistakes contained in the 1975 Constitution. In economic work, just as stated in previous passages, Chinese economy was freed from a state of paralysis or semi-paralysis within the two years following the collapse of the "gang of four. This was an achievement. But it was just at this time an overanxious desire for achievements resulted in rash advance and a one-sided stress on speed. Starting from the winter of 1976, Hua Guofeng and the departments concerned in the Party Central Committee successively set unrealistically high targets in agricultural mechanization, the production of grain, petroleum, coal, steel and chemicals, and raised lofty slogans which could never be realized. In a report written by the State Council in July 19/ /, it was stated that "a situation is emerging which represents a new leap forward in the national economy." At the National People s Congress held in February 1978, Hua Guofeng put forward a programme of the State Council on the development of the national economy during the ten years from 1976 to 1985, which was based on a proposal made by the State Planning Commission and other related departments. According to this programme, by 1985 the production of steel should have reached 60 million tons (the actual output turned out to be 31.78 million tons in 1978), that of petroleum should have reached 250 million tons (the actual output was 104 million tons in 1978), and so forth. The unrealistic nature of these targets can be illustrated by the example of petroleum. The target for petroleum production was set without the necessary data obtained from geological surveys. As a matter of fact, petroleum production had not reached 14U million tons by the end of the 1980s. The extraordinarily high targets could not but require correspondingly high capital construction investment. According to the programme, capital construction investment during the eight years between 1978 and 1985 was equivalent to the total capital construction mvestment of the previous twenty-eight years. Although the programme had only been submitted to the National People's Congress for deliberation and had not yet been made public, it already played a destructive role in practical work. In 1978, the accumulation fund increased 30.6 percent over the previous year, while the fund for consumption increased only 8.4 percent. The 36.5 percent increase in the accumulation rate made 1978 the year with the highest increase rate in the twenty years since the "great leap forward" in 1958. The 31 percent increase in capital construction investment over the previous year also made 1978 the year with the biggest capital construction investment and the highest increase rate in investment in the twenty years since the "great leap forward." In light of the scientific and technological progress in foreign countries, Hua Guofeng put forward the watchwords "Don't be complacent and conservative" and "Guard against parochial arrogance" (which were actually the words of Mao Zedong). These were, of course, correct. However, proceeding from these watchwords, Hua Guofeng attempted to realize his plans for high-speed development by relying on foreign loans and premature, excessive import of foreign equipment and technology. The plans for highspeed development in metallurgical and chemical industrial departments were based on large-scale imports, and the funds needed for such imports were to be raised by means of foreign loans. The domestic capacity of supplying the corresponding equipment and of digesting the imported technology was not taken into account, nor was China's capacity for repaying its debts considered. That was why the plan was called a "rash advance planned on the basis of foreign resources." Although the implementation of such plans had just started, and some of the planned projects were completed in later years and produced some results, these plans were on the whole inadvisable. Despite some differences in socio-economic conditions, the "rash advance" planned for this period bore some resemblance to the "great leap forward" in the 1950s, with both originating from a "Left" ideological guideline which ignored objective conditions. The recent "rash advance" was planned for a period when the economy badly needed recuperation after suffering from the highly destructive 10-year-long turbulence. This was tantamount 727 to asking a sick person to run swiftly after just beginning to recover from a prolonged serious illness. The results could only run contrary to one's wishes. This "rash advance" violated the law of proportionate development of various sectors of the national economy by one-sidedly emphasizing the development of iron and steel, petroleum, chemical and other heavy industries, and by seeking high speed, huge accumulation and heavy investment. This could not improve, but could only aggravate the imbalances between the different sectors of the national economy. Considering the situation as a whole, although the "cultural revolution" had been brought to an end, and progress had been made in various spheres of work in the two years since the counter-revolutionary clique headed by Jiang Qing was toppled, the Party's ideological guideline failed to undergo a fundamental change. This seriously obstructed the entire work of the Party and the state. The situation, which was marked by two years of hesitant progress, was only ended by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee held in December 1978. The continuation of the "Left" ideological guideline in these two years, for which Hua Guofeng was mainly responsible, caused new ideological confusion among people both inside and outside the Party, and was also boycotted in various degrees by some Party members as well as ordinary people. On the one hand, there was a demand among people for making a distinction between what is right and what is wrong after a long period of turbulence and for eliminating "Left" mistakes, a demand which had not been met; on the other hand, there was a feeling of doubt and even of total distrust among some people towards Mao Zedong Thought, the leadership of the Party and socialism as a result of the "cultural revolution," which had tarnished the image of the Party and socialism. It was obvious that it would be difficult to withstand arid overcome this erroneous tendency without distinguishing between the rights and wrongs and eliminating the "Left" mistakes. Before he resumed work, Deng Xiaoping pointed out in his letter of April 10, 1977, to the Party Central Committee that it was essential to have a precise and full understanding of the system of Mao Zedong Thought, a viewpoint which was put forward in contradistinction to the "two-whatevers" approach. In May, he clearly stated that the "two-whatevers" approach was erroneous. In his speech at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, he warned against interpreting Mao Zedong Thought by hanging on his individual phrases or sentences, and stressed the need to be good at studying and grasping the system of Mao Zedong Thought and using it as a guide in our work in all fields. Only in this way, he added, can we avoid taking Mao Zedong Thought out of context or distorting it. The dissatisfaction and protest over the continued "Left" ideological guideline within the Party, from the top leadership to the rank and file, found their concentrated expression in the big debate on the criterion for judging truth which started in May 1978. On May 11, the Guangming Daily published an article under the by-line of Special Commentator which was entitled "Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Judging Truth." This article reiterated the basic Marxist principle on the theory of cognition that practice is the sole criterion for judging truth. It sharply pointed out that the mental shackles imposed on people by the "gang of four" were far from being completely broken, that people should dare to go and touch the "forbidden zone" set up by the "gang of four" and have the courage to thrash out what is right and what is wrong, that people should not apply set tormulas to limit, misuse or delete revolutionary practice which is boundlessly rich and forging ahead with flying speed, and that people should be brave enough to look into new problems posed by most recent practice. This article attracted great public attention for its refutation of the erroneous "two-whatevers" approach from the viewpoint of basic theory, and gradually led to a discussion. At this moment, Hua Guofeng instructed the propaganda departments under the Party Central Committee to refrain from making any comments and avoid getting involved. Wang Dongxing criticized this article on a number of occasions. But the discussion could no longer be cooled down by their will. Commencing in June, leaders of the Party and government depart 729 ments and the armed forces at the central level, and of most provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the administration of the central government, and the big military area commands made open speeches or had articles published supporting or expressing agreement with the viewpoint contained in this article. Veteran revolutionaries including Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Hu Yaobang, Nie Rongzhcn, Xu Xiangqian and Luo Ruiqing supported the discussion. On different occasions, they emphasized the principle of seeking truth from facts, and stressed the need to restore the fine traditions of the Party, to follow the principle of acting in the light of China's resources in economic construction and to resist and overcome the "Left" tendency that still existed. On June 2, 1978, in his speech at a meeting on the political work in the PLA, Deng Xiaoping reiterated Mao Zedong's viewpoint of seeking truth from facts. He criticized certain comrades who "speak about Mao Zedong Thought every day, but forget, abandon or even oppose the basic Marxist viewpoint and approach of Comrade Mao Zedong on seeking truth from facts, proceeding from practice and integrating theory with practice." He said that "proceeding from their point of view, it is enough to copy, to pass on and to follow the original words of Marx, Lenin and Comrade Mao Zedong." Deng further pointed out that anyone who opposed seeking truth from tacts could not claim to be following Marxism-Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought, but could only lead us to idealism and metaphysics and cause damage to our work and failure of the revolution. Basing himself on this belief, he maintained that "it is essential to make a clean sweep of the poisonous influence of Lin Biao and the ‘gang of four,' set things right, shatter mental shackles and achieve the great emancipation of our minds."2 With the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and other veteran revolutionaries, and with the support of the masses of people both inside and outside the Party, the Party was finally able, by the end of 1987, to start solving the problems which had not been solved in the two years of hesitant progress.

A Great Turning Point—the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee

The 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC held in December 1978 was an event of far-reaching significance and marked a great turning point in the history of the Party since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The session put an end to the two years' meandering in efforts to set things right following the downfall of the "gang of four." But as a great turning point, its significance went far beyond this. In the long years of revolution and construction, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong always upheld the Marxist principle of seeking truth from facts, stressed the importance of proceeding from reality in all matters as well as of integrating theory with practice, and after the socialist transformation was completed, made great efforts towards the industrialization of China which resulted in great achievements. But starting from the "great leap forward" in 1958, a "Left" ideological guideline repeatedly emerged within the Party in the course of the its etlort to break down fetishes and superstitions and explore China's own road to socialism. This seriously impaired the Party's correct ideological guideline as well as its correct line of action, eventually leading to the 10-year-long turbulence of the "cultural revolution." In the zigzag course of advance during the years from 1957 to 1966, the Party Central Committee and Party organizations at various' levels, Mao Zedong and many other leaders of the Party Central Committee, and leading officials at various levels as well as ordinary Party members, put forward many good ideas, proposals and schemes which accorded with China's real conditions, and therefore were beneficial to the development of socialism. Some of these produced initial results when implemented, while others were put into practice only on a limited scale. But practically all of them were engulfed and jettisoned in the turbulence of those ten years. After the "cultural revolution," the fine traditions of the Party should have been restored, all the good 731 ideas that had been put forward in previous years adopted and developed on a new basis, thereby eliminating the "Lett ideological guideline and all its manifestations as they had proved through practice extremely harmful to the cause of the Party and of the people. These objectives, which the two years of meandering progress failed to achieve, were attained by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee. This is why the 3rd Plenary Session was recorded as a great turning point in Party history. . , At a Central Committee work meeting held betore the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, Chen Yun and many other veteran revolutionaries raised some important issues that were of common concern to people both inside and outside the Party. They maintained that the mistakes of the "cultural revolution" should be thoroughly corrected and unjust verdicts of the past years, such as in the case of Peng Dehuai, be rescinded. At the closing session of the Central Committee work meeting, Deng Xiaoping made an important speech entitled "Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts, Unite as One and Adopt a Forward-Looking Approach." This in fact provided the basic guideline for the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, which was held between December 18 and 22 immediately following the work meeting. According to Hua Guofeng's original plan for the session, the main topic of discussion at the session was to have been focused on economic questions. The speeches and statements made by Deng Xiaoping and many other veteran revolutionaries at the work meeting enlarged the sphere of discussion and changed the session into an important meeting aimed at setting things right and creating a new situation in all aspects of work. . In his speech, Deng Xiaoping emphatically pointed out that in realizing the four modernizations, just as in making revolution in the earlier years, the principle of seeking truth from facts must be followed; this was the foundation of the proletarian world outlook and of Marxist ideology. At present, he argued, the restoration of the tradition of seeking truth from facts required emancipation of the mind and overcoming the ossified thinking that existed in the Party for various reasons. He sharply pointed out that without emancipation of the mind, thinking was bound to become ossified. The result would be "strange phenomena": people would be wrapped up in the trammels of conventional ideas, bend in whatever direction the wind blew, and practise book worship which was divorced from reality. He said that "there would be no hope for China's four modernizations if ossified thinking was not done away with, or bold steps were not taken to emancipate the minds of cadres and of the people."3 The 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee expressed agreement with the contents of Deng Xiaoping's speech by stating in its communique: "The plenary session highly appraised the discussion on practice being the sole criterion for judging truth and considered that it had a profound historical significance for the entire Party and people in promoting emancipation of the mind and in correcting the ideological guideline. No Party, state or nation will be able to make progress, or grow in vitality, but will instead court its own destruction, if it proceeds from book worship in everything and if its thinking is ossified." By breaking the shackles of the "two- whate vers" approach in people's minds, this statement laid the ideological foundation for overcoming the "Leftist" ideological guideline that had prevailed for many years, restoring the Party's fine traditions, and seeking China's own road to socialism along a correct direction. The plenary session earnestly discussed the question of shifting the emphasis of the Party's work. It maintained that the nationwide campaign to expose and criticize Lin Biao and the "gang of four" had achieved tremendous successes, and that the emphasis of the Party's work and the focus of attention of the entire people should be resolutely and opportunely shifted to socialist construction and modernization. This was an extremely important decision. The 11th National Party Congress held in 1977 had played a positive role in mobilizing the entire Party to build China into a powerful, socialist, modernized country. But the Party was then also faced with the task of exposing and criticizing Lin Biao and the "gang of four." Moreover, the erroneous theories, policies and slogans of the "cultural revolution," which the 1 1th Party Congress had contin ued to confirm, ran counter to the cause of socialist construction and modernization. Only on the basis of emancipating the mind and overcoming "Left" ossified thinking, could the great historic task of shifting the emphasis of the work of the entire Party to construction for modernization be accomplished. The communique of the plenary session pointed out: "The realization of the four modernizations requires an increase by a large margin in the forces of production; it also calls for changes in the relations of production and the superstructure, methods of management, form of activity and ways of thinking which do not accord with the development of the forces of production; therefore, it represents an extensive and deep-going revolution." This means that the relations of production and the superstructure, methods of management, and forms of activity and ways of thinking are subject to change, but changes must meet the need for development of the forces of production and be conducive to their increase. This was a basic break with the harmful standpoint of trying to change, according to one's own will, the relations of production and the superstructure in disregard of the level of development of the forces of production— actually nothing but a "Left" idea of making revolution for the sake of revolution. In his speech, Deng Xiaoping said: "Democracy is an important condition for the emancipation of the mind." "In a fairly long period in the past, democratic centralism was not really practised, centralism was talked about in isolation from democracy, and there was too little democracy.... Without changing this situation, how can you expect people to emancipate their minds and activate their brains? How can the four modernizations be realized?" Therefore, for the good of socialist construction and modernization, it was necessary to strengthen democracy and practise democratic centralism in a correct way. While stressing democracy, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that there were still a small number of counter-revolutionaries in China and that we should, of course, not lessen our vigilance against them. The communique of the plenary session elaborated in detail on the issues of democracy and dictatorship, democracy and centralism, and democracy and the legal system. The plenary session held that in view of the existence of an extremely small number of counter-revolutionaries and other criminals, the dictatorship of the proletariat must definitely not be weakened. In dealing with the class struggle in a socialist society, a strict distinction must be made between the two types of contradictions which are different in nature and must be handled correctly. Only in this way can we ensure stability and unity which are essential to socialist construction and modernization. In the ideological and political life witnin the ranks of the people, only democratic methods can be adopted, whereas methods of repression and attack should not be used. Socialist construction and modernization require centralized, unified leadership and the strict implementation of various rules and regulations and labour discipline, but full democracy is also needed for the correct implementation of centralism. In this historical period, stress on democracy and a relationship of dialectical unity between democracy and centralism is particularly needed. To guarantee people's democracy, it is necessary to strengthen the socialist legal system and institutionalize and legalize the democratic system so as to ensure the stability, continuity and maximum authority of this system as well as of the laws. All this will help to create a situation where people can resort to law and must abide by the law, where law is strictly implemented and violations of law are invariably dealt with, where all the people are ensured of being equal before their own laws, and where no one is allowed any special privilege of being above the law. Apart from political democracy, Deng Xiaoping delivered a special discourse on economic democracy. He said that in our economic structure, power was too much centralized, and that bold measures should be taken, step by step, to decentralize the power so that the initiative of the four sides— the state, the locality, the enterprise and the labourer as an individual—could be called into full play. What was most pressing at the time, he added, was to give more power to the factories and mines as well as the production teams in the rural areas; this would enable every factory and production team to display, in one thousand and one ways, a spirit of initiative and creativity. In discussing 735 economic problems, the plenary session expressed complete agreement with Deng Xiaoping's opinions. While confirming the P™ciple of decentralizing power, it pointed out that bold steps should be taken to streamline the economic administrative organs at various levels, that people should resolutely act according to the laws governing economic affairs, that they should pay great attention to the role of the law of value, that earnest effort should be made to solve the problems in differentiating the tunctions between the Party, government organizations and enterprises, such as the problem of Party organizations superseding the power of the government, the problem of government organizations superseding the power of the enterprises, and so on. The plenary session attached great importance to agriculture, the base of national economy. In order to call into play the socialist initiative of the millions upon millions of peasants, the session worked out a series of policies and economic measures, including raising the prices for the planned purchase of grain by the state while lowering the prices for marketing industrial goods used in agriculture. The plenary session adopted the Decision on Certain Questions in Speeding Up the Development of Agriculture (draft), and started eliminating the "Left" mistakes m agricultural work. It clearly stated the need "to strengthen labour organizations and establish a strict production responsibility system " The session also endorsed the system of contracting a job with the production team as the basic accounting unit and of linking remuneration with output. In his speech, Deng Xiaoping put forward a major policy by saving- "I am of the opinion that it should be allowed for some of the localities, enterprises, workers and peasants to have a bigger income or larger revenues and a higher standard of living as a result of their hard work and greater achievements. The tact that they enjoy a good life before others will definitely serve as a nowerful example for their neighbours, enabling other localities, work-units and individuals to learn from them. In this way, the whole national economy will continually be pushed forward in a wave-like manner, with the result that the people of all nationalities in the country will become well off fairly rapidly. Deng said this was "a policy which can influence and propel the whole national economy forward."4 Subsequent events proved the great positive role of this policy, since it was in keeping with the requirements of objective laws. In a word, while persisting in socialism as the pre-condition, the plenary session already took the first decisive step toward a much-needed reform in economic system and a corresponding reform in political system. In view of the actual situation in the economic sphere, the session called for an effort within a few years to gradually readjust the serious imbalances that existed in the economy, eliminate the confusion in production, construction, circulation and distribution, and solve the problems in the lives of the people which had accumulated over the years. In opposition to the proposed "rash advance" based on foreign resources, the plenary session stressed the need for an over-all balance and a step-by-step advance in capital construction in the light of the country's own resources. The session also put forward the principle of opening China to the outside world and the principle of attaching great importance to science and education. In its communique, it was said, "On the basis of self-reliance, we should actively develop economic cooperation characterized by equality and mutual benefit with other countries of the world, try our best to adopt the world's advanced technology and equipment, and exert every effort to strengthen the work on science and education which are essential to the realization of the four modernizations. In light of the experience and lessons in Party history, the plenary session decided to strengthen the system of democratic centralism, to round out the Party's rules and regulations and to strictly implement discipline. It stressed the importance of collective leadership in the Party Central Committee and the Party committees at various levels; it required that the press and the literary and art works of the whole country should sing more praises of the masses of workers, peasants, soldiers, the Party and veteran revolutionaries, and give less publicity to individuals. The plenary session laid it down that leading cadres at all levels should be the first to observe Party discipline, that whoever CHARTER NINE A NEW PROSPECT IN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION 737 violates the Party's discipline should be subject to punishment, that Party organizations should be strict and fair in appraising merits and demerits and in meting out awards and punishments, and that they should promote healthy tendencies while combatting unhealthy ones. The decisions made in these respects were highly significant in redressing the damage inflicted on Partyorganizations by the "cultural revolution" and the abnormalities that still existed during the two years of meandering progress. In order to uphold the Party's rules and regulations, and cultivate a good style of work for the Party, the plenary session established through election the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection with Chen Yun as the first secretary. The plenary session held a serious discussion on some major political events that had taken place during the "cultural revolution" and some other questions left over by history before the "cultural revolution." It decided to annul the erroneous documents issued in 1976 concerning the campaign to "counter the Rightist wind to reverse verdicts" and concerning disposition of the Tiananmen Incident. It examined and corrected the wrong judgments on Peng Dehuai, Tao Zhu, Bo Yibo, Yang Shangkun and other comrades, and proposed that in solving problems left over by history, the principle of seeking truth Irom facts and correcting whatever mistakes are found must be followed. Some people were perplexed by the possibility that correcting the "Left" mistakes of the "cultural revolution" and earlier periods might lead to the negation of Mao Zedong and of Mao Zedong Thought. The plenary session, while persisting in solving the problems left over by history according to the principle of seeking truth from facts, fully affirmed the great merits and achievements of Mao Zedong in the light of historical reality. It further pointed out that to require a revolutionary leader to be free of shortcomings and mistakes was not Marxist, and did not accord with the appraisal Mao Zedong made of himself over the years. As to the overall work of summing up the "cultural revolution," the session left it for later consideration at an appropriate date (it was taken up at the 6th Plenary Session of lltn Party Central Committee two and a half years later ). The session solemnly declared: "The lofty task facing the Party Central Committee on the theoretical front is to give guidance and education to the entire Party membership and the entire people in recognizing the great merits and achievements of Comrade Mao Zedong from a historical and scientific perspective, to have an overall and precise understanding of the scientific system of Mao Zedong Thought, and to integrate the universal theories of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought with the concrete practice of socialist construction and modernization and develop them under new historical conditions." The plenary session elected Chen Yun additional member of the Central Committee Politburo and of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, and vice-chairman of the Central Committee; Deng Yingchao, Hu Yaobang and Wang Zhen additional members of the Politburo; and Huang Kecheng, Song Renqiong, Hu Qiaomu, Xi Zhongxun and Wang Renzhong additional members of the Central Committee. Although Hua Guofeng remained as chairman of the Party Central Committee after the plenary session (Hu Yaobang was soon appointed secretary-general in charge of the everyday work of the Central Committee), Deng Xiaoping had become the leading core of the Party Central Committee in terms of the ideological guideline and practical work of the Party.

Setting Things Right and Starting China's Reform and Opening to the Outside World

The guiding principles of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee won the resolute support of the entire Party membership and the people of various nationalities throughout China. Having gained the initiative in setting things to rights after the session, the Party in the period from 1979 to 1982, step by step, solved many problems left over by history since the founding of the PRC and dealt with many new problems which had emerged in everyday life. It made readjustments in the various social relations which had been seriously upset during the "cultural revolution," undertook the arduous task of construction and reform, and succeeded in creating an excellent political and economic situation. Correcting the Ideological Guideline Emphasis in the overall work was to be shifted to socialist construction and modernization. A smooth transition required an earnest effort by the Party to sort out the "Left mistaken ideas on the relationship between economic construction and^ class struggle After resolutely abandoning use of the slogan grasp class struggle as the key link," the Party Central Committee made a new correct exposition of the main contradiction m socialist society. In March 1979, Deng Xiaoping pointed out: Our forces of production still remain at a very low level of development and lag far behind the needs of our people and our country. This is our main contradiction in the present period. To solve this main contradiction is our central task." This does not mean, of course, that there will be no class struggle m the future. He expl^fd' "Class struggle in socialist society is an objective fact, which should neither be understated, nor overstated." Understatement or overstatement will lead to serious mistakes. On the basis of this understanding, the Party went a step ^ theory of "continuing the revolution under the dictatorship oft proletariat," which served as the fundamental ideol^ical guideline for the "cultural revolution. It was pointed out that thi theory, according to the interpretation at the time, had been aimed at "seizing power from capitalist-roaders, pushing the Party committee aside to make "revolution" and "Down with everything!" Practice proved this theory to be erroneous. From then on, slogans with unclear implications such as these which might again become factors of instability, should therefore no l0Ihi the course of setting things to rights, the masses of cadres and people were freed from the mental shackles of the Personality cult and dogmatism that had prevailed for a period of time. Th was much liveliness in the intellectual life of people both inside and outside the Party, stimulating them to work hard in studying new situations and solving new problems. This represented the mainstream at the time. In the meantime, certain phenomena also appeared which required attention and vigilance. On the one hand, some comrades showed a lack of understanding of the Party's line and policies adopted since the 3rd Plenary Session, and even harboured a feeling of resentment towards them. This indicated that they had not yet shaken off the yoke of "Left" ideology. On the other hand, there was a handful of people who, taking advantage of the Party's effort to set things to rights, waved the banner of "social reform" and distorted the meaning of the slogan of "emancipating the mind." They used the tactic of "attacking a person for a single fault without considering his other aspects," and of exaggerating the Party's mistakes to the utmost extent. In this way they tried to negate the leadership of the Party and the road to socialism pointed out by the Party. Some of them, by raising demagogic slogans such as "Oppose hunger" and "Struggle for human rights," instigated people to hold demonstrations, break into Party and government organizations by force, or even organize illegal organizations and publish clandestine journals, establish ties between the different localities of the country, and work in collaboration with the hostile political forces in Taiwan and certain foreign countries. Inside the Communist Party, there was an extremely small number of people who wavered ideologically when the Party exposed and corrected its own mistakes. Instead of recognizing the danger of this trend of bourgeois liberalization, which manifested itself in opposing the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system, they supported it directly or indirectly to a certain extent. This state of affairs, if allowed to go unchecked, was bound to disrupt the situation of stability and unity, leading to grave consequences. In view of all this, Deng Xiaoping, as entrusted by the Party Central Committee, issued a declaration at the Forum on the Party's Theoretical Work held in March 1979. Adopting a clearcut stand, he stated that the four cardinal principles of upholding the road of socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat or peo 741 nle's democratic dictatorship, the leadership of the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought are the fundmental pre-conditions for realization of the four modernizations." "Wavering in any of these four cardinal principles, added, "will endanger the cause of socialism as a whole, as ell as the entire cause of construction and modernization While criticizing the "Left" tendency of doubting the line of the 3rd Plenary Session, Deng Xiaoping put the emphasis on sharpy exposing the capitalist essence of the so-called social reform advocated by certain people. He clearly pointed out that Ch should introduce the advanced technology and other useful things of the capitalist countries selectively and in a planned way, bu would never emulate or bring in the capitalist system with all its ugliness and decadence. He also gave a scientific definition of the phrase "the emancipation of the mind," stating that cmanupat ing the mind means the application of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought to the study of new situations and the solution of new problems" with the aim of promoting the cause of socialism in China. We should never a low some people to use it to attack Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, he warned. His speech demonstrates that from the very beginning, the reform and open policy carried out by the Communist Party of China had a clear socialist orientation. The Party Central Committee was of the opinion that m order to completely overcome the "Left" and Right deviations and help the entire Party membership and the people of the whole country o identify themselves with the line of the 3rd Plenary Session, it was necessary to have a correct understanding of the historical path the Party had travelled since the founding of the PRC and to sum up in a scientific manner the historical experience gained by the Party during this period. This was because it was necessary not mily to bring order out of the chaos created by Lm Biao and 1 the gang of four " but also to correct the mistakes made by Mao Zedong in his later years. Such correction was essential as it was indispensable to the complete shattering of the "Left" mental shackles and t e further advance of the cause of the Party. But in order to do so, it was necessary to deal with the problem of how to appraise the cartel and thinking of Mao Zedong. However, the career and thinking of Mao Zedong "are not the career and thinking of himself alone, they are at the same time the career and thinking of his comrades-inarms, the Party and the people; they are the crystallization of the experience of the Chinese people in their revolutionary struggle in more than half a century."8 If the Party had not been able to handle this problem properly, there would have been serious confusion within the Party and among the people, and the Party would have lost its bearings. The 4lh Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee convened in September 1979, discussed and endorsed Ye Jianying's speech which was to be made at the rally in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the PRC. This speech gave an initial summing-up of the history of the Party since the founding of the PRC. In November of the same year, the Party Central Committee started work on drafting the Resolution on Certain Historical Questions of the Party Since the Founding of the PRC, with Deng Xiaoping in charge. He pointed out the general ideological guideline for the resolution consists of three points: 1. Establish the historical position of Mao Zedong, persist in and develop Mao Zedong Thought. This is the most crucial point; 2. It is necessary to make an honest analysis of the major events in the thirty years since the founding of the PRC and see which are correct and which are wrong. This should include a fair appraisal of the merits and demerits, rights and wrongs of some leading comrades ; 3. Make a basic summing-up of the past events.9 After the draft for discussion was completed, it was submitted to 4,000 Party comrades for their deliberation and then revised in the light of opinions from various quarters. In June 1981, the 6th Plenary Session of the Party's 1 1th Central Committee adopted the resolution. As the resolution pointed out, the history of the Party since the founding of the PRC, taken as a whole, was one in which the Party led the people of various nationalities of the country in carrying out socialist revolution and socialist construction and gaining great achievements under the guidance of MarxismLeninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Owing to the Party leadership's lack of experience, deviations of a subjectivist nature 743 occurred in its analysis of situations and its understanding of the country's conditions, with the result that the Party committed mistakes of enlarging the scope of class struggle and making impetuous and rash advances in economic construction, includmg such serious mistakes as the "cultural revolution" which affected all spheres of work and lasted for a long time. However, the achievements gained in the last thirty-two years are primary. It would be wrong to ignore or cover up the mistakes, or to ignore or negate the achievements and the successful experience behind them. The resolution appraised the historical position of Mao Zedong in a matter-of-fact way, and fully expounded the great significance of Mao Zedong Thought as the guiding thought for the Party. It pointed out that Mao Zedong was a great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theoretician. Considering his lilc as a whole, his contributions towards the Chinese revolution far outweighed his mistakes. His contributions were primary while his mistakes were secondary. Mao Zedong Thought is the application and development of Marxism-Leninism in China. It represents the correct theoretical principles and the summing-up of experience concerning the Chinese revolution and its correctness has been borne out by practice; it is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China. The resolution made a scientific summary of Mao Zedong Thought in all its aspects as well as of the stand, viewpoint and method that run through all its component parts. The resolution stressed that Mao Zedong Thought is an invaluable intellectual treasure of the Party which shall serve as a guide for our action for a long time, that we must continue to uphold it and enrich and develop it with new principles and conclusions that accord with reality. This resolution made a scientific analysis and criticism of the "Left" mistakes that had existed for many years and of Mao Zedong's mistakes in his later years, while on the other hand, resolutely upheld the Party's fine traditions that had formed through long struggles, as well as the scientific system of Mao Zedong Thought and the historical position of Mao Zedong. Thus it drew a clear distinction between right and wrong, corrected the "Left" and Right erroneous points of view existing at the time, and achieved ideological unity in the Party and among the people of the whole country. The resolution provided the fundamental guarantee for maintaining unity in the Party and among the entire people as well as for the smooth development of socialist construction. The fact that this resolution could be drawn up not long after the ending of the "cultural revolution," providing correct conclusions on extremely important and complicated historical questions, fully demonstrates the foresight, the sagacity and the high level of political maturity of the collective leadership of the Party Central Committee with Deng Xiaoping at the core. The adoption of the resolution marked the victorious conclusion of the Party's task of correcting the ideological guideline. In the course of discussing the draft resolution, many comrades criticized the mistakes made by Hua Guofeng in his work since the smashing of the "gang of four," and asked for a change in his post. At the Politburo meeting held in November and December 1980, it was pointed out that Hua Guofeng had done some useful work in the previous four years, but his mistaken ideas on some questions of principle had not fundamentally changed, and obviously he lacked the political and organizational ability required as chairman of the Party Central Committee. At the suggestion of the Politburo, the 6th Plenary Session of the Party's 11th Central Committee held in June 1981, simultaneously with the adoption of the resolution, decided to endorse Hua Guofeng's request to resign from his posts as chairman of the Party Central Committee and of its Military Commission (prior to this, at the suggestion of the CPC Central Committee, the 3rd Session of the 5th National People's Congress held in August and September 1980 had decided that he no longer hold the premiership of the State Council, a post which was taken over by Zhao Ziyang). The session elected Hu Yaobang chairman of the Party Central Committee,10 'Deng Xiaoping chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee, and Hua Guofeng vice-chairman of the Central Committee. In view of the need for younger comrades to assume leadership in the Party Central Committee, and of the fact that Hu Yaobang had many years' work experience in the Red Army, the Party and the Youth League and that he had made outstanding achievements in the work of bringing order out of chaos and reversing unjust verdicts after the "cultural revolution," he was elected chairman (general secretary) of the Party Central Committee. Readjusting Social Relations One of the important measures for readjusting social relations was to reverse large numbers of unjust verdicts made during the "cultural revolution" and handle step by step the many problems left over by history since the founding of the PRC. Although after the downfall of the "gang of four," the work on reversing unjust verdicts was partially carried out, progress was quite slow. After 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, Party, government and other organizations at the central and local levels all quickened their pace in reversing unjust verdicts according to the principle of seeking truth from facts and correcting whatever mistakes were found. Cadres in these Party, government and army organizations who had been persecuted were rehabilitated, and democratic personages and intellectuals who had been attacked, framed or persecuted in other ways had their names cleared. In February 1980, the 5th Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee decided to annul the various false charges against Liu Shaoqi and the wrong resolution concerning him, and restored his reputation as one of the great Marxists, proletarian revolutionaries, and principal leaders of the Party and state, thus reversing the biggest unjust verdict made since the founding of the People's Republic. The Party also re-examined some of the major cases which had occurred in the periods before the "cultural revolution." The work mainly consisted of reversing the wrong verdict made in 1955 on the "Hu Feng counter-revolutionary clique," correcting in April 1 978 the wrong verdicts passed on those who had been unjustifiably labelled as "Rightists" in 1957, and reversing the unjust verdicts passed on those who had been labelled as "Right opportunists" in the campaign to "combat Right opportunism" in 1959. By the end of 1982, the extensive work on reversing unjust verdicts had been basically completed, and unjust verdicts involving more than three million cadres had been reversed. With a light heart, they went back to work or were appointed to new jobs. Tens of millions of people who were their family members, relatives or close colleagues and who had been treated unfairly because of such relationships no longer suffered from discrimination. With their minds relieved, they plunged heart and soul into the cause of socialist construction and modernization. The names of the comrades who had been persecuted to death also had their names cleared. In the course of carrying out this work, the Party's fine tradition of seeking truth from facts was restored and developed. WThile calling the initiative of the cadres into play through reversing unjust verdicts, the Party adopted measures to readjust all types of social relations with the aim of mobilizing all possible positive factors and trying all possible means to turn negative factors into positive ones: 1. Beginning in January 1979, landlords and rich peasants were allowed to discard their class labels and were treated as rural commune members, while the class status of their children was uniformly defined as that of commune member. During the land reform, to classify the landlords and rich peasants as such was necessary; because the situation changed, it was also necessary to change their class status. 2. Commencing in January 1979, the Party's policies were implemented with regard to former Kuomintang personnel who had taken part in a rebellion against the Kuomintang authorities or who had come over to our side. Soon after, release from custody was granted to those still being held among the former Kuomintang officials and officers who had worked in the Kuomintang Party, government, army or secret service and who were of a rank no higher than a county magistrate or a regimental commander. Besides, the Party's policies were also implemented towards Taiwan compatriots residing on the mainland and the family members and relatives of people who had left the mainland for Taiwan. 3. Beginning in November 1979, work started on differentiat 747 ing small traders, peddlers, small handicraftsmen and other labouring people from former industrialists and businessmen. By 1981, out of the original 860,000 industrialists and businessmen, some 700,000 had their class status re-defined as labourers. Not long after, it was clearly stated that former industrialists and businessmen had become labourers in the socialist society and their class status changed to that of cadres or workers. 4. An earnest effort was made to implement the Party's policy towards intellectuals and attention was paid to improving their working and living conditions. The state began to set up a system of academic degrees and restored the standards for evaluating academic and professional titles. Work was accelerated on the training and promotion of professionals and a number of unemployed scientific and technical personnel were given appropriate jobs. 5. Support was given to the democratic parties to resume their activities, develop their party organizations, and play an active role in political life, economic construction and in the fields of culture, education, science and technology. In August 1980, Deng Xiaoping pointed out: "We must further strengthen on a broad scale the unity among all socialist labourers, patriots who support socialism and patriots who uphold the unity of our motherland. Our united front became further expanded and consolidated. 6. In 1980 and 1981, the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee held several meetings to discuss questions concerning Tibet, Yunnan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia and to make an earnest effort to implement the Party's policies on minority nationalities. The central and local authorities took the tags off comrades who had been labelled as "local nationalist elements." 7. In March 1982, the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee issued a document on religious questions during the period of socialism which elaborated on the Party's relevant basic viewpoints and policies. Around this time, patriotic religious organizations resumed their activities; monasteries, temples and shrines were re-opened after being repaired or reconstructed and the Party's religious policies were implemented. 8. The Party reaffirmed its policies towards overseas Chinese, protecting and praising their enthusiasm in loving their country and homeland, and encouraged them to make contributions in support of national construction. The readjustments made in the Party's policies and their implementation, both of which are described above, were a correct handling of a series of contradictions among the people; they played an important role in effectively calling into play the initiative of people of various social strata, promoting social stability and unity, consolidating and expanding the patriotic united front, and propelling the cause of construction and modernization forward. Strengthening Party-Building During the ten years of turbulence, the Party's fine traditions and good style of work were seriously damaged. Party discipline slackened, ideas of individualism and anarchism were rampant, and corrupt practices also spread among some cadres. A lot of effective work had to be done in Party building so that the Party could play its role even better as the core of leadership in socialist construction and modernization. in order to implement the decision of 3rd Plenary Session of 11th Central Committee on perfecting Party rules and regulations, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection held its first plenary session in January 1979. The session studied and formulated practical measures to strengthen disciplinary education and the work on maintaining a good style of work, and started solving some outstanding problems in Party building. Party commissions for disciplinary inspection at various levels seriously dealt with infractions of discipline by Party members. In November 1979, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued a document entitled "Regulations Concerning Living Conditions and Benefits for High-Ranking Cadre," reaffirming some of the regulations laid down in the periods before the "cultural revolution" which had proved effective. In issuing these regulations, the Party Central Committee and the State Council stressed that the high-ranking cadres should take the lead in displaying the fine traditions of the Party. The 5th 749 Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee held in February 1980 adopted "Guiding Principles for Inner-Party Political Lite. It laid down basic regulations on 12 questions related to persisting in the Party line, upholding collective leadership, and maintaining centralism and unity of the Party. At a forum convened in November of the same year by the Central Commission tor Disciplinary Inspection, Chen Yun sharply pointed out: The style of a political party in power determines its very survival. He called for a better understanding of the question by Party organizations at all levels and greater effort made by them in Party-building. The Party Central Committee seriously summed up and learned from the experiences and lessons in the political life of the Party and the state and began to raise the question of rcfoim of the leadership system of the Party and state. The enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee held in August 1980 discussed and approved Deng Xiaoping's important speech entitled "Reforming the Leadership System of the Party and the State." Deng Xiaoping pointed out: "It is true that our various mistakes in the past had something to do with the thinking and style of work of certain leaders, but more important were the problems of organizational set-up and work systems. He maintained that the socialist system had great superiority, but "many malpractices exist in the current specific institutions of our Party and state which hinder or even seriously ^impede the display of the superiority of the socialist system. The major malpractices are bureaucracy, over-concentration of power, patriarchal behaviour, and leading cadres enjoying life-long tenure and privileges of all kinds." The crucial problem was the overconcentration of power. Most of these malpractices were caused by an unscientific approach to the solution of certain problems due to lack of experience. But they were "more or less tainted with feudalism." Therefore, while opposing the influence of bourgeois ideology, there was the problem of eliminating the influence of feudal ideas. But we should oppose feudal ideas with socialist ideology, and should never allow opposition to socialism under the guise of opposing feudalism. The idea that one is entitled to propagating capitalist ideology in order to eliminate the remnant influence of feudalism is totally wrong.12 This speech provided the basic guiding thought for reform of the system of leadership of the Party and the state. The Party took the first steps in the reform of the cadre system in order to meet the need of modernization. The Party Central Committee stressed that the selection and promotion of cadres, especially from among the middle-aged and young people, must be carried out according to principles of moral integrity and professional expertise. Moral integrity is primarily represented by upholding the road of socialism and the leadership of the Party as well as the revolutionization of the cadres as individuals. With this as the prerequisite, the contingent of cadres should be made up of younger, more educated and more professional persons. In February 1982, the Parly Central Committee adopted the "Decision on Institututing the Retirement System for Veteran Cadres," whereby the de facto life tenure of leading cadres was abolished. In response to the call of the Central Committee, many veterans willingly retired, left their posts or "withdrew to the second front," as as the saying goes. A large number of middle-aged and young tested cadres assumed leadership in succession. The step-by-step replacement of the veterans by new cadres was a strategic move adopted by the Party to ensure the steady advance of the socialist cause and the continuity of the Party's line and policies. Under the leadership of the Central Committee's Military Commission headed by Deng Xiaoping, the quality of the People's Liberation Army has been raised both in its military and political aspects; this has been achieved through an effort to make it a modernized and standardized armed force. The Party assumed absolute leadership over the army. The PLA has made tremendous achievements in cementing the relationship between the armed force and the people, in defending China's borders, protecting China's security and participating in socialist construction. In February and March 1979, Chinese border troops launched a successful campaign of self-defense against the Vietnamese invaders. This dealt a blow at the arrogance of the Viet Nam authorities and their regional hegemonism, and brought a 751 relatively long period of stability to the Sino-Vietnamese borders. With a consolidated defense as a pre-condition, the proportion of military expenditures in the national budget has been reduced year by year since 1979 in order to divert more funds to construction. (Military expenditures accounted for l7-5 Percenl °[ thc national budget in 1979, and only 8 percent m 1988 ) 19^' China decided to cut down the armed forces by a million, and smoothly completed a reduction the scale of which has rarely been seen anywhere. The implementation of this major policy decision was highly significant for the maintenance of world peace, promoting China's four modernizations and the building of its modernized armed forces. Readjustment of National Economy and Rural Reform After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, the Party shifted the focus of its work to socialist modernization. This brought an end to the economic stagnation and retrogression with a change for the better, but the serious imbalances among the major relationships within the national economy persisted. Chen Yun and Li Xiannian wrote to the Central Committee proposing that "there should be a period of two or three years for readjusting the economy so that the various imbalances can be basically eliminated."13 Only by solving this problem, Li Xiannian added, could better conditions be created for f uture growth of the national economy, and a good start be made for the work of the entire Party and the country as a whole after the shift of emphasis is completed.'* The Central Committee s Work Conference convened in April 1979, formulated a principle for the allocation of three years to "readjust, restructure, consolidate and improve" the national economy (the principle was called the eight-character policy for brevity). . f Readjusting the national economy was in fact a process of exploring the way to socialist modernization suited to Chinese conditions; it was also a process of carrying out reform and opening to the outside world. Deng Xiaoping pointed out, "In carrying out construction, there is also the problem of acting according to Chinese conditions and finding a Chinese way to modernization." In modernizing China, he maintained, there are at least two major features one must pay attention to. One is that China has a poor foundation; the other is China has a large population and little arable land.15 Chen Yun also noted that the major Chinese socioeconomic hallmark lies in the fact that rural people account for 80 percent of the population, the population as a whole is very large, while the area of arable land is small. One must clearly realize that our four modernizations are to be carried out under these circumstances.16 In readjusting the economy, the Party resolutely corrected the mistakes made in economic work in the previous years, eliminated the influence of the "Left" mistakes that had existed for a long time, and made an initial summing up of the experiences and lessons in economic construction since the founding of the People's Republic. It was pointed out that economic construction must proceed from the actual conditions in China; it must accord with economic laws and natural laws; it must be carried out in the light of China's own resources; it must advance in an orderly way, undergo corroboration and strive for practical results; the development of production must go hand in hand with improvement of people's livelihood ; economic cooperation and technological exchange with foreign countries must be actively promoted on the basis of independence and self-reliance. The entire work of economic readjustment was carried out under the guidance of these principles. As the initial stage in implementing the eight-character policy centered around readjusting the economy, most of the Party leaders at various levels, failing to fully comprehend the seriousness of the economic situation, were rather slow in addressing the problems. In 1979 and 1980, the work on readjusting the economy proved ineffective since the total scale of capital construction had not been reduced sufficiently. Commencing in 198 1, under the leadership of the Central Committee, the entire Party membership carried out the policy in real earnest. This resulted in a rapid turn for the better in the economic situation. A further gain was the gradual rationalization of the various relationships in the national economy, such as the proportion between accumulation and consumption, between agriculture and industry, between light and heavy industry. An inappropriately high rate of accumulation had long existed along side an extremely backward agriculture and light industry; this situation underwent a fundamental change. While making readjustments in the economy, the Party Central Committee led the people in taking giant steps toward reform and opening to the outside world. Engels pointed out long ago that socialist society, like all previous societies, is not an invariable entity; it is a society subject to continual development and reform. The basic system of socialism has struck roots on the land of China and has initially manifested its superiority. However, there are still many shortcomings and drawbacks in the economic, political and cultural structures as well as certain specific institutions. The socioeconomic structure of the past, in which the state exercised overall control over everything, was necessary under the circumstances at the time and proved effective at a certain historical stage. If continued today, it would put an unbearable burden on the state, hamper the growth of all vital forces in the society, bring about an ossified situation, and seriously hinder the further development of the forces of production. Therefore, it is imperative to reform those parts in the relations of production which do not accord with the forces of production, as well as those parts in the superstructure which do not accord with the economic base. By so doing, the vitality of the socialist system can be maintained and its superiority further called into play. When the work on readjusting the economy started, Deng Xiaoping emphatically pointed out: "In order to realize the four modernizations in an effective way, we must make an earnest effort to solve the various problems in the economic structure."17 Of course, reform is a difficult and complicated undertaking. What is the correct way to carry out reform and opening to the outside world? How can economic growth be promoted through reform and opening while at the same time consolidating and strengthening the ground already gained by socialism? This was a completely new task facing the Party and the people. To accomplish it, there had to be a stage of exploration, a process of accumulating experiences on the basis of practice. In the process, twists and turns, and even mistakes, were well-nigh inevitable. Progress in economic structural reform achieved its first breakthroughs in the rural areas. Following agricultural cooperation, the forces of production in the countryside increased to a considerable extent on the basis of a collective economy. However, the people's commune, where government administration and commune management were integrated, practised a management system which was highly centralized and a distribution system which leaned too much towards egalitarianism. This kind of structure failed to arouse the enthusiasm of the peasants for production, and seriously offset the tremendous agricultural input provided by the state. Consequently, advance in rural production and improvement in the livelihood of the peasants were slow. In 1978, there were still more than 100 million peasants who did not have adequate food or clothing. To overcome the difficulties in agricultural production and peasants' livelihood, the Provincial Party Committees of Anhui and Sichuan Provinces relaxed their policies and followed the principle of "rest and recuperation." In these two provinces rural cadres at the grass roots and peasants started experimenting with a responsibility system in which the fixing of output quotas was based on the household or the team. When the eight-character policy was first introduced, the Central Committee of the Party worked out twelve major measures in April 1979, the first of which was to "concentrate its major effort on increasing agricultural production and readjusting the relationship between agriculture and industry." Apart from raising the price for planned state purchase of grain and lowering the cost price and market price of industrial products for agricultural use, which had already been called for by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, the proportion of state investment in agriculture was increased, while restrictions were put on the quota for planned state purchases of grain. All these measures greatly enhanced the enthusiasm of the peasants for production. The "Decision on Certain Questions Concerning the chapter nine a new prospect in socialist constriction 755 Acceleration of Agricultural Development," which was passed as a draft resolution at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, was formally adopted by the 4th Plc"‘‘^' Session of the Central Committee in September 1979. The Deu sion stressed that no instructions or comments made by governments at different levels, except "those stipulated by law, should be imposed on the communes or production teams through administrative methods. They should be allowed under the guidance of an overall state plan, to act in the light of their lo cal conditions, to follow their own schedules, exercise self-management, and to bring their initiative into phiy These principles encouraged the peasants to create new exper cnee through practice, and in this way threw the door wide open for the structural reform in the rural areas. The greater enthusiasm and initiative shown by the peasants in their work gradually led to breakthroughs in the original management system of the people's communes. Responsibility systems in different forms quickly emerged m the rural areas. In the begin ning, most of them were based on team management, linking the total output with remuneration for all the team members. La er, they developed into systems of management based on the individual and then on the household, with the team leadership reaching an agreement or signing a contract with each household on the farm output quota or tax-plus-sales quota to be fulfilled a leaving farm management, as well as any products over and above the quota, entirely to the households. At that time, many cadres both inside and outside the Party were worried by these new forms of farm management, fearing that they might result in a departure from soctahsm. The understanding of the Party Central Committee on this question also underwent a course of development. In a Party document issued in September 1979, it was noted that the responsibility system based on household management could be adopted by families engaged in certain kinds of sideline production where specie circumstances required it or by families living in remote iso ated mountainous regions where transportation was diffi .cult, but not under normal conditions in other areas. In May 1980, Deng Xiaoping made a speech entitled "On the Question of Rural Policy," noting that "after the relaxation of rural policy, good results and rapid changes have occurred in some places which are suitable for the household management system." He pointed out that there was no reason to worry about whether this kind of system would affect the collective economy. So long as production was developed in these areas, he added, so long as the social division of labour and the commodity economy was promoted, collectivization at a low level would move to one of a higher level, and collective economic units which were not consolidated would become consolidated.18 In September 1980, the Parly Central Committee issued a document entitled "On Certain Questions Concerning the Further Strengthening and Improvement of the Responsibility Systems in Agricultural Production." While stressing the need to make further improvements on the collectiveeconomy, the document pointed out: "The responsibility system based on household management, which is practised under production team leadership, depends for its existence on the socialist economy; it is not a departure from the socialist track and does not represent any danger of capitalist restoration." Later on, the Party Central Committee further confirmed the household management system as a form of responsibility system of the socialist collective economy, a layer of management in the cooperative economy. Encouraged and promoted by the Party Central Committee, the household management system had by early 1983 spread nationwide to 93 percent of the production teams, most of which carried out the tax-plus-sales quota system. After the household responsibility system was introduced, the collectively-owned land was parcelled out to peasants for their use on a long-term basis. Agricultural production was carried out virtually with the household as the basic unit for management, as well as accounting, each responsible for its own losses and gains. "After ensuring the needs of the state and the collective, the remaining farm produce belongs to the peasants themselves." This responsibility system gave peasants the decision-making power with regard to production and distribution, and integrated responsibility, power and interests. Not only did it overcome the egalitarianism in distribution by doing away with the old practice of "eating from the same big pot," but also corrected the drawbacks of highly centralized management and a single-commodity production. The household responsibility system was established on public ownership of the land; between the collective and the household there existed a relationship bound by contract. 1 he collective was responsible for the management and use of big pieces of farm equipment as well as water conservancy projects. It had a public fund collected from the households and undertook to look after the families of army men and martyrs, the five guarantees family (the aged, the infirm, old widows and widowers and orphans) and other families which were in difficulty; it was also responsible for making overall plans for capital construction of farmland. Therefore, this type of family responsibility system was different from the small private economy that had existed before agricultural cooperation. It was not a negation of the superiority of the collective economy that had appeared since agricultural cooperation. It integrated unification and division, exhibiting the superiority of the collective economy and at the same time bringing into play the positive factors of peasant household management. This system was well received by peasants everywhere. It enhanced their labour enthusiasm and promoted the growth of agricultural production. The rapidity with which it produced desired results was beyond expectation. In many places, the changes were noticeable within a single year. Peasants' income, increasing remarkably, sometimes doubled or even redoubled. Some production teams, brigades or even people s communes did not adopt the household responsibility system. Neither did they preserve the original collective managerial system intact, but made necessary changes or reforms, and in this way moved towards what Deng Xiaoping described as "collectivization at a higher level." Some communes and teams where collective economy had been relatively steady in previous years failed to make use of the superiority of the collective economy in the course of promoting the responsibility system. This was a shortcoming. Nevertheless, they continued to make use of many of the successful experiences of the collective economy and applied them to the building of a new collective economy on the basis of the household responsibility system. Other shortcomings also showed up in the course of promoting the rural responsibility system. For example, inadequate attention was paid to the protection of collective properties, including water conservancy and other public facilities. The division of land for the use of peasants was too scattered, which made it difficult to promote mechanization and irrigation. After discovering these problems, the Party Central Committee instructed the various localities to adopt measures for their gradual solution. The economic structural reforms in the cities were far more complicated than the rural reforms. Experiments in this field began after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1 th Central Committee. These included expanding the decision-making power on the part of the enterprises, putting some of the enterprises original ly administered by the central, provincial or autonomous regional authorities under the control of city governments, making enterprise independent of the government, and experimenting with the comprehensive reform of urban economic structure in some cities. In the late 1970s, more than 10 million educated youths who had gone to the countryside during the "cultural revolution" began to come back to the cities in great numbers. Their urgent demand for jobs aggravated the problem of insufficient employment already caused by the newly emerging labour force in the cities. It was impossible for the state to find jobs for them all. After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, the Party proposed solutions to this problem by enlivening the whole economy and creating more opportunities, and by adopting, under unified planning and guidance of the state, a multi-channel approach—introducing job opportunities to people through labour departments, getting people organized to create new jobs, and asking people to look for jobs themselves. By October 1981, more than 20 million people had found jobs. In the meantime, collective and joint enterprises mushroomed alongside private businesses. A situation began to emerge in which various forms of ownership and management existed side by side, with 759 public ownership occupying the dominant position, and in which different forms of distribution were practiced, with the principle of "to each according to his work" playing the major role. Commerce, service trades and enterprises producting consumer goods quickly flourished. This was conducive to readjusting the composition of industry. All these gave impetus to the subsequent structural reform of the economy. In the same period, two major steps were taken in opening China to the outside world. One took place in July 1979 when the Party Central Committee and the State Council, in view of the fact that the two provinces of Guangdong and Fujian had the advantages of proximity to Hong Kong and Macao and of their role as the homeland of numerous overseas Chinese, decided that the two provinces implement special policies and enjoy preferential treatment in foreign economic transactions. The other one was the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou of Guangdong Province and in Xiamen of Fujian Province. In these SEZs, foreign investment and the introduction of foreign advanced technology and management was encouraged through the adoption of various forms of cooperation, such as the processing and assembling of imported materials or parts, compensation trade, joint ventures, cooperative projects and enterprises based solely on foreign capital. In August 1980, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress approved "Regulations Concerning the Economic Zones in Guangdong Province." Construction of the SEZs soon started one after another. The readjustments in the national economy as well as the introduction of reform and opening China to the outside world began to reap good results. The achievements had become evident by 1982 even though work on readjustment had not yet been completed. Between 1978 and 1982, total industrial and agricultural output value increased at an annual average rate of 7.3 percent. This rate of increase which represented a relatively rapid growth, was achieved under circumstances in which the major relationships in the economy were becoming much more proportionate and better coordinated. During the same period, people's livelihood also improved at an unprecedentedly fast rate. Take the year 1982, for example. The average income of peasants reached 270 yuan, which was double the 1978 figure. Living expenses in urban families averaged 500 yuan a year, an increase of 38.3 percent over 1978, taking into account the factor of inflation. Bank deposits reached 67.5 billion yuan, a 220 percent increase over the 1978 figure. It was on this basis that the Party Central Committee started working out a grand development strategy for China's socialist modernization.

The 12th National Party Congress and Full-Scale Reform and Opening to the Outside World

Formulating the Programme for Creating a New Situation in Socialist Modernization On September 1, 1982, the 12th National Party Congress opened in Beijing. Attending the Congress were 1,545 deputies and 145 alternate deputies, representing more than 39 million Party members. Deng Xiaoping made the opening speech. On behalf of 1 1th Party Central Committee, Hu Yaobang delivered a report entitled "Create a New Situation in All Fields of Socialist Modernization." Ye Jianying and Chen Yun made speeches on issues of cooperation between old cadres and younger ones who would eventually succeed them. Li Xiannian made the closing speech. In his opening speech, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the following points: "In carrying out our modernization programme, we must proceed from the realities of China. Both in our revolution and construction, we should also learn from foreign countries and draw on their experience. But mechanical copying and application of foreign experience and models will get us nowhere. We have had many lessons in this respect. To integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete realities of China, blaze a path of our own and build socialism with Chinese characteristics—this is the basic conclusion we have reached in summing up long, historical experience."19 The idea put forward by Deng 761 Xiaoping on building socialism with Chinese characteristics was the ideological guideline of the 12th Party Congress; it is also the ideological guideline for the entire new historical period of reform, opening and modernization. It is under the guidance of this idea that China's reform, opening to the outside world and its modernization effort have achieved great successes. As proposed by the 12th National Party Congress, the general task of the Communist Party of China in the new historical period was: To unite the people of all nationalities to work hard, strive for regeneration through our own ellorts, and step by step modernize our industry, agriculture, national defence, science and technology to make China a culturally advanced and highly democratic socialist country. The most important task, according to the congress, was to press forward with economic construction in order to bring about an all-round new situation. In keeping with proposals made by Deng Xiaoping since 1979, the congress decided that the general objective of China's economic construction for the two decades between 1981 and the end of this century was: while steadily working for more and better economic results, to quadruple the gross annual value of industrial and agricultural production—from 710 billion yuan in 1980 to 2,800 billion yuan or so by the year 2000, thus enabling the Chinese people to become comparatively well-off. The change from the earlier objective of achieving modernization by the end of this century to the stage where people would be comparatively well-off was a decision made in accordance with China's realities—her economic backwardness and extremely uneven development. In terms of strategic thinking, this solved the problem of impetuosity in seeking quick results, a mentality which had existed for a long time. Impetuosity and rashness, which had led people to mistakenly setting unattainably high objectives for the immediate future, was a major cause of the U-shaped up-and-down cycle in economic construction that had occurred repeatedly since the late 1950s. In a spirit of seeking truth from facts, the congress pinpointed agriculture, energy, transportation, education, science and technology as the key areas in economic development which were of strategic importance. The congress mapped out a strategic plan consisting of two major steps: the first ten years would be mainly devoted to building a relatively solid base, accumulating strength, and creating favourable conditions; the next decade would usher in a new period of upsurge in China's economy. The key to bringing about an all-round upsurge in socio-economic development, the congress maintained, was to concentrate funds on major economic development projects. In accordance with the principle "first, feed the people, and second, build the country," the congress stressed the need to continue improving people's livelihood. The leading position of the state economy was to be upheld while developing diverse economic forms. Also stressed at the congress were the leading role of planned economy and the supplementary role of market regulation, as well as the principle of persevering in self-reliance while expanding economic and technological exchanges with foreign countries. All these were problems in socio-economic development which demanded urgent solutions at the time. A special feature of this congress was the proposition that while setting objectives for economic construction, China must strive to attain a high level of socialist culture and ideology and a high level of socialist democracy. The congress pointed out socialist culture and ideology constitutes an important characteristic of the socialist system and a major aspect of its superiority. Generally speaking, socialist culture and ideology embodies two aspects, the cultural and the ideological. The socialist character of our culture and ideology is determined by ideological education, important aspects of which include revolutionary ideals, morality and discipline. It is essential to propagate revolutionary ideas and spirit so as to inspire the masses of people to take part in socialist construction with great enthusiasm and enable more and more members of our society to become working people with lofty ideals, moral integrity, education and a sense of discipline. This is a strategic principle in building socialism. The congress pointed out that sustained socialist democracy provides the guarantee and support for the building of a socialist material civilization and a socialist culture and ideology. To attain a high level of socialist democracy is therefore one of our fundamental goals and 763 tasks. It is imperative to closely link the building of socialist democracy with that of the socialist legal system, so that socialist democracy is institutionalized and codified into laws. The fact that these theories and tasks were put forward reflects the overall requirements of socialist modernization. They have enriched the theories of scientific socialism and helped people to gain a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of socialism. The congress called for the building of the Party into a strong leading core for the cause of socialist modernization; it also adopted a new Party Constitution. In the new Party Constitution, the "Left" errors in the Constitution adopted in 1979 by the 11th Congress were discarded, while the merits of the Party constitutions passed respectively by the 7th and 8th Congresses were carried forward. The General Programme section in the new Constitution includes Marxist stipulations concerning the character and guiding ideology of the Party, the principal contradiction in our society at the present stage and the general task of the Party, and the correct way to bring into play the Party's leading role in the life of the state. The ideological, political and organizational requirements this Constitution sets for Party members and cadres are stricter than those in all previous constitutions. According to the new Constitution, the Central Committee has no chairman but only a general secretary. Advisory commissions are to be established at the central and provincial levels as transitional organizations for the succession of younger cadres to the old ones, so that many veteran comrades rich in political experience who have retired from their former posts may act as consultants in the service of the Party's cause. The congress stressed the need to improve the Party's system of democratic centralism and further normalize inner-Party life; to reform the leading bodies and the cadre system and ensure that the ranks of the cadres become more revolutionary, younger in average age, better educated and more professionally competent; to strengthen the Party's work among the workers, peasants and intellectuals, and establish close ties between the Party and the masses. In view of the fact that impurities in ideology, style and organization still existed within the Party, the congress pointed out with all serious ness that the style of a political party in power determines its very survival. As decided by the congress, an overall rectification of the Party style and consolidation of Party organizations would begin from the latter half of 1983. The congress elected a new Central Committee, Central Advisory Commission, and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. At the 1st Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee that immediately followed the congress, Hu Yaobang was elected general secretary, Hu Yaobang, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun were elected members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. At the 1st Plenary Meeting of the Central Advisory Commission, Deng Xiaoping was elected chairman of the Commission. At the 1st Plenary Meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Cheri Yun was elected first secretary of the Commission. At that time new members were made part of the Party central leading collective, in addition to veteran revolutionaries. Beginning from September 1980, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun no longer held the posts of vice-premiers of the State Council. But together with Ye Jianying, they still played an important role in leading the work of the Party and the state, with Deng Xiaoping at the the core of this generation of collective leadership. The 12th Party Congress was important in Party history inasmuch as it had summed up the experience of setting things right, mapped out a correct programme for creating an all-round new situation in socialist modernization, and worked out a new, improved Party Constitution. In November and December 1982, two months after the 12th Party Congress, the 5th Session of the 5th National People's Congress was convened. Fresh revisions of the Constitution were made, with Peng Zhen presiding over the work. The new Constitution adopted by the National People's Congress not only thoroughly corrected still remaining shortcomings of the 1978 Constitution, but also enriched its original contents and included new stipulations suited to socialist modernization. This is the "Constitution of the People's Republic of China" in operation at present. As the 1st Session of the 6th National People's Congress held in June 1983 pointed out, the main task for the next five years was to mobilize people of all nationalities to strive for the comprehensive overfulfilment of the Sixth Five-Year Plan, for the drawing up and implementation of the Seventh Five-Year Plan, and forging ahead with all undertakings centred around economic construction. The National People's Congress elected Li Xiannian president of the People's Republic of China, Peng Zhen chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's congress, appointed Zhao Ziyang as premier of the State Council, and elected Deng Xiaoping chairman of the State Central Military Commission. All-Round Implementation of Reform and Opening to the Outside World Following the 12th National Party Congress, economic structural reform was rapidly carried out on a nationwide scale. Its main features were: rural reform deepened on a solid basis; the focus of national reform gradually shifted from the countryside to the cities; economic reform spread from a small number of cities selected for experiment to all urban areas; reform in other spheres also took giant steps forward. Rural reform concentrated on the main task of stabilizing and improving the household responsibility system which linked remuneration with output. By 1987, the system was adopted by 180 million peasant households, accounting for 98 percent of the national total. In early 1984, it was announced that the peasants' tenure of the land covered by this responsibility system would be extended to more than 15 years. For those long-term development projects, such as fruit orchards, forests, the utilization of barren hills and wasteland, the land tenure was even longer. The implementation of the household responsibility system engendered changes in the rural people's communes. In October 1983, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council jointly issued the "Circular on Separating the Functions of Government from Commune Management and Establishing Township People's Government." Township or town government would be established as the basic organ of state power. At the same time, village committees would be universally set up as a mass organization for self-government. By the end of 1984, the separation of government from the people's commune had basically been completed throughout the country and 91,000 township and town governments had been set up alongside 926,000 village committees. By then, the system of rural people's communes had in fact ceased to exist. The universal implementation of the household responsibility system and the abolition of the people's communes created favourable conditions for the growth of rural commodity economy. The Party Central Committee grasped this good opportunity to speed up the process of turning the traditional rural economy into a commodity economy. In January 1985, the Party Central Committee and the State Council proclaimed the "Ten Policies on Further Enlivening the Rural Economy." The proclamation abolished the previous planned or compulsory purchases of agricultural and sideline products by the state, and introduced new ways of planned state purchases of only a few important items of farm products such as grain and cotton, which were to be done on the basis of contracts signed between the state and the peasants. This reflected a new policy which showed respect for peasants' power of decision. Products other than those purchased by the state according to contracts could be sold freely by the peasants, or sold to the state at negotiated price. Control on most other products was to be relaxed gradually so that they could be traded freely. The state would no longer issue mandatory production plans to the peasants. Agricultural tax, which had been paid in kind, was to be paid in cash. In this way, the planned purchase and marketing by the state, which had been practised for more than thirty years, was basically changed. The rural economy was channelled into the mainstream of planned commodity economy, thus enabling the traditional way of farming to move towards a specialized, commodity-oriented and modernized agriculture. A big windfall from rural reform was the upsurge of township enterprises. The implementation of the household responsibility system released a large amount of labour from the countryside. 767 Under the impact of reform and opening to the outside world, collective and private enterprises and family businesses soon multiplied. In 1987, there were 88.05 million people working in township enterprises; their output value reached 476.4 billion yuan, or 50.4 percent of total output value in rural China. This was the first time that the output value of township enterprises surpassed that of agricultural production, marking a historical change in the Chinese rural economy. The rise of the township enterprises not only helped to increase peasants' incomes, promote agricultural production and bring greater prosperity to the rural economy—while at the same time playing a tremendous role in changing the peasants' outlook—it also added more revenue and earned more foreign currency for the state, thus making important contributions to China's industrialization. With the development of township enterprises, a great number of small towns entered the scene. This new thing, which emerged in the course of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, occupies a place of strategic importance in China's socioeconomic development. The rural economic reform was not established at a single stroke, nor was it brought about in a rush. It was done by proceeding from realities, opportunely summing up the creations of the masses of peasants, leading them along when conditions were ripe, and promoting the trend in a proper way—the whole process represents a successful example of how the Party gives guidance to social reform. The deep-going social reform, which was carried out smoothly among several hundred million people in the Chinese countryside, has profoundly influenced the development not only of the rural economy, but of the entire Chinese economy including the reform in other spheres. The successful experience of rural reform and the new demands put on the cities by rural development created favourable conditions for the entire economic reform with emphasis on urban reform. The experiments and explorations with urban retorm carried out in a small number of cities since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1 th Central Committee also achieved remarkable results, accumulated important experience and laid the foundation for further reform. Opening China to the outside world broadened people's horizons, helped them see opportunities and challenges for China's economic development in the new worldwide technological revolution, and made them understand more keenly the urgency of economic structural reform. The "Decision on Economic Structural Reform" adopted by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee in October 1984 summed up experience since the founding of the Republic, especially the experience of economic structural reform since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, put forward and elaborated more systematically a series of important questions, both theoretical and practical, concerning this issue. It is a programmatic document for carrying out overall economic structural reform. The important theoretical contribution made by the Decision was that it shattered the traditional concept of setting planned economy against commodity economy, and confirmed that our socialist economy was a planned commodity economy based on public ownership. This is the basic theory and practice of our structural economic reform. Taking this as the point of departure, the Decision goes on to give an exposition of the major problems to be solved in establishing a socialist economic structure full of vigour: enhancing the vitality of enterprise, which remains the key issue of economic structural reform; establishing a planning system which would enable the purposeful use of the law of value in the development of socialist commodity economy; setting up a reasonable pricing system and paying full attention to the role of economic leverage; separating enterprise from government; giving government organizations a proper role in economic management; setting up various forms of the economic responsibility system; strictly implementing the principle of "to each according to his work" in matters of distribution; actively developing various economic forms and expanding domestic and international economic and technological exchanges. The Decision also stressed the importance of promoting a new generation of leaders, of training large numbers of cadres for the management of the socialist economy, and of strengthening Party leadership in order to ensure the smooth progress of reform. 769 Under the guidance of the spirit of the Decision, the entire economic structural reform with emphasis on the cities unfolded full-scale in 1985. By 1987, the year when the 13th National Party Congress was convened, the reform had made noticeable progress. The main achievements were: First, diverse economic forms were further developed while public ownership retained its dominant position in the economy and continued to grow. The original economic structure consisting only of the single economic form of public ownership, which did not fully accord with the current level of productivity, had undergone a great change. The state-owned enterprises still held a predominant position. Of China's total industrial output value, their share decreased from 77.6 percent in 1978 before the reform to 59 7 percent in 1987, despite a considerable increase in their output value; in the same period, the share represented by the collective economy increased from 22.4 percent to 34.6 percent, the share of individual economy, private economy, joint ventures, cooperative ventures, foreign-capital owned enterprises and other non-public businesses, all of which had been virtually nonexistent in the past, now accounted for 5.6 percent. Of the total value of retail sales of social commodities, the share of stateowned commercial enterprises decreased from 54.6 to 38.7 percent that of collective commercial enterprises decreased from 43.3* percent to 35.7 percent; while that of the non-public sector of commerce increased from 2.1 to 25.6 percent. The number o individuals engaged in their own industrial or commercial undertakings increased from 150,000 to 5.69 million. The changes in economic structure in terms of different forms of ownership played a positive role in developing economy, making life more convenient for the people and offering them more job opportunities. Second, in accordance with the principle of separating enterprise from government and the proper separation of ownership and management, the previous form of management m the stateowned enterprises, under which they obtained operating funds from the state and turned over their gains to the state, changed, and their power of decision was enlarged. Compared with 1978, the profits they retained for themselves increased from 3.7 per cent of the total amount of profits to more than 40 percent in 1987 (or about 20 percent of the total after taxes and other expenses were deducted). This enhanced their capacity to renovate and expand. By 1987, more than 80 percent of state-owned enterprises throughout China had been implementing some kind of management responsibility system on a contractual basis. Within the enterprise, a system of reform was carried out in which the main task was to implement the director's (or manager's) responsibility. Third, the scope and form of macroscopic regulation and control by the state was readjusted and improved by reforming the system of administration through planning. Compared with the pre-reform period, in 1987 the number of items of industrial products under mandatory plans of the State Planning Commission decreased from 120 to 60, with their proportion in the total industrial output value decreasing from 40 percent to 17 percent; the materials whose distribution was monopolized by the state decreased from 259 to 26 in number; the type of commodities controlled by state plans decreased from 188 to 23 in number; of the total amount of funds used for production and construction, those from state revenues decreased from 76.6 percent to 31.2 percent, while those from banks increased from 23.4 percent to 68.8 percent. The role of economic leverage in macroscopic regulation and control had obviously strengthened. Progress was also made in varying degrees in the reform of financial, taxation, pricing and monetary systems, as well as commercial, labour and wage systems. Through these reforms, an unprecedented, flourishing situation emerged in urban economic life. Meanwhile, certain confusion occurred as a result of inadequate measures in strengthening and improving macroscopic control by the state in the course of laying more stress on relaxing policies and invigorating enterprises. Nevertheless, the changes as a whole were positive; they were changes towards a new system of planned commodity economy based on public ownership. With both rural and urban reforms spreading gradually over the land, structural reforms in science and technology and edu 771 cation were also placed on the agenda. In March 1985, the Party Central Committee adopted the "Decision on Structural Reforms in Science and Technology." The main contents of the Decision were: reforming the system of fund allocation; developing the technology market; cultivating the capacity of scientific and technological institutions to develop themselves and enhancing their vigor and initiative in serving economic construction; strengthening enterprises in their capacity to absorb and develop new technology; promoting the cooperation and integration of scientific, designing, and higher educational institutions with enterprises; changing the situation where research institutions were somewhat isolated from enterprises, while departments and localities also worked in isolation from each other; encouraging the reasonable flow of personnel. The main purpose of these measures was to turn technological achievements into commodities and accelerate their transformation into forces of production, so as to meet the developmental needs of a socialist commodity economy. The subsequent reforms in science and technology were developed in this direction. In May of the same year, the Party Central Committee made the "Decision on Structural Reform in Education." It included proposals that the management system be reformed, more power of decision be given to the schools, the educational structure readjusted, the labour and personnel system modified correspondingly, educational concepts, contents and methods which did not accord with socialist modernization be changed. The objective of these reforms was to enable various kinds and levels of education to take positive steps toward adapting to the diverse needs of socio-economic development on their own initiative. Education was invigorated through the implementation of the Decision. After the 12th National Party Congress, simultaneously with the steady advance of the rural and urban reforms, several major steps were also taken in opening China to the outside world. In April 1983, by decision of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, certain policies practised in the SEZs were granted to Hainan Island, giving it enlarged powers of decision to expedite its development. In April 1988, Hainan Island was made a province and declared a Special Economic Zone. Earlier, in April 1984, fourteen port cities—Tianjin, Shanghai, Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Yantai, Qingdao, Lianyungang, Nantong, Ningpo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Beihai—were opened to the outside world. This was a major step in expanding the open policy. In February 1985, the Changjiang Delta, Zhujiang Delta and the Xiamen-Quanzhou-Zhangzhou Delta in southern Fujian were opened as coastal economic development areas. Thus, in implementing the open policy, a multi-level framework with several emphases and a combination of cities and areas was formed—which started with the Special Economic Zones, and extended to the coastal open cities, the coastal economic development areas and finally to the interior, altogether comprising two cities directly under the administration of the central authorities, 25 provincial cities and 67 counties, involving 150 million people in the coastal regions of China now opened to the outside world. The introduction of foreign capital and advanced technology and equipment was speeded up, more Chinese goods exported, and more foreign currency earned. By 1987, 10,350 contracts were signed involving the use of foreign capital up to an agreed total amount of 62,509 million U.S. dollars, of which direct investment by foreign capital reached 25,773 million. In the fourteen port cities, technical revamping projects numbered 5,000, with transactions valued at 3,450 million U.S. dollars. This gave great impetus to the revamping of the current enterprises, the upgrading of products and the readjustment of product mix. New technologies were introduced and a number of new products developed, some of which helped to fill up certain blanks in Chinese industries. Fulfilment of the Sixth Five-Year Plan and Adoption of the Seventh Five-Year Plan After the 12th National Party Congress, economic development was relatively smooth for several years, especially for the first two years. Achievements in economic construction found expression mainly in the successful completion of the Sixth 773 Five-Year Plan (National Economic and Social Development Plan for the 1981-1985 Period). Thanks to the realistic nature of the plan and the economic readjustments made in the previous years, the major proportional relationships in the economy became more balanced. This created a favourable environment for economic growth. The urban and rural reforms, in particular, called into play the initiative of all parties concerned, and became a great driving force for economic development. By the end of 1985, the Sixth Five-Year Plan was overfulfilled in an all-round way. The total industrial and agricultural output value increased from 770.7 billion yuan in 1980 to 1,333.5 billion yuan in 1985. Calculated in terms of the constant prices of 1980, the annual average increase was 1 1 percent. Gross national product increased from 447 billion yuan to 856.8 billion yuan. Again, calculated according to the constant prices of 1980, the annual average increase was 10 percent, surpassing the planned increase rate of 4-5 percent. Major industrial and agricultural products increased in quantity by a wide margin. Economic results and efficiency took an upward turn and state revenues, which had declined year by year during the later period of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, began to climb each year and helped achieve a basically balanced budget. Capital construction and technological transformation made notable progress. Investment in capital construction during these five years was 46 percent over that of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, while investment in technological transformation increased 77 percent. During the Sixth Five-Year Plan period, foreign economic relations and trade and technological exchanges opened up new vistas. The total amount of imports and exports more than doubled the figures of the Fifth Five-Year Plan period, bringing about a notable change in China's position in world trade. Science and technology flourished side by side with education and culture. The income of urban and rural people rose remarkably, and so did their level of consumption. The national consumption level of residents, which averaged 227 yuan in 1980, rose to 406 yuan in 1985. Taking into account the factor of inflation, the annual average increase rate was 8.7 percent, which was much higher than the average increase rate of 2.6 percent of the previous years (1953-80). The fulfulment of the Sixth Five-Year Plan brought a happy solution to many perplexing problems of long duration. The steep increase in grain and cotton production created conditions for solving the problem of feeding and clothing the people. As a result of the relatively sufficient supplies of consumption goods, many commodities, with the exception of grain and vegetable oil, were sold without any restrictions, and many types of ration coupons formerly in use were abolished. Certain shortcomings and mistakes in economic development also occurred during this period. The arrangements set by the 12th Party Congress for the next ten years, which had been mainly aimed at laying a solid foundation, were not implenmented in earnest. In fact, Hu Yaobang did not agree with the principle of readjusting the economy, nor with the principle that economic construction should proceed on a solid basis, that the various relationships in the economy should be properly readjusted, a solid foundation be laid for a steady, measured advance. In his talks with leaders of various localities, he stressed high speed, high targets, fulfillment of plans to redouble production figures ahead of schedule and competing for top place. He put consumption before production and stressed promoting production by stimulating consumption. The second half of 1984 saw overheating of the economy hand in hand with an excessive issue of paper currency and a distribution of national income characterized by overspending. New elements of instability emerged in economic life as a result of excessively high-speed industrial growth, drastic increase of investment in fixed assets, and excessive expansion of consumption funds, and sharp price hikes for some commodities. These created difficulties for economic growth in the next few years. However, taking everything into account, the Chinese economy made rapid progress and attained notable successes during the years of the Sixth Five-Year Plan period. Its smooth implementation enabled the Party Central Committee to begin drafting the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-90) early in 1983. In September 1985, the National Party Conference approved the "Proposal for the Seventh Five-Year Plan for Na 775 tional Economic and Social Development (draft)." The proposal put forward the basic guideline concerning economic work, the major targets related to overall socio-economic development and its orientation, the strategic principles, major policies and measures for its implementation, as well as the tentative ideas and planned steps for carrying out economic structural reforms. The State Council, in accordance with the Proposal put forward by the Party Central Committee, made deeper researches into the proposed arrangements, tried to achieve an overall balance, and finally worked out "The Seventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China." In April 1986, the plan was approved for implementation by the 4th Session of the 6th National People's Congress. Party Consolidation and Building Socialist Culture and Ideology Overall work on Party rectification was begun following a decision made at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee held in October 1983 and based on a decision of the 12th National Party Congress. The tasks of Party consolidation were: first, to unify thinking, to attain a high level of ideological and political unity throughout the Party, correct all erroneous tendencies, either "Left" or Right, which violated the Four Cardinal Principles or deviated from the line pursued by the Party since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee; second, to rectify the Party style, give full play to the revolutionary spirit of serving the people wholeheartedly, thwart any attempts to make use of one's position and power to seek private gains, and combat bureaucracy which showed an irresponsible attitude towards the Party and the people; third, to strengthen discipline, uphold the organizational principle of democratic centralism, oppose patriarchism, factionalism, anarchism and liberalism, all of which were against organizational principles and discipline, and overcome the flabbiness and lack of unity within certain Party organizations; fourth, to purify the Party ranks by acting according to the Party Constitution, resolutely ferreting out those elements who firmly oppose and endanger the Party and expelling them from the Party. The crucial task was to clear out three kinds of people: rebels who climbed to relatively high positions by following the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary cliques, persons with serious factionalist ideas, and those who had engaged in reckless beating, smashing and looting. Party consolidation was carried out under unusual circumstances. Impurities in ideology, style and organization as well as slack discipline left over by the "cultural revolution" still posed serious problems within the Party, and the entire state and social life, still in the midst of many profound changes, were stirred up as never before. For these reasons, the masses of people both inside and outside the Party were bound to be deeply concerned about Party consolidation, and to place high hopes on it, while at the same time many unexpected problems were bound to crop up during the process. All these made the task extremely arduous and complicated. However, Hu Yaobang, who was concurrently chairman of the Central Committee's Directorate for the Work on Party Consolidation, did not pay enough attention to the job. He willfully steered the task of "attaining ideological unity" to "rectifying professional guidelines," and adopted a one-sided approach by advocating the "promotion of economy through Party consolidation, and testing the result of Party consolidation by the economy." This made it all the more difficult to accomplish the task well. Party consolidation, carried out among Party members in groups and at different times, extended over a period of three and a half years and was basically brought to a conclusion in May 1987. On the whole, through Party consolidation, improvement was made with regard to ideology, style, organization and discipline of the entire Party. The situation took a favourable turn in the effort to eliminate impurities in ideology, style and organization which had existed to a serious degree within the Party, and important experience was gained in the correct handling of inner-Party contradictions. This helped to lay a solid foundation for strengthening and promoting Party building in the new period. According to statistics, through membership registration and other organizational procedures, 33,896 members were expelled, 90,069 were denied registra 777 tion, 145,456 were not allowed to register for the time being, 184,071 were accorded disciplinary measures of one kind or another—put on probation, removed from Party posts and suggested to be removed from other posts, served an inner-Party serious warning or warning. However, Party consolidation was uneven in its development. Some Party and government organizations, including certain high- or middle-level leading organizations, failed to fully accomplish the four tasks of Party consolidation, or worse, just went through the motions. . The 12th National Party Congress gave a prominent place to the building of a socialist society with an advance culture and ideology. Generally speaking, the building of material civilization made it necessary to strengthen the building of socialist culture and ideology. Specifically, the development of commodity economy and the objective environment of reform and opening to the outside world made it more imperative to strengthen the building of socialist culture and ideology. As a matter of tact, under the circumstances when the development of commodity economy and reform and opening to the outside world were so much stressed, there did exist a lack of attention to the building of socialist culture and ideology. This facilitated the spread of the trend of bourgeois liberalization. At a time when the Party exerted itself to correct "Left" mistakes, a Right erroneous tendency appeared which went against the Four Cardinal Principles. At the 2nd Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee held in October 1983, Deng Xiaoping took a clear-cut stand, saying: On the ideological front, spiritual contamination should not be allowed^ The essence of spiritual contamination was to spread all sorts of corrupt and decadent ideas of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes, and disseminate feelings of distrust of socialism, communism and the leadership of the Party. Spiritual contamination was extremely harmful; it could bring havoc to the country and people. He sharply exposed the confusion existing on the ideological front, pointing out that speaking about human values and humanitarianism in abstract terms, propagating democracy in an abstract sense and setting it against the leadership of t e Party contradicted the fundamentals of Marxism and might lead young people astray. He pointed out that one must use Marxism to analyse, judge and criticize the modern bourgeois culture of the West, and should not hold it in esteem without discrimination. "The use of Western decadent bourgeois culture to corrupt young people should no longer be tolerated."20 He said that it was still necessary to continue the criticism and correction of "Left" mistaken ideas in the ideological and theoretical fields. But it should be clearly pointed out that the current problem on the ideological front calling for prior solution was the Right tendency of flabbiness and laxity. The Party committees at all levels should effectively strengthen their leadership over the ideological front. The struggle against spiritual contamination, or bourgeois liberalization, which was to be unfolded in accordance with the spirit of the plenary session, fizzled out as a result of the passive attitude on the part of the Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang. The consequences were quite serious. To strengthen the building of socialist culture and ideology, the 6th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee held in September 1986 made the "Resolution on the Guiding Principles for the Building a Socialist Society with an Advanced Culture and Ideology." The Decision elaborated on the strategic role of and the fundamental tasks in building socialist culture and ideology. It called for using the common ideal of building socialism with Chinese characteristics to arouse and unite the people of all nationalities throughout the country in establishing and developing socialist morality, strengthening education in socialist democracy, the legal system and discipline, spreading and raising the level of education, science and culture, while at the same time upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the building of socialist culture and ideology. The Decision called on Party organizations at all levels and the masses of Party members to take the lead in building socialist culture and ideology. The Decision pointed out socialist culture and ideology with Marxism as the guide constituted an important characteristic of socialist society; it provided spiritual and intellectual support for the development of material civilization, while guaranteeing the correct orientation for its development, and therefore it was a matter of great importance which might determine the rise or fall, the success or failure of the cause of socialism. The Decision further pointed out that the overall reform and opening to the outside world put new and higher demands on the building of socialist culture and ideology. Whether it could meet these demands, whether the decadent ideas of capitalism and feudalism could be effectively resisted, and whether the various dangers of losing one's bearings could be averted—this was a great historic test. The Decision stressed that bourgeois liberalization was a negation of the socialist system and advocation of the capitalist system, that it went diametrically against the interests of the people and the historical trend and was firmly opposed by the masses of people. Countering the erroneous view expressed at the session that no mention should be made of "bourgeois liberalization," Deng Xiaoping clearly pointed out. Liberalization itself was bourgeois, and pushing liberalization would mean leading us onto the road of capitalism. "If this ideological trend were not resisted, once combined with the many dirty and evil things that would inevitably come in when China opened its doors, they would become a destructive force against our four socialist modernizations, which was not to be ignored." Therefore, he added, "We should talk about opposing bourgeois liberalization, not only this time, but keep on talking for ten or twenty years."21 In March 1987, Deng Xiaoping said that not only should we talk about it for ten or twenty years, but "for fifty more years."22 The important ideas on strengthening the guiding role of Marxism in the building of socialist culture and ideology and opposing bourgeois liberalization, which had been much stressed by the Decision, were not immediately and vigorously put to practice, while no struggle was effectively waged against a real erroneous Right tendency existing at that time. Towards the end of 1986, student unrest spread to quite a few cities. Deng Xiaoping made a speech entitled "Take a Clear-Cut Stand in Opposing Bourgeois Liberalization." This speech and his speech made at the 6th Session of the 12th Central Committee on the same subject, which was conveyed to Party members and people throughout China, gave them an ideological weapon for combatting bourgeois liberalization. Following the "Circular on Party Members Strict Observation of the Party Constitution," which was issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a handful of Party members who openly advocated bourgeois liberalization were expelled from the Party. Thanks to timely and competent guidance, student unrest soon subsided. The direct causes leading to student unrest varied with different localities and different schools, including feelings of distrust towards Party leadership caused by the mistakes made by the central, local or school authorities in their work. But taking the problem as a whole, student unrest was the result of lack of a clear-cut, firm position towards bourgeois liberalization. Flabbiness and confusion prevailed on the ideological front both at the central and local levels. In school forums as well as in many other places, there was failure to resist the assault of bourgeois liberalization, resulting in its rampancy. A handful of Communist Party members played an extremely harmful role by taking a lead in touting bourgeois liberalization. For all these, Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang was largely responsible. On January 16, 1987, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee called an enlarged meeting, where Hu Yaobang made selfcriticisms for violating the principle of collective leadership, and for mistakes made on major political questions of principle in his capacity as the general secretary of the Party Central Committee, and requested the Central Committee to allow him to resign his post as Party general secretary. The meeting made serious criticisms of his mistakes in a comradely manner, and at the same time made a realistic appraisal of his achievements. The meeting approved his request for resignation, but allowed him to retain his posts as member of the Political Bureau and member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. In view of the fact that prior to 1980, Zhao Ziyang had made achievements in his work at the provincial level, and after becoming the premier in September 1980, had also made accomplishments in the field of economy, he was elected acting general secretary of the Party Central Committee. The Decisions at this enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau were confirmed by the 7th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee which was held in October of the same year. In view of the lessons learned from the student unrest, the 6th 781 Session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress made the "Decision on Strengthening Education in the Legal System and Maintaining Stability and Unity" on January 22 1987. On January 28 of the same year, the Party Central Committee issued the "Circular on Questions of Combating Bourgeois Liberalization." The Circular required Party organizations at various levels to acquire a full understanding of the importance and long-term nature of the struggle against bourgeois liberalization and to conduct education among Party members about the need to firmly uphold the Four Cardinal Principles, and fully and correctly understand and implement the line, principle and policies formulated since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. The Circular also contained a number of specific policies on opposing bourgeois liberalization.

The 13th National Party Congress, Beginning of Economic Rectification and Quelling of Turbulence in 1989

The 13th National Party Congress systematically expounded the theory of the primary stage of socialism and its basic Party line. This theory and line were drawn up in reference to experiences in economic reform and opening up and in the construction of socialist modernization following the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, as well as in recognition of the national strength and the summarizing of practical experience. The 13th National Party Congress and the Basic Party Line for the Primary Stage of Socialism The 13th National Party Congress was held from October 25 to November 1, 1987, in Beijing. The 1,936 deputies represented more than 46 million Party members. At the congress, Zhao Ziyang on behalf of the 12th Central Committee delivered a report entitled "Advance Along the Road of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics." The congress approved the report, revised some articles of the Party Constitution and elected a new Party Central Committee, Central Advisory Commission and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The salient contribution made by the 13th Party Congress was its systematic exposition of the theory of the primary stage of socialism and the basic Party line for this stage. Soon after the convention of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, while summing up historical experiences, the Party Central Committee instituted a study of the ideological reasons for the mistakes made in the previous period from the angle of recognizing Chinese socialist society as being in the developing stage. Earlier, in September 1979, in a speech approved by the 4th Plenary Session of the 1 1 th Central Committee and delivered at a meeting to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Ye Jianying pointed out that China is still a developing socialist country. Its socialist system is still immature and imperfect, while the economy and culture are still under-developed. China's socialist modernization must pass from a lower to a higher level and its socialist system is still in its infancy. This initially revealed the ideas on the primary stage of socialism. The "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China," adopted by the 6th Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in June 1981, clarified for the first time that our socialist system is still in an early phase and must undergo a long process of development before it can be perfected. Later this thesis of socialism as being in its early phase was reaffirmed in the report to the 12th Party Congress and in the "Resolution on the Guiding Principles for Building a Socialist Society with an Advanced Culture and Ideology," adopted at the 6th Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee. In light of these probings, the 1 3th Party Congress summed up fresh experience in the reform and opening up and carried understanding of the primary stage of socialism in China a big step forward. The congress pointed out that the correct understanding of the histor ical period of current Chinese society is the paramount issue in building socialism with Chinese characteristics and constitutes the basic reference for stipulating and implementing correct lines congress also pointed out that this thesis implies first that China is already a socialist society and must persevere m and not deviate from socialism, and second, that China s socialist socie y is still in its primary stage; we must proceed from this reality and h age cannot * shipped. Under the specific historic* 1 conditions of contemporary China, failing to recognize that the Chinese people can take the socialist road without going through *he stage of fully developed capitalism is a mechanistic view on he question of revolutionary development. This is the cognitive root of Right deviationist mistakes. On the other hand, to believe that it is possible to skip the primary stage of socialism without the massive development of the productive forces ms a _utop«n view on this question. This is the major cogmt.ve root of Left " Theecongress made a profound analysis of China's present society pointing out, on one hand, the socialist economic system based on public ownership of the means of production, the socialist political system of the people's democratic dictatorship and the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field have already established. The system of exploitation and exploiting classes have been eliminated, national economic strength has increased tremendously and education t science and culture have nroeress. On the other hand, China has a targe population and poor foundation. Also, China ranks f" behlnd other countries in per-capita gross national product. Jhe back wardness of the forces of production determines that with regard To the relations of production, the degree of socialization of production required for the promotion of socialist Pu"'= shiD is still very low. The commodity economy and domestic market are still underdeveloped while the socialist economic system is immature and imperfect. In superstructure a series of economic and cultural conditions necessary for building a high level socialist democracy and politics are also highly ma equa The influence of decadent feudalist and capitalist ideas and the forces of tradition engendered by small production is still widespread and has time and again penetrated into the ranks of Party cadres and state administrators. All this shows that China has not passed beyond the primary stage of socialism. These scientific theses have offered a key to understanding both the successes and failures in socialist construction following the nationwide liberation and have also provided a powerful theoretical weapon for the reform and opening up and for building China into a socialist country with Chinese characteristics. This is an important contribution made by the Chinese Communists to the theory of scientific socialism. The congress has systematically expounded the Party's basic line for building socialism with Chinese characteristics in the primary stage of socialism. The line is: leading and uniting with the people of all nationalities, focusing on economic construction, persisting in the four cardinal principles, firmly push forward the reform and opening up, self-reliance, hard work and building our country into a prosperous, democratic, civilized modern socialist country. This basic line is summed up as "one central task and two basic points," the central task being economic construction, while the two basic points refer to persisting in the four cardinal principles and the reform and opening up. This is a principle our Party has consistently maintained since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1 th Central Committee. Practice proves that the implementation of this basic line is a fundamental guarantee of success in work of all kinds. Departing from it would lead to committing mistakes of one kind or another. The Party congress stipulated a three-step strategy of economic development. The first step is to double the 1980 GNP and ensure that the people have enough food and clothing. The second step is to quadruple the 1980 GNP by the end of this century and guarantee a comparatively more comfortable life for the people. The last step is to increase the per-capita GNP to the level of the second rung developed countries by the mid-21st century. Then the people will be well-off and modernization will be basically realized. This strategy is a further enrichment and development of the strategy of economic development stipulated by the 12th Party Congress based on the thesis of the primary stage of socialism. The three-step strategy was advanced by Deng Xiaoping in 1985 after serious consideration. The central task of the 13th Party Congress was to speed up and deepen the reform. The congress proposed that reform of the economic system should focus on transformation of the operatmg mechanism of enterprises. The accompanying reform of the sys terns of planning, investment, materials and equipment supp y, finances 'and foreign trade should advance in stages ,n order o establish a general framework of a new planned commodity economic system. So the congress called for enlivening the stateowned enterprises according to the principle of separating ownership from management power, further promoting mter-enterprise economic cooperation, boosting establishment of a socialist market system, perfecting a macro-economic regulation system based on indirect control, continuously developing an economy with various systems of ownership with public ownership as its main body and introducing a diversified system of payment based on distribution according to work and a correct po ® ' *e experience of previous years, the congress analysed the arduous nature of the reform of the economic system and changed the basic objective for achieving a new economic systein in five years or longer which had been advanced by the Party Central Com mittee in its Seventh Five-Year Plan. The congress pointed out, "Assessment of the current situation indicates that it will take a longer time than expected for establishing the framework of a new system."23 This demonstrates the spirit of seeking truth from The 13th Party Congress pointed out that the implementation •md deepening of reform of the economic structure has raised an urgent demand for reform of the political system. The objective of reform of the political system for the near future is to establis a leadership structure which can increase efficiency, invigorate vitality and file enthusiasm on all sides. According to Deng Xiaoping's speech entitled "Reform of the Party and i State Lead ership System" delivered at an enlarged conference of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee held in August 1980, the Party and the state have adopted a series of important measures in this field and made marked progress in separating Party from government administration, decentralizing the decision-making power to lower-level units, strengthening estab-. lishment of a legal system and eliminating the system of life-long tenure of leaders. These reform measures were being implemented all along, both before and after the 13th Party Congress. The congress also pointed out that in the process of combining Marxism with Chinese practice in the last sixty years or more there were two leaps of historical significance. The first leap was in the new democratic revolutionary period. During this period, the Chinese Communists summed up both successful and unsuccessful experiences, found a revolutionary road which was characteristically Chinese and led the revolution to success. The second leap occurred after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. During this period, the Chinese Communists, based on the positive and negative experiences summed up in the thirty years and more following the founding of New China and on the study of international experience and the world situation, found a road for building socialist China with Chinese characteristics and entered a new stage of socialist construction. Advancing along this road is the basic guarantee for leading our cause to victory. The 1st Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee held on November 2 elected Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Qili and Yao Yilin members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau with Zhao Ziyang as the general secretary. At the session, Deng Xiaoping was appointed chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Zhao Ziyang its first vice-chairman, and Yang Shangkun standing vice-chairman; Chen Yun was approved chairman and Bo Yibo and Song Rcnqiong vice-chairmen of the CPC Central Advisory Commission; and Qiao Shi secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau proposed to the session that although Deng Xiaoping had retired from his positions on the Central Party Committee and 787 Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, his status and function as a policy-maker on important Party and national issues should not change. He was needed to control the helm in an exigency. This was needed for the Party's cause. This proposal was agreed to by all deputies to the session. The 1st Session of the 7th National People's Congress held in March and April 1988 elected Yang Shangkun president of the People's Republic of China, and Wan Li chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress; appointed Li Peng premier of the State Council and elected Deng Xiaoping chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission. Beginning of Economic Readjustment In the five years from the 12th to the 13th Party Congress, China achieved great progress in economic reform and opening up But there were still a lot of problems and difficulties. Some of them had accumulated over many years and could not be solved in a short period of time, while some arose during the past few years in the process of advance. While implementing correct strategies, principles and policies, the Party Central Committee and the State Council made some mistakes in concrete guidance on economic construction and reform and opening up. In regard to agriculture, the Party Central Committee and the State Council were once over-optimistic about the situation in the country side, slackened their guidance and decreased their assistance to agricultural production. This resulted in fluctuation and stagnation in grain production for several consecutive years after a bumper harvest in 1984. In industry they were ineffective in their efforts to correct the indiscriminate expansion of the processing industry. In the course of reforming the overcentralized and over-tightly controlled economic system, they neglected necessary and suitable centralization. While emphasizing micro-economic enlivening, they neglected overall balance and weakened macro control. Lacking an overall, deep understanding of conditions m the country, they were anxious for quick results in both constru tion and reform. Although the 1 3th Party Congress issued the call once again to seek truth from facts in economic construction, in the actual work, the trend of seeking quick results failed to be corrected. All these problems in economic construction are inseparable from weaknesses in the Party's leadership and ideologicalpolitical work. Overheating of the economy and other problems became apparent beginning in the second half of 1984. The Party Central Committee and the State Council failed to adopt effective measures in time to keep it within limits. At that time Zhao Ziyang, who was then premier, advocated the so-called "soft landing." The result showed not even an inclination to "land." On the contrary, the overheating trend continued to develop. Although the dual principle of tightening revenue and credit was adopted in 1987, it was not put into effect resolutely enough. This caused more problems to pile up, such as higher inflation, an imbalance between social production and consumption, and an economy structurally irrational and in disorder. The main problem in development of the economy deeply penetrating all levels was that total social demand far exceeded total social supply. From 1984 to 1988, the national income increased by 70 percent (by 149 percent calculated at the then current prices), but the fixed capital investment rose by 214 percent and urban and rural residents' currency income by 200 percent. Owing to ups and downs in grain production in a row of years and the overexpansion of the population (guidance over family planning work had been relaxed for a period), the per-capita grain output decreased while industrial production went up too quickly, resulting in a new imbalance between industrial and agricultural production. In the industrial field, basic industry and infrastructural construction were not proportionally in balance with the processing industry. Energy, communications and supply of raw materials lagged behind the over-expanded processing industry. Great quantities of industrial production capacity lay idle for long periods. The distribution power over funds, foreign exchange, materials and equipment was over-decentralized. From 1984 to 1988, the proportion of the state revenue to the national income decreased from 26.7 percent to 22 percent and that of the central 789 revenue to the total revenue dropped from 56.1 percent to 47 2 percent. As a result the state's macro-control capacity was weakened. The fields of production, construction and circulation fields saw a common phenomenon of high consumption, investment and expenditure but low efficiency, output and benefits. From 1985 to 1988, inflation rose drastically. In 1988, the national retail price index rose by 18.5 percent after big consecutive increases in the previous years, scoring the biggest rise in many years. This seriously upset wide sections of the population. Accompanying this steep inflation, price reform was improperly introduced in the summer of 1988. In August, the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee discussed and in principle passed the "Initial Plan for Price and Wage Reform." Although the conference called for the adoption of strong measures for controlling inflation in a comprehensive way, it still emphasized that now was the favourable opportunity for implementing price and wage reform. Reform of the price system was undoubtedly necessary. But announcement of this big step, with inflation climbing day by day, and without ample consideration of how the state and enterprises could bear it, how the people could endure it, in fact fired a burst of panic purchasing countrywide in the second half of 1988. That same year in September, in this grim economic situation, the 3rd Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee proposed to improve the economic environment, rectify the economic order and deepen overall economic reform. The session also decided to shift the focus of reform and construction in 1989 and 1990 to improvement of the economic environment and rectification of the economic order. The plenary session pointed out that the main purpose of improving the economic environment was to decrease overall social demand, control inflation and rectify the economic order. That meant correcting disorders of all kinds in economic life, particularly in the field of circulation. Resolute and effective measures were to be adopted in these two fields. Improvement of the economic environment and rectification of the economic order were in keeping with the objective requirements of economic construction and reform of the economic system. Political Upheaval in 1989 The campaign to oppose bourgeois liberalization started in early 1987 could not keep going because of Zhao Ziyang's passive attitude. In mid-May, Zhao arbitrary asserted that the conservative tendency to oppose reform and opening up was as dangerous as the ideological tendency of bourgeois liberalization and both should be opposed equally. Since then the orientation of the campaign was changed and the ideological tendency of bourgeois liberalization ran rampant again. Zhao also seriously neglected Party-building, the building of an advanced socialist culture and ideology and political-ideological work. He suggested the "reform" of political-ideological work and denied some fine traditional and effective methods of Party political-ideological working methods. He failed to adopt effective measures to curb or solve the problem of the deteriorating Party style and social order, and severe decadence among some Party cadres and, in particular, among a very small number of leading cadres. For a time, the Parly's prestige among the people declined and its fighting power dwindled. The price hikes and economic disorder brought widespread complaints from the people. The temporary difficulties which arose during the economic rectification also caused misunderstanding and worry on the part of the masses. These factors were used by persons both in and outside the Party who were keen on bourgeois liberalization to attack the Party leadership. On the pretext of reforming the political system, they published their political views and directly demanded cancellation of the four cardinal principles, all-out Westernization and the introduction of a capitalist economic and political system. At this time antagonistic forces abroad were trying their best to promote a strategy of peaceful evolution and to exert influence on China through various channels. Furthermore, the trend of thought in favour of "democratic socialism" was widespread and activities of anti-socialist forces were rampant in some socialist countries of Eastern Europe. The pro-bourgeois-liberalization forces in China were encouraged and began to hold political gatherings and write letters to the state leading organs in some big cities, especially in Beijing, in late 1988 and early 1989, in an 791 attempt to change the system of the country. An upheaval was taking shape. On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died of heart failure. His death acted as a fuse to touch off the outbreak of turbulence. In some institutions of higher learning in Beijing, a few anti-Party and anti-socialist conspirators had been scheming and manipulating underground for a long time. In order to confuse people and poison their minds they spread rumours that Hu had died of political persecution. The memorial activities quickly developed into a political demonstration. For a while, rumours were spread everywhere, while numerous big-character posters and slogans appeared attacking the chief Party and state leaders, the Party's leadership and the socialist system. In just a few days, serious incidents occurred; crowds gathered outside the Xinhuamen Gate of Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council; illegal occupation of Tiananmen Square and massive street demonstrations took place. At the same time, such serious criminal activities as beating, smashing and looting were perpetrated in Xi'an, Changsha, Chengdu and other cities. During this period, the fabricators of the disturbances used the student unrest to put forward a series of programmatic political demands. The two main ones were: first, they demanded reappraisal of Hu's merits and shortcomings and cancellation of the Party Central Committee's decision to dismiss him from his post in 1987; second, they demanded complete negation of the opposition to bourgeois liberalization, and called for rehabilitation of those who were criticized and punished in the campaign to oppose bourgeois liberalization. Thus, these demands, made at the very beginning of the turbulence, showed the diametrical opposition between bourgeois liberalization and the four cardinal principles. Confronted with this serious situation, Zhao Ziyang, then general secretary of the Party Central Committee, like Hu Yaobang, did not oppose or resist it. In fact, he supported the students and connived with their demonstrations. On April 24, Li Peng presided over a conference attended by the Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee (Zhao Ziyang had left for a visit to Korea on the previous day) to study the situation. The Standing Committee believed that China was confronted with a planned, organized political upheaval which was against the Party and socialism. The conference decided to establish a group under the Party Central Committee to stop the disturbance. Also the People's Daily issued an editorial explaining the essence of the struggle to the whole Party and the country. On April 25, Deng Xiaoping in an important speech expressed his complete agreement with and support for the decision of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. He also offered a profound analysis of the essence of the unrest pointing out that the demonstrations were not ordinary student strikes, but political upheavals rejecting the leading role of the Party and denying the socialist system. On April 26, People's Daily published an editorial entitled "A Clear Stand Against the Turbulence Is Essential." The editorial pointed out that a few people "flaunted the banner of democracy to undermine the democratic legal system, their purpose being to spread disunity among the people, throw the country into confusion and destroy the political situation of stability and unity. This was a planned conspiracy, a situation of turmoil. Its essence was basically to deny the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system from the foundation. This was a serious political struggle confronting the Party and people of all the nationalities throughout the country." The editorial made clear the essence of the turbulence for the vast majority of the cadres, and many students began to realize the seriousness of the issue. After May 4, about 80 percent of the students who had participated in the demonstrations went back to school and order was quickly restored throughout the country. At this point, Zhao Ziyang, who had only been back for a few days from his visit abroad suddenly changed his original attitude of support for Deng's speech and said the People's Daily editorial, based on the decision of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and on Deng's speech, had misjudged the nature of the student unrest. He demanded correction of this mistake. His wrong proposal was opposed and resisted by other members of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee. Without solicit 793 ing ideas from other Political Bureau members, he expressed opinions differing from the stand and principles of the Central Committee when meeting with representatives from various countries and regions at the meeting of the Council of the Asian Development Bank on May 4. He said, "There will be no big turmoil in China," ignoring the disturbances which had already surfaced. A host of facts had proved that the real aim of the turmoil was to negate the Communist Party leadership and the socialist system. Disregarding this, he still insisted, "T hey by no means oppose our fundamental system." When facts proved a handful of people were making use of the student unrest to instigate a turmoil, he simply said that it was "unavoidable" that "some people would take advantage of this." He totally negated the correct judgment of the Party Central Committee that a few people were creating turmoil and in so doing, brought out into public the differences within the Party Central Committee. Inspired by his speech, the engineers of the disturbance hectically redoubled their activities, again stirring up trouble in a situation which had already tended to subside. On May 6, Zhao Ziyang, while meeting with comrades in charge of publicity and ideological work under the Central Committee, said, "Loosening up a bit and reporting on the demonstrations increases the degree of press openness a bit. There's no great risk in this." Soon the media began supporting the student demonstrations and the turmoil, misleading public opinion. The scale of demonstrations in the capital and other cities expanded and the number of participants increased. The instigators of the turbulence adopted a dual policy. On the one hand they expressed their willingness to hold "dialogues" with the government leaders, and on the other, organized a hunger strike. Commencing on May 13, they incited and forced some students to hold a hunger strike at Tiananmen Square, and used these students as "hostages" and "stakes" lor realizing their political plot. The students' hunger strike aroused the feelings of a section of the people who sympathized with the students from different angles, together with the misleading publicity; more and more people came forward to express their support, from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. The Sino-Soviet high ranking talks suffered serious interference and some state affairs had to be suspended or cancelled. At the same time, demonstrations in big cities and provincial capitals expanded quickly, and some appeared in a number of small and medium-sized cities as well. The situation was unprecedented. In this dangerous turn of events, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an emergency meeting on the evening of May 16. The majority considered that in face of this situation, it was absolutely impermissible to retreat, but necessary to counterattack resolutely and gain control over the turmoil. Zhao Ziyang disagreed with the majority and still insisted on retreating. The next day, attendance at the demonstrations and attacks on Deng Xiaoping increased on an unprecedented scale. Also, slogans extolling Zhao were aired above Tiananmen Square and in the ranks of the demonstrators. To prevent worsening of the situation and in consideration of the inadequate police force in Beijing to maintain normal production, work, communication and social order, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided at a meeting held on May 17 to implement martial law in some areas in Beijing. On the evening of May 19, a conference attended by leading members from the Party, the government and military institutions in Beijing was held. It called for emergency action and decided to adopt resolute measures to stop the turmoil. Zhao Ziyang opposed the CPC Central Committee's decision and refused to attend the conference, openly revealing his split with the Party. According to the State Council's decision, starting at 10 a.m. on May 20, some areas in Beijing were put under the martial law. The engineers of the turbulence still occupied Tiananmen Square and tried to spread the disturbances and escalate the disorders. Finally, the upheaval in Beijing developed into a counter-revolutionary rebellion. Throughout the progress of the student demonstrations and the hunger strike, the Party and government were patient and did what they could. But as the Chinese saying goes, "The tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside." On June 3, while the martial law troops were heading for their positions in the capital 795 according to schedule, the ringleaders of some illegal organizations instigated people to set up roadblocks to halt military vehicles. They burnt some of the vehicles and killed PLA soldiers and army officers. Moreover, they took advantage of the next day being Sunday to incite more people to take to the streets. This was for the purpose of creating momentum for an insurrection to overthrow the government and usurp state power. At this crucial moment, the CPC Central Committee, the State Council and the CPC Central Military Commission were compelled to act resolutely. They ordered the martial law troops stationed around the capital to move in by force on the night of June 3 to put down the counter-revolutionary rebellion. During their advance into their positions, the troops met with fierce attacks from large gangs of marauders and had to adopt necessary armed action in selfdefense. In the early morning of June 4, several thousand students withdrew peacefully from Tiananmen Square following patient persuasion by the army soldiers, and the square was cleared again. As the square returned to the hands of the people and the martial law troops entered the areas under the martial law, the counter-revolutionary rioting was quelled. The situation in Beijing was quickly brought under control; order was restored in other big and medium-sized cities fairly soon. The occurrence of this unrest and counter-revolutionary rebellion had a profound social and historical background. As Deng Xiaoping said, "This storm was bound to break out sooner or later. As determined by the international and domestic climate, it was bound to happen and was independent of man's will."24 The international situation had a significant bearing on the events. Since World War II, the capitalist world was restored following the post-war crisis, and began to develop again. The new science and technology in particular brought about a rapid development in production and speeded up the transfer of new achievements to productivity. Some people were puzzled by this situation and failed to see the uncompromising, sharp contradictions still existing in the capitalist system. At the same time, some socialist countries made serious decision-making mistakes which caused numerous difficulties to economic construction and social progress. As a result the superiority of the socialist system could not be brought into full play consistently from beginning to end, and the image of socialist society among the people was undermined. In this way, the idea that "socialism is not as good as capitalism" began to spread unchecked. The political forces in some Western countries advocated a strategy of peaceful evolution and strengthened penetration of their ideological thought and politics into socialist countries in a planned way and through various channels, and gave all-out support to all kinds of anti-Communist Party and anti-socialist activities in an attempt to shake and seize the precincts socialism was occupying. The serious effects of this "big climate" on intellectuals, young students and some Party members in socialist countries including China should not be underestimated in the least. At home, the tendency of bourgeois liberalization appeared after the overthrow of the "gang of four." Some people blindly worshipped the "democracy" and "freedom" of the Western capitalist countries and negated socialism and the leadership of the Communist Party. When this tendency emerged in early 1979, Deng Xiaoping took a clear-cut stand in his speech "Uphold the Four Cardinal Principles." Later, he seriously proposed the task of opposing spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalization. But the principle of opposing bourgeois liberalization was not conscientiously implemented in the following years. After Zhao Ziyang took over Hu Yaobang's work in the Central Committee, the tendency of bourgeois liberalization was not checked. On the contrary, it was allowed to expand steadily and run wild. A group of diehards who persisted in their stand on bourgeois liberalization and engaged in political conspiratorial activities became the main instigators and organizers of the turmoil and riots. Zhao Ziyang who connived at, encouraged and supported bourgeois liberalization, became the representative within the Party of those who supported the turmoil. The victory in quelling the turmoil and counter-revolutionary rebellion has consolidated our socialist position and the 10-year reform and opening up. It provides invaluable experiences and lessons for the Party and the people.

Advance Further in Economic Improvement and Rectification and Deepening the Reform

The 4th Plenary Session of the 13th Party Central Committee and Formation of the New Central Leadership After winning a decisive victory in quelling the counterrevolutionary rebellion in Beijing area, the Communist Party held its 4th Plenary Session of the 1 3th Central Committee in late June 1989, in Beijing. Before the session, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting to make necessary preparations. The main task of the session was to discuss the serious mistakes committed by Zhao Ziyang during the anti-Party, anti-socialism turbulence and to adopt disciplinary measures against him. The session examined and approved the Political Bureau's "Report on Comrade Zhao Ziyang's Mistakes in the Anti-Party, Anti-Socialism Turmoil" delivered by Li Peng. It held that at a juncture involving the destiny of the Party and the whole country, Zhao Ziyang made the mistake of supporting the turmoil and splitting the Party. He bore unshirkable responsibility for the formation and development of the rebellion. The nature and consequences of his mistakes were very serious. Although some of the things he had done were beneficial to China's reform, opening to the outside world and economic development when he held leading posts in the Party and the government, he departed from guidelines and erred in practical work. Especially after coming to the leading position in the Central Committee, he took a passive approach towards upholding the four cardinal principles and opposition to bourgeois liberalization, and neglected Party building, cultural and ethical development and ideological and political work, causing serious losses to the cause of the Party. In view of his mistakes, the session decided to dismiss him from his posts of general secretary of the Central Committee, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, member of the Political Bureau, member of the CPC Central Committee and first vice-chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee. Later at the 8th Session of the Seventh NPC Standing Committee, he was dismissed from his post of vicechairman of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China. The session made the necessary adjustments in the Party's central leadership. Jiang Zemin was elected general secretary of the Central Committee (Jiang held leading positions in industrial departments for a long period, once served as mayor of Shanghai and secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee); was elected member of the 12th and 13th CPC Central Committees and member of the Political Bureau at the 1st Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee. Jiang Zemin, Song Ping and Li Ruihuan were elected members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau was made up of Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Yao Yilin, Song Ping and Li Ruihuan; Li Ruihuan and Ding Guangen were made members of the Secretariat of the Central Committee; Hu Qili and two others were removed from their positions in the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee for supporting Zhao Ziyang's wrong stand during the turmoil. Before the plenary session, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that the political turmoil of the late spring and early summer "prompts us to calmly think about the past and consider the future" and that it also "will enable us to more speedily correct our mistakes and better develop our strong points."25 In this spirit, the plenary session initially summed up lessons and clarified the Party's principles and tasks for the present and the future. Should we continue to resolutely implement the Party's line laid down at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1 th Party Central Committee? Should we still follow the basic line of "one central task, two basic points" summed up at the 13th Party Congress? These were problems our Party and the whole nation thought 799 about calmly after the turmoil. They were also issues of close concern to the whole world. The 4th Plenary Session pointed out clearly that "the line, principles and policies adopted since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee will continue to be resolutely implemented, and the basic line of the ‘one central task and two basic points' established at the 1 3th Party Congress will also continue to be resolutely carried out. The four cardinal principles, as the foundation of national construction, must be adhered to unswervingly and consistently, and the policy of reform and opening to the outside world, as the road to prosperity, must be implemented as usual in a steadfast manner. The country must not return to the old, closed-door path."26 Practice proved that the line, principles and policies laid down since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee were correct. But these principles and policies were not implemented consistently and were not used as the basic concept to educate the people, the students, the cadres and the Party members. Therefore the Party's task was, on the basis of conscientiously summing up experience, to "persevere in what is right, correct what is wrong, and do a bit more where we lag behind."27 This was none other than the approach adopted by the new leading group of the Party Central Committee for dealing with this most fundamental problem. In face of the grim reality in which some people, who persist in bourgeois liberalization, advocate "full Westernization or capitalism under the banner of "reform and opening up, and by absorbing the lessons drawn from Zhao Ziyang's mistakes of separating the reform and opening up from the Four Cardinal Principles and opposing the one against the other, Jiang Zemin spoke at the plenary session. He stressed, "As proposed by Deng Xiaoping, the reform and opening up which we resolutely carry out and implement is that carried out under the principles of persisting in the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, the leadership of the Communist Party and Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. In stark contrast, the "reform and opening up" advocated by those who stubbornly stick to bourgeois liberalization is one for realizing Western capitalism, giving up the people's democratic dictatorship, cancelling the leadership of the Communist Party and abandoning Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. The purpose of their reform and opening up is to bring about capitalism. Of course, this is absolutely unacceptable to our Party and the people."28 Jiang's speech provided a principled distinction between socialist and capitalist "reform and opening up." His remarks were of special importance to overall understanding by the broad masses of the Party members and cadres and to their conscious implementation of the line stipulated since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee and to the healthy development of China's construction and reform and opening up, along the socialist orientation. The 4th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee also made an earnest study of the current situation and called on the whole Party to do the following four things well: the first was to resolutely stop the turmoil and quell the counter-revolutionary rebellion, strictly distinguish between the two different types of contradictions and further stabilize the situation of the whole country; the second was to persist in the policy of improving the economic environment and rectifying the economic order so as to better implement the policies of reform and opening to the outside world and develop the economy in a sustained, steady and co-ordinated way; the third was to earnestly improve ideological and political work and make great efforts to carry out education in patriotism, socialism, independence and self-reliance, plain living and hard work, and strictly oppose bourgeois liberalization; the fourth was to greatly enhance the building of the Party, democracy and the legal system, resolutely penalize corruption, and accomplish a few items of popular concern so as to live up to the people's expectations of the Party. The successful convening of the plenary session symbolizes the Parly's "decisive victory won in a life-and-death struggle"29 of the Party and the country in stopping the turmoil and quelling the counter-revolutionary rebellion. After the plenary session, the new central leading group has resolutely implemented the Parly's basic line in an overall way. It strengthened the economic im 801 provement and rectification and deepened the reform and opening up. At the same time it strengthened ideological and political work and Party-building, overcoming the problem of stressing material advance to the neglect of cultural and ideological progress. As a result, the nationwide political situation was stabilized rapidly, the economic situation improved and affairs in the ideological field took a turn for the better. On several occasions before and after the 4th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping said: Soon after the new leading group has established its prestige, he would resolutely retire from his position on the Central Committee. He hoped everyone would unite around Jiang Zemin. He explained several times that it is extremely unhealthy and indeed very dangerous to place the fate of a country on the prestige of one or two persons. On the eve of the 5th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee held in November 1989, Deng Xiaoping, considering that the new central leading group was effectively carrying on its work and had gradually gamed the trust of the Party and the people, again handed to the Central Committee his resignation as chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission undepressed his willingness to set an example in establishing a retirement procedure to end the existing system of life-long tenure in the leading posts of the Party and state. On November 9 1989, based on his request, the 5th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee adopted the Decision Endorsing Comra e Deng Xiaoping's Resignation from the Chairmanship of the CPC Central Military Commission and appointed Jiang Zemin to the post. The session paid great tribute to Deng's revolutionary career and outstanding service, stressing, "The series of viewpoints and theories he has put forth under the principle of combining Marxism and Leninism with China's realities constitute an important component of Mao Zedong Thought and an inheritance and development of Mao Zedong Thought under new historical conditions, and are a priceless ideological treasure of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people." The session asked all Party members to "conscientiously study Comrade Deng Xiaoping's works so that they will play an important guiding role in the great process of our country's socialist modernization in the years to come."30 After the 4th and 5th Plenary Session, the second generation of the central leading group with Deng as its nucleus smoothly and gradually transferred its leadership to the third generation of the central leading group with Jiang Zemin as its nucleus as planned. (The first generation was established after the Zunyi Meeting with Mao Zedong as its nucleus.) This was of great significance for guaranteeing the stability and continuity of Party policies and the lasting security of the country. It also attested to the high political maturity and organizational strength of the Party. Strengthen Party-Building and Improve Ideological and Political Work After the 4th Plenary Session, the Party Central Committee first of all concentrated on strengthening Party building. The struggle to stop disturbances and to quell the counterrevolutionary rebellion proved that, in general, the Communist Party of China was strong and the majority of Party organizations and members were good. No hostile forces could shake them. Also the turmoil exposed some serious problems in the Party. Some Party members were involved in the riots to various degrees and a few even became organizers and manipulators of the disturbances and rebellion. Some Party organizations were weak and ineffective and gave up their leadership. A few even supported the demonstrations. The serious corruption of some Party cadres, especially a few leading members, became one of the main factors causing such a large number of people to become involved in the unrest instigated by the conspirators. Therefore, Deng Xiaoping warned the new central leading group, "It is time to strengthen Party-building; otherwise it will be too late."31 To help the whole Party realize the significance and urgency of strengthening Partybuilding, Jiang Zemin stressed: While analysing the situation within the Party, we should not underestimate the impact on the Party of foreign hostile forces' attempt to change socialist counCHAFTER NINE A NEW PROSPECT IN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION 803 tries by means of peaceful evolution. We also should not underestimate the damage to the Party-building caused by the unchecked bourgeois liberalization and confusion Zhao Ziyang's mistakes brought to the Party and the harm done to the actual work.32 As "the problems mainly stemmed from the Party organization, the Party Central Committee asked "the Party committees at various levels to concentrate their efforts on doing a good job of Partybuilding according to the requirements of the Party's basic line, and determine to solve current urgent problems in the building of the Party."33 Only then could the Party stand the tests of the role of a ruling party, of the reform and opening up, development of commodity economy and opposition to peaceful evolution under the new historical conditions. In the autumn and winter of 1989 and in the next year, the Party organizations under the Party Central Committee undertook to deal with the impurity of some Party organizations. They checked all the key persons who had participated in the turmoil and rebellion and sorted out the major events involved. After the checkup was basically finished, the whole Party carried out education among its members on the standards for qualified Communists. Based on the principle to be severe with Party members, some departments proceeded with re-registration of their Party members. The purpose was to solve problems within the Party which were exposed in the turmoil and rebellion, as well as the outstanding problems which existed in the daily life of the Party. The work of checking and sorting out was combined with testing and judging cadres, mainly Party cadres at county level or above. The standards related to whether they held the same viewpoint as the Party Central Committee in regard to both ideological recognition and actual behaviour in the curient polit ical struggle; whether they upheld the four cardinal principles, persisted in the reform and opening up, opposed bourgeois liberalization; and whether they were honest and law-abiding in performing their official duties as well as brave in opposing corrupt tendencies. According to the resulting judgments, the leading groups of some organizations and departments were readjusted, with the aim of guaranteeing that the Party's leadership at various levels remained in the hands of Marxists who upheld the four cardinal principles and the reform and opening up, and of building the leadership at various levels into a strong nucleus for implementing the Party's line, principles and policies. Considering that the future of socialism in China depended to a great extent on the younger generation, the Party Central Committee called on the whole Party to do its best to train large numbers of successors to the socialist cause. Jiang Zemin also warned the whole Party that unless we went ahead to solve this problem, it would be impossible for our Party to have strong reserve forces and to advance successfully. This was a problem of great strategic significance determining whether our socialist cause could long endure and keep developing.34 Party-building should be strengthened first of all in the Party's ideological enhancement, especially in the field of theory. The Party Central Committee proposed that to help Party and government leaders at county level and above to draw a clear distinction between right and wrong, and to maintain the correct orientation in a complicated situation, it was necessary to educate them in the basic theories of Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and to make it a regular, systematic practice. In the future all new leading members should be trained in Party schools. Other leading members should also, in turn, study for a certain period of time in Party schools. At the same time the Party Central Committee paid great attention to the summing up and publicity of experiences in stepping up Party building at the grassroots units, particularly in stepping up the building of grassroots Party organizations in rural areas, and commended those who had done excellent work in this field. One important aspect in strengthening Party-building was to carry out the Party's fine traditions, forge closer relations between the Party and the masses, promote clean and honest government and to resolutely oppose corruption and degenerates. In July 1989, the Party Central Committee and the Stale Council made the "Decision to Do Several Things of Concern to the Masses in the Near Future." In keeping with this decision, the 805 Party and the government took up the following seven items, further checking up and reorganizing companies, resolutely prohibiting the children of high-ranking cadres from engaging in business, cancelling the "special supply" of a small number of foodstuff for high-ranking cadres, assigning cars strictly according to state regulations and forbidding the import of sedan cars and limousines, strict prohibition against holding dinner parties or giving gifts at state expense, strict control over visits abroad by leading cadres, investigation and severe punishment of corruption, bribery, speculation and other criminal activities, particularly of big cases. People appreciated this work. The 6th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee held m March 1)90 passed the "Decision on Strengthening Party's Connection with the Masses." The session held that the line of trusting and relying on the masses and the principle of "from the masses, to the masses" which was created and developed by the Party in its long struggles, was the basic working line of the Parly, one of its finest traditions and greatest political superiority. The session pointed out that relations between the Party and the masses as well as between the cadres and the masses were good in general. But bureaucracy, subjectivism, formalism and other negative and corrupt tendencies, which seriously divorced the Party rom the masses have affected some Party organizations and cadres in the preceding few years. In view of this, all Party members were enjoined to maintain sharp vigilance and to struggle against these tendencies, and also strive hard to restore and carry forward the fine traditions and working style of forging close links with the masses. The session pointed out that work in the seven lields mentioned should be done well so as to strengthen the Party s tics with the people. After the session, the Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee took the lead in going deep into the grassroots units and among the masses to do investigation and research. The Party and government departments at various levels stipulated relevant measures and implemented them conscientiously. All these efforts promoted Party-building. In November of the same year, the Party Central Committee approved the "Opinions on Improving the Party Style and Strengthening the Building of a Clean and Honest Government" put forward by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and called on Party organizations at various levels to enforce Party discipline, seriously investigate all breaches of discipline and handle them properly. The Party Central Committee also made the suggestion to correct unhealthy tendencies and disregard for the law and discipline on the part of those Party and government cadres who illegally build and equip homes for themselves with public money according to standards higher than those stipulated by the state. The Party Central Committee emphasized that improving Party style and building a clean and honest government must start with the leading organizations and cadres, and should be implemented resolutely and consistently. In December 1989, the Party Central Committee passed the "Views on Upholding and Perfecting the Multi-Party Cooperation and Political Consultation System Under the Leadership of the Communist Party of China" emphasizing that the system was China's basic political system. The opinions also reaffirmed that "long-term coexistence, mutual supervision, esteem for each other, and sharing honour or disgrace jointly" are the basic principles guiding cooperation between the Communist Party of China and other democratic parties. The Party Central Committee decided to strengthen cooperation and consultation of the Communist Party with various democratic parties, further bring into full play the role of the democratic party members as well as of personages without party affiliation in the people's congresses; recommend democratic party members and non-party personages to take leading positions in governments at various levels and judicial organs; further bring into play the role of the democratic parties at the people's political consultative conferences and support the self-construction of the democratic parties. Since restoration of their activities, the democratic parties have played an important role as participants in the administration and discussion of state affairs, the development of education, science and technology and the application of knowledge in the construction of the border CHARTER NINE A NEW PROSPECT IN SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION 807 areas. The CPC Central Committee pointed out that persisting in and perfecting the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China was of important significance to the building of socialist, democratic politics in China. While consolidating the Party building, ideological work among the masses, especially ideological and political work among students, was also strengthened. After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, the ideological and propaganda work made positive contributions to criticism of the "two whatevers," and emancipation of the mind as well as to exploration of the laws governing socialist modernization and the reform and opening up. But afterwards, some erroneous tendencies, especially the decadent bourgeois ideas of Western countries, have been coming in a continuous stream and some quite serious problems have been exposed. Ideas such as preoccupation with moneymaking, scorning lofty ideals and worshipping, or having blind faith in whatever is foreign, have spread, while vulgar, or even degenerate and decadent moods have developed. Unhealthy practices which were eliminated in the early post-liberation years have reappeared. While there are many t actors behind their reappearance, one important reason is the weakening of ideological work. For a period of time, Zhao Ziyang opposed those comrades who upheld the Four Cardinal Principles and resisted decadent ideas and bad practices. As a result, part of the media and ideological and cultural front were no longer in the hands of the Party and the people. Therefore the CPC Central Committee emphasized that the related departments must adopt resolute measures to restore a wholesome situation. In July 1989, the CPC Central Committee issued the "Circular on Strengthening Propaganda and Ideological Work." The whole Party was alerted to clearly understand that China's reform and opening up and modernization construction were being carried out in a complicated international situation. Hostile forces in the Western countries were carrying out political and ideological infiltration in various ways. They have tried their best to advocate sham "democracy," "freedom" and "human rights," and have instigated and supported bourgeois liberalization in China. We must adopt a clear stand and carry out sustained, resolute struggles against their attempts and activities to bring about "peaceful evolution." The Party organizations at various levels should attach great importance to this. They should strengthen their leadership over propaganda and ideological work in order to check bourgeois liberalization and ensure that socialist ideas dominate the field of ideology. Great efforts over a period of time brought a change for the better. Stressing material progress to the neglect of cultural and ideological progress was counteracted in the following fields: Education in basic theory of Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought was emphasized again. From 1990 to the first half of 1991, education in socialist ideas was carried out among the Party and government cadres and the broad masses. Education in modern and contemporary Chinese history and the present situation in China was regarded as important from many sides. A group of convincing theoretical articles on socialism and criticism of bourgeois liberalization were published. These measures fundamentally changed the situation in which works propagating reactionary bourgeois and decadent ideas had spread unchecked in ideological and cultural fields. Some effective ideological and educational systems and working methods which had been followed for a long time in the past but which had been set aside for a time, were restored and improved. Education was strengthened in patriotism, collectivism, independence, self-reliance, hard work and respect for law and discipline. Through a series of programmes such as praising pace-setters and outstanding workers and learning from such heroic persons as Lei Feng, Jiao Yulu and Lai Ning, a more healthy socialist atmosphere was created. The Party's fine traditions and working styles shone again in splendour. The anti-pornography campaign (the nationwide effort to rectify and check on the markets selling books, magazines and video-audio tapes, especially those emblazoning sex, violence, feudalism and superstition) checked the spread of bourgeois 809 decadent ideas and evil social tendencies. The leading groups of some ideological departments were readjusted and consolidated; some newspapers and publications, social and scientific research institutes, and literary and art troupes, which had committed mistakes of political orientation, were rectified ideologically and organizationally in an earnest WdOn the premise of adhering to Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, the principle of "letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend" was conscientiously implemented. Rectification was strengthened while literature and art was flourishing. All this resulted in the production of a group of good works in the fields of philosophy, social science, literature and art. . In a word, a series of positive changes have taken place in tne fields of ideology and propaganda. . The improvement in Party building and ideological and political work played a positive role in China's political and social stability; it also provided important political and ideological conditions for the rectification and the improvement and deepening of reform in the field of economy. Economic Improvement and Rectification; Completion of the Seventh Five-Year Plan The 3rd Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee, held in September 1988, decided to improve the economic environment, rectify economic order, and deepen reforms. But, as it was nearing the end of the year, little time was left to take practical measures. Furthermore, the steps that had been adopted proved to be ineffective in a short time. Overheating of the economy and inflation had not been eased in 1988. Rather, social demand continued to swell that year. Compared with the previous year, in 1988 total investment in fixed assets surged by 23.5 percent; the average per-capita income of urban and rural residents for living expenses increased by 22.2 percent and 17.7 percent, respectively, far above the 11.1 percent of growth rate of the national income. The gross industrial output value rose by 20.7 percent. The growth rate of the processing industry went beyond what the energy and raw material industries could cope with. Contradictions within the industrial structure had intensified, while tensions in transportation and communications deepened. In agriculture, the output of grain, cotton and edible oil had shrunk to some extent due to frequent natural disasters and policy mistakes. Under the pressure of excessive social demand, the issue of currency was increased by a big margin. This resulted in a massive financial deficit. The retail price index rose by 1 8.5 percent, a scale unmatched in many years. The situation created difficulties for economic development in 1989. Moreover, the political turmoil in 1989 seriously interfered with the economic improvement and rectification and the deepening of reform, to the further detriment of China's economy. Western capitalist powers imposed "econorhic sanctions" against China on the excuse of the incident of the recapturing Tiananmen Square by the martial law enforcement troops in Beijing (a justified deed that was grossly distorted by the Western media). This further exacerbated China's economic troubles. All these factors demonstrate how great China's economic difficulties were in June 1989, when the 4th Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee was convened. In this serious economic situation, the Party Central Committee, while grappling to stabilize the political situation, resumed improvement and rectification of the economy to bring about social and economic stability and development. In the early days of November 1989, the 5th Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee made the decision to further carry out the policy of economic improvement and rectification and deepen the reform. The meeting projected a period of three or more years beginning in 1989, for reaching this goal. To this end, the meeting stressed the reduction of total social demand and implementation of a policy for stringent control over finance and credit. It focused on strengthening basic fields of production such as agriculture, adjusting the structure of industry, earnestly rectifying economic order, especially in the circu lation area, raising economic efficiency by all means, deepening the reform and opening the door wider. As determined at the meeting, the Party's leadership in achieving these aims was to be strengthened effectively. On the basis of summing up experience, the meeting proposed that economic construction must adhere to a long-term policy of sustained, stable and concerted developResolutions made at the meeting helped the entire Party to unify its views on the economic situation. Thanks to the implementation of the Party's economic policies coupled with correction of Zhao Ziyang's mistakes in economic guiding thought and measures, China's economy, though still in difficulty, was gradually brought back onto the path of healthy development. By the latter half of 1989, the improvement and rectification policy had gained initial success, while greater achievements were scored in 1990: , „ J . , —Inflation was brought under control. Reduction of investment in fixed assets and curb of rapidly increasing consumer fund had somewhat allayed the contradiction between rising total social demand and inadequate supply, which had been the mainspring of the inflation spiral. Beginning in October 1989, the price-rise fell below 10 percent. Retail prices in 1990 were only 2.1 percent higher than the year before. As compared with the period of panic buying in 1988, commodities now were plentiful and prices were stable.—Industrial restructuring started. Of investment in basic capital construction, the proportion allocated for agriculture, energy resources, transport and communications—the weak links in the national economy—was increased. Investment in productive enterprises rose, while the construction of such non-productive projects as buildings, halls and hotels was curbed. With the building of key state projects accelerated, a string of them were established and put into production.—Disorders in the field of circulation were rectified on a preliminary level. According to statistics, by the end of 1990, more than 100,000 companies, 35.2 percent of the total number of firms of one kind or another, were disbanded or merged. Most of the companies operated by the Party and government institutions were dismantled or detached from these institutions. Party and government officials could no longer concurrently hold their positions and accept jobs in these companies. The haphazard proliferation of companies in the sphere of circulation was hemmed in and market order was greatly improved.—The national economy grew at an appreciable rate. In 1989, the GNP increased by 3.9 percent and in the following year by 5 percent. Grain output witnessed bumper harvests in two straight years, 1989 and 1990, up from the stagnation of the previous four years. Following the sluggish market and slow growth in the latter half of 1989 and the first half of 1 990 ( unavoidable when fighting inflation and cooling an overheating economy), industry gradually resumed a normal growth rate in the latter half of 1 990. In 1 989 and 1990, industrial production growth averaged 8.1 percent.—Foreign trade and economic and technical exchanges continued to develop. Exports increased by 10.5 percent in 1989 and 18.1 percent the following year. Exports of finished industrial products, especially machinery and electrical equipment, increased significantly, while imports of high-grade consumer goods were cut down. The mix of import and export commodities was improved. China continued to absorb foreign capital in proper amounts. The international tourist industry gradually returned to normal. Thanks to reduced imports and expanded exports, as well as to an increase in foreign exchange from sources other than trade, China reached a favorable international balance, overcoming several years of deficit. Cash balances increased substantially. Opening up to neighboring countries advanced apace. The Shanghai Pudong New Development Area was established.—Science, technology, education and various social undertakings continued to develop. New progress had been made in the spread and popularization of new technologies. Important achievements were scored in key scientific and technological projects. China's science and technology reached the world's advanced level in many fields, as indicated by: the successful launching of the Asia No.l communications satellite and the Long March No.2 cluster carrier rocket; the construction and normal operation of 5 megawatt low-temperature nuclear heatsupply test reactor; and the successful trial run of 10,000-ton combined trains on the Datong-Qinhuangdao Railway. Various educational ventures continued to prosper. China had splendidly hosted the XI Asian Games, firing the national spirit and promoting the nurture of socialist culture and ideology. To the surprise of many, China, beset by internal difficulties and external pressure, had curbed the rising inflation and turned the national economy onto a path of healthy development in a short period. This demonstrated China's huge economic potential and correct macro-economic policies. Economic stability was conducive to social stability on which economic stability itseli was based. . . . , , Economic improvement and rectification were interlocked with the deepening of reform. They required the support of structural reform, and at the same time created conditions tor the deepening of reform and its healthy development. While the locus was on improvement and rectification, economic restructuring continued to be carried out by centering on this focus and serving its aims. A rural socialized service system emerged. The enterprise contract responsibility system was constantly perfected. The establishment of enterprise groupings made headway. The system of foreign trade was revamped by establishing export-oriented enterprises responsible for their own profits and losses. The pricing system was also revamped by focusing on the priceadjustment of coal, grain, edible oil, labor service, and transport fees. In all these reforms, the anticipated successes were achieved. China's multi-type economy with public ownership as the main body continued to grow. The economic sphere of non-public ownership which was expanding in the national economy contributed to economic growth during the period of economic improvement and rectification. The Seventh Five-Year Plan expedited by improvement, rectification and the deepening of reform was fulfilled by the end of 1990. The majority of targets for national economic and social development were fulfilled or over-fulfilled. I he annual average growth rate of the GNP reached 7.8 percent, and the national income, 7.5 percent, surpassing the requirements of the Seventh Five-Year Plan. The gross agricultural output value annually increased by 4.7 percent, above the prescribed 4 percent. Overall growth took place in farming, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production and fishery. The equipment was up-graded somewhat. The gross industrial output value grew by an average of 13.1 percent. This exceeded the planned 7.5 percent, gaining the third highest rate of speed next to that of the First Five-Year Plan and the Sixth Five-Year Plan periods. Industrial production capacity expanded and the technical level was raised. Average annual output of major industrial products increased greatly in comparison with the previous five-year period. People's living standards rose further. Real income for consumption in urban and rural areas increased by an average of 4.1 percent. Net income increase for farmers averaged 2.4 percent each year. In the last two years of improvement and rectification, the living standards of the majority of urban and rural residents were assured, and even raised somewhat. Since reform and opening were introduced, China's socialist modernization drive had scored substantial achievements that attracted worldwide attention. China's social and economic image underwent a profound change. Between 1978 and 1990, China's GNP increased by 2.74 times (during 1980 and 1990, the average annual growth rate was 9 percent, three times that of the world economy in the 1980s). Gross industrial output value rose by 3.89 times; of this steel rose by 2.1 times, raw oil 32.7 percent and electricity 2.4 times. The level of industrialization was raised to a new high. Gross agricultural output value increased by 2.03 times. Science, technology, culture and education further developed. China's defenses continued to be strengthened. China has basically settled the problem of feeding and clothing the people, and the living standards of the urban and rural people have generally improved. In 1990, farmers' bank deposits totalled 184.1 billion yuan. The whole outlook in the rural areas has changed conspicuously. The per-capita income of residents in cities and towns increased by 68.1 percent as compared to 10 years earlier. Urban service facilities have expanded. The family CHAPTER NINE A NEW PROSPECT IN SOCIAL, ST CONSTRUCTION "shopping-baskets" carry supplies of ever greater .™«ya*i worth The historical achievements made by the Ormese l«ople indicate that China's socialist construction towards modernrza tion has passed through an important stage. The 7th Plenary Session of the 13th CPC : Central Committee and Beginning of Implementation of the Ten- Year Programme and the Eighth Five-Year Plan When the Seventh Five-Year : Plan had been fulfilled and implementation of the Eighth Five-Year Plan 0991 95) w^ about to begin, the 7th Plenary Session of he IMiCPC ^Centra Committee met to examine and approve the Proposals 01 "e_ CPC Central Committee for the Drawing- P ° Year Programme (1991-2000) and the Eighth Five-Year rU (1991-95) for National Economic and Social Developmen . The proposal was worked out after full deliberation and full preparation. Early in 1990, theStateCouncilset outto wnte Ten-Year Programme and the Eighth Five-Year Plan. The method of planning, which differed from past method , was ad vantageous . Hrst, it integrated the Frve-Year Plan into the Ten-Year Programme. This was because many issues in economic Ind lodal development are continuous, therefore need a longer time for consideration. Some key construction projects scientrfm and technical topics for solving key problems, and the fostering of personnel cannot be completed within only one five-year plan neriod A five-year plan based on the general tendencies and targets of the ten-year economic development is bound to be more effSecondalthefbasfc train of thought for drawing up the ten-year nrneramme and five-year plan had been studied, domestic conditions and the international situation were ^sed whde the direction and policies for construction and reform were consid ered in their broader aspects before specific formulations were W°Thlrd°Uin writing the proposals, opinion were repeatedly -sobcited from provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities undirect central control, the departments under the CPC Central Committee, government organizations, major army units, people's organizations, scholars and specialists, as well as leaders of democratic parties. Thanks to the democratic ' process and to following the mass line, the proposals had concentrated the wisdom from all sides rather successfully, thereby winning endorsement and support. The "Proposals" stipulated that in the last ten years of this century China would realize the second step of the strategic objective and raise the quality of the national economy as a whole to a new level. This would be a more important stage in modernization construction. The basic requirements are: to increase the GNP at an average annual rate of about 6 percent in order to quadruple the 1980 GNP by the end of this century in terms of constant price, by dint of greatly improving economic efficiency and optimizing the economic structure; to raise the people's living standards from just having enough to cat and wear to a state of leading a fairly comfortable life; to expand educational undertakings, promote scientific and technological progress, improve economic management, readjust the economic structure, and give priority to key construction projects so as to lay the material and technological foundation for China's sustained economic and social development in the early 21st century; to initially establish an economic structure and operating mechanism, which suit the development of a socialist-planned commodity economy based on public ownership and which combine planning with market regulation; and to raise socialist culture and ethics to a new level, and further improve socialist democracy and the legal system. These basic requirements of the second step of the strategic objective reflect the historical process of China's national economic and social development and express the Chinese people's earnest wish and ambitions for re-energizing the nation to create a strong and prosperous homeland. The gist of the document includes: 1. Stressing economic construction as the center and regarding economic development as the basis on which people's living standards improve and social progress is made; setting a clear-cut demand on the speed and 817 quantity of economic development, and laying more emphasis on the improvement of the quality of economic growth and the quality of the national economy. 2. Underlining further economic structural reform and opening wider to the outside world and strengthening the cultivation of a socialist spiritual civilization, democracy and a legal system. These will provide guarantees for the fulfillment of the second step of the strategic objemive and the sustained development of the economic system, politics, ideol oev and other aspects in the early 21th century. The 7th Plenary Session, on the basis of summing up historical and practical experience, set the fundamental guiding princip e^ for the drawing-up and implementation of the Ten Year Programme and the Eighth Five-Year Plan. These were. 8—Firmly follow the road of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The "Proposals" summed up the basic theory and oractice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics and advanced twelve principles. Some of these principles, which had been consistently adhered to by the Party in previous decades, now had new contents added under the new historical conditions, others were a summation of new experience m modern zation construction, reform and opening. In all, this was the crystalh t" the wisdom of the whole Party and the people of all nationalities- and it incorporated Deng Xiaoping s outstanding contribution' to the carrying on and development of Mao Zedong Thought under new historical conditions. The twelve PnnclPf" signify that the Party's understanding of building socialism wi Chinese characteristics is deepening and that the Party is becom ins more mature. The fundamental guarantee tor the realization of objectives in the 1990s is to adhere to the path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. . « --Firmly push forward reform and opening to the outsid world Reform in our country is a process by which the socialist system improves itself and develops, and it aims at promoting th growth of the productive forces and all-round social Pro^ss' ^ giving full play to the superiority of the socialist system, go on deepening the reform and open still wider to the outside world on the basis of summing up the relevant experiences gained in the 1980s and in line with the objective requirements for developing the productive forces, so that they can become a stronger impetus in pushing forward our economic and social development. —Firmly implement the principles of developing the national economy in a sustained, stable and coordinated way. It is necessary to strike a basic balance between aggregate social demand and supply; conscientiously follow the principle of doing what is within our capacity in arranging for economic construction and the people's livelihood; guard against and surmount overeagerness for success. While potential of resources is brought to a full play to promote economic growth, excessive allocation of the national income should be avoided, to guard against rekindling inflation. —Firmly follow the principle of self-reliance, hard struggle and building up the country through thrift and diligence. China is a big developing socialist country and must base economic construction on its own efforts. The use of foreign capital and technology must go along with the efforts to develop China's economy and enhance its capacity for self-reliance, so as to fulfill the strategic goal of social and economic development. The realization of China's modernization requires the hard work of several generations. For a long time to come, we must persist in the principle of building the country through thrift and diligence, practice economy in all fields of work, do everything with diligence and thrift, and eliminate extravagance and waste that exist to a serious extent in various fields. —Firmly implement the principle of promoting both material civilization and socialist culture and ethics. The promotion of socialist culture and ethics is one of the fundamental tasks in building socialism with Chinese characteristics. In face of the complicated international situation and the arduous tasks of reform and construction at home in the 1990s, it is all the more necessary for us to promote socialist culture and ethics in real earnest. We should make sustained efforts to carry out the struggle against bourgeois liberalization; we should strengthen ideological and political work in real earnest, carry out in-depth educa tion in patriotism, collectivism and socialism, re-energizethe national spirit, and improve the general mood of society. These will guarantee the healthy development of reform and opening and economic construction. _ r , • The plenary session pointed out that the last decade of th century will be crucial in the process of China's socialist modernization This is determined by the current domestic and international situation. We must consolidate and carry on the achievements made in the 1980s and greatly promote economic growth and social progress, to ensure that China enters the 21st century full of vitality. Party members as a whole and people of al nationalities must consolidate and develop the political siUiation of stability and solidarity, and concentrate on economic construction, reform and opening. In this way, our great country will emerge more dynamic and prosperous. , ft In accordance with the "Proposals" of the meeting, draft outlines of the the Ten-Year Programme and Eighth Five-Year Plan hammered oul by the State Council were being approved by the 4th Plenary Session of he Standing Committee of the NPC in March and April of 1 991 . The successful completion of the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the formulation and execution of the Ten-Year Programme > and the Eighth Five-Year Plan signify China's emergence from the drffi culties of 1989 and entrance onto a new stage of development in China's socialist modernization.

Readjustment in Foreign Relations and Progress in Reunification

After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC in December 1978, the Party made necessary and important re-arrangements in foreign relations to adjust to the changing international situation and the demands of domestic construction. In this work along these lines, the Party and state presented a new image. In this work, as in that of socialist construction at home, the chief architect was Deng Xiaoping. Foreign Policy at the New Stage In his speech early in the 1980s entitled "The Present Situation and Tasks," Deng stated, "It can be said that internationally the eighties are an extremely turbulent period, full of crises, but we believe that war can be put off and peace maintained for a longer time if the struggle against hegemonism is carried on effectively. This is possible, and it is precisely what we are working for. Like the people of the rest of the world, we really need a peaceful environment, and thus, for the interest of our own country the goal of our foreign policy is a peaceful environment for achieving the four modernizations."35 This put forward a new concept for the Party and state in setting general and specific policies in international affairs. Later in his talks with foreign guests and on other occasions, Deng repeatedly explained that, following the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee of the CPC, there has been some change in China's long-term viewpoint which had laid stress on the danger of war. Although the danger still remains, the forces checking the war are growing encouragingly. With the further development of global peace-maintaining forces, a large-scale world war was not likely to break out for a relatively long period of time and there was hope of preserving world peace. In May 1987, Deng said to guests from a West European country, "Concerning the overall international situation, in my opinion, it is possible to maintain peace for a rather long time. War is avoidable."36 This re-appraisal of the issue between war and peace served as the starting point for the foreign policy of the Party and state in the new stage. Practice in the past years has proved the judgement is correct. To say war is avoidable refers to a world war. Possibilities for a long-term peace require the concerted efforts of all peace-loving forces. In fact, regional wars have been occurring every year, even one such as the 1991 Gulf War which the United States and many 821 other countries became involved in. Striving for peace requires optsUion o hegemonism and power politics. In his abovementioned talks fn the early 1980s. Deng said that one of the three major tasks facing us in the 1980s was "to op^se hegemonism and maintain world peace in international affairs As tor opposition to hegemonism. the Party tasten™* den Mn ts international policy both in the new period and before. In March 1985 Deng pointed out, "In the days when Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai were leading the country, China was already opposed to superpower hegemony, regarding it as th source of war" "It follows that opposing superpower hegemony means preserving world peace. Since the downfall of the gang of four,' we too have made it a state policy to oppose superpower heeemonv and uphold world peace. 3S ... f The Communist Party of China and the People s : Republic of China under the leadership of the CPC have adhered to th principle of independence and self-reliance, never giving in to any foreign pressures or obeying the baton of any foreign country. During the new stage, China's policy of independence and seUreliancc is embodied in the policy of non-alignment " his talks with the head of a Latin American country m May 1984, Deng said "China's foreign policy is independent and truly no aligned ChTna does not align itself with any country but invanably pursues a policy of independence. It will not play the Unit St^es card or fte ‘Soviet Union card.' Nor will it allow others to play the 'China card.'"3' China's independent foreign policy of peace and non-alignment conforms to the highest m‘e^es« the Chinese people, and is conducive to world peace and stability. It "m£mm contribution to the preservation of world peace. During the new stage, China will continue to uphold the five principles of peaceful co-existence advanced by Chinese leaders in the 1950s and to develop normal relations with other coun nes in the world based on these principles. China pays special att tion to relations with the third world nations. In his talks in May 1984, Deng Xiaoping said, China 'T alwavs belong to the third world, and this position is the founda to of our forcign policy. It means that China, being a poor country, belongs to the third world as a matter of course, that it shares a common destiny with all third world countries and that it will remain one of them even when it becomes prosperous and powerful, because China will never seek hegemony or bully others, but will always side with the third world."40 A major problem facing the third world countries is the development of their national economy. Deng summarized the current world problems as consisting of two: peace and development. Development requires the establishment of equal and mutually beneficial economic relations among countries in a bid to help narrow the expanding economic gap between the developed countries and the developing countries, and to reverse the tendency toward widening imbalance and growing instability in the world economy. Therefore, China should strive to maintain world peace, and at the same time, improve North-South relations, strengthen SouthSouth ties, and jointly promote a common economic prosperity among all the countries in the world. At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th CPC Central Committee, the focus of the whole Parly's work was shifted to modernization in socialist construction. The adjustment in foreign policy was in line with the shift in the focus of the Party's work. China, made up of a quarter of the world's population, is economically backward and must stick to the socialist road in its drive towards modernization. Deviating from the socialist road would make it impossible for China to realize the four jnodernizations. In its modernization drive, China needs a peaceful environment. It is most advantageous for China's construction if lasting world peace can be achieved. In his above-mentioned talks with the head of a Latin American country, Deng stressed, "The aim of China's foreign policy is world peace. Always bearing that aim in mind, we are wholeheartedly devoting ourselves to the modernization programme to develop our country and to build socialism with Chinese characteristics. "We are now devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to the modernization of our country, and therefore we sincerely hope that no war will break out and that we can gain a long-lasting peace,"41 823 Deng added. At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Central Committee, the Party initiated the policy of opening up to the outside world. Unless a big country like China mainly relies on its own efforts in socialist construction, it will not work. But at the same time it will not work unless China opens up. In his talks with Japanese guests in June 1984, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that the current world is an open one. He said, "After the founding of the People's Republic, we were blockaded, and so the country remained closed to some extent, which created difficulties for us. Some ‘Left' policies and the ‘cultural revolution' in particular were disastrous for us. In short, the experience of the past thirty years or more proves that a closed-door policy would hinder construction and inhibit development." "As for our relations with foreign countries, we shall pursue the policy of opening still wider to the outside world,"42 he added. Because China has adopted a long-term policy of opening, it must establish and develop diplomatic, economic and cultural ties with all countries in the world based on the five principles of peaceful co-existence. During the new period following the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, the Party has carried on the policies proved to be correct in practice in foreign relations, and at the same time, it has made necessary adjustments and added some new factors to conform to the new international situation and to meet the needs of socialist construction. Foreign Affairs Work of the Party and State China's foreign policy in the new stage is embodied in the work involving both state diplomatic affairs and other foreign matters, and in the Parly's own foreign liaison work. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Communist Party of China readjusted its relations with foreign parties. The 12th National Congress of the CPC held in 1982 made the decision to adhere to four principles in developing relations with foreign communist parties: independence and self-reliance, full equality, mutual respect, and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. In accordance with these principles, the Party has improved and strengthened its friendly relations with some parties, resumed once-broken ties with others and newly established links with still others. Early in 1977, the CPC resumed relations with the party of Yugoslavia. In 1980, ties between the CPC and the communist parties of Italy and Spain were restored. Then, the communist parties of Greece, France and the Netherlands sent delegates to visit China. In turn, the CPC dispatched delegates to attend these parties' conventions. In May 1989, in the wake of normalized state-to-state relations between China and the Soviet Union, the relations between the two parties were also restored. Prior to this development, the CPC had resumed its suspended relations with some East European communist parties. In addition, the CPC established relations with socialist parties, social democratic parties and labor parties of many nations such as Japan, France, Australia and New Zealand. Various links and contacts with the nationalist parties in third world countries were also established. By the first half of 1991, the CPC had made contacts of one kind or another with more than 270 political parties in the world. In the last two years, more than thirty foreign political parlies began to have contacts and exchanges with the CPC. The principles governing relations with foreign communist parties, put forward by Deng Xiaoping and approved by the 12th National Party Congress, are likewise applicable to relations with foreign social parlies, social democratic parties, labor parties and nationalist parties. Developing relations with different countries and parties of various kinds will not be influenced by fine distinctions, or outright disparity in ideology. The preface of China's Constitution, passed by the National People's Congress in December 1982, stipulates: "China consistently carries out an independent foreign policy and adheres to the five principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence in developing diplomatic relations and economic and cultural exchanges with other countries. China consistently op 825 poses imperialism, hegemonism and colonialism, works to strengthen unity with the people of other countries, supports the oppressed nations and the developing countries in their just struggle to win and preserve in national independence and develop their national economies, and strives to safeguard world peace and promote the cause of human progress." This formalized the state's foreign policy in legal terms. After years of negotiations during the 1970s, China and the United States issued the "Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations" on December 16, 1978. According to its stipulation, China and the U.S. established diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979, realizing normal ties. The Taiwan issue is an important one between China and the U.S. Through negotiations, the U.S. government finally recognized the Chinese government's position that there is only one China, that Taiwan is part of China, and that the Government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government of China. The U.S. government also made the commitment that after establishing diplomatic relations with China, it would immediately suspend its "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan, and withdraw U.S. military forces and facilities from Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits. On this basis, China and the U.S. reached the agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations. However, soon after, the United States suddenly passed the "Taiwan Relations Act." Actually, the law deliberately treated Taiwan as a state and the Taiwan authorities as a government. Many stipulations of the act violated the principles of the communique. The Chinese government solemnly warned Washington that failure to abide by the agreement on the Taiwan issue and attempts to interfere in China's internal affairs would only damage Sino-U.S. relations and result in no advantage at all to either side. The establishment of Sino-U.S. diplomatic ties ushered in a new period in the two countries' relations and thus was welcomed by all countries in the world. However, the U.S. had not completely given up its intentions to meddle in China's internal matters, and this cast a shadow on Sino-U.S. ties. Since the establishment of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations, the exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.S. and the other Western countries have increased in the fields of economy, culture, science and education, thanks to China's adherence to reform and opening, and her independent foreign policy of peace and self-reliance. After China and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1972, the two countries concluded the Sino-Japanese treaty on peace and friendship. During their exchange of visits in 1982 and 1983, top leaders of the two nations put forward the four principles of "peace and friendship, equality and mutual benefit, mutual trust and long-term stability," laying the foundation for long-term, friendly cooperation on an equal footing. While SinoJapanese ties arc developing and expanding, the Chinese government and the Chinese people, from their position of preserving peace in the Asia-Pacific region, are concerned about the attempt of some Japanese to revive militarism. In the late 1980s, China and the Soviet Union normalized relations after they had settled or partially settled some of the issues which had presented obstacles, conforming to the wish of the peoples of the two countries. In May 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, visited China, making a breakthrough in normalization of relations between the two countries and the two Parlies that had been suspended for more than twenty years. The tours to the Soviet Union of Chinese Premier Li Peng in 1990 and CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin in 1991 further enhanced the goodneighborly relations. The restoration of Sino-Soviet relations fundamentally reversed the situation of confrontation which had prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s, but did not revive the alliance which existed in the 1950s. These good-neighbourly relations are based on the five principles of peaceful co-existence and arc of worldwide importance. The internal political situations in the East European countries changed dramatically in 1989. In accordance with the existing foreign policy and the five principles of peaceful co-existence, China's normal relations with these countries were maintained, 82 except in the case of the German Democratic Republic, which later merged with the German Federal Republic (West GerWhile China maintains and develops relations with the West, some powerful political interests in the United States and the West keep attempting to realize peaceful evolution in China; that is, to turn socialist China onto the path of capitalism through economic and cultural exchanges as well as other channels. The Communist Party, government, and people of China maintain vigilance over this tendency. At the turn of spring and summer of 1989, some Western backstage provocateurs became deeply involved in China s political turmoil. Afterwards, certain Western nations imposed socalled "sanctions" aimed at putting pressure on China, meddling in China's internal affairs, and reversing China's socialist direction. Setbacks and complications arose in China's relations with the U.S. and other Western countries to different degrees. China s foreign trade was damaged to some extent. The People's Republic of China did not yield to the unreasonable "sanctions, just as in the past it had never yielded to pressure from outside. To isolate China and to impose "sanctions" were unfavorable not only to China, but to those who implemented them. Since the second halt of 1990, some Western countries have come to see the importance of restoring and maintaining normal relations with China and have set about to improve them. Those Western political lorces that attempted to impose sanctions and put pressure on China to give in failed. China stood the test, was tempered and came out even more resolute in continuing reform and opening along the socialist path. , . China has long maintained friendly relations with the countries and the peoples of the third world. These relations were strengthened after Western powers imposed "sanctions" against China That is one of the reasons why some of them had to halt the "sanctions." In the 1980s, China established diplomatic relations with more countries in Latin America, Africa, Western Asia and the South Pacific. During 1990 and 1991, there were frequent exchanges of visits between Chinese leaders and leadeis of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. In 1990 alone, China established diplomatic relations with four countries -Namibia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the Marshall Islands, and in the case of Indonesia, restored diplomatic relations which had been suspended for nearly twenty-three years. In addition, China normalized relations with Mongolia and Laos. Because of the anti-China policy of expelling ethnic Chinese from Viet Nam carried out for many years by the Vietnamese authorities, and following massive military aggression by Viet Nam against Democratic Kampuchea, Sino- Vietnamese relations sharply deteriorated. By 1990 and 1991, the Vietnamese Party and the government expressed hopes to restore friendly and neighbourly relations with China, following which ties between the two countries improved. Thanks to the framework document issued by the five UN Security Council permanent members and supported by painstaking efforts of the ASEAN countries, and thanks to China and Viet Nam's shared hopes for an early settlement of the Kampuchean question, the emergence of a peaceful, independent and non-aligned Kampuchea, the long cherished hopes of the Kampucheans, begins to look possible. In accordance with the principles that all countries, big or small, should be equal and should not interfere in each other's internal affairs, that all countries have an equal right to development, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, China joined other developing countries in advancing a proposal for building a new international economic and political order. This aroused wide attention throughout the world and an especially warm response from the developing countries. As a member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has played a positive role in this organization. China has been a strong advocate of the maintenance of world peace, easing of international tension, disarmament—in particular, the reduction of nuclear arms and other arms of the superpowers—opposition to all kinds of aggression and hegemon ism. China's activities in the UN are characterized by firmly standing with broad third-world countries, in a ceaseless endeavor to implement the UN Charter and its principles. In 829 addition to affairs involving world peace and each individual country's own security problems, China also enthusiastically participates in international economic, social and cultural cooperation. In 1990, China played a special role in the efforts of the United Nations to solve the Gulf crisis. In the 1980s, China settled the problems of the return of Hong Kong and Macao. This was an important event in China's history and a great victory for China's foreign policy. On Deng Xiaoping's initiative, representatives of the Chinese government and the British government negotiated on the Hong Kong issue. On December 19, 1984, following two years of talks, the heads of the two governments formally signed a joint declaration on Hong Kong in Beijing. The document clearly stipulates that the Government of the People's Republic of China will resume sovereignty over Hong Kong as of July 1, 1997. The settlement of the Hong Kone issue set an example for the settlement of the lutuie of Macao. Representatives of the Chinese government and the Portuguese government held negotiations and on April 13, 1987, the heads of the two governments signed a joint declaration in Beijing on the Macao issue. It states that the Government of the People's Republic of China will resume the sovereignty over Macao as of December 20, 1999. Hong Kong and Macao have been part of China's territory from the very beginning. However, the two regions have long been occupied by Britain and Portugal tor reasons buried in history. It is a historically-inherited problem which could not have been solved or even dreamt of being solved by governments of the past. The idea of "one country, two systems" put forward by Deng Xiaoping provided favorable conditions for an agreement over Hong Kong and Macao. When China and Britain reached basic consensus during the talks on the Hong Kong problem, Deng said to Sir Jeffrey Howe, British foreign secretary at the time, "1 am confident that the ‘one country, two systems' concept will work. International reaction to such a solution will be favorable, and the solution will set an example for other nations in settling disputes which history has imposed upon them."4' "One Country, Two Systems" Scheme and the Great Cause of Reunification of Motherland Restoration of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao is a matter of diplomacy which requires negotiations with the British and Portuguese governments. However, after Hong Kong and Macao return to the motherland, what policy China follows in the two regions is China's own internal affairs, in the SinoBritish and Sino-Portugucsc joint declarations, the Government of the People's Republic of China reaffirmed its basic future policy towards Hong Kong and Macao. After China resumes sovereignty over the two regions, it will set them up as two special administrative regions. The two regions will enjoy substantial self-government, except in foreign affairs and national defense, which will be controlled by the central government. Their current social and economic systems as well as life styles will remain unchanged. Further detailed explanation regarding this kind of basic policy was provided by the Chinese government and attached to the joint communique as an appendix. It concretely specifies that when the two special administrative regions are established, the socialist system and its policies will not be introduced, and that Hong Kong and Macao's existing capitalist system and life styles will remain unchanged for fifty years. This is the "one country, two systems" programme. The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, passed by the National People's Congress in April 1990, spells out the programme in greater detail. It explains how the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region within socialist China is to operate the capitalist system. The Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China drawn up by the NPC drafting committee was also discussed and passed by the National People's Congress. Why will China implement a special policy in Hong Kong and Macao after regaining national sovereignty there? This was an important decision; its point of departure, the actual historical situation. Hong Kong and Macao have long been carrying out the capitalist system. To maintain their original socio-economic sys 831 tern is conducive to the sustained prosperity and stability of the two regions; and to maintain the prosperity and stability of the two regions is not only conducive to the people in them but to China as a whole. The main part of China is socialist. In a big socialist country, to allow a tiny region to practice capitalism will not hurt the overall course of socialism, but, will benefit it. The idea of "one country, two systems" was first presented as a means of settling the Taiwan issue. The policy on Taiwan's return to the motherland and the peaceful reunification (the nine-point declarations), put forward on the eve of the 1981 National Day by Ye Jianying, then chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, actually proposed "one country, two systems," though the term was not used. How could the Taiwan problem be solved and cleavage between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits be removed and reunification realized? Force should not be used unless Taiwan moves towards "independence" or imperialists launch armed invasion of Taiwan. The problem should be settled in a peaceful way. How, then, can the question be settled in a peaceful way? in his speech on February 22, 1984, Deng Xiaoping pointed out, "The plan we have proposed for reunifying the mainland with Taiwan is fair and reasonable. After reunification, Taiwan can go on practicing capitalism while the mainland practices socialism, all within the same unified China. One China, two systems."44 A concrete programme has been formed gradually on the basis of the only reasonable proposal leading to China's reunification. An official of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee said on June 7, 1991, ‘"One country, two systems' means that two different political, economic and social systems will be practiced in one country. Neither Of the two parties seeks the defeat of the other; instead, they respect each other and share prosperity. In accordance with the policy, after the reunification, China's mainland will carry out the socialist system while Taiwan will practice capitalism. The current political, economic and social systems as well as life styles will remain unchanged. Taiwan, as a special administrative region, will have a high degree of autonomy with an independent judiciary; the final judgement will not rest with Beijing. Also, Taiwan can keep its army. The fundamental interests of the Taiwan authorities, parties concerned and the Taiwan people will be guaranteed. This is not a measure of expediency but a basic, long-term policy." The officia. formally proposed that "the CPC and the Kuomintang send representatives to establish contact in order to create conditior.; for negotiations towards the formal ending of hostilities between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits and gradual peaceful reunification. They can also, while adhering to the principle of one China as a premise, discuss other problems that the Taiwan authorities are concerned about. Representatives of other political parties and groups of the two sides can be invited to the negotiations."45 "One country, two systems" is a bold, highly creative policy. Socialism, as China's main form, has made great achievements in the modernization drive and has unlimited vitality. The state does not seek to obtain even one penny from Hong Kong and Macao after reunification. (It is stipulated that the entire revenue of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao should be used for local purposes, and not to be handed over to the central people's government, and nor should it levy taxes on the two regions. This principle is also applicable to Taiwan after peaceful reunification.) The mainland is not fearful of capitalism practiced in several other regions. It believes that reunification will make China even more prosperous in its modernization drive. Although the Taiwan problem is an internal one, it is related to Sino-U.S. relations. A peaceful settlement of the Taiwan problem will be favorable to the whole world. On October 31, 1984, Deng Xiaoping said, "The question of Taiwan constitutes the main obstacle to better relations between China and the United States, and it is even possible that this question could develop into a crisis between the two nations. If the ‘one country, two systems' approach is adopted, not only would China be reunified, but the interests of the United States would not be impaired. There are some influences in the United States today who, carrying on the ‘Dulles doctrine,' regard Taiwan as a U.S. ‘aircraft carrier' or as a territory within the US sphere of influence. Once the Taiwan 833 question is solved through peaceful coexistence, the issue will be defused and these people will shed their illusions accordingly. This would be a very good thing lor the peace and stability of the Pacific region and of the rest of the world. 46 The great unity of the motherland including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao is a trend certain to reach fulfillment. Hong Kong and Macao will return to the motherland in the 1990s and follow the plan of "one country, two systems." Using the same approach, all kinds of obstacles will be solved concerning the Taiwan problem, with the long-standing efforts by mamlanders, Taiwanese and overseas compatriots, and with the increasing exchanges and deepening of mutual understanding between the people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits as well as with the motherland becoming stronger and more prosperous.

Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

After its founding in 1921, the Communist Party of China, continuing the efforts put forth by generations of its advanced predecessors, resolutely took up the cause of the nationaldemocratic revolution in order to change China's fate as a semicolonial and semi-feudal nation. The Party led the Chinese people in a struggle lasting twenty-eight years to gain the great victory of the new-democratic revolution, and finally in 1949 found the People's Republic of China. China then entered upon a historical period of establishing and developing socialism. The 42nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic was celebrated three months after the 70th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. This meant that it had been forty-two years since China entered the socialist period, which is still continuing. Before the victory of the new-democratic revolution, the Party Central Committee called on the whole party and people to struggle for the building of an independent, united, democratic, prosperous and strong new China. Have all these goals been attained? First, independence. The People's Republic of China was founded against the will of the imperialist countries which had oppressed, exploited and controlled China for a long time. Subjected to foreign pressure of all kinds after its founding, the republic nevertheless succeeded in maintaining its independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity. It triumphed over the isolation, blockade, interference and provo836 CONCLUSIONS 837 cation leveled against it by foreign aggressive forces. China has built up a strong enough national defense to safeguard its security. New China stands erect in the East as an independent and sovereign state, developing equal exchanges with the rest of the world and actively participating in world affairs. Second, unification. This represents a fundamental change in the state of disintegration China fell into as a result of the scramble for entry. The unity of the whole people and among all nationalities has been increasingly strengthened. This unity is based on the people's democracy, a situation which had never emerged in China's modern history or even in China's entire past history China will go on to bring about the unification of Hong Kong,' Macao and Taiwan with the motherland according to the principle of "one country, two systems." Third, democracy. The founding of New China put an end to the rule of the exploiting classes which had lasted for thousands of years, as well as to the rule of the reactionary classes supported by imperialism. I t also ended infringement upon the most elcmentarv rights of the broad masses to existence. The people have become masters of the country and society. Their right to 1 reedom is guaranteed; workers and peasants who had been oppressed at the lowest stratum of the old society have stood up. The Constitution stipulates: The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The dictatorship is aimed at only a handful of enemies who try to sabotage the basic state systems. The broad masses of workers, peasants, intellectuals and people of other classes and strata enjoy political, economic and cultural democratic rights. Through various channels and forms, they can participate in the management of state affairs, economic and cultural aflairs and other social affairs. . , . Fourth, prosperity. Old China's industry was extremely backward, its agricultural production could not satisfy the baicst needs of the population and the country had almost totally lost the ability to defend itself. 'This impoverishment and weakness have gone forever. New China has established an independent and complete industrial setup and national economic system which is initially thriving and prosperous. The output of major industrial and agricultural products has leaped to leading places in the world. Without economic development, the state's independence and unification could not have been guaranteed, neither would the people's democracy. At present, China is striving to accomplish its construction of socialist modernization and there is still a long way to go before it attains the prosperity desired by the people. However, the 42-year struggle has laid a solid foundation for the country's prosperity and an inspiring perspective is within reach. Independence, unification and prosperity are goals which several generations in modern Chinese history aspired to but failed to reach. Now all these goals have been attained. They were possible only because of the victory of the new-democratic revolution and after it, setting out on the socialist road. China's new-democratic revolution and socialist revolution and construction are all led by the Communist Party. Without its leadership, there would have been no victory of the newdemocratic revolution or of socialism, let alone of any of the above-mentioned goals. Historically, practice has fulfilled the prediction of Mao Zedong. Early on in the late 1930s, he expounded the whole process of the Chinese revolution. He said the whole revolution led by the Communist Party of China includes two stages— the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. Because China's bourgeois-democratic revolution could win victory only under the leadership of the proletariat through the Communist Party, it is a new-democratic revolution. The first stage prepares conditions for the second and the two stages must dovetail, allowing no bourgeois dictatorship between to intervene. The victory of the new-democratic revolution inevitably leads to socialism. The Communist Party of China is a great party capable of leading the whole course of the Chinese revolution, including the new-democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and socialist construction. conclusions 839 Tortuous Course Just as during the new-democratic revolution, the Party during the 42-year socialist period struck a path which was neither smooth nor straight. After the founding of the People's Republic, the Party spent seven years in basically finishing the task of the socialist revolution to realize the transition from new democracy to socialism. That is an amazing achievement. To realize this transition, the Party, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, creatively solved many' complicated problems. With the socialist system basically set up, the Party was confronted by a number of questions such as how to continue to advance, how to undertake socialist construction and how to improve and perfect the socialist system. Generally speaking, there was no ready-made experience anywhere in the world, and according to Marxist principles, no country's history can be a repetition of another country s. Every party and people must pursue a road of development that suits the specific conditions of its own country. In particular, China was a big, backward agricultural country in the East, different from European countries. It had accumulated its own experiences during long-term revolutionary struggles and formed its own traditions. Furthermore, the painful lessons from indiscriminately copying the Soviet experience prohibited China from copying that of other countries. In the early days of socialist construction, China learned from the Soviet Union in many aspects (not copying indiscriminately). But the Chinese communists headed by Mao Zedong soon found out that the experience of the Soviet Union was not completely successful and that China must take warning from its unsuccessful aspects. China's socialist road, like the road of the democratic revolution, must be discovered by the Chinese themselves. The Party Central Committee with Mao Zedong at the core led the whole party and people to seek this road. They made tremendous efforts, achieved magnificent results and accumulated wide experience, both positive and negative. As practice has proved, both in the democratic revolution and the socialist undertaking, the general principles of Marxism and Leninism must be combined with China's concrete realities. To work out such a combination, especially a good one, is particularly difficult, considering that socialism is a brand-new undertaking in the history of mankind and China is building its socialism on an extremely backward foundation. There is the problem of correctly understanding China's concrete realities—that is, China's national conditions—viewed from the angle of socialist construction and also the problem of how to properly grasp the principles of Marxism and Leninism concerning socialist society. Not until the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee held in 1978 could the Communist Party of China, under the leadership of its Central Committee with Deng Xiaoping at the core, finally find a road for socialist construction with Chinese characteristics. This road is generalized as having "one central task and two basic points." This is also a road adhering to the principles of Marxism and Leninism on socialism and one proceeding from the reality in everything. The 42-year history of the CPC after the founding of New China can be divided into two periods. The first period consists of the twenty-nine years before the 3rd Plenary Session of the 1 1th Party Central Committee and the second, of the following thirteen years. . . During the thirteen years, China made far greater achievements in all aspects of its socialist undertaking compared with the preceding twenty-nine years. Although there were some small setbacks during this period, the Party could always correct its deviations in time, solve problems and gain new' experience. Practice has proved that the Party's lines and policies since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee are correct. History cannot be disjoined. The recent thirteen years can not be separated from the preceding twenty-nine years. Without the achievements of the preceding twenty-nine years as the foundation, there could not have been the greater achievements of the next thirteen years, or the correct road after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. The lines and policies following the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee were made on the basis of both positive and negative experiences CONCLUSIONS 841 of the previous twenty-nine years. Except for the beginning seven years which were relatively smooth, it can be said that the road traveled by China during all the twenty-nine years was rough and bumpy. In its socialist undertaking, the Party made two big mistakes which brought it two big setbacks. One mistake, made between 1958 and I960 was epitomized by the "great leap forward"; the other, between 1966 and 1976, was marked by the "cultural revolution." These two mistakes and setbacks were caused by serious deviations during the Party's independent search for China's own socialist road. How should these mistakes be viewed? It would be quite wrong to say that the Party was devoid of any merit and to describe it as an utter failure just because it had made mistakes, since that is not in accordance with the facts. On the other hand, to disregard these mistakes and refuse lo investigate them or to sum up experience and lessons from them, would also be wrong. The two big mistakes and setbacks during the twenty-nine years were manifestations of the "Left" guiding ideology. During that time, the Party launched several incorrect struggles against the Right' deviation. This does not mean that Right errors should not be opposed and corrected. The Party had made the Rightdeviationist errors during the period of the new-democratic revolution and it assimilated experiences in correcting these errors Even after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, the Party corrected, in time, a number of Right tendencies which would have been otherwise very harmtul. The experience of many foreign parties also enabled us to see the serious harm of the Right deviation. Historical experience warns us that in the period of socialist construction, the Right tendency may lead to the abandonment of socialism and the Party leadership. Therefore, it is necessary to guard against and oppose Right tendency. "Left" tendency, under Chinese conditions, usually reveals itself as impatience lo make headway, over-anxiety lor quick results, and the blind pursuit of advanced production relations together with speedy development of the forces of production regardless of objective conditions and laws. The other manifestation of "Left" tendency consists of undue emphasis on class struggle, magnifying it without overall objective investigation and analysis of the actual social, economic and political situation. As a matter of fact, "Left" tendency never leads to development and progress but only causes chaos and retrogression. "Left" tendency can fabricate "class struggle" and wreak havoc within its own ranks. It cannot use proper methods to handle or solve class contradictions and class struggle which really do exist within a definite sphere. Therefore, in socialist construction, "Left" tendency can similarly lead to the abandonment of socialism and the Party's leadership and thus must also be prevented and opposed. There is no party which is immune to making mistakes. What is important is whether it can learn lessons from them, and from those of others as well. Its own errors are usually better textbooks. Big mistakes are, of course, very bad, but since they usually reflect profound problems, they are especially worth earnest study as textbooks. Error is often the precursor of what is correct, but this is not unconditional. The key point lies in knowing how to sum up experience. The CPC is a great, glorious and correct party not because it never makes mistakes but because it is good at summing up experiences and lessons, understanding objective laws better through errors, and amending errors as well as making them the precursors of correct action. During the new-democratic revolution, the Party made two big mistakes which accounted for the two big defeats in 1927 and 1 934 The Party learned lessons from these two big mistakes and defeats so that it could take the correct road in the late 1930s and win the great victory of the new-democratic revolution at the end of the 1940s. The 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee became an epoch-making turning-point, because the Party Central Committee with Deng Xiaoping at the core summed up, carried forward and enhanced the past positive experiences and ideas; furthermore, it profoundly, rather than shallowly, comprehensively rather than lopsidedly, learned lessons from past errors and derived the correct line, principles and policies. CONCLUSIONS 843 This is why we should pay attention to negative experiences as we5 as learn the positive ones as we study the Party's history We are fully confident in the future of Chma s socialist und taking under the leadership of the Communist Party. This .is not nnlv because the Party has scored great achievements in this endeavor but also because the Party has made ser'ous 1 "Thad and through the lessons and experiences comprehends what failed to understand in the past. ComAt the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Sf" munist Party. General Secretary Jiang Zemin said These nast 'seventy ffears show that our Party, armed with MarxismLeninism and Mao Zedong Thought and endowed with revolutionary fireativity, has been able to maintain independence and tionary creau y the masses, struggled made endless sacrifices for the fundamental inerest of the Chinese people. It has held fast to what is right and j j wh„t wrong And it was able to stand the trials of r^ess and setbaerhigh and low tides, favorable and unfavob able circumstances, proving that no enemy or adJers^ ever crush or destroy it. Enduring countless ordeals, °ar Par y has never gone into decline; tempered by innumerable hardships, hw ill 'become even stronger. Our Party has proved itself to be a great, glorious and correct party! Great Achievements in Forty-two Years Reviewing the past forty-two years, people keep saying that if there had been no setbacks, we would have made ^ater "hieve ments Although we may make this hypothesis, the development Tnd progress of human society have never gone ahead in a straight fine. In the search of a new road for socialist constructi on the basis of an extremely backward economy and culture left by old China, mistakes in work and setbacks in d5vel°PI""t inevitable. Various factors determine how great the complications are, but one cannot conceive of there being no complications 31 One must realize that in spite of the tortuousness and setbacks,generally speaking, China has made remarkable achievements during its forty-two years of socialist construction. The following are some facts and figures: In 1990, China's gross national product (GNP) reached 1,768.6 billion yuan, with the national income hitting 1,442.9 billion yuan. The price factor taken into consideration, the national income was 20.23 times that of 1949. From 1950 to 1988, the total investment in fixed assets by units owned by the entire population reached 2,153.8 billion yuan; 4,393 big and medium-sized projects were constructed and put into operation, adding 1,561.9 billion yuan to the fixed assets. An independent and relatively complete industrial setup and a national economic system have been established. Statistics show that the daily production of major industrial products is equivalent to the production of two months in 1949. This means that the whole year's production in 1949 can now be finished in six days. In 1990, steel output climbed to 66.35 million tons, raw coal 1.08 billion tons, crude oil 138.31 million tons and generated electricity 621.2 billion kwh. They were 419.9 times, 33.8 times, 1,152.6 times and 144.5 times that of 1949, respectively. As to agriculture, in 1990, grain output was 446.24 million tons, cotton 4.51 million tons, oil crops 16.13 million tons, pork, beef and mutton 25.14 million tons and aquatic products 12.37 million tons. They were, respectively, 3.9 times, 10.2 times, 6.3 times, 11.4 times and 27.5 times that of 1949. It is considered a miracle that China feeds 22 percent of the world's population with only 7 percent of the world's land. Great progress has been made in science, education, culture, public health and sports. In 1990, units owned by the entire population boasted 10.808 million scientists and technicians, 25.4 times the number in 1952. All along during the forty-two years, important achievements in scientific and technological research were being scored. Some technological levels in the fields of atomic energy, biology, agronomy, high-energy physics, computer technology, carrier rocket and satellite communications have reached or approached international standards. In 1990, the attendance rate of school-age children reached CONCLUSIONS 845 97.9 percent. Students in institutes of higher learning, secondary schools and primary schools were 17.63 times, 36.17 times and 5 02 times that of 1949. By 1988, the number of graduates from, and postgraduates in, institutes of higher learning was 30 times of the total in the thirty-seven years prior to the founding of New ChASato public health and medical care, in 1990 the country had 3 898 million professional medical personnel with 2.624 million hospital beds, 7.72 times and 30.87 times, respectively, that of 1949. Simultaneously, cultural and sports undertakings also dc veloped rapidly. . . The people's living standards show conspicuous improvement. In 1990, the actual consumption level of the Chinese people rose from an annual 76 yuan per person in 1952 to 714 yuan The price rise considered, the annual average increase rate was 3.5 percent. The problem of food and clothing in China has been basically solved and some of the people have begun to live a comparatively comfortable life. The death rate has decreased to >6.67 per thousand (it was as high as 25 per thousand m old China before the Anti-Japanese War) and average life expectancy rose to 70 years from only 35 years in old China before the War of Resistance Against Japan. , . . . . e. Although the socialist system established in China is imperfect, contains flaws and has even experienced big setbacks in the course of its construction, the 42-year economic development relying on the socialist system, has been fast as compared with developed capitalist countries and developing countries taking the capitalist road during the same period. From 1949 to 1989, the average annual GNP increase rate was 7.37 percent in China, 3.1 7 percent in the United States, 6.98 percent in Japan and 4.01 percent in India. The average annual per capita GNP increase rate during the same period was 5.44 percent in China (despite the rapid increase of population), 1.87 percent in the United States, 5.95 percent in Japan and 1.73 percent in India. As or industrial production, the average annual increase rate was 1 1.5 percent in China during 1953-1988, compared with 4.2 percent in developed countries, 5.9 percent in developing countries and 4.4 percent in the world as a whole, between 1951 and 1986. Since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC, China has conducted a policy of reform and opening up. As a result, the speed of China's economic development greatly surpassed that of major capitalist countries. From 1979 to 1989, the average annual GNP increase rate was 2.6 percent in the United States, 4.3 percent in Japan, 2.1 percent in Federal Germany, but 9.1 percent in China. The average annual increase rate in industrial production during 1979-90 was 2.2 percent in the United States, 4.1 percent in Japan, 1.9 percent in the German Federal Republic, and 12.0 percent in China. Of course, these kinds of comparisons are relative, because they involve factors which cannot be compared. However, one basic fact is certain: socialist China is one of the countries of relatively high speed in economic development; the economic gap between China and the developed countries is not widening. On the contrary, it is narrowing. This is illustrated by the toremost places occupied by major Chinese industrial and agricultural products in the world. Comparing 1989 with 1949, China's steel output rose from 26th to 4th place, raw coal from 9th to 1st, crude oil from 27th to 6th and generated electricity from 25th place to 4th; grain from 3rd in 1957 to 1st in 1987, cotton and pork, beef and mutton from 4th and 3rd in 1949 to 1st in 1987. Some other products have also reached a leading place in the world. For example, cement, cloth and television sets occupy 1st place, sulphuric acid and chemical fertilizer the 3rd, and chemical fibre the 4th. China's GNP has also risen to the 8th in the world. But generally speaking, the level of China's social development is relatively low in the world. Calculated by the method used in "the World Bank Atlas," i.e., calculating a country's per capita GNP in U.S. dollars according to the exchange rate in that specific year, although China's GNP doubled in the 1980s, its per capita GNP is only U.S.$300 or so, ranking after the 100th in the world, due to the several reductions in the exchange rate of Renminbi against the U.S. dollar. Because the exchange rate between the Renminbi and the U.S. dollar reflects only a price relation in foreign trade, the per capita GNP calculated according conclusions 847 to this method does not completely show the level of economic increase and the people's consumption level. To compare the per capita GNP among countries in dillerent stages of development is a complicated matter. This is because the extent of commercialization and the price levels vary in different countries, while in addition, the exchange rate between the currency of each country and the U.S. dollar keeps changing. Therefore the above-mentioned method is limited and otten leads to underestimation of the development and income levels in developing countries. Chinese scholars make estimations according to purchasing power parity, a method tried out by the World Bank in scores of countries, and calculated that China's per capita GNP has reached U.S. $500 to U.S.$700. Economic index alone is not enough to have a correct and comprehensive judgement of the degree of society s progress. Early in the 1960s, developed capitalist countries and some international organizations set up a new social index system to assess and monitor the trend of social development and various social problems. Considering Chinese conditions and referring to the theoretical framework of the foreign index system, Chinese researchers made an analysis of the social index system consisting of 16 major indexes. In 1987, the average score of 120 countries and regions was 76 points, with China scoring 68 points and ranking 70th in the world. That was 33 percent higher than the average 51 points of 39 low-income countries, and 13 percent lower than the average 78 points of 48 medium-level income countries. China's general level of social development is lower than medium. This estimation is similar to that made by foreign scholars. According to the human development indexes of the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report of 1990, which was based on average life expectancy, adult literacy rate and per capita GNP, China was placed 65th among the 1 30 countries that were brought into comparison. Through these comparisons with other countries, we should learn to recognize our deficiencies as well as our achievements. Due to historical reasons, there is still a big gap between China and the developed countries in economy and culture. The devel oped capitalist countries are still advancing fast and they will set up various obstacles against socialist China. If we fail to catch up with them, the narrowing gap will become larger again, since China has a huge population, relatively speaking, but a limited amount of arable land, water and other natural resources. All these are difficulties China must confront over a long time, and we must do our utmost to surmount them. In the 1990s and early in the next century, China will go on as before it will continue to develop diplomatic, trade and cultural relations with all countries in the world on the basis of the five principles of peaceful co-existence, develop good-neighbourly relations with surrounding countries, continue its friendly relations of cooperation with the third world countries and make contributions to maintaining world peace, improving North-South relations and establishing a new international order of equality and mutual benetit. We believe that all these efforts will result in considerable achievements since they conform to the interests of peace and progress for all mankind. However, we must bear in mind an objective factor independent of man's will to change; i.e., the Western powers' basic policy of seeking to dominate the world and to sabotage socialist countries will never change. Therefore, the Chinese people must remain aware of this harsh international factor. While giving full play to the advantages of the socialist system, China must develop its economy, culture and science and technology in the midst of fierce international competition and struggle. Currently, science and technology are making giant strides. Although China has made progress in science and technology, it still has a long way to go to reach the world advanced level. We must try to master all advanced science and technology, otherwise we will lag behind. Historical conditions have determined that only by maintaining its socialist system can China stand erect in the world as an independent and strong nation. Deviating from the socialist road, China will fall behind, sink into chaos and collapse. Even though we have the correct policies and line for socialist construction, backwardness will be inevitable if we are content with the victoCONCLUSIONS 849 ries already won and fail to sense the urgency of working with a will to make the country strong. A backward China can be attacked, insulted and even reduced to the status of a semicolonial dependency. In today's world, negative examples of this which constantly emerge present a disturbing sight. As attested by seventy years' history, the Chinese people will not resign themselves to backwardness and the Communist Party of China is fully competent to lead them to get rid of poverty and advance along the socialist road. In the future, the Party and the nation as a whole must keep up the spirit of "sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall" (strengthening resolve to wipe out national humiliation) as well as the spirit of the Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains. Concerted efforts must be pooled to surmount all kinds of difficulties and hardships so as to make China a strong and really great socialist country. Upholding the socialist system in the past, we have made brilliant achievements in China, a country with a huge population and a poor foundation. Looking into the future and upholding socialism as a premise, so long as we continue to improve our economic and political systems (namely reform) and absorb all the achievements of world civilization (namely opening up), we can certainly accomplish a great deal more. The Road Ahead and Its Objectives General Secretary Jiang Zemin said in his speech celebrating the Party's 70th anniversary, "In the struggle of the past seventy years, our Party has accumulated a wealth of experiences. This experience boils down to one point: we must integrate the fundamental principles of Marxism with the concrete realities of the Chinese revolution and national construction and keep to our own road." Beginning from the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee and through the 12th and 13th National Party Congresses, our Party has re-established the ideological line of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts. Combining the general truth of Marxism with China's concrete realities as a principle and taking the profound study of historic and present practical experience as the foundation, the Party has advanced the scientific thesis that China is in the primary stage of socialism and drawn up its basic line of focusing on economic construction, upholding the Four Cardinal Principles and persisting in reform and opening up. In keeping with the basic line, a series of effective policies was adopted. In regard to the basic theory and practice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, the whole Party has reached a common understanding. As for the building of socialist road with Chinese characteristics, the Proposals for Drawing Up the Ten-Year Programme and the Eighth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development adopted by the 7th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee held in December 1990 made the following generalizations: 1 Adhere to the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of the workers and peasants; continue to perfect the system of the people s congresses of multi-party cooperation and of the political consultation led by the Communist Party; steadily consolidate and develop the widest patriotic united front and try to strengthen the construction of socialist democracy and a socialist legal system. 2 Develop the social forces of production as the fundamental task of socialism; concentrate on the successful construction of modernization and keep raising the people's material and cultural living standards. 3 Perfect the socialist economy, political structure and systems of management in other fields through reform, and fully mobilize the initiative and creativity of the central and local governments, enterprises as well as of the broad masses of working people. 4 Continuously broaden the opening up to the outside world by adopting various forms such as developing foreign economic and trade relations, using foreign investments and introducing advanced technology, as well as by establishing special economic zones and economic development zones and carrying out neces sary special policies and flexible measures. 5 Stick to the ownership structure with socialist public ownership as the main form, in co-existence with various other economCONCLUSIONS 851 ic sectors; impose correct management and guidance on individual economy, private economy and other economic sectors in order to enhance their function as supplementary and beneficial to the public-owned economy. 6. Actively develop the socialist planned commodity economy, combine the planned economy with market regulation and try to promote the sustained, stable and co-ordinated development of the national economy. _ 7. Implement the distribution system of to each according to his work" as the main form with other methods of distribution existing as supplementary; permit and support some people and some areas to get rich first through honest labour and legal operation and encourage those getting rich first to help those who are still poor so that the Chinese people as a whole and various regions can gradually get rich together. 8. Under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, inherit and carry on the outstanding Chinese cultural legacy, borrow and assimilate all excellent cultural achievements in the world and continue to raise the whole nation s ideological and moral level as well as its scientific and cultural qualities to build a socialist society with an advanced culture and ideology. 9 Among the nationalities, establish and develop socialist relationships based on equality, mutual help, unity, cooperation and common prosperity, persist in and perfect the system of regional national autonomy and oppose racial discrimination, ethnic oppression and separatism. 10. Further the motherland's reunification according to the concept and practice of "one country, two systems." 11. Stick to the peaceful diplomatic policy of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands develop friendly relations with all countries on the basis of the live principles of peaceful co-existence, oppose hegemomsm and power politics, support the just struggle of the oppressed nations and peoples, maintain world peace and promote the progress of mankind. * . _ 12. Adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party, improve the Party's system of leadership, working style and methods of leadership, strengthen Party-building politically, ideologically, theoretically and organizationally so that the Party can always be the strong leading core of the socialist undertaking. In his speech at the Party's 70th anniversary, Jiang Zemin said, "In short, the Party's basic line and the twelve principles point to the need to build a socialist economy, political system and culture with Chinese characteristics through the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist system, in order to facilitate and promote the continued development of the social productive forces and social progress in all fields and achieve socialist modernization." The twelve basic principles specify the basic line of "one central task and two basic points" and clearly outline the socialist road with Chinese characteristics. If over ten years ago we had little idea of what socialism with Chinese characteristics meant or of how socialism with Chinese characteristics was to be built, we are now clearer. Looking backward, we feel proud; looking ahead, we are full of confidence. After the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee, the Central Committee decided on the strategic plan that China's construction of socialist modernization should be divided into three steps. The strategic objectives of the first step, i.e., double the 1980 GNP and solve the people's problem of food and clothing were basically fulfilled in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, efforts must be pooled to realize the strategic objectives of the second step. China's output of major agricultural and industrial products are to increase by a big margin. By the year 2000, it is predicated that grain output will reach 500 million tons; steel, over 80 million tons; coal, 1.4 billion tons; and generated electricity, 1,100 billion kwh. The production categories will be more complete, the levels of science, technology and management will be higher and the national defence further strengthened. The building of socialist material civilization and socialist culture and ideology will proceed hand in hand. By then, China's composite strength will have been risen to a new level. On reaching the second-step strategic objectives, the standards of living will see a rather big improvement on the basis of CONCLUSIONS 853 economic development, so that people will be relatively well off By well off, we mean an upgraded quality of life on the basis of enough food and clothing, which includes not only an improved material life but also a rich spiritual life, and not only a rise in people's individual consumption level but also the betterment of social welfare and work environment. After attaining the second-step strategic objectives, we will strive to realize the strategic objectives of the third step. A development of thirty to fifty years will help basically achieve socialist modernization and approach the level of moderately developed countries. The road of building socialism with Chinese characteristics opened in the 1980s provides a firm guarantee for realizing the strategic objectives of the second step. The enormous achievements made in the reform and opening-up drive and modernization construction laid a solid foundation for social-economic development in the 1990s. We are confident that the second-step objectives will definitely be fulfilled by the year 2000 and the third-step objectives, in the 2050s or earlier, given the concerted efforts of the Party and the people. More than 140 years ago, Marx and Engels clearly proclaimed in The Communist Manifesto that the ultimate aim of the Communist Party is the realization of communism. At its founding, the Communist Party of China also clearly proclaimed its aim to be the establishment of a communist society. Over the past seventy years, the Party has led the people in carrymg out the new-democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and socialist construction. All these efforts were aimed at the realization of communism. In the days to come, we will firmly continue the struggle to build communism. So long as we advance victoriously on the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we can surely reach the magnificent goal of socialist modernization, and the lofty ideals of communism will certainly be realized at last.