In 1975, in particular between July and October during Deng Xiaoping’s program of “stability and unity,” Deng whipped up an all-around wind for capitalist-restoration and for overturning the correct verdicts of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the areas of politics, economy, culture, military, and foreign relations. He suppressed a large number of revolutionaries, promoted revisionists, and implemented an organizational line of “reviving states that had been extinguished, restoring families whose line of succession had been broken, and recalling to office those who had retired into obscurity."2 On a large scale he promoted “profit in command,” and dictatorial control over various jurisdictions by disparate apparatuses, and a politics of interference, obstructionism and oppression, as well as a philosophy of advocating servility to things foreign. It was just what Chairman Mao, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan referred to as the “transfer of the capitalist oil crisis to the domestic economy,” and “sabotaging the productive forces with [backwards] relations of production."3
Deng’s program included the creation of serious deficits and disorder, and the cultivation of a new faction of the bourgeoisie. He opposed the proletarian revolution in the arts and literature, and in education, and prepared a barrage of poisonous capitalist works. Throughout the entire superstructure4 he sabotaged the “Socialist New Things” (Shehuizhuyi Xinsheng Shiwu, 社会主义新生事物) such as barefoot doctors, and worker-peasant-soldier teams. In the military he cultivated a tendency for coups, and in foreign affairs he drew close to the U.S., France, Yugoslavia, and other such countries. He begged for “technological imports,” cried out for foreign aid, cut foreign assistance towards semi-colonies and treated revolutionaries from around the world maliciously.
The following document illustrates the nature of the opposition to the GPCR posed by Deng and his allies. At this time, Deng had maneuvered to falsely accuse5 associates of Mao engaged in the struggle at Tsinghua University, and also had worked to promote Deng’s so-called “Three Directives as the Key Link,” (in opposition to Mao’s “Class Struggle as the Key Link”). Chairman Mao dissects and denounces these moves by Deng respectively.6 When brackets—[]—are used in the document, these are additions from the translators to clarify the text, and not part of the original document.
For comments, questions, suggestions, or criticisms, contact us at Wengetranslators@protonmail.com.
Chairman Mao comments:
Agreed.
March 3. 6:00 pm.
The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Announces:
To all province, municipality, and autonomous regions party committees, all PLA and provincial military region and field army party committees, all the party committees of the apparatuses of the central committee and the nation, leading small groups, the party’s core small groups, all the departments of the military commission, and the party committees of the various military divisions:
The Great Leader Chairman Mao has made multiple important statements in the course of his personally initiated and led counterattack in the struggle against the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend. The Central Committee has compiled “Chairman Mao’s primary directives” based on the multiple important statements from Chairman Mao between October, 1975 and January, 1976, which have been reviewed and approved by Chairman Mao. At present we are issuing “Chairman Mao’s Primary Directives” to you all, requesting that you organize groups of cadres at the county-level and up, in order to diligently study, thoroughly grasp, and resolutely carry out the directives. Please report on the overall situation of study and implementation to the Central Committee.
This document is not permitted to be reproduced, circulated, or posted. Do not broadcast, do not publicize.7
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
March 3, 1976
(This document is issued to the county and regiment levels)
Compiled from multiple important statements from Chairman Mao between October, 1975 and January, 1976, reviewed and approved by Chairman Mao.
A letter has arrived sent by Liu Bing8 and associates at Tsinghua University, with accusations against Chi Qun9 and Xie.10
I believe the motivation behind this letter is not pure. Its intent is to knock down Chi Qun and Xie. The spearhead of the letter is directed at me. I am in Beijing. Why not write directly to me, and why go through [Deng] Xiaoping? Xiaoping favors Liu Bing. All these problems that touch upon Tsinghua University are not isolated. They reflect the present two line struggle.
Is there class struggle under socialist society or not? What [is this talk of] “Take the three directives as the key link”!11 Stability and unity do not mean writing off class struggle; class struggle is the key link, everything else hinges on it. Stalin made a big mistake concerning this question. But not Lenin. He said that small production engenders capitalism continuously and daily.12 Lenin spoke of building a bourgeois state without capitalists to safeguard bourgeois right.13 We ourselves have built just such a state, not much different from the old society. There are ranks and grades, eight grades of wages,14 distribution according to work, and exchange of equal values. Money is needed to buy grain, coal, or vegetables. Eight grades of wages [determine where the money is distributed] regardless if you are [buying for] many people or few.15
In 1949 it was proposed that the principal contradiction within China was that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Thirteen years later, the question of class struggle was raised again, and the situation began to take a turn for the better.16 What is the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution up to? Class struggle. Liu Shaoqi promoted the theory that class struggle had died out. In fact he himself had not “died out.” He wanted to protect his bunch of traitors and diehard followers. Lin Biao wanted to bring down the proletariat and staged a coup d’état. So has it died out?
Why do some people not clearly see the issue of the contradictions in socialist society? Don’t [those individuals from] the old bourgeoisie still exist? Hasn’t everyone seen the great numbers of petty bourgeoisie? Are there not many [bourgeois] intellectuals who still have not well remolded? Is the influence of small production, corruption, and speculation not everywhere? Are the anti-party groups of Liu [Shaoqi], Lin [Biao] and others not horrifying? The problem is that they themselves belong to the petty bourgeoisie and their thinking easily turns rightist. The issue is that they themselves represent the bourgeoisie, but say that class contradictions are not recognizable.
The thinking of some comrades, principally the old comrades, remains “standing still” at the stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution. They don’t understand, resist, or even oppose the socialist revolution. [In their minds] there are two kinds of attitudes towards the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, one is dissatisfaction, and the other is “settling accounts:” settling the account of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.17
Why didn’t Lenin “stand still”? After the democratic revolution the workers and the poor and lower-middle peasants did not stand still, they wanted revolution. On the other hand, a number of Party members have not wanted to go forward; some have moved backward and opposed the revolution. Why? Because they became high officials and wanted to protect the interests of high officials. They have a good house, a car, a high salary, and attendants, [this is] more grievous than the capitalists. With the socialist revolution they themselves come under fire. When it came to the co-operative transformation of agriculture there were people in the Party who opposed it, and when it [now] comes to criticizing bourgeois right, they resent it. You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don’t know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party—those in power taking the capitalist road. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road.
Will there be a need for revolution a hundred years from now? Will there still be need for revolution a thousand years from now? There is always need for revolution. There are always sections of the people who feel themselves oppressed; junior officials, students, workers, peasants and soldiers don’t like bigshots oppressing them. That’s why they want revolution. Will contradictions no longer be recognized ten thousand years from now? Why not? They will still be recognized.
The general view on the Cultural Revolution: Basically correct, with some shortcomings. What we want to study now is the shortcomings. The ratio is 70:30, 70 percent achievements and 30 percent mistakes, and the views on it are not necessarily consistent. There were two mistakes made in the Cultural Revolution, 1. Overthrow everything and 2. All-around civil war.18 Regarding “overthrowing everything”, some of the attacks were correct, such as against Liu [Shaoqi] and Lin [Biao]’s groups. Some of them were mistakes, such as those against some old comrades. These people also made mistakes, so some criticism of them is fine. The experience without war has already lasted ten years. During the “all-around civil war,” guns were taken seized [by the masses], [actually] most were distributed.19 Armed fighting is also an exercise. But beating people to death and not rescuing the wounded, this is not good.
One shouldn’t underestimate old comrades. I am among the oldest. Old comrades still have a bit of use. The old comrades should treat the rebel factions magnanimously, and not tell them to “yield or get lost."20 Sometimes the rebel factions make mistakes, but don’t we old comrades also make mistakes? In the same way, we still make mistakes. Pay attention to the three-in-one combinations of old, middle-aged, and young in leadership. There are some old comrades who have not been active for seven or eight years, and who don’t know of many things, “the peoples of the peach blossom spring know not of the Han [Dynasty] to say nothing of the Wei or Jin [dynasties]."21
There are people who have been the subject of some attack, are unhappy, and angry, and within reason this is understandable. But one cannot direct this anger at the majority of people, at the masses, thus standing in opposition and denouncing them. Zhou Rongxin and, Liu Bing have wronged many people. They want to reverse the correct verdicts [of the Educational Revolution]. The majority of people were not in support of this—Tsinghua with its more than 20,000 people. They [Zhou and Liu] are very isolated.22
In the past, the things studied in schools [of the old-style] did not have much use. Then if one would often forget these classes [after graduation], [to forget them] was a bit useful , as one was [at least] left with a bit of culture, could read books and write characters, and occasionally write an essay. Many books I only read later on, and much of scientific knowledge is not learned in the classroom. For example astronomy, geology, and soil science. True abilities are not learned in the classroom. Confucius did not go to university, and there were also Qin Shihuang [first emperor of the Qin Dynasty], Liu Bang, Han Wudi [Emperor Wu of Han], Cao Cao, Zhu Yuanzhang who all did not attend any sort of university. One should not be superstitious about these universities. Gorky only attended two years of primary school. Engels only attended secondary school. Lenin was expelled from university before graduating.
After attending university there are people who do not accept the same status as workers, and want to be the labor aristocracy. And yet the common workers and peasants are also improving every day. The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are but childish and ignorant, including me. The tendency is for the lower levels to exceed the higher levels, for the masses to exceed the leaders, and for the leaders to not have the standard of common laborers because they are divorced from the masses, and don’t have practical experience. Are not there people [like Deng and his friends like Zhou Rongxin] who say laborers are not equal to college students? I say that I myself am inferior to a laborer. There are people who stand on the stage of the bourgeois intellectuals, and oppose the remolding of the bourgeois intellectuals. Do they not need to remold? Everyone has to remold, including me, including you all. The working class has to unceasingly remold itself in the course of struggle, otherwise, some people will become bad. As such, the English Labour Party is reactionary, and the American AFL-CIO is also reactionary.
At present, the mass debates should be primarily restricted to the schools and a portion of apparatuses. Fighting teams shouldn’t be formed, and the party’s leadership is primary.23 Industry, agriculture, commerce, and the military should not be struck. But, it will spread [to these areas]. The level of the masses has risen, they are not fighting for anarchism, to overthrow everything, for an all-around civil war. Now Peking and Tsinghua universities are correcting their course, through the leadership of the university and departmental party committees, and of the branches. In the past this was not the case, with Kuai Dafu, Ni Yuanzi—anarchism. Now the situation is more reliable.
We must reach out to a number of the older comrades, and help them, otherwise they will commit new mistakes.24 In the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Henan reached out to the prefectural and county party secretaries, in order to correct their reception [of the GPCR]. As a result 80 percent of the prefectural and county party secretaries were not overthrown. We see we have to reach out, and do work, every province should bring about three [groups], there should be old, middle aged, and young, three-in-one combinations of old, middle-aged and young in leadership, the young must be good, they shouldn’t include those like Kuai Dafu or Nie Yuanzi. We also must reach out to the youth, otherwise the youth also will make mistakes.25
I recommend that within one or two years one read a bit of philosophy, and read a bit of Lu Xun, and one can read Yang Rongguo’s History of Ancient Chinese Thought and A Concise History of Chinese Philosophy. These are concerning Chinese [philosophy]. We must criticize Confucius. There are people who don’t understand the situation with Confucius. They can read Feng Youlan’s Theory of Confucius, and Feng Tianyu’s A Critique of Confucian Educational Thought. Feng Tianyu’s book is better than Feng Youlan’s. They can also read the section on praising Confucianism and opposing Legalism in Guo Moruo’s Ten Critical Books.
[Deng] Xiaoping has put forward “taking the three directives as the key link.” This he did not research together with the Politburo, did not discuss with the State Council, and did not report to me. He just said it as so. This person, he does not grasp class struggle; he has never referred to this key link [of class struggle]. Still his theme of “white cat, black cat,” making no distinction between imperialism and Marxism. He says, “whenever there is a campaign it tends to harm the old workers and the experienced cadre.” So opposing Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, Luo Zhanglong, opposing Wang Ming, Zhang Guotao, opposing Gao Gang, Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, this all was harmful? He says, “there is a crisis in education, students are not studying.” He himself has not studied, he does not understand Marxism-Leninism, he represents the capitalist class. He says he will “never overturn the verdicts,” he is not reliable. Xiaoping never speaks heart-to-heart, so others fear him, and don’t dare speak with him, and neither does he listen to the opinions of the masses.26 Serving as a leader, his style is a big problem. His is still a problem internal to the people. If guided well, he can be prevented from going towards an antagonistic aspect, like types such as Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao.27
Deng has a few differences compared with Liu and Lin. Deng is willing to conduct a self-criticism, which Liu and Lin were fundamentally not willing to do. We should help him. Criticizing his mistakes is help, going along with him is bad. Criticism must be made, but he shouldn’t be bludgeoned [to death]. Towards those who have erred or who have shortcomings, our party has had a policy, to learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones and cure the sickness to save the patient. We should learn from one another, correct mistakes, improve our unity, and improve our work.
This document, newly translated from the original Chinese (https://www.bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/GPCR/Chinese/ChairmanMao'sPrimaryDirectives-CCP-CC-1976-Doc4-Chinese.pdf), is included here for easy reference by readers, along with several other new translations of material from the GPCR. ↩︎
Source Confucius' Analects. These lines was used by the magazine Red Flag (Hongqi, 红旗) to compare Deng’s nature to that of Lin Biao, who often quoted Confucius privately. ↩︎
On this phrase, see Chairman Mao’s instructions on the question of the railway and economy, delivered by Yao Wenyuan while issuing directives upon receiving representatives for lectures on national planning work on July 13, 1976 (http://bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/GPCR/Chinese/PolitburoReceivingRepresentativesOnNationalPlanning-19760713-Chinese.pdf). As part of his “Consolidation” program (Zhengdun 整顿) in 1975, Deng Xiaoping ordered rebel workers shot to death at several locations, including at the Zhengzhou Railway Bureau. Workers struck back in response. The directive concerning the problem of “sabotaging the production forces with [backwards] relations of production” (shengchan guanxi pohuai shengchanli 生产关系破坏生产力) was put forward by Wang Hongwen in this document. In the same paragraph, Yao Wenyuan clarifies that this is in direct reference to the above calamity, which members of the railway spoke about, caused by the “Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend” whipped up by Deng. ↩︎
“Throughout the entire structure” (zhengge shangceng jianzhu lingyu 整个上层建筑领域) is a concept inspired from by Chairman Mao’s words that, “The proletariat must exercise all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie in the superstructure, including all spheres of culture,” quoted in article 13 of China’s 1975 constitution. ↩︎
Liu Bing accused them of abusing their authority and acting out of a motivation for personal power. ↩︎
For further background, see Zhang Chunqiao’s “On Exercising All-Round Dictatorship Over the Bourgeoisie” (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhang/1975/x01/x01.htm) and Yao Wenyuan’s “On the Social Basis of the Lin Piao Anti-Party Clique” (https://www.marxists.org/archive/yao-wenyuan/1975/0001.htm). ↩︎
Part of these directives were publicized in Red Flag magazine and the People’s Daily. ↩︎
Liu Bing was one of the vice secretaries of the Tsinghua University party committee. Liu admitted on November 16, 1975 that his letter (which was disguised as a “letter from the people” to Mao, but actually was orchestrated by Deng) was a false accusation against Mao’s associates. Xie Jingyi had confronted Liu Bing over fact that Liu had distributed Deng’s revisionist April 3, 1975 “Speech Upon Meeting Delegates from the Primary Industrial Enterprises of National Defense,” in party committee meetings at Tsinghua University early August, 1975. Liu then decided to write a letter to Chairman Mao to report Chi Qun and Xie Jingyi’s actions. The first accusation letter against Chi Qun (August 13th, 1975) was written by Liu Bing under the instigation from Liu Yi’an, the vice secretary of party committee at Tsinghua University. Deng Xiaoping and his associate Hu Yaobang encouraged Liu’s deliverance of the first letter. However, Chairman Mao did not reply to the first letter. The deliverance of the second letter (written by Liu on October 13th, 1975), which extended the attack to Xie Jingyi, was plotted by Deng. For background, see: http://bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/GPCR/Chinese/HuYaobangTwiceAssistedLiuBing-20080114-Chinese.pdf ↩︎
Chief of the Workers' Propaganda Team at Tsinghua as well as the vice leader of the Tsinghua Revolutionary Committee and Party Committee. ↩︎
Xie Jingyi was Mao’s personal secretary, member of the Peking and Tsinghua Party committees, and one of the party secretaries of Beijing Party committee. Chi and Xie were leaders of the “Liang Schools' Mass Criticism group,"(Liang Xiao Da Pipan Zu 梁效大批判组). Liang is a surname with the same pronunciation as “two” as well as “positive,” and xiao is a homonym for effect, and thus the moniker refers both to the “two” schools of Peking and Tsinghua Universities as well as to a “good effect.” ↩︎
For background on the criticism of “Taking the Three Directives as the Key Link” see Peking Review #14, April 2, 1976 (http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-14b.htm). Deng’s “Three Directives” were:
On “He [Lenin] said that small production engenders capitalism continuously and daily,” see “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder: “For, unfortunately, small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. For all these reasons the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential, and victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and desperate war of life and death, a war demanding perseverance, discipline, firmness, indomitableness and unity of will” —V.I. Lenin: “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder (April-May 1920) (http://massline.org/PekingReview/PR1975/PR1975-09a.htm). ↩︎
On “Lenin spoke of building a bourgeois state without capitalists to safeguard bourgeois right,” see State and Revolution: “It follows that under Communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois right, but even the bourgeois state—without the bourgeoisie!” —V.I. Lenin: State and Revolution (August-September 1917) http://massline.org/PekingReview/PR1975/PR1975-09a.htm. Here, Chairman Mao uses the term for capitalists (zibenjia 资本家) whereas in Lenin’s original quote, the term used is the bourgeoisie, i.e. capitalist class (zichan jieji 资产阶级). Lenin believed class struggle would exist under socialism, though it was Chairman Mao who for the first time in history argued that socialism would produce a bourgeoisie, primarily the inner-party bourgeoisie, even though capitalists no longer existed primarily “in the open,” (see the “Party’s Basic Line” http://bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/PoliticalTheory/TheBasicContradictionOfSocialistSocietyAndTheParty'sBasicLine-1976-Chinese-NoOCR-sm.pdf). Mao believed that under socialism, capitalists primarily did not exist “in the open” but existed within the party.
Producing the grounds for the inner-party bourgeoisie are the old factors of three aspects of the productive relationships (the system of ownership, inter-relations of people in production, and the system of distribution), which appear in the form of bourgeois right. In order to organize production there still is a need for a measure of bourgeois right, to the extent of including categories of currency (the Critique of the Gotha Programme describes a period without commodity production and exchange but in which there is still distribution based on labor as well bourgeois right). The country and political superstructure must have the functioning of forcibly maintaining the restriction of bourgeois right. At the same time, the bureaucratic apparatuses still have the old maladies of bourgeois methods, this is the bourgeois climate formed above the soil of bourgeois right. Within the superstructure, the areas of culture and consciousness are not only composed of thought based on bourgeois right, but also contain all sorts of old feudal, capitalist, and revisionist culture. This is to say that under the dictatorship of the proletariat, although capitalists in the open have been wiped out, it is still possible that the inner party bourgeoisie will seize various areas and areas of leadership, and hence change the qualitative nature of such areas, such as the system of ownership, and reverse the forms of proletarian dictatorship. The entire economic base and the areas of superstructure have a primarily proletarian aspect, and represent the new birth of communism, and secondarily have the essential conditions for the production of the bourgeoisie. It is only through continuing revolution that relies on the proletarian dictatorship that it will be possibly to eliminate class. The inner-party bourgeoisie not only draws in the old bourgeois class, but it also props up society’s illegal (i.e. those who oppose the proletarian dictatorship) newly born capitalist elements. The inner-party bourgeoisie is not only harder to recognize than the capitalists, moreover it represents a greater danger. It has its own political representatives and commanding figures. Developed to a certain extent, it will plot to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship, and transform the political nature overall, furthermore seizing the wealth of socialist property, and promoting a historical reversal of the proletarian dictatorship. Here, we can see the transformation of the primary and secondary aspects of the contradiction. Such is the zigzag course of historical dialectical movement (editors' note). ↩︎
The eight grades of wages (baji gongzi 八级工资) was a form of distributive relations (one of the three aspects of relations of production) established after the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949. During the Great Leap Forward, the system of piece-rates for work (jijian gongzi 计件工资) was abolished, a system which compensated workers per article or per unit of work, resulting in the de facto privileging of certain work and positions of authority. In comparison to piece-rates, the eight grade wage scale was a leap forward in the struggle to restrict bourgeois right. However, there was still a ways to go in the attempt to restrict bourgeois right, even within this frame of distribution according to work alone. ↩︎
Chairman Mao’s reference to “eight grades of wages [determines where the money goes] regardless if you are [buying for] many people or few” likely was influenced by Engel’s statement in Anti-Duhring that “The bachelor lives like a lord, happy and content with his eight or twelve marks a day, while the widower with eight minor children finds it very difficult to manage on this sum.” ↩︎
Thirteen years later refers to the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that took place in 1962, in which Chairman Mao raised the question of the basic line of the party during the entire historical period of socialism. ↩︎
“Settling accounts” (suanzang 算账) here means closing the door on the period and on opposing the policies and leadership of Chairman Mao. The term also means to attain revenge, revenge against those who supported the movement. ↩︎
On “all-around civil war” see the note from the article cited above “The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything,” an essay by Yao Wenyuan: (https://www.marxists.org/archive/yao-wenyuan/1968/august/30.htm) “The working class has rich practical experience in the three great revolutionary movements of class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment. It most bitterly hates all counter-revolutionary words and deeds against socialism and against Mao Tse-tung’s thought. It utterly hates the old educational system which served the exploiting classes. It most strongly opposes the “civil war” activities of certain intellectuals in damaging state property and obstructing struggle-criticism-transformation. It thoroughly detests the habit of empty talk and the practice of double-dealing, where words and actions do not match.” ↩︎
The taking of guns refers to the phenomenon during the early stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution when the inner-party bourgeoisie tried to arm the conservative factions which supported the revisionists. They did not want to leave proof of this. As a result, they would instruct their associates to pretend to storm military arsenals. Subsequently generals would pretend to be forced to open the arsenals, when in fact they did so willingly. It was generally the conservative factions that seized weapons, and rebel factions seldom did. Chairman Mao thus judged that it would be best for the military—which had in fact already entered the movement, to “support the left.” Mao also spoke on the problem of the militarized left. Rebel factions in Henan subsequently promoted the theory of “attack with words, defend with arms.” ↩︎
Yield or get lost, a reference to the transfer from leadership as well as executions of rebel factions orchestrated by Deng Xiaoping and his associates. This occurred during Deng’s so-called “Consolidation” program (Zhengdun 整顿). It was opposed in the November 1975 campaign “Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend.” ↩︎
From Tao Yuanming’s work “The Peach Blossom Spring” (Taohua Yuanji 桃花源记). This line was quoted by Deng Xiaoping to shirk from responsibility towards the struggle when criticized at a meeting on November 20, 1975. See the Annals of Deng Xiaoping (Deng Xiaoping Nianpu 邓小平年谱). ↩︎
Zhou Rongxin, a close associate of Deng, was the minister of Education in 1975. The opposition of Liu Bing and others to the Educational Revolution was part of their attempt to reverse the verdict of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’s criticism of the bourgeois educational line. In response, in November, 1975, Mao launched the Mass Debates on Educational Revolution. This was the initial stage of the “Criticize Deng Xiaoping, Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend.” See: http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-07-TsinghuaUniv-MassDebate1.pdf and http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-07-TsinghuaUniv-MassDebate2.pdf as well as the 1975 Central Party Committee Document #26, “Tsinghua University Report on the Mass Debates on Educational Revolution” (http://www.bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/GPCR/Chinese/ReportOnTheMassDebatesOnEducationalRevolutionInTsinghuaUniv-19751210.pdf). ↩︎
This recommends that unlike 1967, when fighting teams of students sparked the movements in factories and elsewhere, workers instead should come to the universities and schools, survey the big character posters there, and prepare to organize a counterattack on the revisionist tide themselves. This is in the context of the Mass Debates on Educational Revolution, the initial stage of Criticize Deng Xiaoping, Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend. ↩︎
The central committee held a “conference for reaching out” among high-level officials during this period, according to the instruction of Chairman Mao. ↩︎
Kuai Dafu and Nie Yuanzi had made contributions in the earlier stage of the Great Proletarian Revolution, breaking through the white terror imposed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping on the movement—including through the form of Nie Yuanzi’s big character poster, which Chairman Mao praised as “China’s First Marxist-Leninist Big Character Poster”(http://massline.org/PekingReview/PR1966/PR1966-37o.htm and https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_63.htm). However, they engaged in bourgeois factionalism and promoted violent struggle, not grasping that “The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything,” (see essay by Yao Wenyuan: https://www.marxists.org/archive/yao-wenyuan/1968/august/30.htm). They did not understand that the campaign that Chairman Mao spoke of had already developed from a student movement into a movement of workers and peasants. It had entered into a period of great unity among the revolutionary forces for the purpose of seizing power. But to protect the “independent fiefdoms” of the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, Kuai and Nie and their factions went as far as violently opposing the entry into Tsinghua University by working class Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams organized by rebel workers, killing five of their members and injuring hundreds in the process. Such demonstrates that Kuai and Nie were representative of the anarchism characteristic of “Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionism” that Lenin spoke of in Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/). See also William Hinton’s text the Hundred Day War for background about Kuai Dafu. ↩︎
Being in the party for over forty years, as a result of not having remolded a bourgeois world outlook, I degenerated into becoming the biggest capitalist roader in the party. Because the revolutionary masses exposed a great amount of facts, I was again able to hold up a mirror and see my true reflection. I have completely betrayed the party and Chairman Mao’s long period of trust and hope in me. With heavy emotions I look back on my past. I pledge in my remaining years to repent and make a fresh start, and to become a new person, to energetically use Mao Zedong Thought to remold my bourgeois world outlook. For a type of person like me, whatever way I am dealt with is not excessive. I guarantee to never reverse the verdicts, and resolutely pledge to not be a die-hard capitalist roader. My highest hope is to remain in the party, and beseech the party to give me a small bit of work when it is possible, and to allow me a chance to make amends. I cheer for the great victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. ↩︎
Chairman Mao pointed out at the nature of the Deng Xiaoping problem had transformed into an antagonistic contradiction following the April 5th Counterrevolutionary Incident (see http://bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/GPCR/Chinese/Mao'sWritingOnQuestionOfTiananmenIncident-19760407.pdf for the complete record). In response to Zhang Chunqiao’s beratement of Deng (in which Zhang stated “Look at the situation in Tiananmen, they [the inner-Party bourgeoisie] are putting you forward as another Nagy Imre!” (Imre being the former Prime Minister of Hungary who supported protests against the party in 1956), Chairman Mao stated: “Yes! This time; One: The capital; Two: Tiananmen; Three: Burning, beating & smashing. These three, OK. The nature of the problem has changed. According to this, throw [Deng] out! Xiaoping will not attend [meetings], you [Mao Yuanxin] meet some people first, don’t meet Su Zhenhua, don’t seek out Ye (Jianying).” For more background on Deng’s expulsion, see: “Resolution of C.P.C. Central Committee On Dismissing Teng Hsiao-ping From All Posts Both Inside and Outside Party” (http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-15b.htm) as well as “Counter-Revolutionary Political Incident at Tiananmen Square” (http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-15d.htm) on the April 5 incident. ↩︎