“The theoretical victory of Marxism compelled its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists.” — V.I. Lenin

Mao Tsetung and Mao Tsetung Thought are Anti-Marxist-Leninist and Revisionist

The Communist Party of China and the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U.

The Processes of the Capitalist Development of the Chinese Economy

Mao Endorses the “Three Worlds Theory” & Deng’s U.N. Speech

Against Chinese Revisionism and the “Theory of the Three Worlds”

Enver Hoxha – “It Is Not Right to Receive Nixon in Beijing. We Do Not Support It”

Regarding China’s Withdrawl of Aid from Albania

Joint Statement in Opposition to the Cutting Off of Aid to Socialist Albania by the Government of China

On the “Socialism” of the Maoist Revisionists

Extracts from the Letter from the CC of the Party of Labor of Albania to the CC of the Communist Party of China

English abstract of Enver Hoxha’s “The Theory and Practice of Revolution”

Enver Hoxha: The Theory and Practice of Revolution

Albania’s struggle against the Maoists

The Warmongering Plans of the Chinese Leaders & the Visit of Hua Kuo-feng to Yugoslavia & Rumania

Down with the “RCP-USA’s” Shameful Anti-Communist Attack on the Glorious Party of Labor of Albania!

Enver Hoxha Quotes on Maoist Revisionism pt. 1

Enver Hoxha Quotes on Maoist Revisionism pt. 2

Enver Hoxha Quotes on Maoist Revisionism pt. 3

Enver Hoxha Quotes on Maoist Revisionism pt. 4

Enver Hoxha Quotes on Maoist Revisionism pt. 5

Kissinger says in his new book that US established a strategic partnership with Mao to contain the USSR

Revealing Quotes from Arch-Revisionist Deng Xiaoping

The Revolutionary Communists Expect China to Come Out Openly Against Khrushchevite Revisionism

The Anti-Leninist Theory of “three worlds” in Service to the Warmongering U.S.-China Alliance

Maoist China’s Foreign Policy: 1970s and 1980s

The Chinese Leadership headed by Deng Xiaoping have Launched a Military Attack on Vietnam

Chinese Social-Imperialism in Africa

China Emerges as a Major Exporter of Capital

Michael Parenti on Chinese Capitalism

Why China is Trying to Colonize Africa

Grover Furr defends research on Moscow Trials from Charlatan Mike Ely

Grover Furr stomps Kasama Liberals

Kasama’s Anti-Stalinism: Furr on Bukharin

Mao Zedong deserves his place in the hall of the fame of the greatest revisionists of all time, right alongside Bakunin, Bernstein, DeLeon, Kautsky, Togliatti, Trotsky, Browder, Tito, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Kim Jong-Il, Nagy, Dubček, Deng Xiaoping, Ceaușescu and Sam Webb.

“[Maoism] was proclaimed as the highest stage of Marxism-Leninism in the present era. The Chinese leaders have declared that ‘Mao Tsetung has achieved more than Marx, Engels, and Lenin…’ The Constitution of the Communist Party of China, approved at its 9th Congress, which was held under Mao Tsetung’s leadership, says that ‘Mao Tsetung thought is the Marxism-Leninism of the era … ‘, that Mao Tse-tung “….has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and has raised it to a new, higher stage”. Basing the activity of the party on [Maoism] instead of on the principles and norms of Marxism-Leninism opened the doors even more widely to opportunism and factional struggle within the ranks of the Communist Party of China. [Maoism] is an amalgam of views in which ideas and theses borrowed from Marxism are mixed up with idealist, pragmatic and revisionist principles from other philosophies.” — Enver Hoxha (Imperialism and Revolution). “And when [CIA officer William Colby was] asked why the Chinese were backing the FNLA or UNITA, he stated: ‘Because the Soviets are backing the MPLA is the simplest answer.”

“It sounds,” said Congressman Aspin, “like that is why we are doing it.”

“It is,” replied Colby. — From William Blum’s “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II” “I welcome Nixon’s winning the election.” —Mao Zedong, December 18th, 1970. “One of our policies now is refusing to let Americans visit China. Is this policy correct? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should study it. Leftists, moderates and rightists should all be approved to come to China. Why the rightists? […] The reason is that the moderates and leftists are unable to solve any problem, and right now we must straighten things out with Nixon. We have to let him come as a matter of course.” —Mao, 1970.

MAO — DEFENDER OF STALIN?

In his talk to the Stalin Society in October, Adolfo Olaechea stated that:

“The Communist Party of China under his (Mao’s — Ed.) personal leadership was the most staunch defender of the historical role of Comrade Stalin”. (Adolfo Olaechea: op. cit.; p. 18).

In fact, after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956 the Communist Party of China’s assessment of Stalin was little different from that of Soviet revisionist leader Nikita Khrushchev:

“Stalin erroneously exaggerated his own role and counter-posed his individual authority to the collective leadership, and as a result certain of his actions were opposed to certain fundamental Marxist-Leninist concepts. . . .

When any leader of the Party or the state places himself over and above the Party and the masses, . . . he ceases to have an all-round, penetrating insight into the affairs of the state. As long as this was the case, . . . Stalin could not avoid making unrealistic and erroneous decisions on certain matters. . . . During the latter part of his life, Stalin took more and more pleasure in this cult of the individual and violated the Party’s system of democratic centralism and the principle of combining collective leadership with individual responsibility. As a result, . . . he gave certain wrong advice on the international communist movement and, in particular, made a wrong decision on the question of Yugoslavia. On these issues, Stalin fell victim to subjectivism and one-sidedness, and divorced himself from objective reality and from the masses.

The Chinese Communist Party congratulates the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on its great achievements in this historic struggle against the cult of the individual”.

(‘On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ (April 1956), in: ‘Renmin Ribao’ (People’s Daily)’, in: John Gittings: ‘Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute: A Commentary and Extracts from the Recent Polemics: 1963-1967″; London; 1968; p. 291-92, 293).

“Stalin made some serious mistakes in regard to the domestic and foreign policies of the Soviet Union. His arbitrary method of work impaired . . . the principle of democratic centralism . . . and disrupted part of the socialist legal system. Because in many fields of work Stalin estranged himself from the masses . . . and made personal, arbitrary decisions concerning many important policies, it was inevitable that he should have made grave mistakes. . . . He wronged many local communists and honest citizens, and this caused serious losses. . . . Sometimes he even intervened mistakenly, with many grave consequences, in the internal affairs of certain brother countries and parties. . . .

Some of the mistakes made by Stalin during the latter years of his life became serious, nationwide and persistent, and were not corrected in time. . . .

Stalin’s mistakes did harm to the Soviet Union which could have been avoided…

Stalin . . . committed the serious mistake of violating socialist democracy. . . .

Stalin displayed certain great-nation chauvinist tendencies in relations with brother parties and countries”. (‘More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ (December 1956), in: ‘Renmin Ribao’ (People’s Daily), in: John Gittings: ibid.; p. 298, 300, 301, 302, 303).

And in April 1956 Mao himself wrote:

“Stalin’s mistakes amounted to . . . 30% of the whole. Stalin did a number of wrong things in connection with China. The Left adventurism pursued by Wang Ming in the latter part of . . . the Second Revolutionary Civil War period and his Right opportunism in the early days of the War of Resistance against Japan can both be traced to Stalin”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘On the Ten Major Relationships’ (April 1956), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Peking; 1977; p. 304).

It will be seen that the Communist Party of China’s assessment of Stalin was incorrect and basically little different from that put forward by the Soviet revisionists.

Olaechea’s statement that:

“The Communist Party of China under his (Mao’s — Ed.) personal leadership was the most staunch defender of the historical role of Comrade Stalin” (Adolfo Olaechea: op. cit.; p. 18).

is clearly false.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS IN COLONIAL-TYPE COUNTRIES

Mao Tse-tung agrees with Lenin and Stalin that in a colonial-type country such as China, the revolutionary process has to pass through two successive stages: the stage of democratic revolution and the stage of socialist revolution:

“The Chinese revolutionary movement . . . embraces two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions. The second process can be carried through only after the first has been completed”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party’ (December 1939), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking; 1965; p. 330).

In November 1994, Harry Powell addressed the Stalin Society on ‘Mao Tsetung — Revisionist or Revolutionary?’. He told the Society that our member Bill Bland in his paper entitled ‘The Revolutionary Process in Colonial-Type Countries’ read to the Marxist-Leninist seminar in London in July 1993 had ‘agreed with Trotsky in rejecting the two-stage theory of the revolutionary process in colonial-type countries’.

This allegation is quite false.

Bill Bland said:

“Trotskyism …… rejects as ‘counter-revolutionary opportunism’ the Marxist-Leninist strategy of stages in the revolutionary process in colonial-type countries”. (Bill Bland: ‘The Revolutionary Process in Colonial-Type Countries’ London; 1993; p.5)

MAOIST ‘PEACEFUL TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM’

But in regard to the second stage of the revolutionary process, Mao Tse-tung deviates from Lenin and Stalin. The latter insist that the socialist stage of the revolutionary process involves a fierce class struggle against the bourgeoisie:

“The substitution of the proletarian state for the bourgeois state is impossible without a violent revolution”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution’ (August/September 1917), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 7; London; 1946; p. 21). “Can the capitalists be ousted without a fierce class struggle?

No, they cannot. . . .

There have been no cases in history where the dying bourgeoisie has not exerted all its remaining strength to preserve its existence”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Right Deviation in the CPSU (b)’ (April 1929), in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Moscow; 1955; p. 34, 40).

While Lenin and Stalin present the second (socialist) stage of the revolutionary process as one of struggle against the national bourgeoisie, Mao Tse-tung maintains that the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie in China is a contradiction ‘among the people’ which can be ‘resolved peacefully’ because the Chinese national capitalists are willing to accept socialist transformation’:

“In our country the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie comes under the category of contradictions among the people. . . . In the period of the socialist revolution, exploitation of the working class for profit constitutes one side of the character of the national bourgeoisie, while . . . its willingness to accept socialist transformation constitutes the other. . . . The contradiction between the national bourgeoisie and the working class is one between exploiter and exploited. . . . But in the concrete conditions of China, this antagonistic contradiction between the two classes, if properly handled can . . . be resolved by peaceful methods.” (Mao Tse-tung: ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People’ (February 1957) in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Peking; 1977; p. 386).

Mao goes on to explain that by the ‘correct handling’ of the contradiction — handling which can bring about its ‘peaceful resolution’ -he means the:

“ideological remoulding” (Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 403).

of the national bourgeoisie.

But this conception of the bourgeoisie being ‘ideologically remoulded’ into ‘willingness to accept socialism’ and so refraining from class struggle against it is clearly analogous to the thesis of the revisionist Nikolay Bukharin of the Russian capitalists ‘growing into socialism’. On this conception Stalin comments:

“Capitalists in town and country . . . growing into socialism — such is the absurdity Bukharin has arrived at . . . .

Either Marx’s theory of the class struggle, or the theory of the capitalists growing into socialism;

either an irreconcilable antagonism of class interests, or the theory of the harmony of class interests. . . .

The abolition of classes . . . by the capitalists growing into socialism — such is Bukharin’s formula.” (Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Right Deviation in the CPSU (b)’; (April 1929), in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Moscow; 1955; p. 32, 33, 36).

MAO — DEFENDER OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT?

Lenin and Stalin maintain that the construction of socialism is impossible without the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat:

“The transition from capitalism to communism will certainly create a great variety and abundance of political forms, but in essence there will inevitably be only one: the dictatorship of the proletariat“. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution’ (August 1917), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 7; London; 1946; p. 34). “The revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory and to push forward too the final victory of socialism unless . . . it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat as its principal mainstay”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Foundations of Leninism’ (April/May 1924), in: ‘Works’, Volume 6; Moscow; 1953; p. 112).

Olaechea states:

“The Communist Party of China under his (Mao’s — Ed.) personal leadership was the most staunch defender of . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Adolfo Olaechea: op. cit.; p. 18).

This claim is false.

Mao Tse-tung insists that the goal for progressive people in all colonial-type countries should be the establishment, not of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but of the joint dictatorship of several anti-imperialist classes, including the national bourgeoisie:

“The new-democratic revolution . . . is developing in all other colonial and semi-colonial countries as well as in China. . . . Politically, it strives for the joint dictatorship of the revolutionary classes”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party (December 1939), in: ‘Selected Works’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking; 1965; p.

Mao calls the national bourgeoisie of a colonial-type country the ‘middle bourgeoisie’:

“The middle bourgeoisie constitutes the national bourgeoisie as distinct from the comprador class”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front’ (March 1940), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking’ 1865; p. 423).

— the comprador class being that section of the bourgeoisie closely linked and dependent upon foreign imperialism.

The classes said to share power in this ‘new-democratic’ joint dictatorship include the national bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and even that section of the landlord class which is willing to participate in the new democratic state (i. e., that section which Mao calls ‘the enlightened gentry’):

“Places in the organs of political power should be allocated as follows: one-third to . . . the proletariat and the poor peasantry; one third to . . . the petty-bourgeoisie, and the remaining one-third to . . the middle bourgeoisie and the enlightened gentry”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front’ (March 1940), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking’ 1865; p. 427).

This ‘new-democratic republic’ thus admittedly differs from the dictatorship of the proletariat:

“The new-democratic republic will be . . . different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under the dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘On New Democracy’ (January 1940), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking; 1965; p. 350).

It is characterised as ‘a state of the whole people’:

“Our state is a people’s democratic dictatorship. . . . . The aim of this dictatorship is to protect all our people”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People’ (February 1957) in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Peking; 1977; p. 387).

Far from suppressing the Chinese bourgeoisie, the ‘new-democratic republic’ will permit its political parties to exist over a long period of time:

“Why should the bourgeois and petty bourgeois democratic parties be allowed to exist . . . over a long period of time? . . . Because it is . . the policy of the Communist Party”. (Mao Tse-tung: ibid,.; p. 413).

and will permit the Chinese bourgeoisie freely to express its ideology:

“It is inevitable that the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie will give expression to their own ideologies. It is inevitable that they will stubbornly assert themselves on political and ideological questions by every possible means. You cannot expect them, to do otherwise. We should not use the method of suppression and prevent them from expressing themselves, but should allow them to do so.” (Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 411).

Indeed, Mao demands that the Communist Party, in this ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’, should adopt a policy of ‘free competition’ in all fields, including that of political ideology:

“What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? . . . Will it do to ban such ideas and deny them any opportunity for expression? Certainly not. . . .

Literally, the two slogans — let a hundred flowers blossom and let a hundred schools of thought contend — have no class character: the proletariat can turn them to account, and so can the bourgeoisie”. (Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 410, 412).

Far from suppressing the Chinese bourgeoisie, the ‘new-democratic state’ will permit its political parties to exist over a long period of time:

“Why should the bourgeois and petty bourgeois democratic parties be allowed to exist . . . over a long period of time? . . . Because it is the policy of the Communist Party to exist side by side with the democratic parties for a long time to come”. (Mao Tse-tung: ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People’ (February 1957) in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Peking; 1977; p. 413).

Certainly, Mao speaks of the importance of:

“the leadership of the Communist Party”. (Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 412).

but in the new-democratic republic this leadership is to be shared with the bourgeois parties on the basis of ‘mutual supervision’:

“Mutual supervision . . . means that the Communist Party can exercise supervision over the democratic parties, and vice versa. Why should the democratic parties be allowed to exercise supervision over the Communist Party? . . . Supervision over the Communist Party is mainly exercised by the working people and the Party membership. But it augments the benefit to us to have supervision by the democratic parties too”. (Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 414).

MAOIST ‘SOCIALISM’

The Chinese revisionists’ conception of ‘socialism’ is one in which only the enterprises of the comprador capitalists are nationalised, while ‘those of the national capitalists are gradually and peacefully transformed into ‘socialist’ enterprises in alliance with the national bourgeoisie, through state capitalism, using the machinery of the ‘new-democratic state”:

” In our country . . . . . we can proceed with our step by step socialist transformation by means of the existing machinery of state. . . . . We have in our country a relationship of alliance between the working class and the national bourgeoisie. . . .

The socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce by the state will be gradually realised over a relatively long period of time, through various forms of state capitalism. . . .

The aim can be achieved through peaceful struggle”. (Liu Shao-chi: Report on the Draft Constitution of the People’s Republic of China at the First National People’s Congress of the PRC (September 1954); Peking; 1962; p. 27). “Under the conditions existing in our country, the use of peaceful means, i.e., the method of persuasion and education, can change capitalist ownership into socialist ownership”. (Mao Tse-tung: Speech at Supreme State Conference (January 1956), in: Kuan Ta-tung: ‘The Socialist Transformation of Capitalist Industry and Commerce in China’; Peking; 1960; p 40-41).

The method of transforming the enterprises of the Chinese national capitalists into ‘socialist’ enterprises was through the formation of joint state-private enterprises:

“The advanced form of state capitalism in China is called a joint state-private enterprise. This is the principal way through which the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce into socialist enterprises is being effected.

A joint state-private enterprise is one in which the state invests and to which it assigns personnel to share in management with the capitalists. . . .

A fixed rate of interest was paid by the state for the total investment of the capitalists in the joint state-private enterprises.

The interest was fixed at 5% per annum”. (Kuan Ta-tung: ibid,; p. 75, 84., 86-87).

The Chinese national capitalists not only had no objection to this form of socialist transformation, they welcomed it:

“Why were there increasing numbers of capitalists who petitioned of their own free will to have their enterprises changed over to joint state-private operation? . . . The statistics of 64 factories in various parts of China which had gone over to joint operation earlier than others revealed that their profits were increasing. Taking their profit in 1950 as 100, it was . . . 306 in 1953. . . . The capitalists paraded with the beating of cymbals and drums, while sending in their petitions for the change-over of their enterprises”. (Kuan Ta-tung: ibid.; p. 78-79, 84).

The completion in 1956 of this programme of formation of joint-state private enterprises was later portrayed by the Chinese revisionists as ‘the completion of the socialist revolution’:

“The socialist revolution in the ownership of the means of production was fundamentally completed in 1956”. (Chou En-lai: Report on the Work of the Government (December 1964), in: ‘Main Documents of the First Session of the Third National Congress of the People’s Republic of China’; Peking; 1965; p. 26). “Socialist relations of production have been established”. (Mao Tse-tung: op. cit.;p. 394).

while the new-democratic state (previously defined as the state of ‘a class alliance which included the national bourgeoisie’) was now portrayed as a state of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, as ‘socialist state power’:

“The dictatorship of the proletariat in our country rests on firm foundations and our socialist state power is unshakeable”. (Chou En-lai: op. cit.; p. 28).

But behind this false facade of ‘socialism’, as Mao himself admits, the reality was that the Chinese national bourgeoisie continued to exploit the working class:

“In joint state-private industrial and commercial enterprises, capitalists still get a fixed rate of interest on their capital, that is to say, exploitation still exists”. (Mao Tse-tung: op. cit.; p. 394).

FUNDAMENTALIST AND MODERNIST MAOISM

Most systems of religious belief are based on writings regarded as ‘sacred’, and most of these were written long ago. But as man’s knowledge of the universe increases, it is discovered that these ancient writings appear to conflict with fact.

In this situation, some people realise that their religious belief was mere superstition and become atheists. Of those who retain their religious belief, some insist that the writings, being sacred, are infallibly true, so that their appearance of falsity must be a mere illusion: we call such people fundamentalists; others admit that the writings cannot be accepted as literal truth, but can be accepted as allegorical truth: we call such people modernists.

Maoism has its fundamentalists and its modernists.

As history made Maoism untenable except to those whose prejudices overrode their reason, genuine materialists came to realise that Maoism was merely a brand of revisionism. Among other Maoists, Fundamentalist and Modernist trends appeared.

Adolfo Olaechea belongs to the Fundamentalist wing of Maoism. Like the well-meaning young people of twenty-five years ago who could be seen on demonstrations waving Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ like a holy symbol, Olaechea still insists that:

“Maoism is the Marxism-Leninism, of our era”. (Adolfo Olaechea: op. cit.; p. 30).

And whereas, as we have seen, the facts show that Maoism itself is a form of revisionism serving the interests of national bourgeoisies in colonial-type countries, the Maoist fundamentalist Olaechea clings to the illusion that:

“. . . THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA, LED BY CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG, UNMASKED AND SMASHED MODERN REVISIONISM”, (Adolfo Olaechea: op. cit.; p. 16).

Harry Powell, who spoke at the November meeting of the Stalin Society, is on the other hand a Modernist Maoist.

Powell made no bones about admitting that Dimitrov had been a thorough-going revisionist and even admitted that Mao had been a revisionist ‘to some extent’.

This view of Mao was expressed in May 1981 in a joint ‘Defence of Mao’ put forward by three German organisations. Their declaration agreed that the writings of Mao Tse-tung:

“. . . prior to 1966 do not make clear that the transition from the democratic revolution to the socialist revolution must be politically in line with the transition from the dictatorship of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal classes and forces to the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is clear … that he even regarded as possible the construction of socialism in political alliance with the bourgeoisie. All these views are incompatible with the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and in fact they represent support for the Khrushchevite revisionists in establishing the idea of class collaboration between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the international communist movement. . . . . . .

Mao Tse-tung upheld various seriously revisionist positions”. (JOINT DECLARATION OF ‘ROTE FAHNE’ (Red Flag), ‘WESTBERLINER KOMMUNIST’ (The West Berlin Communist) and ‘GEGEN DIE STROMUNG’ (Against the Current), in: ‘Compass’, No. 114 (July 1994); p. 4, 10).

Despite these severe strictures, the German organisations, like Harry Powell, seek to defend Mao as a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ by suggesting that the ‘Cultural Revolution’ which he initiated in the 1960s ‘seems to have been an attempt to correct some of his errors’:

“To make a correct evaluation of Mao Tse-tung, it is essential to analyse his role in the Cultural Revolution and his struggle with Teng Hsaio-ping before his death. It seems that Mao Tse-tung recognised some of his errors in this period and tried to correct them”. (JOINT DECLARATION: ibid.; p. 10).

Certainly the ‘Cultural Revolution’ was fought out under anti-revisionist slogans:

“The official explanation of the cultural revolution is that it was the final battle in a long-term struggle between two lines: the correct Maoist line and the revisionist line upheld by ‘China’s Khrushchev’, . . . . Liu Shao-chi”. (Roderick Macfarquahar: ‘The Origins of the Cultural Revolution’, Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 2).

However, the true character of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ has been brilliantly analysed by the Albanian Marxist-Leninist Enver Hoxha:

“The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and, in particular, not in the least proletarian”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘Imperialism and the Revolution’ (April 1978), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Tirana; 1985; p. 655).

According to Hoxha, it was a struggle between two revisionist factions within the Chinese Communist Party — headed respectively by Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi:

“The Chinese ‘Cultural Revolution’ was a factional fight between the group of Mao and that of Liu Shao-chi. Neither the working class . . . nor the peasantry . . . took part in it”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘The Chinese Strategy is suffering Fiasco’ (December 1976), in: ‘Reflections on China’, Volume 2; Tirana; p. 391).

At the time of the onset of the ‘Cultural Revolution’, the leadership of the the Communist Party of China was pursuing an anti-imperialist political line, directed in particular against US imperialism:

“US imperialism is the chief bulwark of world reaction and an international gendarme..

The international proletariat must and can . . . establish the broadest united front against the US imperialists and their lackeys”. (Central Committee of the Communist Party of China: Letter in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (June 1963), in: ‘A Proposal concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement’; Peking; 1963; p. 12).

In 1966, the Party and state machinery of China were dominated by the anti-American faction headed by Liu Shao-chi:

“The Party had slipped from his (Mao’s — Ed.) grasp. Everything there was in the grip of the General Office, which Liu Shao-chi had firmly in his grasp”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘What is the General Office in China?’ (September 1977), in: op. cit.; p. 621).

However, the faction headed by Mao, which had become:

“the pro-American faction”, (Enver Hoxha: ‘It seems that the Pro-American Faction will triumph’ (January 1977), in: op. cit.; p. 400). “. . . wanted to establish links with the Americans. . . . . This is how the ‘Cultural Revolution’ began”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘Chinese Puzzle, Maoist Confusion’ (February 1976), in: ibid.; p, 225).

In these circumstances:

” . . . Mao was left with only one course: he had to seize power again. In order to do this, he had to rely on the ‘romantic’ youth who ‘worshipped’ Mao, and on Lin Piao, whom he made his deputy — that is, he had to rely on the army”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘Neither the Party nor the State of the Proletariat are operating in China’ (June 1970), in: ibid.; p. 254-55).

In the course of this ‘Cultural Revolution’:

“the Party was liquidated”. (Enver Hoxha: ‘The Chinese are not propagating the Correct Line of our Party’ (January 1976), in: ibid.; p. 209).

Thus, in no way can the ‘Cultural Revolution’ be considered as an attempt by Mao to correct his revisionist mistakes. It was a factional struggle between the anti-US faction within the Party headed by Liu Shao-chi and the pro-US faction headed by Mao Tse-tung. The victory of the latter was followed by Nixon’s visit to China, Chinese support for the Shah of Iran and the US backed FNLA/UNITA in Angola, the Chinese loan to the Chilean junta of Pinochet, etc.

So, if we judge Maoism on the basis of facts and not on that of mere prejudice and wishful thinking, it is clear that MAOISM IS A BRAND OF REVISIONISM DESIGNED TO SERVE THE NATIONAL CAPITALISTS OF COLONIAL-TYPE COUNTRIES BY CHECKING THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS AT THE STAGE OF NATIONAL-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION AND PREVENTING IT FROM GOING FORWARD TO THE STAGE OF SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.

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“MAO TSE-TUNG THOUGHT” – AN ANTI-MARXIST THEORY

By Enver Hoxha

The present situation in the Communist Party of China, its many zig-zags and wavering, opportunist stands, the frequent changes of its strategy, the policy the Chinese leadership has been and is following to make China a superpower, quite naturally raise the problem of the place and role of Mao Tse-tung and his ideas, the so-called Mao Tse-tung thought, in the Chinese revolution.

“Mao Tse-tung thought” is a “theory” devoid of the features of Marxism-Leninism. All the Chinese leaders, both those who were in power before and those who have seized power today, have always made great play with the “Mao Tse-tung thought,” in their forms of organization and ways of action, their strategic and tactical aims, in order to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice. Seeing the dubious activity, wavering and contradictory stands, the lack of principles and the pragmatism of Chinese internal and external policy, its deviation from Marxism-Leninism and the use of left phrases to disguise it, we Albanian Communists have gradually formed our opinions and conviction about the danger presented by “Mao Tse-tung thought.” When our Party was founded, during the National Liberation War, as well as after Liberation, our people had very little knowledge about China. But, like all the revolutionaries of the world, we, too, had formed an opinion that it was progressive: “China is a vast continent. China is fighting, the revolution against foreign imperialism, against concessions is seething in China”, etc., etc.

We had some general knowledge about the activity of Sun Yat-sen, about his connections and friendship with the Soviet Union and with Lenin; we knew something about the Kuomintang, about the Chinese people’s war against the Japanese and about the existence of the Communist Party of China, which was considered a great party, with a Marxist-Leninist, Mao Tse-tung, at the head. And that was all.

Our Party had closer contacts with the Chinese only after 1956. The contacts steadily increased due to the struggle our Party was waging against Khrushchevite modern revisionism. At that time our contacts with the Communist Party of China, or more accurately, with its leading cadres, became more frequent and closer, especially when the Communist Party of China, too, entered into open conflict with the Khrushchevite revisionists. But we have to admit that in the meetings we had with the Chinese leaders, although they were good, comradely meetings, in some ways, China, Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China, remained a great enigma to us.

But why were China, its Communist Party and Mao Tse-tung an enigma? They were an enigma because many attitudes, whether general ones or the personal attitudes of Chinese leaders, towards a series of major political, ideological, military, and organizational problems vacillated, at times to the right, at times to the left. Sometimes they were resolute and at times irresolute, there were times, too, when they maintained correct stands, but more often it was their opportunist stands that caught the eye. During the entire period that Mao was alive, the Chinese policy, in general, was a vacillating one, a policy changing with the circumstances, lacking a Marxist-Leninist spinal cord. What they would say about an important political problem today they would contradict tomorrow. In the Chinese policy, one consistent enduring red thread could not be found.

Naturally, all these attitudes attracted our attention and we did not approve them, but nevertheless, from what we knew about the activity of Mao Tse-tung, we proceeded from the general idea that he was a Marxist-Leninist. On many of Mao Tse-tung’s theses, such as that about the handling of the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie as non-antagonistic contradictions, the thesis about the existence of antagonistic classes during the entire period of socialism, the thesis that “the countryside should encircle the city”, which absolutizes the role of the peasantry in the revolution, etc., we had our reservations and our own Marxist-Leninist views, which, whenever we could, we expressed to the Chinese leaders. Meanwhile, certain other political views an stands of Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China, which were not compatible with the Marxist-Leninist views and stands of our Party, we considered as temporary tactics of a big state, dictated by specific situations. But, with the passage of time, it became ever more clear that the stands maintained by the Communist Party of China were not just tactics.

By analysing the facts, our Party arrived at some general and specific conclusions, which made it vigilant, but it avoided polemics with the Communist Party of China and Chinese leaders, not because it was afraid to engage in polemics with them, but because the facts, which it had about the erroneous, anti-Marxist course of this party and Mao Tse-tung himself, were incomplete, and still did not permit the drawing of a final conclusion. On the other hand, for a time, the Communist Party of China did oppose US imperialism and reaction. It also took a stand against Soviet Khrushchevite revisionism, though it is now clear that its struggle against Soviet revisionism was not dictated from correct, principled Marxist-Leninist positions.

Besides this, we did not have full knowledge about the internal political, economic, cultural, social life, etc. in China. The organization of the Chinese party and state have always been a closed book to us. The Communist Party of China gave us no possibility at all to study the forms of organization of the Chinese party and state. We Albanian communists knew only the general outlines of the state organization of China and nothing more; we were given no possibilities to acquaint ourselves with the experience of the party in China, to see how it operated, how it was organized, in what directions things were developing in different sectors and what these directions were concretely.

The Chinese leaders have acted with guile. They have not made public many documents necessary for one to know the activity of their party and state. They were and are very wary of publishing their documents. Even those few published documents at our disposal are fragmentary.

The four volumes of Mao’s works, which can be considered official, are comprised of materials written no later than 1949, but besides this, they are carefully arranged in such a way that they do not present an exact picture of the real situations that developed in China. The political and theoretical presentation of problems in the Chinese press, not to speak of literature, which was in utter disarray had only a propaganda character. The articles were full of typically Chinese stereotyped formulas expressed arithmetically, such as “the Three Goods and the Five Evils”, “the Four Olds and Four News”, “the Two Reminders and Five Self-controls”, “the Three Truths and Seven Falses”, etc., etc. We found it difficult to work out the “theoretical.” sense of these arithmetical figures, because we are used to thinking, acting and writing according to the traditional Marxist-Leninist theory and culture.

The Chinese leaders did not invite any delegation from our Party to study their experience. And when some delegation has gone there on our Party’s request, the Chinese have engaged in propaganda and taken it here and there for visits to communes and factories rather than give it some explanation or experience about the work of the party. And towards whom did they maintain this strange stand? Towards us Albanians, their friends, who have defended them in the most difficult situations. All these actions were incomprehensible to us, but also a signal that the Communist Party of China did not want to give us a clear picture of its situation.

But what attracted our Party’s attention most was the Cultural Revolution, which raised a number of major questions in our minds. During the Cultural Revolution, initiated by Mao Tse-tung, astonishing political, ideological and organizational ideas and actions came to light in the activity of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state, which were not based on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. In judging their previous dubious actions, as well as those observed during the Cultural Revolution, and especially the events following this revolution up till now, the rises and falls of this or that group in the leadership, today the group of Lin Piao, tomorrow that of Teng Hsiao-ping, a Hua Kuo-feng, etc., each of which had its own platform opposed to the other’s, all these things impelled our Party to delve more deeply into the views and actions of Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China, to get a more thorough knowledge of “Mao Tse-tung thought” When we saw that this Cultural Revolution was not being led by the party but was a chaotic outburst following a call issued by Mao Tse-tung, this did not seem to us to be a revolutionary stand. It was Mao’s authority in China that made millions of unorganized youth, students and pupils, rise to their feet and march on Peking, on party and state committees, which they dispersed. It was said that these young people represented the “proletarian ideology” in China at that time and would show the party and the proletarians the “true” road!

Such a revolution, which had a pronounced political character, was called a cultural revolution. In our Party’s opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this “great proletarian revolution”. This grave situation stemmed from Mao Tse-tung’s old anti-Marxist concepts of underestimation of the leading role of the proletariat and overestimation of the youth in the revolution.

Mao wrote:

“What role did the Chinese young people begin to play since the ‘May 4th Movement’? In a way they began to play a vanguard role – a fact recognised by everybody in our country except the ultra-reactionaries. What is a vanguard role? It means taking the lead…”

Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded. This was a very grave situation.

Our Party supported the Cultural Revolution, because the victories of the revolution in China were in danger. Mao Tse-tung himself told us that power in the party and state there had been usurped by the renegade group of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and the victories of the Chinese revolution were in danger. In these conditions, no matter who was to blame that matters had gone so far, our Party supported the Cultural Revolution.

Our Party defended the fraternal Chinese people, the cause of the revolution and socialism in China, and not the factional strife of anti-Marxist groups, which were clashing and fighting with one another, even with guns, in order to seize power.

The course of events showed that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and in particular, not in the least proletarian. It was a palace putsch on an all-China scale for the liquidation of a handful of reactionaries who had seized power.

Of course, this Cultural Revolution was a hoax. It liquidated both the Communist Party of China, and the mass organizations and plunged China into new chaos. This revolution was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements.

In our press Mao Tse-tung has been described as a great Marxist-Leninist, but we never used and never approved the definitions of the Chinese propaganda which described Mao as a classic of Marxism-Leninism, and “Mao Tsetung thought” as its third and higher stage. Our Party has considered the inflation of the cult of Mao Tse-tung in China to be incompatible with Marxism-Leninism.

The chaotic development of the Cultural Revolution and its results further strengthened the opinion, still not fully crystallized, that Marxism-Leninism was not known and was not being applied in China, that in essence, the Communist Party of China and Mao Tse-tung did not hold Marxist-Leninist views, regardless of the facade and the slogans they used about “the proletariat, its dictatorship, and its alliance with the poor peasantry”, and many other such shibboleths.

In the light of these events, our Party began to look more deeply into the causes of the vacillations which had been observed in the stand of the Chinese leadership towards Khrushchevite revisionism, such as the instance in 1962, when it sought reconciliation and unity with the Soviet revisionists, allegedly in the name of a common front against American imperialism, or in 1964, when, continuing the efforts for reconciliation with the Soviets, Chou En-lai went to Moscow to hail the coming to power of the Brezhnev group. These vacillations were not accidental. They reflected the lack of revolutionary principles and consistency. When Nixon was invited to China, and the Chinese leadership, with Mao Tse-tung at the head, proclaimed the policy of rapprochement and unity with American imperialism, it became clear that the Chinese line and policy were in total opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Following this, China’s chauvinist and hegemonic ambitions began to become clearer. The Chinese leadership started to oppose the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, the world proletariat, and the genuine Marxist-Leninist movement more openly. It proclaimed the so-called theory of the “three worlds”, which it was trying to impose on the entire Marxist-Leninist movement as its general line.

For the sake of the interests of the revolution and socialism, and thinking that the mistakes observed in the line of the Communist Party of China were due to incorrect assessments of situations and to various difficulties, the Party of Labour of Albania has tried, more than once, to help the Chinese leadership correct and overcome them. Our Party has openly expressed its views, in a sincere and comradely way, to Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese leaders, and on many of China’s actions which directly affected the general line of the Marxist-Leninist movement, the interests of the peoples and revolution, it has made its remarks and disagreement known to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China officially and in writing welcomed to correct and principled remarks of our Party. It has never replied to them and has never agreed even to discuss them. Meanwhile the anti-Marxist actions of the Chinese leadership at home and abroad became more flagrant and more obvious. All this compelled our Party, like all the other Marxist-Leninists, to reappraise the line of the Communist Party of China, the political and ideological concepts by which it has been guided, its concrete activity and its consequences. As a result we saw that Mao Tse-tung thought, by which the Communist Party of China has been and is being guided, represents a dangerous variant of modern revisionism, against which an all-round struggle on the theoretical and political plane must be waged.

“Mao Tse-tung thought” is a variant of revisionism, which began to take shape even before the Second World War, especially after 1935, when Mao Tse-tung came to power. In this period Mao Tse-tung and his supporters launched a “theoretical” campaign under the slogan of the struggle against “dogmatism”, “ready-made patterns”, “foreign stereotypes”, etc., and raised the problem of elaborating a national Marxism, negating the universal character of Marxism-Leninism. Instead Of Marxism-Leninism he preached the “Chinese way” of treating problems, and the Chinese style

“…. lively and fresh, pleasant to the ears and eyes of the Chinese people”

in this way propagating the revisionist thesis that in each country Marxism should have its individual, specific content.

“Mao Tse-tung thought” was proclaimed as the highest stage of Marxism-Leninism in the present era. The Chinese leaders have declared that

“Mao Tse-tung has achieved more than Marx, Engels, and Lenin…”.

The Constitution of the Communist Party of China, approved at its 9th Congress, which was held under Mao Tse-tung’s leadership, says that

“Mao Tse-tung thought is the Marxism-Leninism of the era … “

that Mao Tse-tung

“….has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and has raised it to a new, higher stage”.

Basing the activity of the party on “Mao Tse-tung thought” instead of on the principles and norms of Marxism-Leninism opened the doors even more widely to opportunism and factional struggle within the ranks of the Communist Party of China. “Mao Tse-tung thought” is an amalgam of views in which ideas and theses borrowed from Marxism are mixed up with idealist, pragmatic and revisionist principles from other philosophies.

It has its roots in ancient Chinese philosophy, and in the political and ideological past, in the state and militarist practice of China. All the Chinese leaders, those who have taken power at present as well as those who have been in and who have fallen from power, but who have manoeuvred to put their counterrevolutionary plans into practice, have had and have “Mao Tse-tung thought” as their ideological basis. Mao Tse-tung himself has admitted that his thoughts can be exploited by all, both by the leftists and the rightists, as he calls the various groups that comprise the Chinese leadership. In the letter he wrote to Chiang Ching on July 8, 1966, Mao Tse-tung affirms,

“the rightists in power might use my words to make themselves powerful for a certain time, but the left can use other words of mine and organize itself to overthrow the rightists”(Le Monde dec. ’72).

This shows that Mao Tse-tung was not a Marxist-Leninist, that his views are eclectic. This is apparent in all Mao’s “theoretical works” which, although camouflaged with “revolutionary” phraseology and slogans, cannot conceal the fact that “Mao Tse-tung thought” has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism.

A critical survey of Mao’s writings, even of part of them, of the way he treats the fundamental problems concerning the role of the communist party, the questions of the revolution, the construction of socialism, etc., makes the radical difference between “Mao Tse-tung thought” and Marxism-Leninism completely clear. Let us first consider the question of the organization of the Party and its leading role. Mao pretended to be for the application of the Leninist principles on the party, but if his ideas on the party and, especially, the practice of the life of the party are analysed concretely, it becomes evident that he has replaced the Leninist principles and norms with revisionist theses.

Mao Tse-tung has not organized the Communist Party of China on the basis of the principles of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. He has not worked to make it a party of the Leninist type, a Bolshevik party. Mao Tse-tung was not for a proletarian class party, but for a party without class restrictions. He has used the slogan of giving the party a mass character in order to wipe out the distinction between the party and the class. As a result, anybody could enter or leave this party whenever he liked. On this question “Mao Tse-tung thought” is identical with the views of the Yugoslav revisionists and the “Eurocommunists”.

Besides this, Mao Tse-tung has always made the building of the party, its principles and norms dependent on his political stands and interests, dependent on his opportunist, sometimes rightist and sometimes leftist, adventurist policy, the struggle among factions, etc.

There has been and there is no true Marxist-Leninist unity of thought and action in the Communist Party of China. The strife among factions, which has existed since the founding of the Communist Party of China, has meant that a correct Marxist-Leninist line has not been laid down in this party, and it has not been guided by Marxist-Leninist thought. The various tendencies which manifested themselves among the main leaders of the party were at times leftist, at times right opportunist, sometimes centrist, and going as far as openly anarchist, chauvinist and racist views. During the whole time Mao Tse-tung and the group around him were at the head of the party, these tendencies were among the distinctive features of the Communist Party of China. Mao Tse-tung himself has advocated the need for the existence of “two lines” in the party. According to him, the existence and struggle between two lines is something natural, is a manifestation of the unity of the opposites, is a flexible policy which unites in itself both loyalty to principles and compromise.

“Thus,” he writes, “we have two hands to deal with a comrade who has made mistakes: one hand to struggle with him and the other to unite with him. The aim of this struggle is to uphold the principles of Marxism, which means being principled; that is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is to unite with him. The aim of unity is to offer him a way out, to reach a compromise with him”.

These views are diametrically opposed to the Leninist teachings on the communist party as an organized vanguard detachment which must have a single line and steel unity of thought and action.

The class struggle in the ranks of the party, as a reflection of the class struggle going on outside the party, has nothing in common with Mao Tsetung’s concepts on the “two lines in the party”. The party is not an arena of classes and the struggle between antagonistic classes, it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims. The genuine Marxist-Leninist party is the party of the working class only and bases itself on the interests of this class. This is the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Defending the Leninist principles on the party, which do not permit the existence of many lines, of opposing trends in the communist party, J. V. Stalin emphasized:

” … the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes.”

Mao Tse-tung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the “proletarian staff” and the ,”bourgeois staff”, which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous.

“The entire country,” he says, “the whole world knows well that they have made mistakes in the line and the fact that they are well known is precisely the reason for electing them. What can you do about it? They are well known, but you who have made no mistakes or have made only small ones don’t have as big a reputation as theirs. In a country like ours with its very large petty-bourgeoisie they are two standards.”

While renouncing principled struggle in the ranks of the party, Mao Tse-tung played the game of factions, sought -compromise with some of them to counter some others and thus consolidate his own positions. With such an organizational platform, the Communist Party of China has never been and never Could be a Marxist-Leninist party. The Leninist principles and norms were not respected in it. The congress of the party, its highest collective organ, has not been convened regularly. For instance, 11 years went by between the 7 th and the 8th congresses. and after the war, 13 years between the 8th and the 9th congresses. Besides this, the congresses which were held were formal, more parades than working meetings. The delegates to the congresses were not elected in conformity with the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the life of the party, but were appointed by the leading organs and acted according to the system of permanent representation.

Recently, “Renmin Ribao” published an article by a so-called theoretical group oil the “General Directory” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. (Always Keep in Mind the Teachings of Chairman Mao – Sept. ’77) This article says that under the name of the “General Directory”, Mao had set up around himself a special apparatus which kept the Political Bureau, the Central Committee of the Party, the cadres of the state, the army, the security service, etc., under surveillance and control. Entry to this Directory and knowledge of its work was forbidden to all, including the members of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau. Here plans for the bringing down or elevation of this or that factionalist group were worked out. The men of this Directory were present everywhere, they eaves-dropped, watched, and reported independently, outside the control of the party. Apart from them, this Directory had at its disposal entire armed detachments, hidden under the name of the “Guard of Chairman Mao”. This praetorian guard more than 50,000 strong went into action whenever the chairman wanted “to act with one blow”, as has frequently occurred in the history of the Communist Party of China and as occurred recently with the arrest of “The Four” and their supporters by Hua Kuo-feng. Under the pretext of maintaining contacts with the masses, Mao Tse-tung had also created a special network of informers among the population who were charged with the task of keeping the cadres of the base under surveillance and investigating the conditions and state of mind of the masses, without anybody’s knowledge. They reported directly to Mao Tse-tung alone, who had severed all means of communication with the masses and saw the world only through the reports of his agents of the “General Directory”. Mao said,

“For myself, I am a person who does not listen to the radio, either foreign or Chinese, but 1 only transmit.”

He also said,

“I have stated openly that 1 shall no longer read the newspaper ‘Renmin Ribao’. I told its Editor-in-chief ‘I do not read your paper'”. (From Mao conversation with comrades from our Party, Feb. 3, 1967. Central Archivals of the Party of Labour of Albania).

The article of “Renmin Ribao” provides new information which enables one to understand even more clearly the anti-Marxist direction and personal power of Mao Tse-tung in the Chinese party and state. Mao Tse-tung did not have the slightest respect for either the Central Committee or the congress of the party, let alone the party as a whole and its committees at the base. The party committees, the leading cadres and the Central Committee itself received orders from the “General Directory”, this “special staff”, which was responsible to Mao Tse-tung alone. The party forums, its elected organs, had no authority what~ soever. The article of “Renmin Ribao” says,

“no telegram, no letter, no document, no order could be issued by anybody without first going through Mao Tse-tung’s hands and being approved by him.”

It turns out that as early as 1953, Mao Tse-tung had issued a clear-cut order:

“From now on, all documents and telegrams sent out in the name of the Central Committee can be dispatched only after I have gone over them, otherwise they are invalid.”

Under these conditions there can be no talk of collective leadership, democracy within the party, or Leninist norms.

Mao Tse-tung’s unlimited power was so far-reaching that he even appointed his heirs. At one time he had appointed Liu Shao-chi as his successor. Later he declared that his heir to the state and the party after his death would be Lin Piao. This, a thing unprecedented in the practice of Marxist-Leninist parties, was even sanctioned in the Constitution of the party. Again it was Mao Tse-tung who designated Hua Kuo-feng to be chairman of the party after his death. Having power in his hands, Mao alone criticized, judged, punished and later rehabilitated top leaders of the party and state. This was the case even with Teng Hsiao-ping, who, in his so-called self-criticism of October 23, 1966, stated:

“Liu Shao-chi and I are real monarchists. The essence of my mistakes lies in the fact that I have no faith in the masses, do not support the revolutionary masses, but am opposed to them. I have followed a reactionary line to suppress the revolution. In the class struggle I have been on the side not of the proletariat, but of the bourgeoisie… All this shows that… I am unfit to hold posts of responsibility”. (From the self-criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping).

And despite these crimes which this inveterate revisionist has committed, he was put back in his former seat.

The anti-Marxist essence of “Mao Tse-tung thought” on the party and its role is also apparent in the way the relations between the party and the army were conceived in theory and applied in practice. Irrespective of the shibboleths of Mao Tsetung about the “party being above the army”, “politics above the gun”, etc. etc.. in practice, he left the main political role in the life of the country to the army. At the time of the war, he said,

“All the army cadres should be good at leading the workers and organizing trade-unions, good at mobilizing and organizing the youth, good at uniting with and training caeres in the newly Liberated Areas, good at managing industry and commerce, good at running schools, newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting stations, good at handling foreign affairs, good at handling problems relating to the democratic parties and people’s organizations, good at adjusting the relations between the cities and the rural areas and solving the problems of food, coal and other daily necessities and good at handling monetary and financial problems.”

So the army was above the party, above the state organs, above everything. From this it emerges that Mao Tse-tung’s words regarding the role of the party, as the decisive factor of the leadership of revolution and socialist construction, were only slogans. Both at the time of the liberation war and after the creation of the People’s Republic of China, in all the never-ending struggles that have been waged there for the seizure of power by one faction or the other, the army has played the decisive role. During the Cultural Revolution, too, the army played the main role; it was Mao’s last resort. In 1967, Mao Tse-tung said,

“We rely on the strength of the army… We had only two divisions in Peking, but we brought in another two in May in order to settle accounts with the former Peking Party Committee”. (From the conversation of Mao tsetung with the friendship Delegation of the PRA, dec. 18, 1967).

In order to liquidate his ideological opponents, Mao Tse-tung has always set the army in motion. He raised the army, with Lin Piao at the head, against the Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiaoping group. Later, together with Chou En-lai, he organized and threw the army against Lin Piao. Inspired by “Mao Tse-tung thought”, the army has played the same role even after the death of Mao. Like all those who have come to power in China, Hua Ktio-feng, also, relied on and acted through the army. Right after Mao’s death, he immediately roused the army, and together with the army men, Yeh Chien-ying, Wang Tung-lisin and others, engineered the putsch and arrested his opponents. Power in China is still in the hands of the army, while party tails behind it. This is a general characteristic of countries where revisionism prevails. Genuine socialist countries strengthen the army as a powerful weapon of the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to crush the enemies of socialism in case they rise up, as well as to defend the country from an eventual attack by the imperialists and foreign reaction. But, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us, for the army to play this role it must always be under the direction of the party and not the party under the direction of the army.

At present the most powerful factions of the army, the most reactionary ones, which aim to turn China into a social-imperialist country, are making the law in China.

In the future, along with the transformation of China into an imperialist superpower, the role and the power of the army in the life of the country will steadily increase. It will be strengthened as a praetorian guard, armed to the teeth, for the defence of a capitalist regime and economy. It will be the tool of a bourgeois capitalist dictatorship, a dictatorship which, if the people’s resistance is strong, may even assume open fascist forms.

By preaching the need for the existence of many parties in the leadership of the country, the so-called political pluralism, “Mao Tse-tung thought” falls into complete opposition to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the indivisible role of the communist party in the revolution and socialist construction. As he declared to E. Snow, Mao Tse-tung considered the leadership of a country by several political parties, after the American model, the most democratic form of government.

“Which is better in the final analysis,” Mao Tsetung asked, “to have just one party or several?”And he answered, “As we see it now, it’s perhaps better to have several parties. This has been true in the past and may well be so for the future; it means long-term coexistence and mutual supervision.”

Mao regarded the participation of bourgeois parties in the state power and the governing of the country with the same rights and prerogatives as the Communist Party of China as necessary. And not only this, but these parties of the bourgeoisie, which according to him “were historical”, should wither away only when the Communist Party of China also withers away, that is, they will coexist right up till communism.

According to “Mao Tse-tung thought”, a new democratic regime can exist and socialism can be built only on the basis of the collaboration of all classes and all parties. Sue a concept of socialist democracy, of the socialist political system, which is based on “long-term coexistence and mutual supervision” of all parties, and which is very much like the current preachings of the Italian, French, Spanish and other revisionists, is an open denial of the leading and indivisible role of the Marxist-Leninist party in the revolution and the construction of socialism. Historical experience has already proved that the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist and socialism cannot be built and defended without the indivisible leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party.

“…the dictatorship of the proletariat,” said Stalin, “can be complete only when it is led by a party, the party of the communists, which does not and should not share the leadership with other parties”. (Stalin)

The revisionist concepts of Mao Tse-tung have their basis in the policy of collaboration and alliance with the bourgeoisie, which the Communist Party of China has always applied. This is also the source of the anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist course of “letting 100 flowers blossom and 100 schools contend”, which is a direct expression of the coexistence of opposing ideologies.

According to Mao Tse-tung, in socialist society, side by side with the proletarian ideology, materialism and atheism, the existence of bourgeois ideology, idealism and religion, the growth of “poisonous weeds” along with “fragrant flowers”, etc., must be permitted. Such a course is alleged to be necessary for the development of Marxism, in order to open the way to debate and freedom of thought, while in reality, through this course, he is trying to lay the theoretical basis for the policy of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and coexistence with its ideology. Mao Tse-tung says,

“… it is a dangerous policy to prohibit people from coming into contact with the false, the ugly and the hostile to us, with idealism and metaphysics and with the thoughts of Confucius, Lao Tze and Chiang Kai-shek. It would lead to mental deterioration, one-track minds, and unpreparedness to face the world…”. (Mao)

From this Mao Tse-tung draws the conclusion that idealism, metaphysics and the bourgeois ideology will exist eternally, therefore not only must they not be prohibited, but they must be given the possibility to blossom, to come out in the open and contend. This conciliatory stand towards everything reactionary goes so far as to call disturbances in socialist society inevitable and the prohibition of enemy activity mistaken.

“In my opinion,” says he, “whoever wants to provoke trouble may do so for so long as he pleases; and if one month is not enough, he may go on for two, in short, the matter should not be wound up until he feels he has had enoucgh. If you hastily wind it up, sooner or later trouble will resume again”. (Mao)

All these have not been academic contributions to a -scientific- discussion but a counterrevolutionary opportunist political line which has been set up in opposition to Marxism-Leninism, which has disorganized the Communist Party of China, in the ranks of which a hundred and one views and ideas have been circulating and today there really are 100 schools contending. This has enabled the bourgeois wasps to circulate freely in the garden of 100 flowers and release their venom.

This opportunist stand on ideological questions has its roots, among other things, also in the fact that throughout the whole period from its foundation up till it achieved the liberation of its country and later, the Communist Party of China has made no effort to consolidate itself ideologically, has not worked to inculcate the theory of Marx, Engels. Lenin and Stalin into the minds and hearts of its members, has not struggled to master the fundamental questions of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and apply them consistently, step by step, in the concrete -conditions of China.

“Mao Tse-tung thought” is opposed to the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. In his writings Mao Tse-tung makes frequent mention of the role of revolutions in the process of the development of society, but in essence he adheres to a metaphysical, evolutionist concept. Contrary to materialist dialectics, which envisages progressive development in the form of a spiral, Mao Tse-tung preaches development in the form of a cycle, going round in a circle, as a process of ebb and flow which goes from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back to equilibrium again, from motion to rest and back to motion again, from rise to fall and from fall to rise, from advance to retreat and to advance again, etc. Thus, upholding the concept of ancient philosophy on the purifying role of fire, Mao Tse-tung writes:

“It is necessary to ‘set a fire going’ at regular intervals. How often? Once a year or once every three years, which do you prefer? I think we should do it at least twice in the space of every five years, in the same way as the intercalary month in a lunar leap year turns up once in three years or twice in five”. (Mao)

Thus like the astrologists of old, on the basis of the lunar calendar, he derives the law on the periodical kindling of fire, on the development which goes from “great harmony” to -great disorder- and again to “great harmony”, and thus the cycles repeat themselves periodically.

In this manner, “Mao Tse-tung thought” opposes the materialist dialectical concept of development, which, as Lenin says

“…gives us the key to understand the ‘self-movement’ of every existing thing;… gives us the key to understand the ‘leaps’, ‘the interruption of graduality’, ‘the transformation into the opposite’, the abolition of the old and the emergence of the new”, with the metaphysical concept which “is lifeless, pale and dry.”

This becomes even more obvious in the way Mao Tse-tung handles the problem of contradictions, to which, according to Chinese propaganda, Mao has allegedly made a “special contribution” and developed materialist dialectics further in this field. It is true that in many of his writings, Mao Tse-tung frequently speaks about opposites, contradictions, the unity of the opposites, and even uses Marxist quotations and phrases, but, nevertheless, he is far from the dialectical materialist understanding of these problems. In dealing with contradictions, he does not proceed from the Marxist theses, but from those of ancient Chinese philosophers, sees the opposites in a mechanical way, as external phenomena, and imagines the transformation of the opposites as a simple change of places between them. By operating with some eternal opposites taken from ancient philosophy, such as above and below, backward and forward, right and left, light and heavy, etc., etc., in essence Mao Tse-tung negates the internal contradictions inherent in things and phenomena and treats development as simple repetition, as a chain of unchangeable states in which the same opposites and the same relationship between them are observed. The mutual transformation of the opposites into each other, understood as a mere exchange of places and not as a resolution of the contradiction and a qualitative change of the very phenomenon which comprises these opposites, is used by Mao Tse-tung as a formal pattern to which everything is subject. On the basis of this pattern, Mao goes so far as to declare that “When dogmatism is transformed into its opposite, it becomes either Marxism or revisionism”, “metaphysics is transformed into dialectics, and dialectics into metaphysics”, etc. Behind such absurd assertions and this sophistical playing with opposites, lurk the opportunist and anti-revolutionary concepts of Mao Tse-tung. Thus, he does not see the socialist revolution as a qualitative change of society in which antagonistic classes and the oppression and exploitation of man by man are abolished, but conceives it as a simple change of places between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. To confirm this “discovery”, Mao writes:

“If the bourgeoisie and the proletariat cannot transform themselves into each other, how does it come that, through revolution, the proletariat becomes the ruling class and the bourgeoisie the ruled class?… We stand in diametrical opposition to Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang. As a result of the mutual struggle and exclusion of the two contradictory aspects with the Kuomintang we changed places…”. (Mao)

This same logic has also led Mao Tse-tung to revise the Marxist-Leninist theory on the two phases of communist society.

“According to dialectics, as surely as a man must die, the socialist system as a historical phenomenon will come to an end some day, to be negated by the communist system. If it is asserted that the socialist system and the relations of production and superstructure of socialism will not die out, what kind of Marxist thesis would that be? Wouldn’t it be the same as a religious creed or theology that preaches an everlasting god?” (Mao)

In this way, openly revising the Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism and communism, which, in essence, are two phases of the one type, of the one socio-economic order, and which are distinguished from each other only by the degree of their development and maturity, Mao Tse-tung presents socialism as something diametrically opposite to communism.

From such metaphysical and anti-Marxist concepts, Mao Tse-tung treats the question of the revolution in general, which he regards as an endless process which is repeated periodically throughout the whole period of the existence of mankind on earth, as a process which goes from defeat to victory, from victory to defeat, and so on endlessly. Mao Tse-tung’s anti-Marxist concepts, sometimes evolutionist and sometimes anarchist, about the revolution are even more apparent when he deals with the problems of the revolution in China.

As emerges from his writings, Mao Tse-tung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory in analysing the problems and defining the tasks of the Chinese revolution. In his speech delivered at the enlarged working conference called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in January 1962, he himself admits:

“Our many years of revolutionary work have been carried out blindly, not knowing how the revolution should be, carried out, and against whom the spearhead of the revolution should be directed, without a concept of its stages, whom it had to overthrow first and whom later, etc.”

This has made the Communist Party of China incapable of ensuring the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and transforming it into a socialist revolution. The entire development of the Chinese revolution is evidence of the chaotic course of the Communist Party of China, which has not been guided by Marxism-Leninism, but by the anti-Marxist concepts of “Mao Tse-tung thought” on the character of the revolution, its stages, motive forces, etc.

Mao Tse-tung was never able to understand and explain correctly the close links between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution. Contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theory, which has proved scientifically that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, that these two revolutions do not have to be divided from each other by a long period of time, Mao Tse-tung asserted:

“The transformation of our revolution into socialist revolution is a matter of the future… As to when the transition will take place… it may take quite a long time. We should not hold forth about this transition until all the necessary political and economic conditions are present and until it is advantageous and not detrimental to the overwhelming majority of our people”. (Mao)

Mao Tse-tung adhered to this anti-Marxist concept, which is not for the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution socialist revolution, during the whole period of the revolution, even after liberation. Thus, in 1940, Mao Tse-tung said:

“The Chinese revolution must necessarily pass through… the stage A New Democracy and then the stage of socialism. Of these, the first stage will need a relatively long time….”. (Mao)

In March 1949, at the plenum of Central Committee of the Party, at which Mao Tse-tung submitted the program for China’s development after liberation, he says:

“During this period all the elements of capitalism, of town and countryside, must be permitted to exist.”

These views and “theories” brought about that the Communist Party of China and Mao Tse-tung did not fight for the transformation of the revolution in China into a socialist revolution but left a free field for the development of the bourgeoisie and capitalist social relations.

On the question of the relationship between the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, Mao Tse-tung takes the standpoint of the chiefs of the Second International, who were the first to attack and distort the Marxist-Leninist theory about the rise of the revolution and came out with the thesis that between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, there is a long period, during which the bourgeoisie develops capitalism and creates the conditions for the transition to the proletarian revolution. They regarded the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into socialist revolution, without giving capitalism the possibility to develop further, as something impossible, as skipping stages. Mao Tse-tung, too, fully endorses this concept, when he says:

“It would be a sheer utopia to try to build socialism on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democratic state, . . . without the development of the private capitalist economy…”. (Mao)

The anti-Marxist concepts of “Mao Tse-tung thought” about the revolution are even more obvious in the way Mao has treated the motive forces of the revolution. Mao Tse-tung did not recognize the hegemonic role of the proletariat. Lenin said that in the period of imperialism, in every revolution, hence, also in the democratic revolution, the anti-imperialist national liberation revolution and the socialist revolution, the leadership must belong to the proletariat. Although he talked about the role of the proletariat, in practice Mao Tse-tung underestimated its hegemony in the revolution and elevated the role of the peasantry. Mao Tsetung has said:

“….the resistance to Japanese occupiers now going on is essentially peasant resistance. Essentially, the politics of New Democracy means giving power to the peasants”. (Mao)

Mao Tse-tung expressed this petty-bourgeois theory in his general thesis that the “countryside must encircle the city”.

“… revolutionary villages”, he wrote, “can encircle the cities… rural work should play the primary role in the Chinese revolutionary movement and urban work a secondary role”. (Mao)

Mao expressed this idea also when he wrote about the role of the peasantry in the state. He has said that all other political parties and forces must submit to the peasantry and its views.

“… millions of peasants will rise like a mighty storm, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back…,” he writes. “They will put to the test every revolutionary party and group, every revolutionary, so that they either accept their views or reject them”.. (Mao)

According to Mao, it turns out that the peasantry and not the working class should play the hegemonic role in the revolution.

Mao Tse-tung also preached the thesis on the hegemonic role of the peasantry in the revolution as the road of the world revolution. Herein lies the source of the anti-Marxist concept that considers the so-called third world, which in Chinese political literature is also called “the countryside of the world”, as the “main motive force for the transformation of present-day society”. According to the Chinese views, the proletariat is a second-rate social force, which cannot play that role which Marx and Lenin envisaged in the struggle against capitalism and the triumph of the revolution, in alliance with all the forces oppressed by capital.

The Chinese revolution has been dominated by the petty-and middle bourgeoisie. This broad stratum of the petty-bourgeoisie has influenced the whole development of China.

Mao Tse-tung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory which teaches us that the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie in general, is vacillating. Of course, the poor and middle peasantry play an important role in the revolution and must become the close ally of the proletariat. But the peasant class, the petty-bourgeoisie, cannot lead the proletariat in the revolution. To think and preach the opposite means to be against Marxism-Leninism. Herein lies one of the main sources of the anti-Marxist views of Mao Tse-tung, which have had a negative influence on the whole Chinese revolution. The Communist Party of China has not been clear in theory about the basic revolutionary guiding principle of the hegemonic role of the proletariat in the revolution, and consequently it did not apply it in practice properly and consistently. Experience shows that the peasantry can play its revolutionary role only if it acts in alliance with the proletariat and under its leadership. This was proved in our country during the National Liberation War.

The Albanian peasantry was the main force of our revolution, however it was the working class, despite its very small numbers, which led the peasantry, because the Marxist-Leninist ideology, the ideology of the proletariat, embodied in the Communist Party, today the Party of Labour, the vanguard of the working class, was the leadership of the revolution. That is why we triumphed not only in the National Liberation War, but also in the construction of socialism.

Despite the innumerable difficulties we encountered on our road we scored success one after another. We achieved these successes, in the first place, because the Party thoroughly mastered the essence of the theory of Marx and Lenin, understood what the revolution was, who was making it and who had to lead it, understood that at the head of the working. class, in alliance with the peasantry, there had to be a party of the Leninist type. The communists understood that this party must not be communist only in name but had to be a party which would apply the Marxist-Leninist theory of the revolution and party building in the concrete conditions of our country, which would begin the work for the creation of the new socialist society, following the example of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of the time of Lenin and Stalin. This stand gave our Party the victory, gave the country the great political, economic and military strength it has today. Had we acted differently, had we not consistently applied these principles of our great theory, socialism could not have been built in a small country surrounded by enemies, as ours is. Even if we had succeeded in taking power for a moment, the bourgeoisie would have seized it back again, as happened in Greece, where before the struggle had been won, the Greek Communist Party surrendered its weapons to the local reactionary bourgeoisie and British imperialism.

Therefore, the question of hegemony in the revolution is a very important matter of principle because the course and development of the revolution depend on who is leading it.

“Renunciation of the idea of the hegemony,” stressed Lenin, “is the most vulgar form of reformism”.

The negation by “Mao Tse-tung thought” of the leading role of the proletariat was precisely one of the causes that the Chinese revolution remained a bourgeois-democratic revolution and did not develop into a socialist revolution. In his. article “New Democracy”, Mao Tse-tung preached that after the triumph of the revolution in China a regime would be established which would be based on the alliance of the “democratic classes”, in which, besides the peasantry and the. proletariat, he also included the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

“Just as everyone should share what food there is,” he writes, “so there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group or class.” (Mao)

This idea has also been reflected in the national flag of the People’s Republic of China, with four stars which represent four classes: the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

The revolution in China, which brought about the liberation of the country, the creation of the. independent Chinese state, was a great victory for the Chinese people, and for the world anti-imperialist and democratic forces. After the liberation, many positive changes were made in China: the domination by foreign imperialism and big landowners was liquidated, poverty and unemployment were combated, a series of socio-economic reforms in favour of the working masses were carried out, the educational and cultural backwardness was fought against, a series of measures were taken for the reconstruction of the country ravaged by the war, and some transformations of a socialist character were made. In China, where people died by millions in the past, starvation no longer existed, etc. These are undeniable facts, and are important victories for the Chinese people.

From the adoption of these measures and the fact that the Communist Party came to power, it appeared as if China was going to socialism. But things did not turn out that way. Having “Mao Tse-tung thought” as the basis of its activity, the Communist Party of China, which after the triumph of the bourgeois-democratic revolution ought to have proceeded cautiously without being leftist and without skipping the stages, proved to be “democratic”, liberal, opportunist, and did not lead the country consistently on the correct road to socialism.

The non-Marxist, eclectic, bourgeois political and ideological views of Mao Tse-tung gave liberated China an unstable superstructure, a chaotic, organization of the state and the economy which never achieved stability. China was in continuous disorder, even anarchic disorder, which was encouraged by Mao Tse-tung himself with the slogan “things must first be stirred up in order to clarify them.” In the new Chinese state Chou En-lai played a special role. He was an able economist and organizer, but was never a Marxist-Leninist politician. As the typical pragmatist, he knew how to implement his non-Marxist views and adapt them perfectly to each group that took power in China. He was a poussah, tiao always managed to stay on his feet, although he always rocked from the centre to the right, but but never to the left. Chou En-lai was a pastmaster of unprincipled compromises. He las supported and condemned Chiang Kai-shek, Kao Gang, Liti Shao-chilh, Teng Hsiao-ping, Mao Tsetung, Lin Piao, “The Four”, but he has never supported Lenin and Stalin, Marxism-Leninism. After liberation, as a result of the views and stands of Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai and others, many waverings in all directions were observed in the political line if the Party. The tendency advocated by “Mao Tse-tung thought” that the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution had to continue for a long time, was kept alive in China. Mao Tse-tung insisted that in this stage the premises for socialism would be created parallel with the development of capitalism, to which he priority. Also linked with this, is his thesis on the coexistence of socialism with the bourgeoisie for a very long time, presenting this as something beneficial both to socialism and to the bourgeoisie. Replying to those who opposed such a policy and who brought up the experience of the October Socialist Revolution as an argument, Mao Tse-tung says:

“The bourgeoisie in Russia was a counterrevolutionary class, it rejected state capitalism at that time, organized slow-downs and sabotage and even resorted to the gun. The Russian Proletariat had no choice but to finish it off. This infuriated the bourgeoisie in other countries, and they became abusive. Here in China we have been relatively moderate with our national bourgeoisie who feel a little more comfortable and believe they can also find some advantage.” (Mao)

According to Mao Tse-tung such a policy has allegedly improved China’s reputation in the eyes of the international bourgeoisie, but in reality it has done great harm to socialism in China.

Mao Tse-tung has presented his opportunist stand towards the bourgeoisie as a creative implementation of the teachings of Lenin on the New Economic Policy (NEP). But there is a radical difference between the teachings of Lenin and the concept of Mao Tse-tung on allowing unrestricted capitalist production and maintaining bourgeois relations in socialism. Lenin admits that the NEP was a step back which allowed the development of elements of capitalism for a certain time, but he stressed:

“… there is nothing dangerous to the Proletarian state in this so long as the proletariat keeps political power firmly in its hands, so long as it keeps transport and big industry firmly in its hands”. (Lenin)

In fact, neither in 1949 nor in 1956, when Mao Tse-tung advocated these things, did the proletariat in China, have political power or big industry in its own hands.

Moreover, Lenin considered the NEP as a temporary measure which was imposed by the concrete conditions of Russia of that time, devastated by the long civil war, and not as a universal law of of socialist construction. And the fact is that one year after the proclamation of the NEP Lenin stressed that the retreat was over, and launched the slogan to prepare for the offensive against private capital in the economy. Whereas in China, the period of the preservation of capitalist production was envisaged to last almost eternally. According to Mao Tse-tung’s view, the order established after liberation in China had to be a bourgeois-democratic order, while the Communist Party of China had to appear to be in power. Such is “Mao Tse-tung thought”.

The transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution can be realized only when the proletariat resolutely removes the bourgeoisie from power and expropriates it.

As long as the working class in China shared power with the bourgeoisie, as long as the bourgeoisie preserved its privileges, the state power that was established in China, could not be the state power of the proletariat, and consequently, the Chinese revolution could not grow into a socialist revolution.

The Communist Party of China has maintained a benevolent opportunist stand towards the exploiting classes, and Mao Tse-tung has openly advocated the peaceful integration of capitalist elements into socialism. Mao Tse-tung said:

“Actually all ultra-reactionaries of the world are ultra-reactionaries, and they will remain such tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, they will not remain such unto death, and in the end they change… Essentially, ultra-reactionaries are die-hards but not stable… It may happen that ultra-reactionaries may change for the better… they come to see their mistakes and change for the better. In short, ultra-reactionaries do change”. (Mao)

In his desire to provide a theoretical basis for this opportunist concept, and playing on the “transformation of the opposites”, Mao Tse-tung said that through discussion, criticism and transformation, antagonistic contradictions are transformed into non-antagonistic contradictions, the exploiting classes and the bourgeois intelligentsia can turn into their opposite, that is, become revolutionaries.

“However, given the conditions of our country,” Mao Tsetung wrote in 1956, “most of the counterrevolutionaries will eventually change to a greater or lesser extent. Thanks to the correct policy we have adopted towards counterrevolutionaries, many have been transformed into persons no longer opposed to the revolution, and a few have even done some good to it.”

Proceeding from such anti-Marxist concepts, according to which with the lapse of time the class enemies will be corrected, he advocated class conciliation with them and allowed them to continue to enrich themselves, to exploit, to speak, and to act freely against the revolution. To justify this capitulationist stand towards the class enemy, Mao Tse-tung wrote:

“We have a lot to do now. It is impossible to keep on hitting out at them day in day out for the next fifty years. There are people who refuse to correct their mistakes, they can take them into their coffins when they go to see the King of Hell”. (Mao)

Acting in practice according to these views of conciliation with the enemies, the state administration in China was left in the hands of the old officials. Chiang Kai-shek’s generals even became ministers. Indeed, even Pu Yi, the emperor of Manchu-kuo, the puppet emperor of the Japanese occupiers, was protected very carefully and turned into a museum piece so that delegations could go to meet and talk with him and see how such people were re-educated in “sociaist” China. Besides other things, the aim of the publicity given to this former puppet emperor was to dispel even the fears of kings, chieftains, and puppets of reaction in other countries, so that they would think that Mao’s “socialism” is fine and have no reason to fear it.

Stands which do not smack of class struggle have been adopted in China also towards those feudal lords and capitalists, who have committed innumerable crimes against the Chinese people. Elevating such stands to theory and openly taking counterrevolutionaries under his protection, Mao Tse-tung stated:

“… we should kill none and arrest very few… They are not to be arrested by the public security bureaus, prosecuted by the procuratorial organs or tried by the law courts. Well over ninety out of every hundred of these counterrevolutionaries should be dealt with in this way.” (Mao)

Reasoning as a sophist, Mao Tse-tung says that the execution of counterrevolutionaries does no good, that such an action allegedly hinders production, the scientific level of the country, and will give us a bad name in the world, etc., that if one counterrevolutionary is liquidated,

“we would have to compare his case with that of a second, of a third, and so on, and then many heads would begin to roll… once a head is chopped off it can’t be restored, nor can it grow again as chives do, after being cut.” (Mao)

As a result of these anti-Marxist. concepts about contradictions, about classes, and their role in revolution that “Mao Tse-tung thought” advocates, China never proceeded on the correct road of socialist construction. It is not just the economic, political, ideological and social remnants of the past that have survived and continue to exist in Chinese society, but the exploiting classes continue to exist there as classes, and still remain in power. Not only does the bourgeoisie still exist, but it also continues to gain income from the property it has had.

Capitalist rent has not been abolished by law in China, because the Chinese leadership has adhered to the strategy of the bourgeois-democratic revolution formulated in 1935 by Mao Tse-tung, who said at that time:

“The labour laws of the people’s republic… will not prevent the national bourgeoisie from making profits … ” (Mao)

In conformity with the Policy of the “equal right to land,” the kulak stratum, in the forms which have existed in China, has retained great advantages and profits. Mao Tse-tung himself gave orders that the kulaks must not be touched, because this might anger the national bourgeoisie with which the Communist Party of China had formed a common united front, politically, economically and organizationally.

All these things show that ,”Mao Tse-tung thought” did not and could not guide China on the genuine road to socialism. Indeed, as Chou En-lai declared in 1949, when secretly applying to the American government to help China, neither Mao Tsetung nor his chief supporters were for the socialist road.

“China,” wrote Chou En-lai, “is not yet a communist country, and if the policy of Mao Tse-tung is implemented properly, it will not become a communist country for a long time”. (Internationale Herald Tribune, August 14, 1978)

In a demagogic way, Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China have subordinated all their declarations about the construction of the socialist and communist society to their pragmatic policy. Thus, in the years of the so-called great leap forward, with the aim of throwing dust in the eyes of the masses, who, emerging from the revolution, aspired to socialism, they declared that within 2-3 five-year periods, they would pass directly over to communism. Later, however, in order to cover up their failures, they began to theorize that the construction and triumph of socialism would require ten thousand years.

True, the Communist Party of China called itself communist, but it developed in another direction, on a chaotic liberal course, an opportunist course and could not be a force capable of leading the country towards socialism. The road it followed, and which was concretized even more clearly after Mao’s death, was not the road of socialism, but the road of building a great bourgeois, social-imperialist state.

As an anti-Marxist doctrine, “Mao Tse-tung thought” has substituted great state chauvinism for proletarian internationalism. From the very first steps of its activity, the Communist Party of China displayed open nationalist and chauvinist tendencies, which, as the facts show, could not be eradicated during the succeeding periods, either. Li Ta-chao, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, said,

“the Europeans think