The origins of the cultural revolution: contradictions among the people, Vol. 1 9780192149954

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THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

1 Contradictions among the People 1956-1957

The research for this study was carried out at different times under the auspices of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs and the East Asian Institute at Columbia University and of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an unofficial body which promotes the scientific study of international questions and does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the author.

The East Asian Institute of Columbia University was established in 1949 to prepare graduate students for careers dealing with East Asia, and to aid research and publication on East Asia during the modern period.

THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 1 CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 1956-1957

RODERICK MACFARQUHAR

Published for

The Royal Institute of International Affairs The East Asian Institute of Columbia University and The Research Institute on Communist Affairs of Columbia University by

Oxford University Press London Kuala Lumpur 1974

Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W1 | GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON | CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM ADDIS ABABA DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA

KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE HONG KONG TOKYO

ISBN 0 19 214995 4

© Royal Institute of International Affairs 1974

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

Printed in Great Britain by

The Eastern Press Ltd., London and Reading

FOR EMILY oO

Vv

Our names are writ upon the Heavens, nor may the men of Earth despise us. In this day we unite our purpose, and until we die we will not be divided in it. If there be one among us who will not endure and who cuts asunder this high purpose, or answers yea only with his lips but in his heart says nay, or if among these is such an one who begins well and ends ill, then let the Spirit of Heaven search

among us and the Demons of the Earth encompass us, for surely this one will die by sword or arrow, or thunder will fall upon him to destroy him. Then let him lie forever in Hell, that in ten thousand cycles of life he may not come to life again. Shui-hu-chuan

(From the Pearl Buck translation All Men are Brothers)

vi

CONTENTS

Preface ix Abbreviations Xii Introduction I Page

Part One: The ‘ Fundamental Change ’

1 The ‘ High Tide’ of Socialism 15

3 The Thaw Begins 33 4 The Soviet 20th Congress and Chinese Reactions 39 56 Mao Against the Planners75 57 The Thaw Spreads 7 The End of the First ‘ Leap Forward’ 86 2 The First ‘ Leap Forward’ is Launched 26

Flowers Policy 92

Appendix 1: Lu Ting-yi’s Interpretation of Mao’s Hundred

f Part Two. The CCP’s Eighth Congress

89 The TheDispute PositionOver of Mao Tse-tung110 99 Liberalization 10 The Second Five-Year Plan 122 11 The New Central Leadership 139 Appendix 2: Cultural Revolutionaries’ Attacks on Teng

Hsiao-p’ing’s Report 149

Appendix 3: The Two ‘ Fronts’ in the Chinese Leadership 152

Appendix 4: Mentions of Mao’s Speech 157

ch’i’s Report 160

Appendix 5: Cultural Revolutionaries’ Attacks on Liu Shao-

Appendix 6: The Politburo 165 Part Three: The Rectification Campaign

12 The Impact of the Hungarian Revolt 169

13. A Rectification Campaign is Agreed On 177 14 Mao Analyses Contradictions Among the People 184 15 The Rectification Campaign is Launched 200

tion 253

16Appendix Blooming and Contending 218 7: Where was Liu Shao-ch’i on 27 February 1957? 250 Appendix 8: The Attitudes of Provincial Leaders to RectificaVil

Vili THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Part Four: The Anti-Rightist Campaign | Page

17. The Publication of the Contradictions Speech 261

19 Compromise 293

18 Mao Linked with the Rightists 270

Conclusions 311 Abbreviations used in Notes 318

Notes 321

Bibliographical and Methodological Note 407

Bibliography 412 Index | 418 Illustrations (Between pp. 140-141)

1 Mao Tse-tung 2 Liu Shao-ch’i

3 Chou En-lai 7 4 P’eng Chen 5 Teng Hsiao-p’ing The photographs are reproduced by kind permission of the following: Camera Press, 2, 4, and 5; John Hillelson Agency, 1; Press Association, 3.

PREFACE = . I first wrote about the events of 1956-7 as they happened, a fledgling * China watcher ’, recently graduated from the East Asia programme

at Harvard, where I had begun my Chinese studies under the wise guidance of John Fairbank. I was fortunate enough to have been hired by the late Donald McLachlan, Deputy Editor of the London Daily Telegraph, to work under the paper’s experienced Soviet specialist David Floyd, for this sensitized me from the start to the interaction of Chinese and Soviet developments. I did more detailed research on the period during 1962 under a Rockefeller Foundation grant arranged by Gerald Freund, and then returned to it again in 1968 with the support of the Ford Foundation, mobilized by Joseph Slater and David Finkelstein. John Bell of the Oxford University

Press was a patient patron who was to receive the news of the

equanimity. :

expansion of my study from one into three volumes with remarkable

In 1969 I continued my work in New York as a senior research associate at Columbia University, jointly sponsored by the East Asian Institute and the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. The directors of the two institutes, John Lindbeck and Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave me much friendly encouragement and intellectual stimulus; later, after John Lindbeck’s tragically early death, Martin Wilbur arranged a further grant from the East Asian Institute. I also benefited from being able to talk with scholars working on related. topics at Columbia and elsewhere in New York—Doak Barnett, Parris Chang, James Harrison, Donald Klein, Michel Oksenberg, Richard Sorich, Frederick Tetwes, Donald Zagoria—and from the comments at a university seminar on modern East Asia at which I presented a paper. Parris Chang, Paul Harper, Michel Oksenberg, and Frederick Teiwes let me read their dissertations, and A. M.

Halpern and (through Lucien Pye and David MacEachron) the Council on Foreign Relations allowed me to make extensive notes on the Halpern MS on Chinese foreign policy. During my stay at Columbia I became aware of the full extent of. the new documentation that had become available as a result of the cultural revolution and decided that it would be possible to attempt iX

X THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

a history of its origins from 1956 to 1965, marrying up contemporary

and cultural revolution evidence. Richard Sorich gave me the run of his voluminous files, T. K. Tong introduced me to the Red Guard papers acquired by him for the East Asian Library, and my research assistant Bruce Jacobs worked long hours scanning and xeroxing

them. Jerome Ch’en and Mineo Nakajima responded generously to my requests for new materials, and my search for further documentation was facilitated by a Ford travel grant. This took me to the Harvard-Yenching Institute in Cambridge, Mass., the Library

of Congress and the Center for Chinese Research Materials in Washington, the Hoover Institute in Stanford, to Tokyo, to the Institute of International Relations in Taipei, and to the US Consulate-General and the Union Research Institute in Hong Kong. At these various institutions I was kindly received by Eugene Wu, Chi Wang, P. K. Yu, John Ma, Wu Chen-tsai, Warren Kuo, Harald Jacobson, and William Hsu. After I had returned to Britain, Joan Lustbader supplied me with yet more data from Hong Kong, while Bill Brugger and Kenneth Walker gave me access to the microfilm holdings of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

In the autumn of 1971, Kenneth Younger, then Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), appointed me a research fellow to complete my study, and after that my work was under the gentle guidance of James Fawcett, then the Institute’s

Director of Studies. In the autumn of 1972, the new Director, Andrew Shonfield, kindly sanctioned. the funds for my first visit to the People’s Republic. During the final stages of my work on this volume, I have greatly

benefited from the very perceptive comments of Michel Oksenberg and Stuart Schram, who read the whole MS with painstaking care, from those of Morton Abramowitz and Benjamin Schwartz on parts of it, and also from the views of members of the Contemporary China

Institute’s national seminar who heard my paper on one aspect of this period. At various times and in various places, I have also had long and profitable exchanges on the 1956-7 period with Howard Boorman, Philip Bridgham, Edward Friedman, Richard Harris, Alice Langley Hsieh, Ellis Joffe, Werner Klatt, Paul Kreisberg, Leonard Schapiro, Richard Solomon, and Allen Whiting. C. T. Hsia, Mrs Yin C. Liu, and H. F. Simon have prevented me from imposing upon the Chinese language a greater weight of Kremlinology than it would bear.

At Chatham House, Hermia Oliver has been a truly devoted

PREFACE Xi editor, carrying conscientiousness far beyond the call of duty as she dealt with corrections to corrections to corrections. Norah Benham managed to convey a sense of enthusiasm about the tedious task of typing the final draft, Eileen Menzies has tactfully organised me around deadlines, Liliana Brisby went over the Introduction and made helpful suggestions, and the staffs of the Library and Press Library have supplied me swiftly with books and documentation. As immaculately executed proofs started arriving from The Eastern

Press, I obtained from the Institute of International Relations in Taipei two extremely valuable collections of Mao Tse-tung’s speeches and articles which I have described in the Bibliographical and Methodological Note. I have incorporated all the relevant new information—the proofs were not returned immaculate—but owing to the lateness of its arrival more has had to go into the notes than I would have wished. To all those I have mentioned go heartfelt thanks for their advice and support, and of course absolution from all my errors. But my debts extend to a far wider circle of colleagues from whose wisdom I have profited over the course of many years and whom I can only partially repay by acknowledgement in notes and bibliography. My wife wanted me to thank her ‘ without whom this work was written ’, but the contrary is true. Somewhere between children and journalism, she managed to sandwich several critical readings of the MS, deploying her own considerable knowledge of Chinese politics when goading me into improving it. This volume is dedicated to her.

London Roderick MacFarquhar August 1973

ABBREVIATIONS + oo

ACFIC | All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. ACFTU _ All-China Federation.of Trades Unions. APCs ___ Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives.

CC Central Committee. _ CCP Chinese Communist Party. CDL — China Democratic League. CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union. CPWDP China Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party.

FYP Five-Year Plan. GPD General Political Department (of People’s Liberation Army).

KMT Kuomintang. NCNA New China News Agency.

NPC National People’s Congress. PLA People’s Liberation Army. PSC Politburo Standing Committee. UFWD United Front Work Department (of Central Committee).

YCL Young Communist League. * For abbreviations used in the Notes, see p. 318 below.

Xli

INTRODUCTION

In the spring of 1966 China seemed a stable, disciplined, and united nation. It was led by a group of men whose comradeship had been forged by the Long March, Japanese aggression, and civil war. They

had made a revolution and then boldly undertaken to remake a society of 600 million people. Their instrument of rule and regeneration was arguably the most efficient and dynamic Communist party in the world. Behind it stood the 24-million-strong People’s Liber-

ation Army, but except in the very special case of Tibet, the PLA had never been needed for large-scale operations in support of the civil power.

Within months, this image of peace and harmony had been shattered. Already, unperceived by foreigners and most Chinese, the first salvoes of the ‘ great proletarian cultural revolution ’ had been fired. In June 1966, the first top-level victims were publicly dismissed.

A central committee (CC) session in August was the occasion of another major shake-up in the leadership. It was followed by a series of feverish mass rallies in Peking’s T’ien An Men Square, at which Mao Tse-tung was hailed as China’s ‘ great teacher, great

leader, great supreme commander, and great helmsman’. As the Mao cult grew extravagantly, Mao’s former comrades-in-arms seemed destined for the dustbin of history. The Communist party machine was reduced to a shambles; its local leaders were paraded

through the streets in dunces’ hats by youthful Red Guards who drew their inspiration from Mao’s electrifying injunction—‘* To rebel is justified!’ The PLA, hitherto the guardian of the party, was commanded to support its persecutors. Only when the victorious Red Guards fell to bitter and bloody internecine warfare was the army allowed to restore order. It emerged from the cultural revolution the sole nation-wide organization with real power. The immediate results of the cultural revolution were the negation of some of Mao’s most cherished principles. He had always insisted on the Communist party’s right to leadership in all fields; the cultural

revolution so demoralized party cadres and so destroyed their authority in the eyes of the people that it would clearly be many years 1

2 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

before the party could recover its supremacy. Mao had been particularly concerned to ensure that the party commanded the gun; but after the cultural revolution, soldiers dominated the new party machine. Mao had deplored Stalin’s cult of personality; yet during the cultural revolution he himself was virtually deified. And Mao had

always advocated ‘curing the sickness to save the patient’ and opposed ‘ finishing people off with a single blow ’+; yet during the

cultural revolution he summarily purged many of his erstwhile colleagues, destroying with them the practice of uniting with all those who could be united with. None of the results of the cultural revolution could have been foreseen by Mao with precision. But the dangers of the course on which he was embarking must have been evident to him from the start. Why, then, did he, who had done so much to make the Chinese regime what it was in the spring of 1966, decide to tear down and rebuild? This study seeks to answer that question. 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 ’, the ‘ No. 1 power holder in the party taking the capitalist road’, head of state and heir apparent Liu Shao-ch’i. During the heyday of the cultural revolution, this claim of undeviating consistency, be it for good in the case of Mao or evil in the case of Liu and his alleged supporters, was buttressed by selective quotations in the newspapers published by the Red Guards. But a careful examination of the evidence suggests that neither Mao nor Liu was consistent; that Mao and Liu were not always opponents; that many men who survived the cultural revolution, notably Premier Chou En-lai, had opposed Mao on crucial issues when Liu had stood by the Chairman; that some of Liu’s supposed supporters, notably Teng Hsiaop’ing, the party’s General Secretary, had been more often on Mao’s side than Liu’s. In short, in the face of the cardinal issues in the years

preceding the cultural revolution the interaction of the Chinese leaders was complex. Use of the term ‘ two lines ’ implies that the issues were of funda-

mental importance and this is certainly true in large part. The disruption of the Chinese leadership was caused by disagreement over the aims of the Chinese revolution, over how to rule China, over how to develop China. Analysis of the origins of the cultural revolution must cover political, economic, social, military, diplomatic as well as cultural problems. But as always in the affairs of men there were also

INTRODUCTION 3 bitter feuds over power and status. The cultural revolution was rooted in both principled and personal disputes.

This study does not aim to provide a complete history of China from 1956 to 1965; it attempts to examine the impact of the main events of this period on the thinking, actions, and interaction of the Chinese leaders. In a very real sense the cultural revolution was a

human tragedy on the grand scale. The principal actors had all devoted their lives to the Chinese revolution. After fifteen years of bungling and defeat—mainly the results of Comintern interference— they had come together under Mao and that had been the turningpoint in their fortunes. They had made further mistakes, they had suffered further defeats, but even then they had emerged still purposeful, still self-confident, above all still united. The importance of this cohesion for China can be assessed by a glance at the fate of other developing countries whose leaders failed to maintain the unity which carried them to independence—Indonesia, Pakistan, Burma spring immediately to mind.? With the cultural revolution, China seemed to be heading the same way. The Yenan ° Round Table ’ was shattered; a generation of leaders disappeared. They did not go to their deaths as had Stalin’s victims, but they were denounced not merely for mistakes during the years prior to the cultural revolution, but for actions spanning their entire careers. Their contributions to the Chinese revolution were denied; their lifetimes of dedicated work were declared null and void.

The human dimension of the cultural revolution has led me to include, at appropriate places in the study, brief characterizations of

the most important Chinese leaders to help explain their actions during these critical years. Regrettably, reliable data on which to base such appraisals are sparse. Three leaders play roles of such supreme importance that I have thought it better to describe them in advance of the narrative. They are Mao Tse-tung, who made the cultural revolution, Liu Shao-ch’i, who was cast as its Lucifer, and Chou En-lai, who survived it and its subsequent reverberations.

Mao, Liu, and Chou Mao’s character is in many ways the least difficult of the three to delineate. He has provided the world with an autobiography (through

the medium of Edgar Snow); he has written copiously and spoken

often’; and he has been the subject of a number of studies and reminiscences. ® All this material reveals facets of his personality with

some authenticity. Many are attributed to his peasant origins:

4 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

simplicity offset by shrewdness; earthiness in humour and habits; a preference for plain speaking and plain living. His political opponents testify to his charm, especially when exercised in small groups ®; his

admirers admit he has a passionate temper when roused.’ An omnivorous reader, he seems to enjoy dazzling audiences with his extensive knowledge of Chinese history. Yet he is no bookworm, but a life-long devotee of strenuous physical exercise. He is a poet, but one who admires the martial virtues. His self-image has varied from

hero-emperor in middle age® to Confucian-style teacher in his middle-70s. ®° Probably his most important intellectual characteristic has been his ability correctly ‘ to analyze the experience common to

his generation ’.1® But at all times, his most powerful personal attribute has been a total self-confidence which, allied with patience, has sustained him in defeat or retreat.

So much might be generally agreed. Difficulties arise when one considers contradictory facets of his personality. These contradictions helped to lead him, during the period covered in this study, to espouse totally different policies at different, times. The contradictions are best summarized in Mao’s own formulation of the ideal polity, which he first expounded in the summer of 1957 and twelve years later got written into the new party constitution. Mao said his objective was to combine ‘ centralism and democracy, discipline and

freedom, unity of purpose and personal ease of mind and liveliness ’. During the two years covered in the present volume, Mao’s emphasis was more on the second element in each of these pairs, and significantly, in an earlier version of the formula, democracy and freedom were put first in their pairs; the reversed emphasis in the final version marked Mao’s acceptance in the second half of 1957 of the need for more discipline.“

These contradictions also infused Mao’s relationship with his colleagues. In 1939, on the occasion of Stalin’s sixtieth birthday, Mao spelled out his belief in the importance of strong personal leadership: Both the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary fronts must have someone to act as their leader, someone to serve as their commander. Who is the commander of the revolutionary front? It is socialism, it is Stalin. Comrade Stalin is the leader of the world revolution. Because he is there, it is easier to get things done. As you know, Marx is dead, and Engels and

Lenin too are dead. If we did not have a Stalin, who would give the orders ?+2

This passage has rightly been contrasted with Liu Shao-ch’i’s insistence that while Mao was leader of the whole party, ‘ he, too,

INTRODUCTION 5 obeys the Party ’.13 But Mao’s theory should also be compared with Mao’s practice. The evidence suggests that he assumed the right to issue programmatic statements, but that he did not then insist on un-

questioning obedience. As Teng Hsiao-p’ing told Youth League officials in 1957, ‘ Chairman Mao has never said that he could not make a mistake ’.14 In Mao’s Politburo, unlike Stalin’s, there was debate; the Chairman might be defeated or simply ignored. During the 1960s Mao increasingly came to resent this, but it was his own democratic approach to leadership that permitted it in the first place.

Mao may always have attempted to emphasize equally both thesis

and antithesis in his contradictory goals, but he never succeeded. The Mao who emerges from the pages that follow is not the onetrack ° Maoist ’ Mao of the cultural revolution, but a changing Mao whose policy shifts reflect not only different facets of his own personality but also his reactions to a changing domestic and foreign environment. Liu Shao-ch’1 is the least colourful of all the principal characters in

this study, a man truly grey in his eminence. Leaders like Chou Fn-lai, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, and P’eng Chen, the boss of Peking, stand out, even beside Mao, as powerful personalities in their own right. But Liu seems reserved to the point of shyness, modest to the point of self-effacement, a man perhaps so schooled in the principle of the

primacy of the organization over the individual that his own personality died somewhere along the way. His one-time superior Chang Kuo-t’ao (who lost the struggle for the leadership of the party to Mao

in the middle 1930s) met him first when he was twenty-three or twenty-four and observed that while most young communists were passionate and full of verve, Liu ‘ seldom displayed any excitement ’. Chang characterized Liu as ‘ somewhat bookish, thoughtful, rather taciturn, but clearly persevering ’, stoic by temperament, a man who

ascended step by step ‘not by obvious talents, but by solid hard work ’.1° Liu’s personal attitude towards work and a career—much

attacked during the cultural revolution—was summed up in the phrase * a small loss for a big gain’, which he explained to students in 1957 as being a readiness to perform long years of hard and selfless work with the likelihood that they would eventually result in recogni-

tion and reward.1® He clearly had his own career in mind, as he revealed once when expounding this philosophy to his son: If you want to become well known, you must first work hard, and must not first think of getting a name, because the more you want to make yourself

6 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION known, the less likely you will be able to do so. But if you give no thought

to making yourself known, you stand a better chance of becoming well known. This is Marxist-Leninist dialectics. ... When I joined the revolution, it never occurred to me that I would one day become the Chairman of the State. Now I am serving in that capacity, and I am well known in the whole country and the whole world.17

Liu’s most important characteristic was evidently application, a persistence that carried this outwardly unremarkable man to the top. But his eminence was deserved for his talents were considerable. An Indian ambassador to Peking told Edgar Snow: Liu Shao-ch’i at first gives a superficial impression of mediocrity. Five minutes of conversation reveals a man with an extremely logical mind capable of quickly penetrating to the heart of a question and organizing his answers simply yet with great force and thoroughness. !8

Liu’s long years of work in the cities and among the workers, mainly in hostile territory, uncovered and developed a gift for organization

which even political opponents acknowledged.1° It was doubtless an important reason why Mao chose him as his principal lieutenant when he wanted to reshape the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in his image in the early 1940s. Liu was also useful to Mao because he had obtained a formal grounding in Marxism-Leninism during his six months at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow; this made him a powerful ally against Mao’s main opponents of the period, who were also Moscow-trained. 7° If to the

outsider Liu Shao-ch’i’s main works on the party, intra-party struggle, and the training of party members seem long-winded and repetitious, full of ‘ rambling, unconcentrated sentences ’, coupling ‘an overorganisation of material with a periodic disorganisation of

thought’, they nevertheless gave him an independent status as a theoretician.*4 During the 1960s there was apparently a saying current among the Chinese bourgeoisie—‘ When Chairman Mao does not study three days, he cannot catch up with Liu Shaoch’i’.?2 However genuinely modest Liu Shao-ch’i may have been—it was claimed by one admirer that he demurred at the idea of publishing his collected works, at least during Mao’s lifetime 22—he seems to have been conscious of his merits, and one senses a certain resent-

ment that force of circumstance and personality had secured the leadership of the party for Mao, a resentment compounded perhaps by the knowledge that his own support for Mao had been an impor-

tant factor in helping him to consolidate his position.24 What is evident is that Liu was not quick to praise Mao and his contributions

, INTRODUCTION 7 to Marxist theory.’° He apparently disapproved of Mao’s assump-

tion of the title ‘Chairman’ and in 1942 remarked to some colleagues: ‘ What is a chairman? I have never heard people in the Soviet Union calling Lenin Chairman Lenin!’ He also asserted that ‘the Stalin of China has not yet appeared! ’?® Even after Liu Shaoch’i had begun eulogizing Mao as leader and theoretician, 2’ possibly in return for being made No. 2 in the party, he did not put Mao ona pedestal, Stalin-style. In 1947 Liu told a conference: There is no perfect leader in the world. This was true of the past as it is of

the present, in China and in other countries. If there is one, he only pretends to be such, just like inserting onions in a pig’s nose to make it look like an elephant. 28

As one scholar has suggested, even if Liu accepted Mao as leader because he recognized in him the necessary broad vision, charismatic

appeal, and unshakeable self-confidence, he must also ‘ have seen himself as the man who had the grasp of detail and the patient skill in organizational work without which Mao’s ambitious projects could not be carried to a victorious conclusion. He therefore accepted a position as Mao’s subordinate, but clearly had no intention of abandoning his critical faculties ’.2° These he maintained throughout, even in his disgrace. His confessions during the cultural revolution are reasoned replies to the charges against him rather than any humiliating self-abasement, and they indicate that he bore himself in adversity with courage and quiet dignity. °° Chou En-lai has been a member of the Chinese Politburo continuously for over forty-five years, a record of service at the apex of a communist party unmatched by anyone else, living or dead, Chinese or foreign, including Mao, including Stalin. During the years of revolution, he played a major role in every important event with the single exception of the founding meeting of the party, when he was abroad. As premier ever since the communist victory m 1949, he qualifies as the longest-serving head of government in any major

country in this century. Indeed, he has been so long at the top that his position has acquired a sort of inevitability. 3+ The secret of Chou’s success would seem to be simple: he combines

immense ability, immense charm, and immense energy—in his seventieth year, during the most tumultuous period of the cultural revolution, he seemed able virtually to do without sleep for nights on end. But Chou’s relationship with Mao has probably been at least as

important as his considerable qualifications in accounting for his

8 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

pre-eminence during the thirty-eight years that the two men have worked together. - Ttis likely that the bond between Chou and Mao was forged on the

Long March. Hitherto the two men had been political opponents. In the Kiangsi Soviet Chou had displaced Mao as the man in charge

of military affairs even though the soviet had been largely Mao’s creation. When the Nationalist attacks finally proved irresistible, it was Chou, according to some accounts, who issued the order for the start of the Long March. In January 1935 the fleeing communist columns paused at Tsunyi in Kweichow province. There was a top-level conference at which those guilty of the military errors that had helped Chiang Kai-shek to drive the communists out of the Kiangsi Soviet were brought to book. ?? The attack was led by Mao, and his main target was Chou

En-lai. However, to judge by subsequent events, Chou was more agile in the furious debate than were the others under fire. He made a complete self-criticism and may have offered to retire as chairman of the party’s Military Affairs Committee. In the event, Mao took over this chairmanship but retained Chou En-lai as vice-chairman. In his

new role, Chou apparently continued to perform virtually all the functions for which he had been responsible up till then. It may well have been Chou’s willingness to serve under him without rancour

that first indicated to Mao that he had found a totally loyal lieutenant. This episode illustrates one of Chou’s salient characteristics—his unwillingness to elevate policy into principle and go to the wall when a confession of error could allow him to continue in office. Doubtless this attitude explains why he has been able to serve in the Politburo under every leader of the CCP, another unique record, and one which

has laid him open to charges of opportunism. But it seems more likely that service as much as survival has been the mainspring of Chou’s conduct; he has dedicated his life to the revolution and he

has not allowed considerations of ‘face’ to prevent him from continuing to contribute to that cause. There remains an enigma about the Mao—Chou relationship. Chou proved often before the communist victory his right to fullblooded revolutionary credentials, but since being in power, and especially in the years covered by this study, he has almost invariably

been associated with policies of moderation, at home and abroad. He has related better to Mao in the latter’s more restrained or—by cultural revolution standards—less ‘ Maoist’ persona. Chou is, to

INTRODUCTION 9

use the traditional Chinese terminology, the yin—the weaker, female principle—to the Maoist Mao’s yang, which is everything that is strong, masculine, hot. Part of the explanation of Chou’s fundamentally moderate stand on policy issues is presumably to be found in one very obvious side of

his personality. Whereas Mao, like all great leaders, is a somewhat

solitary figure, a man apart, whom his closest supporters do not always comprehend, #3 and Liu, despite his coterie of supporters in the party machine, always seemed a lonely man, Chou En-lai clearly thrives on human contact, at however low a level of intensity. Even

after he gave up his concurrent job as Foreign Minister in 1958, Chou continued to meet innumerable foreign delegations, often of marginal diplomatic importance, although there were doubtless a thousand other calls on his time. From his student days, Chou was marked out as a born leader, but he commanded allegiance on the basis of personality rather than vision—significantly he never tried to establish himself as a ‘ theorist ’, even in a minor way—and this is why he has been a supreme negotiator. But negotiation, or media-

tion, demands a willingness to trade, and Chou’s firmness on principles has always permitted a maximum of flexibility on modalities, suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.*4

Inevitably, a man whose forte is dealing with people deals in compromise, and there would seem to be an intimate connection between Chou’s talent for manipulating men and his preference for policies of moderation. But even if this preference divided Chou from Mao at times, Mao has evidently always felt able to count on Chou’s obedient acceptance of his directives, even when they went against the grain. Loyalty coupled with ability are the reasons for

Chou’s presence in what has emerged today as the Mao—Chou duumvirate.

Why 1956? It was in 1956 that two crucial events took place—the completion of

collectivization in China and the CPSU’s 20th Congress in the Soviet Union—which set in train processes that were to lead clearly, if not ineluctably, to the cultural revolution.

Collectivization was regarded by Mao as the final step in the consolidation of the communist regime. Then, when completion was in sight, he proclaimed it a turning-point in the CPR’s history and took it as the opportunity to launch the first of China’s two econotnic

‘leaps forward’.®5 The attempt to achieve a major economic

10 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION breakthrough occupied much of the energy of Mao and his colleagues over the next five years. When the ‘ great leap forward ’ ended with a

whimper in 1960 during the natural disasters of the ‘ three bitter years ’ (1959-61), it had already caused one top-level dispute and it was to give rise to a reassessment of development strategy which found Mao and many of his colleagues on opposite sides of the fence. Moreover, the debacle dealt a considerable blow to Mao’s authority

within the party and concomitantly increased his suspicions that some of his colleagues were trying to deprive him of real power. | Mao’s anxieties on this score might seem curious at first glance. As both the Lenin and Stalin of the Chinese revolution, he was ina

uniquely unassailable position. It would be impossible ever to denounce him or to destroy his reputation without seriously under-

mining the communist revolution itself. Yet as early as 1956, as destalinization got under way, Mao seems to have begun to suspect that, although de-Maoization was unlikely, some of his colleagues were happy to take Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin at the 20th Congress as an opportunity for whittling away his position. The situation was complicated because Mao himself decided that he should hand over power gradually to his colleagues in order to prevent the kind of Byzantine struggle that had occurred in Russia after Stalin’s death from ever taking place in China. Here again one perceives a contradiction in Mao-—his willingness to cede power was offset by his resentment at colleagues who grasped it too eagerly. During the ten years covered by this study, resentment gradually became dominant and was an important contributory factor to the cultural revolution. The 20th Congress had other significant repercussions in China.

Khrushchev’s destalinization, and the consequential Hungarian revolt later in the year, raised in Mao’s mind the whole question of the relationship of a communist party to the people it ruled. How should China be governed? This was the problem Mao sought to solve through the ‘ rectification ’ of the CCP of 1957, in the teeth of

strenuous opposition from Liu Shao-ch’i, P’eng Chen, and other party officials. Mao desisted then but during the 1960s the problem looked to him even more urgent as he became increasingly concerned over the direction in which the Soviet Union was going.

The handling of the Stalin issue and some of the new doctrines propounded at the 20th Congress had aroused misgivings among the Chinese leaders as to the competence of the Soviet leaders and the

way in which they were leading the communist bloc. These misgivings were increased in 1959 by Khrushchev’s apparent readiness

INTRODUCTION 11

to come to terms with the United States. From 1960 the Chinese began to denounce Soviet willingness to compromise with imperialism, but when these strictures failed to bring the Soviet leaders to their senses, Mao began a major re-examination of Soviet society in an attempt to understand what had deflected the Russians from what

he considered to be the true Leninist path. In the early 1950s the

Chinese slogan had been ‘the Soviet today is our tomorrow’. During the great leap forward, the Chinese had abandoned the Soviet economic model. By the mid-1960s, his analysis of Soviet

society completed, Mao had decided that it was imperative to prevent China from taking the revisionist Soviet road and that party and state would have to be restructured. The cultural revolution was, above all, Mao’s attempt to map out a different path for China. In that sense it represented the culmina-

tion of a lifetime of thinking about and working for the Chinese revolution. But the process of fermentation in Mao’s mind which determined him to launch the cultural revolution was initiated by the events of 1956.

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PART ONE

THE ‘FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE’

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1 THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM

* The point is that in the latter half of 1955 the situation in China underwent a fundamental change ’°—thus Mao Tse-tung in his Preface to the book Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside, published on 12 January 1956.1 This massive work 2 described conditions

in the countryside before and after Mao called on provincial party

leaders to speed up agricultural collectivization. In a speech on 31 July 1955 (not published until October) Mao had criticized cautious party officials as ‘ tottering along like a woman with bound feet ’® and proposed a new target for accelerated collectivization: a

100 per cent increase in the number of Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives (APC) * by October 1956 as compared with an increase of about 55 per cent planned by the CC’s Rural Work Department. 5

In the light of the actual rate of expansion of collective farming in the second half of 1955, Mao’s target seemed quite conservative. Mao had allowed fourteen months for its achievement, but it was achieved in four, by the end of November 1955. ° When Mao had spoken in July, there were only 16:9 million peasant households farming collectively. By the time he signed his Preface on 27 December, the figure was over 70 million. 7 More than 60 per cent of China’s 110 million farm households had pooled their land and labour, their animals and implements, and submitted them to col-

lective management. With much less ‘ violence, resistance and chaos’ than had occurred during Soviet collectivization, ® a system

of family farming characteristic of the Chinese countryside for centuries had been swept aside in a few months. By the end of 1955,

according to Mao, ‘the victory of socialism will be practically assured ’.° This was what he meant by a ‘ fundamental change’. A month later Mao made it clear that he was talking about a fundamental change in the ‘ political situation ’. The basic completion of the socialist revolution was in sight, he declared, only three years away.?° On 30 January, Premier Chou En-lai re-emphasized the implication of Mao’s assessment: ‘ We can say that it has already been determined which will emerge victorious in the struggle between the two paths, socialism and capitalism. This is just as Chairman Mao 15

16 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Tse-tung said: ‘“‘ The political situation in our country has now undergone a fundamental change ”’’’ (emphasis added). 1

(i) In the countryside Why did Mao consider the change to be fundamental? The explana-

tion lies in the domestic setting of his collectivization speech. By July 1955 the communist regime had established a firm grip on the country. Land reform!? and the campaign against counter-revolutionaries in 1951-2 had effectively destroyed the old Kuomintang (KMT) power structure and enabled the CCP to extend its power to

villages throughout the land. The thought reform and five-anti campaigns had established CCP dominance over the urban intelligentsia and bourgeoisie by the end of 1952.1 At that point, too, economic recovery from the effects of twelve years of war and civil war had largely been achieved, and the regime was prepared to launch its lst Five-Year Plan (F YP) even if it was unwilling to state the plan’s precise terms for another two and a half years.14 In the autumn of 1954 a constitution, enacted by a newly-elected National People’s Congress (NPC), established the formal structure of the regime.15 For many, perhaps most, of Mao’s top colleagues the consolidation of the CCP’s power had been achieved. Their attitude was probably summed up by Liu Shao-ch’i towards the end of 1954: ‘We have now basically concluded various works of social reform and begun to enter into a period of planned economic construction.’ 16 While Liu and others were committed to the long-term goal of collectivization, they apparently did not believe that its rapid completion was vital to the stability of the regime and the achievement of its other goals; and remembering what had happened during collectivization in the Soviet Union, they feared that accelerating the

plans. 1? ,

process in China would lose them peasant support and that its attendant disruption could undermine their economic development

But Mao thought otherwise. In his July speech he predicted dire

consequences if private farming were allowed to persist: What still lingers in the countryside is capitalist ownership by the rich peasants and individual peasant ownership—an ocean of it. Everyone has

noticed that in recent years there has been a spontaneous and constant growth of capitalist elements in the countryside and that new rich peasants have sprung up everywhere. Many well-to-do middle peasants are striving

to become rich ones. Many poor peasants, lacking sufficient means of production, are still not free from the toils of poverty; some are in debt, others selling or renting their land. If this tendency goes unchecked, the

THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM 17 separation into two extremes in the countryside will get worse day by day. Peasants who have lost their land and who are still having difficulties will complain that we do nothing to save them when we see they are up against it, nothing to help them overcome difficulties. And the well-to-do middle peasants who tend towards capitalism will also find fault with us, for they will never be satisfied because we have no intention of taking the capitalist path. If this is how circumstances stand, can the worker-peasant alliance stand fast? Obviously not.18

In short, if the present situation continued, the CCP’s natural allies

in the countryside would become disaffected while its potential enemies would become more powerful.

This political problem was closely linked with the need to obtain control of crop surpluses which were vital to the industrialization programme—as payment for machinery imports, as raw materials for light industry, and as food for the growing numbers of urban workers. Evidence from both Russia and China could be adduced to show that collectives made crop procurement administratively far

simpler; and besides, it could be postulated that collectives con-

trolled by the poorer peasants would be readier to hand over surpluses than capitalistic rich peasants, farming individually. *°

The other key agricultural problem when Mao made his speech

was production. If agricultural production were not increased rapidly, there would be no surpluses to collect. Already lagging output had forced the planners to reduce their original FYP targets. *° Mao argued from results in 80 per cent of the APCs already formed—

the Soviet experience was clearly too unfortunate to be cited —that collectivization could help increase production. He contended that if the CCP did not have the confidence in itself and the masses to push ahead, it would be impossible to achieve socialism within a period of three FYPs; and if it did not achieve socialism in that time

it would be impossible to complete socialist industrialization. In other words, for Mao, collectivization was an essential prerequisite for fulfilling the regime’s primary goals. As his confidant Ch’en Po-ta later put it to the CC’s 6th plenum, ‘ we cannot rest one foot on

socialist industry and the other foot on the small peasant

economy ’, 71 |

But though Mao was convinced of the importance of collectiviza-

tion, there is no indication that in July he expected his speech to bring about so rapid a ‘ fundamental change ’. When he wrote his Preface five months later, his expectations were still conservative; he

expected that the change-over to semi-socialist agriculture would be completed in 1956 and that the further transformation of the

18 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

primary-stage APCs into fully socialist APCs (hereafter called collectives) 22 would take till 1959 or 1960. Even the Twelve-Year Agri-

cultural Programme, which was published two weeks after the Preface and which advanced the timetable yet again, called for basic

completion of collectivization only by 1958.23 As it turned out, 63 per cent of all farm households were in collectives by June 1956 and 88 per cent by December that year. *4

Collectivization was a personal triumph for Mao. It was his speech of 31 July 1955—which he had made in defiance of the views

of some of his most senior colleagues and the programme of the party’s Rural Work Department—that initiated the ‘ high tide’. He had appealed over the heads of central officials to provincial leaders, who had again demonstrated the superb organizational capabilities of the party machine. To ensure that the provincial leaders were not

restrained by conservative-minded officials of the Rural Work Department, he inserted two tried aides as deputy directors of that department in the summer of 1955. These were his former secretaries, Ch’en Po-ta and Ch’en Cheng-jen. 2° Their appointments may well have been arranged before Mao disclosed to colleagues his determination to accelerate collectivization. 2° Ch’en Po-ta presented

the Politburo’s draft decision on collectivization to the CC’s 6th plenum in October 1955.

By that time, the emergence of a ‘ high tide’ was clear to all, even if its dimensions would not become apparent for some months. Proof of this was the fact. that the Politburo had made the decision, accepted at the plenum, to advance Mao’s July target.2”7 Mao himself felt confident enough to sanction the publication of his speech and to tell the plenum that the introduction of cooperativization was one of the four victories won by the CCP in recent times: In the past few years we have scored victories in these four aspects: opposition to idealism, propagation of materialism; suppression of counter-revolutionaries; enforcement of the system of unified purchasing and unified marketing of food crops; and the introduction of agricultural

cooperation. These victories are characterized by their anti-bourgeois features and deal a very heavy blow to the bourgeoisie. The campaign against idealism should be continued over a long period. 2°

Confronted by this victory, the men who had opposed Mao on collectivization had to admit their error. On the final day of the plenum, Liu Shao-ch’i criticized himself in these terms:

Some years before I too had the idea that after the land reform, apart from universally developing labour mutual-aid teams, it would take some

THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM 19 time to develop APCs on a universal basis. As a result, I failed to promote and study seriously the APCs of a semi-socialist nature that had emerged at that time. This was wrong. ?°

Liu may also have criticized himself then, as he was to do during the

cultural revolution, for presiding over the meeting early in 1955 which accepted the suggestion of Deputy Premier Teng Tzu-hui, the director of the CC’s Rural Work Department, to dissolve 20,000 of the existing 670,000 APCs. ?° It was almost certainly this decision

that had prompted Mao to intervene and give the collectivization movement a new impetus with his 31 July speech. Liu Shao-ch’i’s use of the word ‘ too ’ indicated that other principal

leaders also engaged in self-criticism for their coolness towards collectivization. These men could have included the Chairman of the

State Planning Commission, Li Fu-ch’un, and the Minister of Agriculture, Liao Lu-yen. Both men had advocated cautious collectivization earlier in the year. ?1 Some senior officials hinted at their

error publicly: Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Li Hsiennien; the Chairman of the State Construction Commission, Po I-po; and Deputy Premier Ch’en Yi, mayor of Shanghai.*? These three

men and Li Fu-ch’un were all elevated to the Politburo at the 8th

Congress a year later. Teng Tzu-hui was criticized by Mao at the 6th plenum, but he seems not to have criticized himself in public at this time.** And he did not attend the Supreme State Conference on 25 January at which the Twelve-Year Programme for Agriculture was presented by the Minister of Agriculture, Liao Luyen, who was also one of Teng’s deputies at the Rural Work Depart-

ment.34 Teng Tzu-hui did ultimately criticize himself at the 8th Congress in September 1956, but it was too late to gain him the

promotion to the Politburo awarded to every other Deputy Premier. 25 That he was able to retain his deputy premiership and his leadership of the Rural Work Department may have been in part the result of his former closeness to Mao. 3°

(ii) In the cities The self-criticisms of Mao’s opponents on collectivization were not the only signs that, by October 1955, the consensus was that he had

proved his case. Another indication was provided by moves to accelerate the nationalization of industry and commerce. The plenum had discussed how industry and commerce should react to the high tide of agricultural collectivization, and shortly afterwards

the CCP leadership set about readying China’s capitalists for a

20 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION collectivist upsurge to match the one taking place in the countryside. On 29 October Mao invited members of the executive committee of

the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC) to discuss the question with Politburo and CC members; over 500 people attended. Mao, Premier Chou En-lai, and the top-ranking Deputy Premier, Ch’en Yun, addressed the gathering, and speeches were also made by the chairman and other prominent members of

the ACFIC.?’ Then on 1 November, Ch’en Yun addressed more than 1,000 businessmen at a forum called by the CC’s United Front Work Department (UF WD). ?8

It may have been at this latter meeting that Mao’s speech of 29 October, now designated a ‘ directive ’ (chih-shih), was read out to the 174 ACFIC executive committee members, who on the same day

opened a three-week session, their first since October 1953. This ACFIC conference was also addressed by the ubiquitous Ch’en Yun,

and by Deputy Premier Ch’en Yi, the latter presumably in his capacity as mayor of Shanghai, China’s principal stronghold of capitalism.?® The ACFIC chairman, Ch’en Shu-t’ung, told his executive committee that the new upsurge of collectivization and

production was changing the face of the economy and had an important connection with the socialist transformation—as nationalization was termed—of private industry and commerce. If businessmen did not press forward with this transformation, they would be unable to adapt to the new situation. He added that in the course of

transformation, the ‘capitalist style of management’ must be changed and the ideology of serving production and consumers must

be established, though precisely what he meant by this was not clear.4° At the end of the conference, a vice-chairman summed up by saying that the conference had accomplished its major task of

activating industrialists and merchants to accept socialist transformation in a positive manner.*1+ An open letter from the ACFIC executive to all industrial and commercial circles which was adopted on the final day called for still faster progress in the acceptance of transformation. *2 Editorials in the People’s Daily pressed home the message. +3

The CC held its own conference (16-24 November) on the trans-

formation of private industry and commerce, though it was not publicized at the time. *4 Liu Shao-ch’i addressed the meeting on the first day and described the state of uncertainty in the country that had followed the publication of Mao’s speech on collectivization a month before:

THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM 21 Right now many of the capitalists are feeling disquieted, and so are the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry. More than 500 million of the 600 million people in China are in a state of disquietude and unrest. They do not know what to do and are unable to chart their own destinies .. . our present desire to change two forms of ownership and abolish two forms of private ownership—the transformation of the system of private ownership by small producers, that is, individual ownership by peasants, into the system of collective ownership, and the capitalist system of ownership into

the state system of ownership by the whole people (had brought) disquietude and unrest to all people excepting the working class in the whole country. #5

Though this statement, like others from the same speech, was used to attack Liu during the cultural revolution, it does not seem likely that

he was doing anything other than describe an understandable national mood. Clearly he was not using his assessment of this mood to advocate slowing down the pace of socialist transformation. On the contrary he stressed the importance of the current socialization

campaign—the changeover to joint state-private ownership would break the back of bourgeois resistance to nationalization and the subsequent change-over to total state ownership would be easily

accomplished. Liu therefore advocated class struggle to ensure victory at the present crucial stage: The decisive factor for the elimination of the bourgeoisie is overall publice private joint-operation, which will exert a decisive effect ... When, at last,

nationalization jis proclaimed, and all capitalist industrial and commercial concerns are nationalized, it can almost be said that not much of struggle will remain. When a ditch is completed, water flows through it,

and when the melons ripen they fall. Therefore, struggle will not be stressed when nationalization is proclaimed, and we shall not say that there will be grave struggle at that time. But we regard the struggle at the present time as a serious struggle. We look upon the public-private joint operation

as a decisive struggle, as a Huaihai campaign... In our struggle with the bourgeoisie, which, capitalism or socialism, will win? With capitalist industry and commerce put under public-private joint operation, agriculture cooperativized and handicrafts also cooperativized, the question of who wins and who loses will be settled. 4°

Liu also stressed the importance to the country of the skills of businessmen and looked forward to the assistance of the more pro-

gressive among them in the current ‘ Huai-hai campaign’*’ of socialist transformation: Some capitalists are very capable and are able to manage things better than us Communist Party members and our comrades. Quite a number of them are sagacious and shrewd, and are in possession of technical knowledge. After the bourgeois elements are given a right perception of things B

22 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION and remoulded, they will be able to manage our factories better than the Communist Party members. This is quite possible. . . .48 Among members of the bourgeoisie, among their wives, and among their children, there is a group of activists who approve of and propagate communism. Such

activists are very valuable. In our current struggle, our current class struggle situation, they are very useful. Their merit is equivalent to fighting

in a great battle in war, they are like heroes in a war.... To take the bourgeois citadel, some people, preferably activists, among the bourgeoisie

should stage an uprising in support of Communism... The talk of a capitalist’s wife when she returns home in the evening is more powerful than the two Deputy Premiers named Ch’en [i.e. Ch’en Yun and Ch’en Yi], and it’s necessary to see her role in this way. *?

After the CC conference, early in December, Mao Tse-tung made an unpublicized visit to Shanghai where Mayor Ch’en Yi arranged for him to meet about eighty of the city’s leading businessmen. Accord- _ ing to one of them, Mao told the gathering he wanted their advice: Mao began by praising the great contribution the ‘ national capitalist friends ’ had made in the past. ‘ Now I have come from Peking to seek your advice,’ he went on. Many businessmen, he said, had been requesting that the socialist transformation of private enterprise should be hastened, ‘ lest the national bourgeoisie lag behind in the progress toward socialism ’. ‘TI don’t think I can agree with that,’ he informed us, ‘ but I am not wellinformed on the subject. I want to listen to your opinions. I have brought only my two ears to this meeting, and if you expect to hear more from me, you will be disappointed.’ ®°

After two hours of listening during which all the businessmen who spoke advocated a speed-up of the change to state ownership, some saying it could be completed in as little as five years, Mao reportedly said that he would give serious thought to this advice; but he still felt that before deciding on an acceleration, he would have to consider carefully the best interests of the ‘ national capitalist friends ’. >! At this stage, in December 1955, the target date for the completion

of the transformation of private business into joint state-private enterprises was 1957. According to a later (and hostile) account, the * outwardly cautious ’ Ch’en Yun, who was clearly in charge of the

whole operation, ‘hurriedly’ called meetings of secretaries of various provincial committees and gave them this target date. If there were any hurry about the operation, however, it was probably due to the unexpected speed of agricultural collectivization. For though the writer of this account implied that Ch’en Yun was trying to put off the change-over, in fact Mao personally endorsed 1957 as the target date in a speech opposing rightist conservatism on 6 December. °2

THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM 23 As in the case of collectivization, Mao seems to have been overtaken

by events—or rather, in this case, by the Peking municipal party organization. During December a number of industrial cities held conferences

and declared that they would complete the change-over by 1957, presumably after being informed by Ch’en Yun that this was the official timetable. As late as 3 January, the People’s Daily was reaffirming editorially: ‘It is stipulated that within the two years of 1956 and 1957 there will basically be realized the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce.’ 5? There had been a speed-up of the nationalization process in early December, as the paper pointed out, when more than thirty industrial trades, involving over 2,000 factories mainly in China’s six principal industrial cities, had been approved for transformation by trades. In the same areas, more than ten commercial trades, involving more than 3,000 shops, had also been approved for conversion. But only one city, Peking, grasped the lesson of these early successes. As early as 16 December, the People’s Daily had carried an article warning against blind amalgamations in the accelerating movement. Yet the very same day a cadre conference of the Peking municipal party, after five days’ deliberation, issued a ‘ preliminary ’ plan calling for the completion of the change-over to joint state-private ownership by the end of 1956. °* By early January Wuhan had woken up to the possibilities of a pace faster than that laid down by Ch’en Yun

and predicted completion of the process in 1956 too.*5 But there was no public preparation for the sudden spurt in Peking, where all industry and commerce was converted in the first ten days of January,

closely followed by handicrafts on the 11th and 12th. At first this may have meant little more than a change of description—private firms were simply re-labelled joint state-private > °—but in some cases there was * blind amalgamation ’. The feat was quickly celebrated by

a rally in T’ien An Men Square on the 15th, attended by Mao, Liu Shao-ch’i, and Chou En-lai. °? A Shanghai businessman later recalled that only a few weeks after

Mao’s friendly talk with him and his colleagues, the municipal authorities told local businessmen that the conversion process would have to be completed in the next six days. °* On the day of the Peking rally Shanghai businessmen met to discuss Peking’s methods and agreed to complete the process of petitioning for the change-over by

the 20th.°° But next day a leading Shanghai party official told a conference of cadres that the party committee felt that the process of

24 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION change-over itself could be completed by the 20th. §® Other industrial towns were similarly spurred to action by the achievements of Peking. By the end of January the process had been basically completed in all China’s main industrial towns. °!

Ch’en Yun probably did not appreciate the organizational virtuosity of P’eng Chen, Politburo member and mayor and party first secretary of Peking; even Mao was privately sarcastic about Peking’s methods.® Ch’en Yun later told the NPC: ‘ The approval at

one stroke of the switch-over to joint state-private ownership and cooperatives does not mean the completion of the transformation; it is only the beginning. There are still many problems we have to solve one by one in this transformation.’ ®* In Peking the problems were relatively simple compared with the more highly industrialized city of Shanghai,®* but once Peking’s gauntlet had been thrown down, Shanghai could not fail to respond to the challenge. Ch’en Yun gave the NPC his version of what had happened: The government plan for the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce was originally scheduled to be carried out in the country by stages and groups and by different trades in two years. In January this year, the socialist transformation of industry and commerce was in an upsurge, the government changed its original plan... . This change was necessary to cope with the demand of the time. But as a result of so quick a change, many departments and many areas had no time to accumulate experience of bringing the enterprises of whole trades under joint stateprivate operation. Consequently, in the days when cymbals and drums were struck to celebrate the transformation, quite a few factories, handi-

craft shops, stores and transport establishments in many places were merged one after another. Among these, there were some that should not have merged, and some that could be merged but became too big in their combined size. °°

Elephantiasis was not the only result of rushing the transformation to

joint state-private ownership. Supply, production, and marketing were dislocated; tried and tested managerial techniques were discarded overnight; the variety of products was reduced; business hours were cut without regard to customers’ convenience. ® § On 30 January—only three months after the ACFIC chairman had told his colleagues that in the course of transformation the capitalist style of management must be changed—Premier Chou, in an effort

to prevent further dislocation, informed the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that the original methods

of operation must not be ‘lightly’ changed and that good methods

must be preserved as ‘historic legacies to be handed down and

THE ‘HIGH TIDE’ OF SOCIALISM 25 developed ’!®? On 8 February, after an explanation by Ch’en Yun, the State Council decided that ‘ private enterprises should in general continue their operations as formerly for about six months beginning from the approval of joint ownership ’.°* The orderly change-over had been disrupted, but at least Ch’en Yun was able to insist on a breathing space. What both socialist transformation and collectivization illustrated was the impossibility of controlling a ‘high tide’ once launched. Even Mao was powerless to restrain lower-level cadres who, as he realized, feared to be dubbed rightist.6* Mao had told the 6th plenum that he would regard an attempt to achieve 80 per cent semi-socialist cooperativization in 1956 as ‘ leftist ’;*° in the event, over 80 per cent

fully socialist collectivization was achieved by the end of that year. And however critical Mao was in private of P’eng Chen’s performance in Peking—and he must have been particularly angry that a Politburo member should exceed a central directive—in public he had to applaud. The only alternative in both cases would have been to order the brakes to be applied, as Teng Tzu-hui had done with

cooperativization a year earlier, and for Mao this was not an acceptable option. He was to face the same dilemma with respect to the production high tide later in the year.

Wi, THE FIRST ‘LEAP FORWARD’ IS LAUNCHED

Mao’s preferred policy for collectivization had been cautious, but he quickly grasped the fundamental point that the battle had been won. By 27 December 1955, when he signed his Preface to Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside, he was ready to tell the CCP and the country that socialization was no longer the issue: The problem facing the entire party and all the people of the country is no

longer one of combating rightist conservative ideas about the speed of socialist transformation of agriculture. That problem has already been solved. Nor is it a problem of the speed of transformation of capitalist industry and commerce, by entire trades, into state-private enterprises. That problem has also been solved. In the first half of 1956 we must discuss

the speed of the socialist transformation of handicrafts. But that problem will easily be solved too.!

At the Supreme State Conference on 25 January 1956, Mao said that the socialist revolution could be basically completed throughout the country in another three years. He permitted himself the luxury of rubbing in his victory: * In the past some people feared that it would be difficult to get through the pass [i.e. mountain pass] of socialism; now it looks as if this pass was also easy to get through.’ ? The solution of the problems of socialization seemed to lift a great burden from Mao’s mind. The consolidation of the regime was now

assured. He could turn his attention to the even harder and more long-term task of developing China into a modern, industrialized nation, a task which, understandably, obsessed him.? As he said: ‘The aim of the socialist revolution is to liberate the productive forces.’4 Moreover the liberation of the productive forces had to pay off in production increases to prove the rightness and necessity of socialization.

Mao put the problem of production in the forefront; the breakthrough in rural socialization tells us that the scale and rate of China’s industrialization, and the scale and rate of the development of science, culture, education, public health, and so on, can no longer be entirely the same as originally intended. All must be appropriately expanded and accelerated. ® 26

THE FIRST ‘LEAP FORWARD’ IS LAUNCHED 27

Despite the brevity and apparent moderation of his treatment of this question, his Preface was the first bugle call for the economic charge later known as the ‘ leap forward ’ (yueh chin) of 1956;% and he called for criticism of those who underestimated the possibilities of speeding up production: The problem today is none of these [i.e. socialist transformation in various

fields], but concerns other fields. It affects agricultural production; industrial production (including state, joint state-private and co-operative industries); handicraft production; the scale and speed of capital construction in industry, communications and transportation; the co-ordination of commerce with other branches of the economy; and the co-ordination of the work in science, culture, education, public health, and so on, with our various economic enterprises. In ail these fields there is an underestimation of the situation which must be criticized and corrected if the work in them is to keep pace with the development of the situation as a whole. People’s

thinking must adapt itself to the changed conditions. Of course no one should go off into wild flights of fancy, or make plans unwarranted by the objective situation, or insist on attempting the impossible. But’ the problem today is that rightist conservatism is still causing trouble in many fields and preventing the work in these fields from keeping pace with the objective

situation. The present problem is that many people consider impossible things which could be done if they exerted themselves. It is entirely necessary, therefore, to keep criticizing these rightist conservative ideas, which still actually exist. ® (Emphasis added.)

Two days after the Preface was published, Chou En-lai told a conference on the intellectuals that the CC had decided to ‘ make opposition to rightist conservative ideology the central question for the 8th National Congress of the Party, and has demanded of all work departments in the whole Party to develop this struggle ’. ° The

rightist conservatism that Mao was now concerned about, as the Preface made clear, was in the realm of economic development and had nothing to do with issues of dogmatism and revisionism which arose later and in a different context.

(i) The Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme In November 1955 in Tientsin, Mao confronted the secretaries of fifteen provincial committees with his ‘11 articles’ on agricultural development; at the meeting they became ‘ 17 articles ’. After more talks with similar officials in Peking in January 1956, Mao expanded the ‘17 articles ’ into forty—the first draft of what was to become

the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme. This was then submitted to groups of technical specialists and to members of the non-communist political parties for discussion, involving well over 1,000 people in all. Some revisions were suggested and incorporated

28 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

before the revised draft of the programme was formally adopted by the Politburo on 23 January and publicly submitted to a session of the Supreme State Conference?° on 25 January. 1?

Mao told the Supreme State Conference: ‘ Our country ought to have a long-term plan; we want in a few decades and with great efforts to change the backward conditions of our nation’s economy and its scientific culture, and speedily to attain advanced world levels.’ 12 The Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme was designed to

transform the Chinese countryside by the end of the 3rd FYP. The forty articles covered all aspects of rural development from communications to water conservancy, but the most precise targets were the startlingly increased yields prescribed for grain and cotton by the

end of the twelve-year period: between 100 and 140 per cent for grain, and 71 and 185 per cent for cotton depending on the area. Opinions on the programme were to be collected by 1 April so that it could then be discussed at the CC’s 7th plenum, after which it would be presented to state bodies and the people in general as a recommendation.13 So ambitious was the programme that it is worth underlining who drew it up—Mao and provincial officials whose forte was man management, not agricultural economics, and who, at the high point of collectivization, may well have been over-

enthusiastic about what they could accomplish, especially with a dead-line twelve years off. By the time the technical specialists were

called in for comment in January, it was probably politically and bureaucratically impossible for many major downward revisions to be contemplated.

As early as November 1955, perhaps after agreement had been reached on the Tientsin seventeen articles, some provinces had decided to accelerate the achievement of their production targets. Shansi, Kiangsi, and Shantung said they would fulfil their 1957 targets in 1956.14 Other provinces followed suit in December.1°5 A more significant indication of what the impact of the Twelve-Year Programme would be was the decision of the Chekiang provincial

party organization to raise paddy production to 800 catties per mou® by 1962.17 When the programme was published, it turned out that Chekiang was not expected to achieve this yield until 1967.+® Perhaps Chekiang’s enthusiasm reflected a desire to make up for the

fact that it had been the province where most of the ‘ resolute contraction ’’ of APCs had taken place early in 1955—even though Mao had excused the provincial authorities from responsibility for this display of conservatism. ?®

THE FIRST “LEAP FORWARD’ IS LAUNCHED 29

But it was not only the provincial authorities who were girding their loins for the production drive to be unleashed by the TwelveYear Programme. In December a conference of agronomists met to draw up a twelve-year plan of agricultural research and pest control.?° A telecommunications conference vowed to give every hsiang

telephone facilities ‘ within about seven years as laid down by the CCP CC and Chairman Mao ’?*—though when the Twelve-Year Programme was published it demanded only that this should be fulfilled within from seven to twelve years. 22 Clearly some modifica-

tions were made to the programme during the January discussions, but- these were not sufficient to make it realistic. Nor did second

thoughts in Peking seem to percolate through to the provinces. Among a number of provinces which announced in the new year that they would fulfil their 1957 targets in 1956, Kwangtung called for an increase in grain production of 2 million metric tons. 2* This would have represented an increase of over 18 per cent on the 1955 figure. ** In the event the increase was about half that.25 Yet despite this kind of ambitiousness, the People’s Daily still felt it necessary on the eve of the Supreme State Conference to attack conservatism in production plans in an editorial entitled ‘ Look forward not backward ”, 26

While avoiding any endorsement of the more extreme provincial plans currently being formulated, Chou En-lai still called for increases of 9 per cent for grain and 18 per cent for cotton in 1956 when

he gave his political report to the CPPCC?’ on 30 January 1956. These targets, if reached, would have meant easy over-fulfilment of

the FYP targets in 1956, one year ahead of schedule, but Chou rejected forcefully any idea that these aims were too grandiose. 2°

The impact of Peking’s targets on the provinces is shown by Fukien’s experience in 1956. According to the province’s first secretary, 2° the provincial target for increased grain production in that year was 16 per cent, almost double Chou’s figure, but by the time this had reached the hsiang level, it had been raised to 40 per cent. Nor can the provincial and lower-level cadres be held entirely to blame when a man as responsible as Premier Chou and a man as close to Mao as Ch’en Po-ta were prepared to tell the CPPCC that the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme might be overfulfilled. °° Indeed, Chou described the programme as a ‘ minimum’ one. *! It was hardly surprising, therefore, that when a national emulation campaign to spur on the peasantry was launched by model peasant Li Shun-ta, there were pledges to increase yields by up to almost 46 per cent. *?

30 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(ii) ‘ More, faster, better, and more economically ‘ The push on the agricultural front was imitated by industry. As late as 26 September 1955 the People’s Daily had been editorializing gloomily on the lagging capital construction plan, and a month later

when commenting on the preparation of the 1956 plan it was still taking a sober line. ?3 But in December, after the initial steps to speed

up socialist transformation in the cities had been taken, the picture changed radically. The Minister of Building Construction told the

New China News Agency (NCNA) on 25 December that the ministry’s latest plan was to increase the original target for 1956 by 26 per cent, which would mean doing twice as much work in 1956 as in 1955. The Ministry of the Coal Industry announced that it would fulfil 96 per cent of the 1957 plan in 1956. The First Ministry

of Machine Building stated that the output of major products such as steam turbines and generators, locomotives and rolling stock would reach or exceed the 1957 target in 1956.24 Similar forecasts came from other ministries. The Minister of Railways, who had told the NPC in July that at the half-way stage in the Ist FYP only 40 per cent of the railway construction programmed had been completed, °° informed the NCNA on 22 December that the FYP target would be reached before the end of 1956.?® On the same day the Ministry of

Heavy Industry declared that the value of the production of heavy industrial enterprises would reach 99 per cent of the 1957 target in 1956. 3?

During the months of November and December the State Planning Commission was formulating the 1956 plan. This was revised during the second half of January 1956.3® The chairman of the commission, Li Fu-ch’un, later stated that his department ‘ readjusted certain in-

appropriate targets according to the new situation’ brought about by the struggle against rightist conservatism. *° Presumably this was in December—January. However, there was no move to revise the

overall FYP targets, a failure that was later to be criticized by Liu Shao-ch’1. *°

As in the case of agriculture, the producers themselves came forward with pledges and emulation campaigns and various ministries decided to hold conferences of advanced workers to inspire their less energetic or proficient colleagues. *! Mao produced a new slogan to spur them on: ‘ More, faster, better, and more economically ’. 4?

But Li Fu-ch’un and the planners seem to have made strenuous efforts to keep the production drive under some kind of control. This is suggested by two pieces of evidence: the slow start of the drive

THE FIRST ‘LEAP FORWARD’ IS LAUNCHED 31 by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to mobilize the workers nationally, and the lengthy period it took Mao’s slogan to surface in the press. The planners were probably behind both these delays. The executive committee of the ACFTU met in plenary session on

13 January and passed a resolution launching a socialist emulation

movement for the fulfilment of the FYP ahead of schedule. On 9 February the presidium of the executive committee passed a resolution launching an advanced producers’ movement. However, neither of these resolutions was published at the time. The resolu-

tion on the socialist emulation campaign was published in the People’s Daily on 29 February, almost seven weeks after it had been passed. The second resolution had to wait even longer. On 10 March

a committee met to plan a national conference of advanced producers. 4* Significantly it was headed not by the ACFTU chairman but by Li Fu-ch’un. Two days later the CC issued privately a notification approving the ACFTU resolution of 9 February, but it was not until 30 March that this notification and the original resolution were published in the People’s Daily. There had thus been a delay of over seven weeks since the passage of the resolution. What is particularly striking 1s that, after CC approval had been given, an extra two and a half weeks should have been allowed to elapse before the resolution was finally published. Mao’s slogan appeared in garbled form—‘ faster, more, better, and

more economically’ rather than ‘ more, faster, better, and more economically ’"—in the ACFTU resolution of 13 January. It appeared

in the correct form in the Federation’s resolution of 9 February. This would indicate that the slogan was given final form sometime between those dates. However, while it was clearly known early in 1956, it was some while before it was used as an official national

slogan. It is noteworthy that the People’s Daily editorial which accompanied the publication of the ACFTU resolution of 13 January

made no mention of this slogan, although it would certainly have been apposite. 4* The slogan finally emerged with offictal sanction in a People’s Daily editorial on 13 March which stated: After organizing the activity of the masses, it is also necessary to indicate

directions to the masses before they can keep step and achieve grand results. The Party Centre and Chairman Mao instructed us to undertake Socialist construction more, faster, better, and more economically: this is the general direction. *5

It would seem that late February and early March was a time of

32 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

intensive debate in the top leadership about how to get industry moving faster, in step with the agricultural drive. By the end of the debate, the planners had agreed to the launching of national-emula-

tion and advanced-producers’ movements and to the issuing of Mao’s slogan. But they had taken over the leadership of the advanced-producers’ movement, and a wide-ranging survey of the economy had been initiated to precede the preparation of any major

plan to accelerate industrial development. It was this two-month survey that formed the basis of the economic sections of Mao’s

important speech on the ten great relationships at the end of April.*° But already he had privately stated his ultimate objectives: to overtake the United States economically within fifty to seventy-five years,*” and to make China the greatest country in the world.*®

3 THE THAW BEGINS

Mao’s belief that the socialist high tide must inevitably be reflected in an upsurge of production, and the consequent across-the-board

elevation of production targets, made the carefully drawn up and recently announced FYP look somewhat feeble. Yet Mao almost

certainly intended that the forthcoming ‘leap’ should be run through normal channels—the commissions, ministries, and other economic organs set up with Soviet advice. This being the case, China would need all its professional and expert talent, indeed all educated personnel. It would also need the efforts of such dynamic

elements of the rural population as the rich peasants, who had previously been viewed with suspicion but who, with the victory of socialism in sight, could be regarded as having been neutralized.

These two aspects of the economic push led to a series of new * liberalizing’ policies. These measures went further probably than Stalin might have permitted in similar circumstances. This is attribut-

able to the belief so strongly held by Mao that all classes of the Chinese people could be persuaded to support the goals set by the CCP for the nation. }

(i) For the intellectuals During December 1955 the non-communist parties held meetings and passed resolutions, the main burden of which was that the upsurge

of socialism had brought about a new situation in which the intel-

lectuals would be called upon to make greater contributions to socialist construction. On 12 January the People’s Daily started running a series of articles by intellectuals which developed two main themes: while CCP policy towards the intellectuals was in general sound, many party cadres did not attempt to help the intellectuals with their complicated political problems, did not associate with them outside work, did not trust them, and looked down on them; secondly, many improvements were needed in the intellectuals’ living and working conditions, in particular, more pay and better

equipment.

33

34 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

All this was part of the run-up to a large conference held on 14-20 January 1956 and attended by 1,279 party officials called by the CC to discuss the problems of the intellectuals. The main speech was

given by Premier Chou En-lai, who emphasized the shortage of educated manpower available for the national economic effort and outlined the measures the CCP was prepared to take to make the best use of the existing talent.? Chou stated that ‘ the fundamental question concerning the intellectuals now is that the forces of our

intelligentsia are insufficient in number, professional skills and political consciousness to meet the requirements of our rapid socialist construction... .’* and he talked about the need to rectify ‘certain unreasonable features in our present employment and treatment of intellectuals and, in particular, certain sectarian attitudes

among some of our comrades towards intellectuals outside the party ...’° which had prevented the fullest use of the intellectuals. Chou estimated the total force of intellectuals at 3,840,000, of whom 100,000 were higher intellectuals. These figures included all fields, from science and engineering to culture and the arts. ® Chou claimed only some 40 per cent of the total as active supporters of the CCP;

of the remainder, some 40 per cent gave general support to the CCP’s work but were politically unprogressive, a little over 10 per cent were ideological opponents of socialism, leaving just a small percentage whom he characterized as counter-revolutionary.’ The CCP had to help intellectuals to re-educate themselves, but: It is impossible to settle the problem crudely. There are people who persist in their wrong thinking. If they do not turn against the people in speech and action and, even more, if they are prepared to devote their knowledge and energies to serving the people, we must be able to await the gradual

awakening of their consciousness and help them patiently while at the same time criticizing their wrong ideology. ®

The party’s three tasks in mobilizing intellectuals were: to employ

them better; to give them confidence ‘so that they can work with

real initiative’ and could take part in ‘extended academic discussions of socialist construction’; and to ensure better working conditions and appropriate treatment for them. This ‘ appropriate treatment ’ should encompass better living conditions, better services,

better salaries, better job classification and promotion, the conferment of degrees and titles, and the creation of systems for the encouragement of inventions. ® In short, Chou was saying that the party

needed the intellectuals for economic development, and to get the most out of them it had to treat them right. He had no illusions that

THE THAW BEGINS 35

the intellectuals were 100 per cent behind the party ideologically, but as long as they worked hard the party was prepared to tolerate that. Chou En-lai was an appropriate man to say these things. First, as a member of the five-man inner circle of the Politburo he had the prestige to put over this new line to party officials who may well have

been sceptical or opposed; the director of the CC’s Propaganda Department would not have had anything like Chou’s authority. Second, and almost equally important, Chou was more familiar than any of the other members of the top five with the non-communist intellectuals and their attitudes. During the war against the Japanese, he had spent much time in the Nationalist capital of Chungking as the CCP’s main liaison officer. There one of the major tasks of the ‘ affable and persuasive ’ Chou was to elicit support for his cause from non-communist intellectuals and students. His success was considerable; the creation of a political party sympathetic to the

communist cause, the China Democratic League (CDL), was attributed to his work.1° The intellectuals were thus more likely to

have faith in the new policy because it had been enunciated by Chou.

For good measure, Mao spoke on the last day of the CC conference, presumably to put his seal of approval on the new policy. He called on the whole party ‘ to strive to learn scientific knowledge,

to unite with intellectuals outside the party, and to struggle for the early attainment of the advanced scientific levels of the world ’.14 A

few days later Mao told the Supreme State Conference that the * decisive factor ’ in China’s struggle to end backwardness and attain

advanced scientific levels was a sufficient number of high calibre

scientists and technologists. He added in this connection that it was necessary at the same time to consolidate and expand the people’s democratic united front and unite all forces that could be united. 12

Chou En-lai’s speech was followed up with practical measures. Living conditions of intellectuals were improved; salaries were increased; political, social, and administrative duties were reduced; working conditions were improved. 12 Unemployed intellectuals were sought out and jobs were found for them.++4 Intellectuals were even

encouraged to apply to join the CCP.1° In line with Mao’s concern with science, a planning committee for scientific development was set up later in the year to formulate a twelve-year plan for the natural and social sciences. 1

36 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(ii) In the countryside In the countryside the new liberalism meant taking the pressure off the rich peasants in order to enlist their initiative and skills in the production drive. The change in the policy towards them can be seen by comparing a number of documents. In the draft regulations for APCs adopted by the NPC’s standing committee on 9 November 1955, section 3 of article 11 on ‘ membership’ stated: During its first few years the APC shall not accept former landlords and

rich peasants as members. Former landlords whose status has been changed according to law and rich peasants who have for many years given up exploitation may be admitted individually into the APC but only

when the APC in question is firmly established, and when over threequarters of the working peasants in that particular township (hsiang) and county have joined APCs, and after a general meeting of members has examined their cases and approved their applications and this decision has been examined by the county people’s council. 1’? (Emphasis added.)

But in the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme published less than three months later, article 4 stated: Attempts should be made to solve during 1956 the question of admitting to the APCs those former landlords and rich peasants who have abandoned exploitation and have requested to join. The lines of solution are as follows:

(a) those who have conducted themselves well and work well may be allowed to join APCs as members and to change their status to that of peasants, (b) those who conduct themselves fairly well may be allowed to join as candidate members. . . .18

Within a few months an exclusionist policy towards former landlords and rich peasants had been reversed. In November even the most worthy rich peasants could not join until the passage of a few years; in January 1956 only the worst could not join immediately even though the new APCs could hardly have been described as ‘firmly established’. The latter position was confirmed when the model regulations for collectives were passed at the NPC in June 1956;1°% Minister of Agriculture Liao Lu-yen explained the change by

stating that the former landlords and rich peasants had become isolated, and realized it, as a result of the high tide of collectivization. 79

Even rural counter-revolutionaries benefited from the CCP’s feelings of self-confidence after the victory of the high tide. The November regulations for APCs did not mention membership for them; they simply noted that ‘ disenfranchised ’ persons would not be accepted. 2! But in the Twelve-Year Programme a similar type of provision was made for them as for rich peasants. The really bad,

THE THAW BEGINS 37

unrepentant counter-revolutionaries were to be kept in detention, but the remainder could be admitted to the APCs in various capacities depending on their crimes—and this despite the fact that as recently as 1955, the country had witnessed the second major drive against counter-revolutionaries since the inception of the regime. 2? In his speech on the intellectuals, outlining the four achievements of the struggle against right opportunism, Chou En-lai listed first the success of the drive against counter-revolutionaries and expected that they would be wiped out on a nation-wide scale within the following two years. 23

The absorption of former landlords, rich peasants, and counterrevolutionaries into APCs was not popular among rural cadres and the more militant peasants.?4 Comments by them included such remarks as: The party’s policy is correct, but leniency towards former landlords, rich peasants and counter-revolutionaries would let them get away with their wrongs too easily.

We have fought the battle, but they try to occupy the throne.

We have worked hard from Mutual Aid Teams to lower APCs and from lower APCs to higher APCs [i.e. collectives], but they come to the top only by one step.

Others were afraid that trouble would result from the absorption of such bad elements. 75

In attempting to allay these fears, propagandists emphasized first the fundamental change in the political situation that had taken place as a result of the ‘ high tide’ of socialism. This had undermined the confidence of former landlords, rich peasants, and counter-revolutionaries, and the adoption of the policy of leniency was further splitting their ranks. But they also stressed the economic importance of the former landlords and rich peasants in terms of sheer numbers: they totalled forty million people or a little under 10 per cent of the rural population. 2° Clearly the regime could never have allowed so large and potentially dynamic a segment of the peasantry to remain outside the collective system.

(iii) Life becomes more colourful Symbolic of the new relaxed national mood was a drive to make clothing more stylish and colourful. A meeting arranged by the Youth League and the Women’s Federation on 1 February decided that current fashions did not reflect the growing colourfulness and happiness of the Chinese people in their new life. Beautiful clothes

38 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

had nothing in common with bourgeois decadence. A fashion show was arranged for mid-March, but the entries were so numerous that later it had to be postponed till the end of that month. ?? In May Liu Shao-ch’i told broadcasting officials: ‘ Radio broadcasts should have a close connection with the people’s thought, life and needs... For example, many people in Peking are rather concerned with fashions lately. It is up to you not to let go this and similar topics... .’28 A western writer visiting China later in the year witnessed the effect of the new line when he attended a dance at which girls wore flowered blouses and even, in a few cases, cheong-sams, slit to an inch above the knee. 2°

PARAND THE CHINESE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS REACTIONS

By the end of January 1956 the CCP was embarked on a programme of domestic liberalization. Underlying this thaw was the leadership’s confidence that it had consolidated its power, and its analysis of the

demands imposed by the accelerated production drive. The particular beneficiaries of the new mood included businessmen, intel-

lectuals, rich peasants, and even counter-revolutionaries. But probably the Chinese people as a whole welcomed the new atmosphere! after the Spartan sternness of the previous six years. Into this limpid pool of national harmony and self-congratulation, Nikita Khrushchev dropped a giant rock—his denunciation of Stalin in his “secret speech ’ to the Soviet party’s 20th Congress. Years later the

Chinese were to state: ‘The truth is that the whole series of differences of principle in the international communist movement began more than seven years ago. To be specific, it began with the 20th Congress of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] in 1956.’ 2

(i) Chu Teh in the Soviet Union At a meeting on 27 and 28 January 1956, presumably in Moscow, representatives of all communist countries were informed by the CPSU about a recent decision taken by the Soviet leaders to criticize Stalin directly.? These representatives would not have included the principal Chinese delegates to the 20th Congress, Marshal Chu Teh, the deputy head of state, and party Secretary-General Teng Hsiaop’ing, who had not then arrived in Moscow. But even if the Chinese leaders had been there they would not have been informed about the

lengths to which Khrushchev would go in denouncing Stalin, because the decision to make the ‘ secret speech ’ was taken after the

20th Congress began on 14 February and probably not more than twenty-four hours before it was delivered early on 25 February. * By the time Marshal Chu Teh presented the Chinese greetings to the congress on 15 February, he had heard Khrushchev’s political report, which gave Stalin what amounted to a polite brush-off; he 39

40 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

had not yet heard the far stronger attack on the cult of the individual which Mikoyan was to make on 16 February® and the secret speech was still ten days off. At some stage before the secret speech, congress

delegates were supplied with the text of the ‘testament’ which Lenin had written in December 1922 and which included some remarks sharply critical of Stalin; a postscript written in January 1923 had suggested that Stalin be dismissed from his post of General

Secretary of the party.® If the distribution of this document took place before Marshal Chu spoke, and he knew about it, this might account for the fact that his speech made no mention of Stalin, whereas the message from the Chinese CC, dated 9 February and signed by Mao, did.’ This message, which had presumably been framed in the light of the information passed out by the CPSU at the meeting of 27-8 January, underlined the complicity of the current leaders of the Soviet Union in Stalin’s actions, presumably in order to stave off attacks on the late dictator: ‘ The consolidation of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and the brilliant success of the Soviet Union in many fields shows the firmness and invincibility of the Soviet Communist party created by Lenin and reared by Stalin and his close comrades-in-arms.’® Marshal Chu Teh, who arrived in Moscow before the politically more astute Teng Hsiao-p’ing, may have been prevailed upon by Khrushchev not to re-emphasize Stalin’s contribution in his speech.® According to Chou En-lai years later, Marshal Chu had agreed with Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin while Teng Hsiao-p’ing had not, but had correctly waited till he got home for instructions. 1°

It was also alleged during the cultural revolution that when Marshal Chu Teh visited Stalin’s home town during his postcongress tour of the Soviet Union and was asked his opinion on the question of Stalin, he had a guilty conscience about agreeing with Khrushchev and so slipped away without daring to answer. 11 By the time Marshal Chu reached Georgia, Teng Hsiao-p’ing had had time to brief his colleagues in Peking!2; if Chu had already expressed agreement with the contents of Khrushchev’s secret speech, it seems quite probable that Teng’s report might have resulted in a cable from Peking warning the Marshal to hold his tongue on the Stalin question until the Chinese Politburo had formally decided on its attitude. What the allegation conceals is that the hapless Chu arrived in Georgia on 7 March,?? right in the middle of serious unrest among Tiflis students over the refusal of the authorities of the city’s Stalin

University to allow any commemoration of the anniversary of

: THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 41 Stalin’s death on 5 March. Protest demonstrations at Stalin’s statue and clashes between students and police forced the authorities to compromise, and permission was given to commemorate Stalin’s

funeral on 9 March. On that day, Zarya vostoka, the local party newspaper, which had ignored the anniversary, carried an editorial on Stalin’s achievements.14 Quite possibly the appearance in Tiflis and Gori (Stalin’s birthplace) of a senior Chinese leader became the occasion of a demonstration from which the Georgian authorities had to spirit him away. If this was the case, it would have been an additional cause of annoyance in Peking at the inept Soviet handling of the Stalin issue. 15

(ii) The issues of peaceful transition and the inevitability of war The Chinese leaders objected to the 20th Congress, according to their

later account, on two main grounds—the ‘complete negation of Stalin ’, and the thesis put forward by Khrushchev regarding the possibility of peaceful transition to socialism. At the time it was the

denunciation of Stalin on which the Chinese concentrated. Mao,

personally, seems to have been obsessed with this issue to the exclusion of others.1® There was no indication that in 1956 the Chinese were worried about the question of peace and war, though this was to be their principal concern when they first started publicly denouncing Soviet theories and policies in 1960.17

On 19 February the People’s Daily commented editorially on Khrushchev’s report, which it described as a historic document, and stated that * the resolute belief that ‘‘ war is not predestined and unavoidable ”’ will rouse millions and tens of millions of defenders of peace in their determined struggle for the universal easing of international tension ’.1® The paper’s editorial at the end of the congress

was rather more qualified in its enthusiasm for this particular Khrushchevite revision of Leninism, but still supported it: A comprehensive analysis of the current international situation is made in the congress’ resolution. It stresses the Marxist-Leninist thesis that ‘ while there is imperialism, there is an economic basis for wars ’. But the resolu’

tion points out at the same time that ‘ war is not fatally inevitable -, because ‘ there exist today powerful social and political forces that have serious means of preventing the imperialists from unleashing war and—

should they try to start it—giving the aggressors a shattering rebuff and frustrating their adventurist plans’. This profound analysis is a tremendously inspiring force for all who hold peace dear.+°

42 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

That the Chinese did not, in 1956, challenge Khrushchev on the question of the inevitability of war—and did not even later claim to have done so—indicates that in the aftermath of the 20th Congress the Chinese Politburo was united 2° in its support of this theoretical justification of peaceful coexistence in the nuclear age. It fitted in with the current Chinese foreign-policy analyses which stressed that

the relaxation of tension was the key factor in the international situation. 21 Retrospectively, the Chinese claimed to have quarrelled ‘in internal discussions ’ with the concept of peaceful transition, seen

by Khrushchev as a corollary of the new line on war not being inevitable, 22 though they did not present the Russians with a formal

‘Qutline on the question of peaceful transition’ till November 1957, 23

The Chinese failure to dispute publicly the issue of peaceful transi-

tion, or even to publish their position as they did on the Stalin question, is understandable. Since 1954 China had been cultivating Closer relations with its Asian neighbours. Chou En-lai had visited

New Delhi and Rangoon in June 1954, and Premiers Nehru and U Nu had gone to China later in the same year. Between them, the three governments formulated the five principles of peaceful coexistence. At the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955, Chou En-lai emerged as the star of the proceedings, outshining even his ‘ sponsor’ Nehru.?4 Chou’s conciliatory attitude, diplomatic skill, and personal charm impressed initially antagonistic Asian leaders too. 25 His performance was a cardinal step in establish-

ing diplomatic relations with Nepal (1955), Ceylon (1957), and Cambodia (1958), as well as with Egypt, Syria, and the Yemen in the Middle East. 2° This Chinese friendliness towards the neutralist and even the nonneutralist Afro-Asian states had replaced Peking’s earlier denunciations of men like Nehru, U Nu, and Sukarno as imperialist stooges or running dogs.?? It would have seriously undermined the credibility

of this new Chinese posture if Peking had published a statement revealing that it expected that the friendly governments in New Delhi, Rangoon, Jakarta, and elsewhere would ultimately be overthrown by violence. 28 All the Chinese could do at this time 2° was to

reiterate the lessons of their own revolution, to emphasize the inevitability of armed struggle in it, with the implication that what

had happened in China must happen elsewhere. This, they later claimed, was what Liu Shao-ch’i tried to do in his report to the CCP’s 8th Congress in September 1956. *°

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 43

(iii) The Chinese assessment of Stalin In the immediate aftermath of the 20th Congress, the Chinese were probably too much preoccupied with the Stalin issue to take up what may have seemed more academic points in the perspective of current Chinese foreign policy. Nor would this be surprising. The denunciation of Stalin in Khrushchev’s secret speech threw the whole communist movement into a ferment and faced the Chinese with the particular problem of distinguishing Mao’s role from that of Stalin. The Chinese leadership took a little over a month after the return of Secretary-General Teng Hsiao-p’ing from Moscow on 3 March to draw up its analysis of the Stalin question. Published in the People’s Daily on 5 April under the title ‘ On the historical experience of the

dictatorship of the proletariat ’, it was written on the basis of a discussion at an enlarged meeting of the Chinese Politburo. 31 Mme Liu Shao-ch’i has stated that her husband participated in the drafting, 32 while the chief drafter was Hu Ch’iao-mu, a deputy director

of the party’s Propaganda Department and the author of the only semi-official party history.? Mao later expressed his entire agreement with the article; ** certainly its doctrinal underpinning, with its

emphasis on the theory of contradictions to explain the genesis of Stalin’s mistakes, bore his imprint. He would himself make a major speech on the subject of contradictions within a year.*° All this, coupled with the absence of attacks on anyone during the cultural revolution for writing or contradicting this article, indicates that the Chinese leadership was broadly in agreement on the Stalin issue. One major objective of the People’s Daily article was, in the words

of a western commentator, ‘to be sure that the Communist baby would not be thrown out with the Stalinist bath water ’. ?® The article

attempted to restore perspective on Stalin’s career, assigning him credit for achievements which entitled him still to be described as an ‘oustanding Marxist-Leninist fighter’, but acknowledging that he had committed a number of major errors. These included: excessively widening the scope of the suppression of counter-revolution; lack of vigilance before the German attack on the Soviet Union; neglect of agriculture and peasant living standards; wrong advice in the international communist movement, and, especially, a wrong decision on Yugoslavia. *’7 The Chinese doubtless hoped, in vain as it turned out,

that their balanced approach would prevent destalinization from becoming the basis for general attacks on the communist system. The accompanying theoretical analysis of the origins of Stalin’s mistakes was similarly designed to give an ideological perspective

44 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

which had been lacking in Khrushchev’s secret speech, to help communists everywhere to see the Stalin problem whole. They had to be reassured that for all its imperfections, the proletarian dictatorship

was ‘always far superior to all dictatorships of the exploiting classes ’.?® For communists, Russians included, whether they accepted the Chinese analysis or not, the article itself may have seemed like a first attempt at establishing Peking as a fount of doctrinal guidance on at least an equal footing with Moscow. ®° But for the Chinese leaders, however worried they may have been about the shock waves reverberating throughout the international

communist movement, the immediate crucial issues raised by Khrushchev’s secret speech were the position of Mao and the lessons

that they could learn from Stalin’s mistakes. To defend Mao, the article pointed out that, as early as June 1943, the party’s CC had taken a decision on questions of leadership which was precisely opposed to the ‘ elevation of oneself, individualist heroism and the cult of the individual ’.4° The implication was that Mao, who was carefully not mentioned anywhere in the article, had led the fight in

the Chinese party against the very sin of which Stalin was now accused. For Chinese party members the implication would have been crystal clear, because they would have known from their copies of Mao’s Selected Works that the CC decision in question had been

written by Mao himself.4! The 5 April article also affirmed that in China, the Stalinist error of directing the main blow so as to isolate the middle-of-the-road forces had been committed by men other than Mao and almost exclusively during the period before Mao became the principal Chinese leader.*2 Other serious mistakes by Chinese party leaders were equally attributed primarily to the preMao period. Right opportunism during the war against Japan was blamed on Wang Ming and was said to have been corrected in a comparatively short time. 43 The article did not merely absolve Mao from Stalin’s errors; it also asserted the positive role of leaders: Marxist-Leninists hold that leaders play a big role in history. The people and their parties need forerunners who are able to represent the interests and will of the people, stand in the forefront of their historic struggles and serve as their leaders. It is utterly wrong to deny the role of the individual, the role of forerunners and leaders. *4

In discussing the lessons to be learned from the CPSU’s struggle against the ‘ cult of the individual ’, the Chinese drew both general and particular conclusions. Their general theoretical point was that a

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 45

socialist society could contain contradictions—in this case the contradiction between the socialist system and the cult of the individual—and that any idea to the contrary was naive.*°® The theory that contradictions were possible under socialism was not new for Mao; he had suggested it as early as 1937 and reaffirmed his belief in 1952.46 But this assertion went counter to the doctrine of Stalin and his successors, *’ and it was excised by the Russians when they reproduced ‘ On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat ’.4* This doctrinal difference was to persist (see pp. 176, 316).

The practical lessons derived by the Chinese from Khrushchev’s secret speech concerned methods of leadership. They emphasized the

importance of persisting in the ‘mass line’ to avoid subjectivist methods of the kind that led to Stalin divorcing himself from the people. The ‘ mass line ’ meant summing up (i.e. coordinating and systematizing after careful study) the views of the masses (i.e. views scattered and unsystematic), then taking the resulting ideas back to the masses, explaining and popularizing them until the masses embrace the ideas as their own, stand up for them and translate them into action by way of testing their correctness. *?

And it meant repeating this process over and over again. It was particularly necessary to practise the mass line after a communist party had come to power because then the leading personnel of the Party and the state, beset by bureaucratism from many sides, face the great danger of using the machinery of state to take arbitrary action, alienating themselves from the masses and collective

leadership, resorting to commandism, and violating Party and state democracy. °°

This was of course what Stalin had done, at the cost of countless lives of his fellow countrymen. The crucial question for the Chinese was

what practical steps they should take to ensure that their party members adhered to the mass line and avoided repeating Stalin’s errors. The article said only that it was necessary ‘ to establish certain systems [chih-tu]’.°1 The establishment of those * systems’ was to

become Mao’s main preoccupation over the succeeding twelve months. But the article gave an immediate warning against dogmatism in the application of Marxism-Leninism; in practice this seemed to be an injunction to avoid the leftist deviation of only struggling against and not also uniting with middle-of-the-roaders. *?

The warning in the 5 April article about the dangers of subjectivism, bureaucratism, and dogmatism would not have come as a

46 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

surprise to the more senior party members with memories of the campaigns of 1942-4 and 1950 which had been designed to rectify their style of work; subjectivism, of which dogmatism was a principal manifestation, and bureaucratism (or party formalism) were two of

the three evils attacked by Mao in the speeches with which he launched the 1942-4 campaign. 5? Such party members may well have wondered as they read ‘ On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat ’ if it presaged a new rectification movement.

(iv) Mao’s position after the 20th Congress The implicit exoneration of Mao of any suspicion of being another

Stalin is not hard to understand. In the eyes of Khrushchev, his secret speech suggests, Stalin’s greatest sin was to replace the leader-

ship of the party by his personal dictatorship, executing or imprisoning thousands of loyal party cadres in the process.®°* Mao could not be accused of this crime. He had proved that he could work with former rivals and antagonists. Years later Foreign Minister Ch’en Yi*>5 was to praise Mao’s magnanimity as one of his greatest qualities: There is also one more important reason why he [Mao] has become the leader of the entire Chinese people and the leader of the world’s people. It is that he doesn’t remember the old hatred and the old evils. > The greatest significance of the thought of Mao Tse-tung lies in the fact that when others struggled against him and he was wronged, he did not retaliate and was not rash in clarifying the situation. ®’ Chairman Mao is a man who has been attacked the most. He is one who

has been most humiliated, wronged and maltreated....He had been dismissed from his post, retained in the Party for observation, pronounced

an opportunist, disgraced, and sent to the rear for rest and visited by nobody, because nobody dared to get close to him. But when he assumed

power, all comrades patched up the difference with him, yet he didn’t

allow others to apologise to him. 58 |

Speaking as he was in August and September 1966, at the outset of the cultural revolution, Ch’en Yi may well have been trying to halt or at least to restrain the purge of the top leadership that was already under way. But even if that was his motive, there is no doubt that his description of Mao’s tolerant attitude towards former oppcnents did correspond to reality. In 1956 the Chinese top leadership included men like Chou En-lai and Chang Wen-t’ien, who had been bitter opponents of Mao in the early 1930s. Men like Li Li-san and Wang Ming, who had been leaders of the CCP, were still members of its CC.

The contrast between Stalin and Mao in their treatment of their

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 47

colleagues and opponents was striking. Mao’s insistence on uniting with all former opponents who could be united with had given the CCP a stable leadership for twenty years. The only member of the Politburo to have been purged since the regime came to power, Kao Kang, was almost certainly a victim of his own ambition to replace

both Liu Shao-ch’i and Chou En-lai and become Mao’s senior lieutenant. °* It is precisely Mao’s long-time concentration on keeping China’s leaders united that makes it important to explain why he

came to sanction the destruction of that unity during the cultural revolution. One of the most persistent accusations against Liu Shao-ch’i and other leaders during the cultural revolution was that they attempted

to diminish Mao’s position in the aftermath of the CPSU’s 20th Congress. ®° The concentration of the Maoists on this issue suggests

that it was of real moment to the Chairman himself and may have been one of the factors that finally led him to purge so many of his colleagues during the cultural revolution. In a speech on music later in 1956 in which he condemned slavish borrowing from abroad, Mao

chose to drive home its evil effects with an example not from the cultural field but from politics. He reminded his audience of the disasters that befell the Chinese revolution when the party blindly copied foreigners (i.e. the Russians). It was a strong hint to his colleagues not to copy the Russians’ latest political measures (i.e. destalinization).™

But outwardly, in the spring of 1956, there was nothing to indicate that the Chinese leadership felt that it had to do anything more about the cult of Mao than provide the strong defence argued in ‘ On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat ’. At the May Day celebrations a few weeks later, the portrait of Mao again adorned the T’ien An Men. The crowds still carried banners and shouted slogans wishing Chairman Mao a long life. °* Over the course of the next year foreign visitors reported

considerable evidence that there had been no diminuendo in the popular acclaim for Mao. *®* It was probably the very lack of any visible impact in China of the demolition of the Stalin cult in the Soviet Union that led a Chinese businessman to comment: ‘ The personality cult made Stalin very sick. Why is it that the leaders of China still want the cult.’ ®+ What this remark underlines is that there were prominent Chinese who had no inkling that there was a debate within the top leadership over falling into line with the CPSU on the

question of the personality cult.

48 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

What is more, Mao himself felt secure enough to criticize the secret speech in talks with Mikoyan when he arrived in Peking on 6 April, the day after the publication of ‘On the historical experience... ’°. He re-emphasized the point made in the article that Stalin’s merits outweighed his faults and insisted that it was necessary to ‘ make a concrete analysis ’ and ‘ an all-round evaluation’ of Stalin. °° The fact that Mikoyan was in Peking to sign a new econmic assistance agreement does not seem to have inhibited Mao.

(v) The ten great relationships The thaw in China was in the first instance a consequence of a change in the domestic political situation and the launching of a massive production drive. But after the 20th Congress Mao was forced to devote more attention to the question of the party’s relationship to the people as a problem in its own right. Not until after the Hungarian revolt in the autumn of 1956 did this question come to preoccupy him to the virtual exclusion of other topics. But already in late April and early May he was making his first policy proposals designed to prevent the abuses of Stalin’s Russia—as outlined in the secret speech—from being duplicated in China. The proposals were presented in two major speeches: ‘ On the ten great relationships ’, on 25 April, and ‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend ’, on 2 May. The speech on the ten great relationships, ®°* made to an enlarged

meeting of the Politburo,*’ exhibited Mao’s twin concern for economic development and domestic harmony. The first five relationships dealt with the problems of speeding up industrial construction,

indicating that economic development was still his prime interest; they will be discussed later (pp. 57 ff.) The second half of the speech,

as Liu Shao-ch’i later confirmed,*® showed Mao beginning to grapple with the problem of the correct handling of contradictions among the people, a problem which was to be his principal concern for the next year and a half.

In policy terms, the most important of the five relationships concerning contradictions among the people®® dealt with the relationship between the party and non-party people, by whom Mao specifically meant members of the ‘ democratic parties’ and ‘ independent democrats’ without party affiliations.?7° The democratic parties were eight non-communist parties, whose membership was

almost exclusively drawn from the bourgeoisie, but which had opposed Chiang Kai-shek during the last years of the Nationalist

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 49

regime and had collaborated with the CCP to form a ‘ united front ’

government in 1949.7! Three of the six deputy chairmen of the Central People’s Government Council—the Council took the place of a head of state at that time—were non-communists, and also two out of the four deputy premiers of the State Administrative Council, even though such positions turned out to carry little real power. *?

After the reorganization of the government which followed the adoption of the constitution in 1954, even the titular roles of the noncommunists were less imposing. There was only one deputy head of

state, a communist, Chu Teh; none of the deputy premiers was a non-communist.

A discussion of the role of the democratic parties was timely. With the achievement of the socialist revolution in sight, theoretically the bourgeoisie should have been about to disappear as a class. 7

If the bourgeoisie was about to disappear, the parties which represented it should be about to disappear too. Mao, however, had other ideas: The question is: Is the one party system better than a multi-party system? At present it seems that it is better to have several parties. This was so in the past and will be so in the future until the natural disappearance of all political parties. This long-term coexistence and mutual supervision of the communist and other parties are a good thing. **

Mao’s bald statement that ‘ it is better’ to have several parties was to be given a theoretical if un-Marxist justification by Liu Shao-ch’1 in his report to the 8th Congress in September in which he said: After the completion of socialist transformation, members of the national bourgeoisie and the upper strata of the petty-bourgeoisie will become a section of the socialist working people; and the democratic parties will become parties of this section of the working people. Since survivals of bourgeois ideology will linger on for a long time in the minds of this part of working people, there will be need for the democratic parties, over a long period, to keep in touch with them, represent them, and help them to remould themselves. ?®

Mao, however, was concerned more with practical politics than with

theoretical justifications. He pointed out that the members of democratic parties sometimes opposed CCP policies, but later supported them out of patriotism. What was clear was that Mao valued the continued expression of the views of this ‘ opposition ’,

though the full reasons for this were not spelled out until Teng Hsiao-p’ing made his speech to the 8th Congress in September (see pp. 114-19). For the moment Mao simply said:

50 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The relationship between the Communist party and the democratic parties must be improved. We must allow the democratic parties to express

their own views. As long as they are reasonable, we would accept their views regardless of whose views they are. This would be a rational attitude

for the party, the state, and people, and for socialism.’* (Emphasis added.)

He concluded his discussion on this point with an exhortation to comrades in general and provincial secretaries in particular to grasp, review, reshape, and promote united front work. In this section of his speech Mao was initiating a major new policy

of ‘long-term coexistence and mutual supervision’ between the CCP and non-communist parties. But he was not advocating, as the italicized phrase in the above quotation shows, that the non-communist parties should rain all sorts of criticisms down upon the heads

of CCP members. He was similarly restrained in other relevant sections of his speech. Discussing revolution and counter-revolution (relationship eight), he rejected the idea that the execution of counterrevolutionaries in the past (or, if necessary, in the future) could be condemned; however, he did argue that labour reform was broadly

preferable and in his discussion of right and wrong (relationship nine), he stressed the importance of people being given a second chance and being helped to correct their mistakes. 7? Mao’s analysis of the relationship between the Chinese (Han) and

minority nationalities (relationship six) emphasized the need to eliminate chauvinism on the part of the Chinese. Local nationalism also existed, but it was not important. Mao revealed that there had been a review of work in this field two or three years previously; he proposed that there should be another. ’® Here again was the modera-

tion characteristic of the new political climate: those with power, in

this case the Han cadres in minority areas, should behave with restraint.

Finally, in a discussion of the relationship between China and foreign countries (relationship ten), Mao advocated greater learning from abroad and the study of more foreign languages. Since there

had already been considerable absorption of knowledge from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, this was effectively a proposal to study the achievements of the capitalist west and to learn western languages. China was * poor ’—-underdeveloped in industry and agriculture—and * blank ’—with low standards in modern culture

and science. But blank paper was ideal for writing on; in other words, China could take advantage of the best the world had to

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 51 offer. ’® In making this point, Mao was exhibiting the self-confidence gained by the Chinese leadership as a result of their socialist victories. They were now less concerned about their people being corrupted by

study of the west and so could promote a policy which would help China’s economic development. But Mao’s advocacy of this course probably also reflected a certain lessening of confidence in the Soviet Union, brought about both by the revelations of the secret speech

and by the incompetent way in which the Soviet leadership had handled the Stalin issue.

(vi) ‘Let ahundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend °*

One week later Mao followed up the second half of his ten great relationships speech with a programmatic statement to encourage freedom of expression in the intellectual sphere. This was his famous ‘ hundred flowers ° speech, made to a closed session of the Supreme

State Conference on 2 May. The speech had been preceded by a series of measures taken by the CCP to implement the new line towards the intellectuals outlined by Chou En-lai in January, particularly with regard to creative writers. The CCP may have taken those steps partly also in response to new currents in Soviet literary

policy; this was the impression given by speeches to the second session of the Council of the Chinese Writers’ Union (27 February—

6 March), including the opening report by Chou Yang, the deputy director of the party’s Propaganda Department in charge of culture, on the task of building a socialist literature.8° Just before the conclusion of the council session, Liu Shao-ch’i gave a directive to Chou Yang and a colleague on the development of creative work. *! Liu emphasized that China’s writers must be knowledgeable and sophisticated and he seemed prepared to give a generous interpretation to the requirement that they gain ‘ realistic ’ experience of life in farm and factory: *.... any length of period, however short, may suffice. If the

writers and artists cannot stand hardships, they may go in automobiles and may eat and sleep in their cars ’.*? Liu reaffirmed the right of the CCP to interfere with culture on political grounds, but

ordered that in future political attacks should be backed up by formal documents outlining the critical opinions of the party organization, if one were involved. The critical opinions of individual party members, however senior, could be rejected both by the author and by the CCP’s literary authorities. This instruction clearly gave

greater leeway to the more daring writer. But Liu had no greater

52 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

illusions about the political complexion of writers than Chou En-lai had had two months earlier: ‘ Now that workers, peasants, and even capitalists display so much fervour for socialism, the writers, sup-

posedly moulders of the human soul, are lagging behind them all instead ... This problem is worthy of note.’ ®* More importantly, it is possible that, under the guise of giving writers more freedom, Liu was attempting to give men like Chou Yang more self-assurance in

the event of Mao intervening on individual cultural issues, as he seems to have done in earlier years. °4 Three days later, on 8 March, shortly after the start of a National Modern Drama Festival in Peking, °° Liu issued a directive on drama

to the party organization of the Ministry of Culture in which he sanctioned a great degree of tolerance in the staging of plays and the showing of films, and called for the promotion of traditional Chinese painting in line with the blooming of a * hundred flowers ’: There should not be any drastic revision of plays. Any harmless play may

be staged. Harmful ones may also be staged after minor alterations in certain places. Some old plays have rich educational significance and should not be touched. (Those) who are charged with duties to revise plays

in drama and opera troupes should be warned against impetuosity... All cinema films of the world, as long as they are either progressive or harmless, may be imported... The United States meddles with an Iron Curtain, but we donot... Everybody likes Chinese paintings. However, some Chinese painters are not properly settled . .. Our policy is to let 100 flowers bloom, to develop

something new from the old. We cannot afford to erase certain things because they are old. The remoulding of a culture requires strenuous efforts. You can’t build Rome in one day. * Let 100 flowers bloom ” permits coexistence. .. .°4

On 14 March Chou Yang echoed this directive when he told a symposium on literary and art work that it was necessary to study progressive culture in capitalist countries as well as Soviet culture, °7 and also spoke up in favour of traditional culture: ‘ If we want to let

a hundred flowers bloom, the first (essential) is to preserve and uncover the national heritage.’®® The use of the term ‘ hundred flowers ’ by Liu Shao-ch’i and Chou

Yang in early March indicates that the Chinese leadership was planning liberalization in the field of culture well before the Politburo could have had the time to complete its assessment of Khrushchev’s secret speech. At this point the aim may have been limited to reviving

old policies, for the terminology used by Liu—‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom, to develop something new from the old’ (pai hua

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 53

ch’i-fang, tui ch’en ch’u hsin), usually rendered ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, weed out the old and raise the new ’—was coined by Mao in the early 1950s to define policy towards drama.*®® By the time Mao had altered this slogan to ‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend ’ for his speech on 2 May, the Chinese

leadership was more directly concerned to map out its policy of liberalization in the intellectual sphere in the context of destalinization in the Soviet Union. According to Chou Yang, the May varia-

tion of the slogan was specifically formulated in the light of the criticism of Stalin at the 20th Congress. ®° Liu Shao-ch’i described the evolution of the slogan to history students at Peking University on 13 May in these terms: 100 schools of thought did contend as early as during the period of Ch’un-

ch’iu and the Warring States.°1 The slogan ‘100 schools of thought contend ’ was first advanced by Ch’en Po-ta. Subsequently, Chairman Mao improved on it and put forward the policy of ‘ Let 100 flowers bloom; let 100 schools of thought contend ’. There have been very many things that were not thought of by Chairman Mao. He merely improved on them. ??

Mao himself acknowledged the antiquity of the hundred schools idea, but Liu’s phrasing again indicated a desire to diminish his role. According to Liu, the main objective of the hundred schools policy was ‘ to oppose doctrinairism and to avoid confining ourselves to one

school of thought ’.°4 Certainly opposition to doctrinairism (or dogmatism) was a key theme when the director of the party’s Propaganda Department, Lu Ting-yi, made the major public statement of the new policy on 26 May to an audience of academics, writers, and

professional men. Since Mao’s earlier speech had not been published—no text emerged even during the cultural revolution—Lu Ting-yi’s exposition, entitled simply ‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend ’, was the only guide most Chinese

intellectuals had to the greater latitude they were now being allowed. °° Despite cultural revolution allegations to the contrary, Lu Ting-yi’s speech probably gave a fair representation of what Mao said (see App. 1, pp. 92-6). Lu Ting-yi explained that ‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom’ applied

to writers and artists and ‘Let a hundred schools contend’ to scientists. °® He stated that the reason for the policy was that the country needed a flourishing art, literature, and science, among other

things, if it were to be prosperous and strong. If art, literature, and science were to flourish, the flowers and schools policy was needed, for it would promote independent thinking, debate, and creative

c

54 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

work. Art, literature, and science were weapons in the class struggle in class societies, but we hold that a strict distinction must be made between the battle of ideas among the people and the struggle against counter-revolutionaries. ... Provided he is not a counter-revolutionary, everyone is free to expound

materialism or idealism....We must suppress and put an end to the activities of counter-revolutionaries. We also have to wage a struggle against backward, idealist ways of thinking among the people. The latter struggle can be quite sharp, too; but we embark on it with the intention of strengthening unity, ending backwardness and creating an ever closer unity among the people. When it comes to questions of ideas, administrative measures will get us nowhere. °?

Why was the policy advanced at this time? Lu Ting-yi made no reference to the 20th Congress, but he said there were four factors: the decisive victory in socialist transformation—within a few years all exploiting classes would be wiped out; the fundamental change in the political outlook of the Chinese intellectuals—here Lu based himself on Chou En-lai’s report in January; the teeth of the domestic class enemy had been drawn, though the class struggle continued; the

political and ideological unity of the people had been greatly strengthened and grew stronger every day. °*® The policy was designed to mobilize all positive elements; therefore it was a policy that would

strengthen unity on the basis of patriotism and socialism. Quoting at length from Mao’s speech opening the 1942-4 rectification campaign, Lu Ting-yi stated that some Communist party members had much to learn about the promotion of unity and the avoidance of ‘sectarianism’, or discrimination against non-party people.®® As guidelines for party members, he stated that the natural sciences had no class

character and therefore it was wrong to label biological or other scientific theories as ‘feudal’ or ‘ capitalist’. As for art and literature,

the party demanded only that they should serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers, together with the intellectuals; there were

no restrictions on subject matter:

With regard to works of art and literature, the Party has only one point to make, that is, that they should ‘ serve the workers, peasants and soldiers ’, or, in terms of today, serve the working people as a whole, intellectuals included. Socialist realism, in our view, is the most fruitful creative method, but it is not the only method. Provided he sets out to meet the needs of the workers, peasants and soldiers, the writer can choose whatever method he thinks will best enable him to write well, and he can vie with others. As to subject matter, the Party has never set limits to this. It is not right to lay down such dicta as: write only about workers, peasants and soldiers; write

only about the new society; or write only about new types of people. If : literature and art are to serve the workers, peasants and soldiers, it stands 7

THE SOVIET 20TH CONGRESS 55 to reason that we must praise the new society and positive people. But at the same time we must also criticize the old society and negative elements; we must praise what is progressive and criticize what is backward. So the choice of subject matter in literature is extremely wide. Creative writing deals not only with things that really exist, or that once existed, but also with things that never existed—the gods in the heavens, animals and birds who talk and so on.... As for questions relating to the specific characteristics of art and literature, the creation of the typical, and so on, they must be the subject of free discussion among writers and artists, letting them freely hammer out differences of opinion till they gradually reach agreement, 19°

Lu was vaguer about the sensitive fields of philosophy and the social sciences; he could only warn party members against monopolizing

them and state that the CC would not be issuing an official party history. This latter item of information was divulged to help correct the unsatisfactory state of modern historical studies: Modern history is an extremely important branch of social science, but we have not achieved much in the past few years in this field. I hear that people are expecting the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to compile a textbook on the history of the Party, after which they propose to write books on modern history based on it. Please don’t wait any more. The Central Committee is not going to compile any such textbook. All it is going to do is to publish a chronicle of events of the Party and collections

of documents. Our scholars who specialize in modern history should, therefore, get down to independent study of the various problems of modern history. And in research in modern history, too, the policy of letting a hundred schools contend must apply; no other will do.+°1

Here, certainly, was a direct response to the 20th Congress, for even

in its open meetings there had been attacks on Stalinist historiography. /°?

Lastly, Lu dealt with the question of criticism and study. He warned against both excessive and lukewarm criticism, citing the three most important speeches made by Mao in connection with the 1942—4 rectification campaign 1° and ‘On the historical experience...’

as models. In study, dogmatism was clearly the main danger, and here Lu recommended for reading the same three Mao speeches together with the * Resolution on some questions in the history of our party ’ adopted by a CC plenum in 1945; these documents would

enable people to distinguish between dogmatism and MarxismLeninism. Lu pointed out how much cause the Chinese party had to rue dogmatism: There are still, however, many shortcomings and mistakes in our study of Marxism-Leninism, and the main defect is a tendency to doctrinairism.... During the period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in our country,

56 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION the Chinese revolution nearly foundered on doctrinairism. It was, and is, a bitter enemy of Marxism-Leninism. We must not forget that painful experience, 1°4

In this passage one can see how the Chinese leaders, especially Mao,

must have linked Khrushchev’s denunciations with their own experience. The Chinese party had almost been wiped out while being led by Moscow-trained men, or men operating on the basis of

Comintern directives who had adopted Stalinist-style methods in dealing with opponents like Mao. The result, as Lu pointed out, was

near-disaster. Remembering what damage Stalinism (or dogmatism) had done to their revolution, the Chinese leaders must have been ready to accept that it could be equally harmful to the running

of a communist state. When he gained control of the party in the late 1930s, Mao acted to eliminate Stalinism with a rectification campaign. With the Khrushchev revelations before him—however much he may have regretted the manner in which they were divulged —Mao must have begun to wonder how best to eliminate Stalinism ~ in the running of the Chinese state. What is striking about Lu Ting-yi’s speech, apart from its general tone of moderation and reasonableness, is its repeated harking back to the rectification campaign of 1942-4. This had also been a feature of ‘ On the historical experience. . .’, but in it only two of the three

evils attacked during that campaign had been singled out—subjectivism (especially dogmatism) and bureaucratism. In Lu Ting-yi’s

presentation, in addition to the renewed attack on dogmatism, the third evil—sectarianism—had been denounced. The following month a CC notification prescribed the study of the five documents mentioned by Lu Ting-yi—Mao’s three rectification

speeches, the resolution on party history, and the 5 April appraisal of Stalin—for party members above the level of hsien secretary, in

higher and middle party schools, and for students of graduating classes in institutions of higher education. The declared objective was to raise the Marxist-Leninist level of party and state cadres and to guarantee the victorious implementation of socialist construction and transformation. 1°® Thus by mid-1956 Mao had made two major policy proposals relating to the problems raised by the 20th Congress

—‘ Long-term coexistence and mutual supervision’ and ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend ’—and the party had initiated a process of study of rectification documents which may already have been envisaged by Mao as the basis for a new rectification campaign at some future date.

b MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS

In late April 1956 the economy was still Mao’s main concern. It was

surely no accident that the first five of the ten great relationships dealt with economics. Moreover the consultations that preceded the

speech suggest that originally Mao had intended it to deal solely with economics. According to Mao, the Politburo had spent two months listening to work reports from thirty-four central departments on finance and economics. After several discussions in the Politburo, these reports had been summarized into the ten relationships. 1 But it is difficult to believe that the work reports on finance

and economics could have had much bearing, except in the most general way, on the second half of the speech. It seems highly probable that the latter five relationships were worked out by Mao, in consultation with his colleagues, as he pondered what steps to take in the light of the 20th Congress, and were then tacked on to a speech which had started out as the equivalent for industry of the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme. This would explain why the

ten great relationships speech reads far more disconnectedly than Mao’s contradictions speech of February 1957, which was also an

across-the-board survey of national affairs, but which was the product of another ten months of reflection. The bulk of the economic section of Mao’s ten great relationships speech revealed that he and, presumably, in view of the speech’s provenance, a majority of the Politburo were dissatisfied with some of the important policies being pursued by the economic planners. Behind this dissatisfaction lay impatience with the pace of industrial progress. The failure of the planners to raise FYP targets in response

to the victories achieved in the socialization of agriculture and industry annoyed Mao and Liu. In his speech Mao was trying to find ways to accelerate industrial development. The speech was evidence that in late April the production drive was still decidedly under way and Mao still felt able to put pressure on Li Fu-ch’un and the planners.

It was probably in response to Mao’s dissatisfaction that on 12 May a State Economic Commission was set up, charged with the 57

58 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

formulation of annual plans. This was presumably modelled on the equivalent Soviet organization, Gosekonomkommisiya, which had. been set up a year earlier precisely to undermine the power of Soviet long-term planners.? If the Chinese State Economic Commission had been instituted for purely planning reasons, it would have been natural for it to have been set up shortly after its Soviet equivalent. But in May 1955 the Chinese probably saw no need for two planning

organizations. A year later, with the long-term planners proving insufficiently flexible, Mao would have been more likely to have appreciated the advantages of the Soviet device of splitting the planners. Quite possibly Mao hoped to outflank the State Planning Commission on both sides. Very long-term plans, like the Twelve-

Year Agricultural Programme, would set high goals; the State Economic Commission would set high annual targets in an attempt to reach those goals. The intermediate targets of the FYP could thus be bypassed. If that was Mao’s idea, the choice of the first head of the State Economic Commission was an unfortunate one. Po I-po had had long connections with Liu Shao-ch’i, ? and Liu may have pushed him forward as one of the few top economic officials he could hope to influence in favour of accelerated economic development. At a later date, in a different political climate, Po I-po allegedly did find it advantageous to advocate all-out economic development.* But in

1956 Po I-po was still to be counted among the more cautious members of the Chinese leadership, as his long experience of economic affairs would have suggested.*®° His speech to the 1956 NPC

exposed the problems for capital construction caused by the economic drive, and he criticized adventurism. ® At this time the planners

seem to have maintained unity, and while they were not able to resist all Mao’s demands, they did succeed in retaining control of the industrial situation. It is worth contrasting the preparation of the economic first half of the ten great relationships speech with that of the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme. The latter was hammered out by Mao and provincial officials, and the experts appear to have been drawn into the policy-making process at a late stage. In the case of the ten great relationships, the Politburo as a group thrashed out the economic proposals, and on the basis of discussions with the central economic departments, though provincial officials did have a say.’ The ten great relationships speech was also far less specific than the TwelveYear Programme; on the whole it dealt with matters of principle and

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 59

did not specify precise targets. Behind these differences lay Mao’s realization that he knew far less about industry than agriculture, ® and probably also a belief, not to be finally discarded until the great leap forward of 1958, that he had to work within the framework of the Soviet model of industrialization.

(i) The production drive in difficulties There was yet another reason why Mao’s prescriptions for industry

were more general than those for agriculture. The Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme was launched at the beginning of the production drive, before it had begun to run into snags; indeed it was the launching of the programme that had given rise to the excessive enthusiasm that was in turn responsible for many subsequent difficulties. But by the time Mao came to give his prescriptions for industry, the production drive had been running for four months, and the problems were so apparent that it was impossible for him to formulate an industrial programme with specific and highly overoptimistic targets. Those problems were presumably described by

the economic departments in their reports to the Politburo and many of them were raised in the press.

As early as 13 March the People’s Daily, editorializing on the urgent tasks of industrial managements, had talked of disequilibrium between production units, of dislocation in the supply of raw

materials and semi-finished products, of faulty planning, poor quality of products, excessive stocking of raw materials. The paper

urged managers to guide popular enthusiasm for production ‘in such a way that it will maintain a stable and protracted development instead of blowing over like a blast of wind ’.® Three days later the paper criticized officials and managers in charge of light industry for pursuing output increases and neglecting quality and variety.?°

On 18 March the paper’s editorial urged industrial officials to * Work according to circumstances ’ and not simply to issue formalistic calls for more production. 11 The situation seems to have been even more serious in agriculture

because there an extra stimulus in the shape of the Twelve-Year Programme had already been provided. As has been mentioned, the

draft of the Programme had stipulated that views on it had to be collected before 1 April so that it could then be discussed at the CC’s

7th plenum. Clearly the opinions collected suggested that the Programme had acted like an injection of adrenalin, for on 4 April the CC and the State Council had to issue a joint directive on running

60 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

APCs industriously and economically. This was designed to cope with the extravagance, waste, and misapplication of manpower that resulted from the misconception that the Twelve-Year Programme could be ‘ achieved with a single stroke of the hand in two or three years ’.12 The directive pointed out that while APC members in their enthusiasm might not yet mind the extravagance involved in the building of club houses, offices, new houses, and the purchase of large quantities of expensive equipment for cultural and entertainment purposes, when the time came for accounting after the autumn harvest and they found that their incomes had not increased, or had even declined because of all this investment, they would be extremely dissatisfied and their enthusiasm for production might be dampened. As well as roundly condemning the expenditure of labour and money

on cultural and welfare projects, the directive criticized the neglect

of sideline occupations and the setting of unrealistic production targets. In an editorial on the directive on 6 April the People’s Daily stated that conservatism has been combatted with tremendous success during the past

months. However, abuse and distortion of this slogan [i.e. combatting conservatism] must be prevented and opposed and its transformation into means of coercion and means of certain individualists to show themselves off must be prevented and opposed. 14

The suggestion that the slogan attacking conservatism had been distorted was a new line of criticism. Hitherto officials responsible for excessive and wasteful exuberance in the cause of production— for instance managers who neglected quality and variety—had been accused of conservatism itself!+4 Clearly the guilty officials had not been much deterred by this unconvincing accusation and so a new one had to be devised to influence them.

Despite these difficulties in the countryside, Mao was not yet prepared to accept the shelving of the Twelve-Year Programme. At the Advanced Producers’ Conference in late April and early May, Liu described the Programme as * great ’1° and even the conservative-minded Teng Tzu-hui felt compelled to put in an approving word for it.}® Mao must have been made well aware of the problems as the work reports came into the Politburo from the economic departments; and

it may have been annoyance at the limitations that these imposed that led him to clash with Ch’en Yun over financial affairs in April, presumably at one of the Politburo discussion sessions that preceded

the formulation of the ten great relationships. According to one

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 6]

account, Mao and Ch’en Yun had a disagreement about the functions of the Ministry of Finance. Ch’en, who was apparently respon-

sible for overseeing this economic department, rejected Mao’s criticism that the Finance Ministry had hitherto concentrated on controlling administrative costs and neglected the broad questions of economic investment. Ch’en said: ‘ To only emphasise the small

things and not emphasise the big things is wrong, but to only emphasise the big things and not emphasise the small things is also

wrong. Both the big and small should be emphasised.’1’ The quotation is not completely explicit, but it would appear that the dispute was about the need for financial stringency in an economic drive, with Ch’en Yun arguing that there was no point in simply proclaiming economic targets without considering the detailed financial consequences. It is therefore significant that it was the Minister of Finance, Li Hsien-nien, who later made the first public attack on impetuosity. That attack was not to take place until mid-June. In late April Mao still felt able, on the basis of the reports and discussions, to formulate

the ten great relationships and recommend how to accelerate industrial development to the enlarged Politburo conference on 25 April. The principal aim of the economic sections of the speech was to alter investment policy. Within ten months of Li Fu-ch’un’s lengthy exposition and painstaking justification of the first FYP, Mao brushed aside his arguments on two key issues: the allocation of investment as between heavy and light industry, and as between coastal and inland industry. Mao favoured investing more in light industry and coastal centres because the pay-off was likely to be

quicker. He also demanded a shift of resources from defence to economic development, though here Li Fu-ch’un probably welcomed his intervention. To provide incentives for the workers who would produce the higher output, Mao advocated higher wages.

(ii) Heavy v. light industry In his FYP speech, Li Fu-ch’un had justified the allocation of 88-8 per cent of industrial investment to heavy industry and only 11-2 per cent to consumer goods industries in part on the grounds that the foundations of heavy industry were particularly. weak, but also by the argument that there was still considerable unused capacity in light industry. He had insisted that the development of light industry

depended more on increasing the supply of raw materials from agriculture than on investment, for shortages of raw materials were

62 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

a principal reason for under-utilization of capacity in light industry. If a good harvest provided more raw materials than existing equip-

ment could use, then greater expansion of light industry could be considered.+° It is worth noting that Li Fu-ch’un made his report, presumably based on consultation with his Soviet economic:advisers, a few months after the dismissal of Malenkov, one of whose errors

industry. 7°

had been to emphasize light industry at the expense of heavy Mao started his discussion of this topic in placatory fashion:

Heavy industries are the centre of gravity and their development should be given the first priority. We all agree with this. In dealing with the relationship between heavy and light industries and between industry and agricul-

ture, we have not committed any fundamental mistake. We have not repeated the mistakes of some socialist countries which attached excessive

importance to heavy industries at the expense of light industries and agriculture. 24

He stated that while daily necessities were not abundant they were

not in short supply. However, he went on to argue that it was necessary to pay greater attention to, and invest more in, light industry and agriculture than hitherto. This would not amount to undermining the key position of heavy industry. In fact, he argued, if one was really serious about wanting to develop heavy industry, one should invest more money in light industry and agriculture because such investment would yield more capital faster for investment in heavy industry than if one had invested in heavy industry directly in the first place, ‘ (because) the more the output of daily necessities, the more the accumulation (of capital) ’.22 Mao did not deal with Li Fu-ch’un’s arguments that light industry was more dependent on the harvest than on investment and that there was plenty of slack capacity anyway. He probably assumed that the completion of collectivization must guarantee better harvests and was doubtless encouraged by the good harvest of 1955. There is no evidence as to whether Mao’s call for greater investment in light industry and agriculture provoked controversy at the meeting. Mao’s remarks certainly represented an important first attack on the orthodox Stalinist model of industrialization, hitherto accepted by Chinese planners as their own; as such, they must at least have caused confusion, though another eighteen months were to pass before Mao was ready to abandon the Soviet model, lock,

stock, and barrel, in the great leap forward. At any rate, in the summer of 1956 Mao evidently got his way, at least in part, because

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 63

Li Fu-ch’un announced at the NPC on 18 June that the proportions of investment in heavy and light industry would be altered from 8:1 to 7:1,28 Li indicated to the NPC that he was not completely happy about the alterations in his FYP. After reporting on the current state of the

plan, he turned to the discussion of ‘my own views’ (ko-jen ti k’an-fa)?* on three questions, beginning with the heavy industry/ light industry issue. First he conceded Mao’s arguments: it was necessary to improve the life of the people; light industry did yield capital faster, and he even gave examples to buttress this point. But then he returned to his argument of the previous year on the crucial importance of raw materials, giving statistical evidence to show how the harvest had determined the rate of growth of light industry in the past. 2° Having thus justified the original proportions of the FYP, he said that with the collectivization problem solved, light industry could be speeded up on the basis of an accelerated development of

agricultural production; and turning from the personal to the official, he announced that the state was prepared (kKuo-chia chun-pei)

that year and next to alter the proportions of investment ‘in the circumstances of the simultaneous expansion of the scale of construction of light and heavy industry ’.2® He did not, however, concede the need for greater investment in agriculture. Li Fu-ch’un’s retreat seems not to have been sufficient to persuade

his subordinates, presumably instilled with Soviet orthodoxy, to accept easily the increased investment in light industry. Explaining the new policy three weeks later, the People’s Daily seemed to be posing the question in the minds of doubting planners when it said: There are people who ask why the proportion of heavy industry investments is not increased further to bring about its early predominance rather than change the ratio of heavy industry and light industry investment from 8:1 to 7:1 when socialist industrialization demands priority development of heavy industry and the output of light industry still accounts for over half the industrial output in terms of value? Why is it said that the change is necessary and is in conformity with the interests of socialist industrialization ?*7 (Emphasis added.)

The editorial then went on to give Mao’s answer: it was necessary to improve living standards; and investment in light industry yielded more capital faster for investment in heavy industry.

(iii) Coastal v. inland industry Mao’s second relationship—between coastal and inland industries— was linked to the first. In his FYP speech in 1955, Li Fu-ch’un had

64 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

argued that the old geographical distribution of industry was highly

irrational, with more than 70 per cent of the total value of the country’s industrial production coming from the coastal provinces. It was necessary to distribute industry throughout the country, he declared, in accordance with the location of raw materials and fuel and areas of consumption, and in line with the need to strengthen defence and backward areas. 7° On this issue, Mao was again placatory. No fundamental mistakes

had been made, but ‘in recent years we did not pay sufficient attention to coastal industries.’?® While Mao did not want a major switch back to coastal industry, he did suggest that 10 per cent of new heavy industry should be established on the coast. He argued

that more development of coastal industry would actually help inland industry develop faster, just as the rapid development of light industry would help heavy industry develop faster. This linked up

with his previous relationship also, because a high proportion of coastal factories were devoted to light industry, while the big new plants planned for the interior were primarily for heavy industry.

Mao emphasized the need to make use of the accumulation of technical expertise and experience on the coast—in other words, the industrial and commercial middle classes whose enterprises had so recently been transformed into joint state-private operations. °° Li Fu-ch’un’s response in his NPC speech on 18 June—the location of industry was the second topic he dealt with when giving his personal views—was far sharper. First he corrected Mao’s geography and qualified his statistics. Mao had listed the ‘ coast ’ as comprising

ten provinces and two municipalities; Li said it comprised seven provinces and three municipalities. 4 Mao had said that 70 per cent of the country’s heavy industry was located on the coast; Li did not dispute this figure directly but pointed out that 80 per cent of the iron and steel industry was located along the coast. This was not mere quibbling motivated by pique. Li was pointing out that the coastal area was smaller than Mao had stated and yet contained more of the

key heavy industry than Mao had implied.®? It was essential to underline this since the two major heavy industrial projects of the Ist FYP were the construction of new integrated iron and steel plants inland at Wuhan and Paotow. Li Fu-ch’un indicated next that what Mao wanted was already in the FYP. He quoted the FYP text verbatim to show that it laid down as a ‘concrete duty’ that alongside the construction of new industrial zones, ° it is necessary fully and rationally to utilise already existing

_ MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 65

industrial enterprises and develop their latent productive power ’.

He also quoted an instruction specifically ordering the rational utilization of the North-East, Shanghai, and other existing industrial bases. #8

Li then turned to the questions of production and construction in the coastal areas. On production, he pointed out first that growth had been proportionally faster inland because the inland areas started

from a lower base. He conceded that the full latent capacity of coastal industry had not been utilized. But he attributed slower development there in recent years also to the bad harvests of 1953-4, which particularly affected coastal light industry; to the reduction in military processing and manufacturing orders following the armistice

in Korea; and to the blind expansion on the coast in the pre-FYP years. In the future, while new light industrial enterprises were being built inland, coastal industry would be ‘ fully utilised ’. #4

On construction, Li emphasized the possibilities of renovation (kai-chien) of coastal industries, under which heading he included some examples of expansion (k’uo-chien). At no point did he concede the necessity of new construction (hsin chien), let alone the construc-

tion of new heavy industry, that Mao had called for. It would seem that renovation (for Li) and new construction (for Mao, who did not mention renovation) represented the extreme positions, with expansion (which Mao had mentioned, but second to new construction) the point of compromise. 35

Li Fu-ch’un seems to have managed to stand firm on this point. An editorial in the People’s Daily on 8 July sharply criticized the planners, but its waspishness may have been due to the fact that Mao had had to concede the substantive issue. After giving statistics to show the under-utilization of plant in Shanghai (which Li Fu-

ch’un had already admitted), the paper indicated that Mao had rejected Li’s use of quotations from the text of the FYP to prove the planners’ basic soundness: The reason why these shortcomings [i.e. neglect of coastal industry] have emerged, as Deputy Premier Li Fu-ch’un pointed out at the 3rd session of the Ist NPC [the one just concluded], was not simply because of many objective factors but also because of subjective factors, namely that not enough importance was attached (chung-shih pu kou) to coastal industry. In the past, at the time of the drawing up of the plan (chi-hua), positive directives were not given regarding how to develop coastal industry or there were some directives but they were not comprehensive. *° (Emphasis added.)

66 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

In fact Li had conceded some ‘ subjective ’ errors, but not in the way implied by the editorial. He had said: ...in the past because there was insufficient understanding of the full, rational utilization of the old industrial bases on the coast, and because there were rather a lot of misgivings, the coordination with construction in the interior was insufficient, and so there was not even more positive planning (kuei-hua) and utilization.*? (Emphasis added.)

Li Fu-ch’un’s position was that the planners had been very positive in their attitude towards coastal industry though they might have done even better. He had not admitted any faults in the original FYP text,

which he had specifically defended with quotations; when he referred to planning, he showed by the use of the term kuei-hua rather than chi-hua (the term used for plan in ‘ Five-Year Plan ’) that he meant planning in a general sense and not specifically the FYP.

But if the planners had not been absolved of the charge of failing to provide sufficiently for the development of coastal industry, they appear to have successfully held out against new construction in the coastal areas. The title of the editorial— Tap the latent potentialities of coastal industry ’—gave the game away. The message was rubbed in by the statement that the basic principle in drawing up schemes to tap these potentialities was ‘ fully to utilize the existing production basis ’ (emphasis added). The editorial continued: If certain enterprises only need small expansion or the increase of some of the equipment in order greatly to increase their products or to increase badly-needed varieties, then, on the assumption that an effort will be made to balance supply and distribution, one can also investigate and initiate expansion. 3°

In other words, even expansion was to be allowed only with stringent safeguards, and new construction was apparently not contemplated.

(iv) Wages Mao’s first and second relationships, with their emphases on light industry and on coastal areas (where light industry was principally located) were calculated to benefit consumers. So too was his fourth topic? ®—the relationship between the state, production units, and individual producers. Mao advocated raising industrial wages: Very recently we have discussed [this question] with comrades from various

provinces and they have quite a lot to say on it. They talk about the workers [and say that] their labour productivity has been raised and their output per work day has increased in value, and that wages should be

adjusted accordingly. Not to pay attention to this point would be improper. 4°

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 67 . Turning to the subject of peasant living standards, Mao warned against excessive accumulation of capital by collectives. Moreover,

state accumulation from agriculture should be accomplished by taxation policy, not by the pricing of consumer goods—that is, he favoured direct, not indirect, taxation. Consumer goods should be sold to the peasants at a low margin of profit. *+

In Li Fu-ch’un’s reply to this point in his NPC speech of 18 June—it was the third of his three expressions of personal views—

the chief planner seems to have been primarily concerned with defending his Planning Commission against any imputation of parsimony. He pointed out that the proportion set aside for accumu-

lation was lower than in Soviet plans, that there had been rises in wages and welfare facilities, and that there had been reasonable adjustments in the price ratio between industrial and agricultural products. But having said all this, he cited concrete cases where not enough had been done. 42 It was evident anyway that a decision to raise wages had been taken some time before, indeed even before Mao had made his report, though his intervention may have boosted the size of the increase. 43 At the NPC, Labour Minister Ma Wen-jui announced that the increase would average 14-5 per cent.** Besides

raising wages, Peking encouraged local authorities and factory managers to take more interest in workers’ welfare, concentrating particularly on relieving the housing shortage. *5 The riots that took

place in the Polish town of Poznan on 28 June, when workers protesting against their poor economic conditions fought with armed

police, must have convinced Mao that he was pursuing the right policy in this respect.4® A People’s Daily editorial on 12 July, while following the official Polish analyses in blaming the riots primarily on imperialist provocateurs, also drew the lesson that officials must always pay close attention to the difficulties of the masses.

(v) More power to the regions Mao’s fifth economic topic concerned the relationship between the

centre and the regions. Mao put a strong case for greater local initiative: Now there are dozens of hands interfering with local administration, making things difficult for the region. Although neither the Center nor the State Council knows anything about it, the Departments issue orders to the offices of the provincial and municipal governments. All of these orders are said to have originated from the Center, thus putting great pressure on the regions. Forms and reports are like floods. This situation must change

68 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION and we must find a way to deal with it... . Nothing can be initiated by the

Center of the party without having consulted the regions concerned.... The provinces, municipalities, regions, counties, districts, and villages should have their proper enthusiasm and proper individuality. The Center must not put them in a strait-jacket. *”

His attack on the paper-pushing central bureaucracy was reinforced in his discussion of contradictions in the second half of his speech,

where he demanded that party and government organizations be cut back by two-thirds. 4® This call for power to be decentralized was

later echoed at the 8th Congress. Liu Shao-ch’i emphasized its importance.*® Chou En-lai revealed that after Mao’s speech the State Council had called a number of national meetings on the subject, between May and August.°° But apparently attempts to implement decentralization did not really get under way until late in 1957.

(vi) Economic development v. defence There was just one issue on which Mao sided with the planners in his ten great relationships speech. He proposed reducing expenditure on defence in order to increase allocations for economic development.

To appease the military he suggested that only in this way could China obtain nuclear weapons: Do you want atom bombs? [If you do] you ought to reduce defence expenses proportionately and spend more on economic construction. If you only pretend to want atom bombs, you will not reduce defence expenditure proportionately and will spend less on economic construction. °1

Presumably Mao’s argument, for he did not elaborate much, was that a nuclear weapons programme could only be founded upona more developed economic—and technological and scientific—base.

A very important aspect of this passage is its revelation that by this time Mao had decided that China should have nuclear weapons —and that the Chinese would have to make those weapons themselves.** The first public admission by the Chinese of an intention to acquire nuclear weapons was not made until May 1958 by Ch’en Yi, then Foreign Minister. It was confirmed the same month in an article by the commander of the PLA Air Force.®? In subsequent years, as a result of the Sino-Soviet dispute, the Chinese revealed

that they signed an agreement with the Russians on 15 October 1957 which, they implied, included an undertaking by Moscow to supply them with a sample atomic bomb. °4

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 69

It is quite likely that the decision to manufacture nuclear weapons had been reached only after considerable argument. Defence Minister

P’eng Teh-huai has been quoted as saying: ‘China has a huge population. If war should break out in the future, we should contribute troops and the Soviet Union, atom bombs.’ ®* No date is given

for this remark, but from the reference to future wars it seems reasonable to suppose it must have been made after the cessation of hostilities in Korea, where P’eng Teh-huai commanded the Chinese forces, probably some time after his return to China in late 1953 or early 1954.5 Equally, it seems certain that P’eng could only have made the remark before any decision on Chinese nuclear weapons had been taken, probably in the course of debate on this topic. Presumably the end of the Korean war and the return of P’eng Teh-huai sparked intensive discussions on how China should best prepare for any future conflict. The PLA had entered the Korean War virtually the same force that had defeated the Nationalists; it was very mobile, flexible in organization, and high in morale. But it

was deficient in the specialized arms and centralized command structure characteristic of a modern army. *’ After impressive initial victories, the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) began to sustain heavy losses from the superior firepower of the UN forces.°® From mid-1951 the Russians began to supply the CPV with artillery and

aircraft, and systematic modernization of the PLA was then initiated. 5° After the war P’eng continued the process, but if his advice

was that China should have a modern army but rely on the Soviet Union for a nuclear shield, this advice had clearly been rejected by Mao by the time he made his ten great relationships speech. It is quite possible that Mao opted for Chinese nuclear weapons not because he distrusted the Russians but because he felt that if China were to be a world power, nuclear weapons were an essential prerequisite. More immediately, he may have seen nuclear weapons as a cheaper method of protecting China than arming with a wide range of modern conventional weapons. °° Certainly in the spring of 1956 there was an argument in Peking over the size of the defence budget. This in turn was closely related to estimates of the likelihood of war, and there had been a sharp change in those estimates in the early months of 1956.

In the summer of 1955, the Chinese leaders had agreed that the

external situation was threatening enough to justify increasing defence expenditure. Presumably the considerations that weighed with them included the Defence Treaty concluded by the US with the

70 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Nationalist regime on Formosa in December 1954, the revelation by

President Eisenhower in March 1955 that US forces could bring tactical nuclear weapons to bear on the Formosa straits, and the

reinforcement of Quemoy and Matsu. To a large extent these developments were reactions to previous Chinese military activity and propaganda (which had resulted in a Nationalist withdrawal from the Tachen islands); but the net result was that in mid-1955

the Chinese had reason to feel that their military position had deteriorated and needed bolstering. *!

At the NPC in July 1955 Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien had announced a sharp increase in defence expenditure®? in the 1955 budget, justifying it on the grounds that the imperialists surrounded China, occupied Formosa, and threatened China with the spectre of a new world war.*®* Three very senior military spokesmen at the

NPC strongly endorsed this view of the international situation. Defence Minister P’eng Teh-huai stated on 16 July: The Chinese people and government have made and are still making untiring efforts to ease international tension, to eliminate the threat of war and to safeguard world peace. But we cannot forget for a single moment that the US aggressive clique is still exhausting every means to prevent us from liberating our own territory of Taiwan and is threatening us with the plans for a new, large-scale aggressive war. The warmongers are threatening the whole of humanity with atomic weapons in an attempt to attain their objective of enslaving the world. ... We absolutely will not give up the territory and sovereignty of our country in exchange for peace. It is precisely for this reason that we cannot but firmly and swiftly put the

system of compulsory military service into effect and strengthen our national defences in all respects. 4

Marshal ®* Liu Po-ch’eng gave a similar gloomy picture of the world

scene when he spoke on 21 July and concluded that: We must especially raise high our vigilance so that at the same time as we concentrate our forces for socialist construction, we also increase our national

defence forces for the protection of socialism and for the protection of the independence of our country and of world peace. ®§® (Emphasis added.)

Neither P’eng Teh-huai nor Liu Po-ch’eng made any mention of any relaxation of international tension. However, during the course of the NPC, from 18 to 23 July a four-power (USA, USSR, UK, and France) summit conference met in Geneva and gave rise to talks of a new * Geneva spirit’ of moderation in East-West dealings. ®? Addressing the NPC on 27 July Marshal Yeh Chien-ying made no mention of

this conference, but admitted that the international situation ‘ tends to develop towards peace ’. ®® He then proceeded to nullify the effect

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 71

of this grudging admission with a long catalogue of aggressive American acts and aims and reached the conclusion that for the protection of the security of the motherland and the people, for the protection of the socialist construction of the motherland, for the liberation of our territory of Taiwan, and in preparation against a sudden attack by the aggressor, [the Chinese people] must adopt all possible measures to continue to strengthen the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. ®®

Premier Chou En-lai, speaking on 30 July, was less reserved than Marshal Yeh about the Geneva conference and asserted that it had * obtained positive successes ’ and had resulted in a ‘ definite degree of relaxation ’ in international tension. 7° But even he still expressed

anxiety lest China, surrounded as it was by military bases and alliances, might be subject to surprise attack, and he concluded: Under these circumstances, we must preserve our vigilance, we must strengthen our country’s necessary defence forces. Only in this way can we protect the fruits of our socialist construction, guarantee the integrity and security of our nation’s sovereignty and territory, and moreover be of service to enterprises safeguarding world peace. *1

In view of the agreement of government officials like Chou En-lai and Li Hsien-nien that there was a serious threat to China, and after

an increase in the budgetary allocation for defence, it might be thought that the military leaders would have been content. But clearly they were not. Marshal Yeh Chien-ying lashed out at ‘ some people * who ‘ consider that it is now only necessary to concentrate all forces for socialist economic. construction, and there is no need

for attaching such great importance to national defence construction ’.”? According to Marshal Yeh, these people did not appreciate

how important it was for the PLA to procure the most modern equipment in sufficient quantities to face the well-equipped 1mperialists.7* Marshal Liu Po-ch’eng was clearly in agreement when he put industrialization and defence on an equal footing: ‘ Only with the industrialisation of the state will there be the physical foundation

for the modernisation of national defence. And only with the modernisation of national defence will there be protection for the industrialisation of the state.’ ?* Marshal P’eng Teh-huai invoked the authority of the state constitution to buttress his call for stronger defences: The armed forces of our country are not only presently undertaking the enormous task of defending the country, but also stand in need of continuously (pu-tuan)*® raising their combat power... To undertake the sacred mission entrusted to us by the whole people and stipulated in the

72 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Constitution, we must speedily build up powerful, modernized armed forces. We must have not only a mighty army but also a mighty airforce and a mighty navy. ’® (Emphasis added.)

P’eng Teh-huai’s use of the word ‘ continuously ’ gives a clue as to

why the military spokesmen should have felt it necessary to emphasize so strongly the importance of defence spending at a time when an increase in such spending had just been announced. Li Hsien-nien’s budgetary allocation was only for one year. If the armed forces were to be ‘continuously’ strengthened, adequate provision would have to be made in conjunction with the FYP. An examination of Li Fu-ch’un’s speech to the 1955 NPC on the first FYP indicates that he was far less concerned about defence spending than the military would have liked. When justifying the fast pace of the FYP, Li stated: At home, we are faced with a backward national economy, and abroad, with encirclement by vicious imperialism. If we did not carry out socialist industrialization, we would not be able to build a socialist society in our country; we would be in danger of being powerless in the face of imperialist

aggression, of being unable to maintain our economic and political independence. ??

What is striking about this passage is that while Li Fu-ch’un accepted that there was a hostile external environment, he did not use this fact, as had other speakers, to justify expenditure on defence, which

of course meant diverting funds from the FYP investment programme. Indeed, he did not touch on defence expenditure, although it was later revealed to account, with administration, for 32 per cent of all state expenditure during the FYP period.’* Towards the end

of his speech, Li Fu-ch’un gave the PLA a pat on the back for defending the motherland and socialist construction;’® but even when, a little later, he warned of the dangers of sabotage and threats of war, he called only for vigilance and did not use these dangers to justify the allocation for defence of extra money which could otherwise have been used for economic development.*®°® It seems likely

that Li Fu-ch’un was a principal object of Marshal Yeh Chienying’s attack on ‘ some people’. It must be assumed that Li Fu-ch’un had a fair degree of support

among his senior colleagues or he would not have been able to present the FYP as he did. In the first few months of 1956 it became

clear that, whatever their previous views, Mao and Chou En-lai certainly backed him. By the time Chou En-lai made his political report to the CPPCC on 30 January 1956, the Chinese and Americans

MAO AGAINST THE PLANNERS 73

had begun their series of talks at ambassadorial level in Geneva. Results so far did not lead him greatly to modify his views of the

US; aggressive circles there could not block the relaxation of international tension, but they were still attempting to do so. The Americans clung to their policy of ‘ strength ’ and were stepping up arms expansion and war preparations; a US ‘ war adventure ’ could not be ruled out. But in private, Mao was far more sanguine about

America’s interest in peace, citing among other things the recent reduction in size of its armed forces.®1! It was presumably this more

optimistic confidential assessment by the Chinese leaders that explained why, though Chou’s analysis resembled the one he had made six months earlier, his prescription differed significantly. On this account, we must continue to strengthen our national defence and augment our strength. Of decisive importance in this connection is to speed up Socialist transformation and Socialist construction and to fulfill ahead of schedule and overfulfil the first Five Year Plan. At the same time, we

must further strengthen and consolidate the solidarity and cooperation within the Socialist camp. ®* (Emphasis added.)

Whereas on 30 July 1955 Chou had talked purely in terms of defence,

now he was talking of defence in the broader sense of national selfstrengthening and stressing the key importance of economic power. This was also the line which Mao took in his ten great relationships speech three months later.

Two months after Mao’s speech, Chou gave the 1956 NPC a rosier picture of the international situation. Even when he stated that the USA was ‘ still using threats to create tension in the Far East’ he did not use this to justify defence spending but merely remarked rather mildly: At the same time we should point out that if certain people in the USA imagine that the USA can afford to precipitate yet another incident in the Far East, it can be assured that such action would not bring any good. The Chinese people have full confidence and [have] sufficient strength to safe-

guard their fruits of victory and to defeat armed intervention from any quarter. ®? (Emphasis added.)

The importance of Chou’s belief that China already had sufficiently strong defence forces was underlined by the deputy director of the PLA’s General Political Department (GPD), who pointed out to the NPC on the same day that only 90:36 per cent of the funds allocated to defence in the previous year’s budget had been used. But while this fact enabled this general to support the reduction of 5-2 per cent in defence expenditure in the 1956 budget, ®* it was significant that

74 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

he was the only senior military spokesman who could be found publicly to back the cut. This was in striking contrast to the previous

NPC, at which three marshals had spoken up in support of high defence spending. °°

Clearly by mid-1956, and probably by the time Mao made his speech on the ten great relationships, reductions in defence spending had already been agreed. ®* In the light of the international situation, and particularly in view of the need to squeeze out more funds for

faster economic growth, Mao and Chou had decided that defence could take a lower priority. That Defence Minister P’eng Teh-huai did not agree will emerge in our consideration of the CCP’s &th Congress.

(vii) Mao takes a swim For Mao, the first five months of 1956 had been a period of intense political activity. He sought relaxation in intense physical activity. In May and June 1956, ignoring the protests of his colleagues, °” he swam the great Yangtse River three times. *® He was sixty-two and he celebrated his feat with a poem: Just then a drink of water in the south, Now a taste of fish in the north. A swim cuts across the Long River; A glance gauges the sky’s width. Let the wind blow and waves strike, This surpasses an aimless stroll in the court. Today’s leisure is well spent. Standing at a ford, the Master once said: * Thus life flows into the past!’

The second verse revealed that in May, Mao was still exuberantly confident about the economic development drive, especially as he contemplated the prospect of the first bridge across the Yangtse, which was to be completed the following year, and flood-control in the Yangtse basin: Breeze shakes the masts While Tortoise and Snake Hills are motionless, A grand project 1s being conceived—

A bridge will fly across oe,

And turn a barrier into a path.

To the west new cliffs will arise; Mount Wu’s clouds and rains will be kept from the countryside. Calm lakes will spring up in the gorges. Were the goddess still alive She would be amazed by the changes on this earth. °®

6 THE THAW SPREADS

(i) Liberalizing the press Meanwhile, back in Peking, party leaders were making speeches and

issuing directives in support of the liberalization set in motion by Mao. Many of these activities, like Mao’s two speeches, took place behind the scenes.

Probably the most important measures taken to reinforce the hundred flowers policy were those designed to liberalize journalism. To some extent these measures may have reflected disenchantment with the Soviet Union as a result of the 20th Congress. Hu Ch’1aomu, the deputy director of the Propaganda Department principally responsible for drafting the 5 April 1956 assessment of Stalin, held a

meeting of leading journalists at his house during the summer at which he criticized Tass: [The fact that] Tass’s news is simplified, boring and wooden is a reflection of Soviet political life of the Stalin period.’? But the directives issued by Liu Shao-ch’i to the NCNA on 28 May and 19 June indicate a more positive basis for the policy. ?

The principal objective was to help promote a generally more relaxed political atmosphere. Liu thought this might be done by making the press less official, encouraging a less biased reporting

policy, and by studying the professional techniques of western journalism: * ‘ Would it be better for the NCNA to be a State news agency (kuo-chia t’ung-hsun she) or to be run by the people (tang lao pai hsing)? I think it would be better if it were not run by the State

but by the people.’4 Liu made it clear, however, that he did not regard this as an important problem in itself and nothing came of the proposal. The real difficulty was how to get away from a situation in which journalists felt restricted by being state employees °—not just because they might feel a duty to give only the official line, but also, Liu seemed to feel, because they ranked low in the hierarchy

and therefore might feel inhibited about questioning more senior officials and writing about their work. § If journalists were removed from the official hierarchy, Liu seemed to feel that they could be paid higher salaries, higher even than Mao’s perhaps; and if they were

also given bylines and encouraged to establish reputations, they 75

76 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

could develop independence and a sense of responsibility and would speak the truth. ’ Speaking the whole truth was a keynote of Liu’s instructions to the NCNA officials: 8 There is a trend in news reporting nowadays—to dwell on only favourable

things. There is partiality in this. Unfavourable things should also be reported along with favourable things... Nowadays, our international news reports are merely one-sided, and are concerned with abuses of the United States or our good things. These tend to create a false impression

and to foster the growth of subjectivism... For instance, when a US government leader vilifies us, such a news item, I think, may be published in our press. ... When Premier Chou En-lai reviles the United States, the

news would appear in some US capitalist newspapers. Why can the capitalist papers dare to carry our abuses against them, and why don’t we have enough courage to publish their invectives against us? This is our weakness and not any creditable thing. ®

This concern for objectivity was evidently one reason why Liu advocated the study of non-communist journalism: Foreign journalists have this as their watchword: news reports are to be objective, truthful, and impartial. If we merely stress the political stand but dare not stress objectivity and truthfulness in our news reports, then our news reports would be subjective and partial indeed. !°

Liu twitted the NCNA for being unable to make its reports as interesting to readers as did capitalist news agencies,1+ and he advocated the study of their methods and opposed the ‘ mechanical adoption of the experience of the Tass News Agency ’.!2 Earlier an NCNA delegation had gone to the Soviet Union to study the methods of Tass.1° As a result of Liu Shao-ch’1’s directive, the director of the NCNA, Wu Leng-hsi, went to Britain and France early in 1957 to pick up tips from Reuter and Agence France Presse. }4

According to Wu Leng-hsi, Liu’s directives ‘created unprecedented confusion in the thinking of the leading cadres in the NCNA ’ and he himself felt they went too far.1> Though Wu Leng-hsi made

this remark when under pressure to help destroy Liu Shao-ch’i’s political reputation, it may have been true, if not in the sense implied. Wu was suggesting that Liu’s revisionism was what startled him; it seems more likely that the confusion was caused by the

prospect of a complete change of journalistic practices. What evidence there is does not suggest that Liu Shao-ch’i was advocating journalistic policies opposed to what Mao was prepared to sanction at that time. On one of the major issues—the publication of material

THE THAW SPREADS 77

unfavourable to the Chinese communists—we know that Mao was

in agreement with Liu as late as February 1957 in that he was prepared to advocate the reprinting of Voice of America broadcasts and Chiang Kai-shek’s speeches.!6 There is good evidence to suggest that the first action taken by the NCNA in pursuance of Mao’s and Liu’s proposals on this subject may have been the cautious one of founding a newspaper, the 7s’an-k’ao Hsiao-hsi (Reference Information), which would rely heavily on non-communist sources but be

restricted in circulation to trusted officials.17 On another major issue—the study of western journalistic techniques—Liu Shao-ch’1

was only making a particular application of the general sanction that Mao had given for learning from all foreign countries in his speech on the ten great relationships (pp. 50-1 above). Mao also made a particular application of this sanction when on 24 August 1956 he advised music workers to study western music, as well as Chinese traditional music, in the course of developing an up-to-date national music.18 Moreover even Wu Leng-hsi, obliged though he was to attempt to blacken Liu Shao-ch’i, conceded that in his directives Liu had first said that the work of a news agency must be conducted on the basis of the people’s interests and Marxist-Leninist viewpoints. 1 ®

The People’s Daily took immediate action on the directives. From 1 July the paper was expanded from four to eight pages, despite the shortage of paper, and a message to readers explained that this was in order to publish more of the important and new things in life

whether they come from the Socialist camp or from the capitalist countries; whether they occur in the large metropolises or in the remote villages; whether they directly concern construction or do not directly concern construction; and whether they make pleasant reading or do not make pleasant reading. 2°

Other aspects of the new look of the paper were to be greater space

for free discussion and a better literary style. 21 Other papers followed | suit.22 While it does not seem likely that this change of format or Liu’s original directives were designed, as cultural revolutionaries alleged, to instigate ‘ demons and freaks to leave their cages ’ 7 ®—1.e.

to encourage anti-communists to attack the party—it may well be that the extra rein allowed to newspapers from this time had the inadvertent consequence of encouraging them to print more freely the criticisms of the party made by ‘ bourgeois rightists ’ in early summer 1957—though the critics were encouraged directly by Mao’s speech on contradictions.

78 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(ii) Strengthening the legal system One of the most important results of the 20th Congress in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was a move to reduce the power of

the police and strengthen the legal system. There were amnesties, rehabilitations, and dismissals of erring police chiefs.?4 During the Hungarian revolt, secret policemen were even lynched. 25

In China the official line towards counter-revolutionaries had changed sharply during January 1956 as a result of the leadership’s estimate of the overall change in the political situation. The first sign was the publication of the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme, Article 5 of which provided for the admission to collectives of all but the worst counter-revolutionaries. A few days later the President of the Supreme Court, Tung Pi-wu, told the CPPCC that the ‘ new’

regulations fitted the ‘new’ rural situation, but went on to assert somewhat contradictorily that they also fitted in with ‘ our longpractised’ policy of repression and leniency.2® Tung’s speech emphasized the achievements of the 1955 campaign against counterrevolutionaries and the need for continued vigilance rather than the possibilities of relaxation and leniency in the aftermath of the high tide of socialism. 7” However, he did say that sincere confessions and

repentance would be regarded with leniency even where serious crimes had been committed, and he listed a series of distinctions between types of counter-revolutionaries to enable them to calculate the degree of leniency they could expect if they gave themselves up. 28

More in keeping with the thaw was a directive issued in February 1956 by the Supreme People’s Procuracy to its subordinate organs ordering a thorough reinvestigation into cases of arrest and prosecution of counter-revolutionaries in 1955, 29 It was probably on the occasion when the decision to review cases was taken that Liu Shao-ch’1 emphasized the importance of avoiding wrongful arrest and of acting constitutionally: To insure that no wrongful arrest is made and no erroneous judgement is

given, it is necessary to advance this slogan... Everybody must be mobilized to direct his effort in realizing this demand .. . It is necessary to fight for making no wrong decisions in cases. ?°

This is because after the promulgation of the Constitution, we must handle affairs according to the provisions of the Constitution. When cases are handled according to this legal procedure, even though we have made wrongful arrests or indictments, such mistakes are also legitimate. 34

One cannot reconstruct Liu’s whole speech from these two quotations, but it seems that one of the arguments he used to persuade

THE THAW SPREADS 79

Procuracy officials of the importance of adhering to legal forms was that it was also in their own best interests. Whatever the arguments

used, the Chinese leaders were evidently promoting attention to legality, probably before they knew the contents of Khrushchev’s secret speech and certainly before they could have digested it and made policy decisions on that basis. >? It is thus unlikely that the strengthening of the Chinese legal system

in 1956 began as part of the reaction to the secret speech throughout the communist world. Since 1953 the Chinese had been setting up a legal system which resembled that created during the moderate

NEP period in the Soviet Union.** This system was ‘ almost swamped’ by the campaign against counter-revolutionaries in 1955.34 The radical change in the political situation at the end of 1955 was quite sufficient to resuscitate the movement towards a comprehensive legal system. But the secret speech probably encouraged the Chinese on their way. Early in March 1956 the third national conference on judicial work was convened by the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry

of Justice.25 Significantly Tung Pi-wu did not address the conference, though his position as President of the Supreme Court and the senior Politburo member concerned directly with legal affairs would have made him an obvious speaker. Perhaps, as his speech to the CPPCC suggested, he was not sufficiently enthusiastic about the new policy line, or had been too deeply involved in the enforcement of the old line to strike the right new note. At any rate the main

directives were given by P’eng Chen, who just outranked Tung Pi-wu in the Politburo at the time, and by Ch’en Yi. °° Possibly these men were selected because as mayors of Peking and Shanghai they had in their charge the largest concentrations of urban bourgeoisie, a major target of the legal officials who were involved in uncovering counter-revolution and eradicating corruption. The only senior legal official to address the conference was not an official of the convening

organizations, the Supreme People’s Court or the Ministry of Justice, but the Chief Procurator.*’ This was noteworthy because the Procuracy’s duties included reviewing police recommendations to

arrest and prosecute and supervising the legality of the action of government organs, including the police. 3° P’eng Chen addressed the judicial conference on 6 March and took the analysis of the current political situation that had been developed

by Mao, Liu, and Chou En-lai a step further. Mao had proclaimed the fundamental change in the political situation. Chou had defined

80 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

struggle:

this as meaning that there was no longer any doubt about socialism defeating capitalism in China. Liu Shao-ch’i had earlier made the same assertion. P’eng Chen spelled this out in terms of the class Comparing this year with last, the class struggle is not getting fiercer and sharper, but is ameliorating. The landlords and rich peasants uphold the common good and obey the laws (feng-kung shou-fa), the bourgeoisie has accepted the transformation, even the counter-revolutionaries are more sincere (Jao-shih) than last year. . . .7° In general the situation has changed.

The rich peasants have been deprived of their weapons, over half the capitalists have entered joint state-private enterprises; *° (the change-over to) joint state-private operations and cooperative farming shows that we

have defeated the bourgeoisie. ... Last year the bourgeoisie wanted to test their strength against us. We repulsed them and isolated the counterrevolutionaries. The result was the high tide and the bourgeoisie sought transformation and liquidation (i.e. of themselves as a class). ... Let me repeat that it is no longer true to say the class struggle is getting sharper. This means that the majority of even the absolute majority of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists are not resolutely resisting (us), but have abandoned their resistance or seized the initiative. (Under such circumstances) can you say that (the class struggle) is getting sharper! ?*1

P’eng Chen’s repeated emphasis on the amelioration of the class struggle as a result of the victories won in the socialist revolution could have been an echo of Khrushchev’s secret speech. Khrushchev

had denounced the theory that the class struggle sharpened on the road to socialism, a doctrine which Stalin had devised to justify mass terror even after the achievement of socialism. *? But P’eng Chen’s

insistence on this point cannot really be attributed to the shock of reading the secret speech. It is clear that he, and presumably his colleagues, felt that judicial personnel, heavily involved as they had been in the previous year’s suppression of counter-revolution, would be difficult to convince of the almost overnight change in the political

situation. In another section of his speech, P’eng Chen derided potential opponents of the new line: The contradiction between capitalism and socialism has changed and diminished . . . If the peasants demand to take charge of counter-revolution *® and the capitalists are all accusing their relatives, can you say that it won’t work! #4 If this year you still want to oppose (the award of) light sentences for serious crimes, if this year you still want to pile severity upon

severity, then where has your materialism got to?45 The situation has changed, the masses demand a change, if you still want to carry on that way, then where has your materialism got to!...The counter-revolutionaries don’t dare to act .. . they are giving themselves up;® this proves they are disintegrating and don’t dare oppose the revolution. #7

THE THAW SPREADS 8] To some extent P’eng Chen had a personal interest in bludgeoning legal officials into accepting the new line. If they did not do so, this

would be to cast doubt on his own achievement in hustling the capitalists of Peking into joint state-private enterprises: ‘ The bourgeosie have turned over their goods to the state and moreover have accepted transformation with loud music and by putting up lanterns and coloured hangings as decorations—do you really call this false?’*® But the basic message P’eng Chen was trying to get over in this speech was the same as that in Mao’s Preface—the new, all-important task was production: ‘ Now the demands of the masses are also no longer in this sphere (i.e. class struggle)*® but are for single-minded concentration on accumulating fertiliser, digging wells, and grasping production.’ *° This latter passage in particular adds strength to the argument that China’s thaw originated in the victories for socialism of late 1955 and

early 1956, albeit liberalization was certainly later spurred on by events in Eastern Europe. The new line in the legal field was a necessary concomitant of the overall shift in the political atmosphere;

it was not the product of a sudden realization of the importance of the rule of law after reading Khrushchev’s secret speech. When P’eng Chen emphasized the importance of the legal system, it was in terms of the development of the political situation in China: After the end of the period of restoring the economy [1949-52], the ist FYP began and the social order was pretty well established, and the enemies in open revolt had mostly been brought under control and the remainder were mostly hidden counter-revolutionary elements; if we then don’t strengthen the legal system, it’ll be very easy for faults to emerge. *1

On 25 April, the day Mao expressed his first personal reactions to the 20th Congress in his speech on the ten great relationships, a leading British lawyer said at a press conference in Peking that he had been interested to learn that a new penal code was to be completed soon. This would help to establish universal rules of law known to every citizen.®* There were other public signs of the regime’s intention

of establishing the institutions of a fully-fledged legal system. * But behind the scenes, Chinese leaders still seemed to feel that the crucial

step in ensuring that the legal system worked as it ought was to convince the relevant officials of the need for new attitudes. In par-

ticular, respect had to be encouraged for the Procuracy, the legal institution whose successful functioning was crucial to the new line because it was, in the words of two western scholars, ‘ the anointed champion of the law ’. °4

82 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION On 30 May Liu Shao-ch’i lectured a senior official of the Procuracy General, who was making a report on the importance of the work of

his department: It is necessary to protect the lawful rights of counter-revolutionaries. People dare not say anything about protection for fear of being branded as rightists, The Supreme Court and the Higher Procuratorate General must bear this responsibility. ... It is now necessary to emphasize quality and handle affairs according to law. It is necessary to emphasize the correct handling of cases, and the procuratorates must guard against and rectify mistakes. A good job must certainly be done. . . . Now it is necessary to lay emphasis on restraint. .. . It is necessary to look for ‘ flaws ’ and give more consideration to some problems. The aim is to launch the struggle against

the enemy with greater correctness. Procuratory organs must do some more work to guard against mistakes and making wrong decisions. °°

On a similar occasion a little over a month later, Liu encouraged the reporting Procuracy official to stand up to other organs of government and indicated how it could be done: A procuratorate is needed to insure that no mistake is made in prosecution work. Its function is to see that everything is correctly handled. [. . .] From now on the policy of the procuratorate is to supervise legitimate work, raise quality, lay hold of the main points, and stand the test of investigation. There must be a key sector in your work. You should study things and must especially tighten your grip somewhat on those aspects in which it is possible and easy to make mistakes. ... You may tell various provinces and municipalities to make preparations for the inspection of your work by democrats and foreigners. Such inspection can unearth some problem, and the Party committees will attach great importance to them. Knowing that there are still quite a number of mistakes, they will pay attention to the

procuratorates. It is necessary to make every cadre understand that no mistake can be made. This is the duty and responsibility of the procuratorate. ... It is useful to retain general supervision. If the provincial people’s

council has made any mistake, the provincial committee of course can rectify it. But in some cases, such rectification can also be made by means of the procuratorate. °§

In the meanwhile, at a conference of Public Security chiefs on 5 June,>” P’eng Chen had been trying to hammer home the same message to the officials least likely to welcome the prospective limitations on their powers, especially as they had been accustomed to regard the Procuracy as very much a junior partner in the conduct of legal business®®: ‘ At this time the key element of a so-called healthy legal system is a healthy Procuracy organ ’.5* But like Liu Shao-ch’i in February, P’eng Chen seemed to feel that the best way to persuade legal officials to respect the Procuracy was to convince them that to do so was a way of safeguarding themselves:

THE THAW SPREADS 83 We have here two kinds of situation. The one is where a public security organ arrests someone without getting the permission from the procuracy organ; even if the arrest is justified it is still illegal. For example, if an NPC

representative is arrested without the permission of the NPC Standing Committee, then even if he really is a secret agent his arrest is still illegal. The other kind of situation is where a public security organ only arrests someone after getting the permission of the procuracy organ; (in such cases) even if the arrest is incorrect it is not illegal.®°

With men as senior as Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen insisting on the new importance of observing the legal forms, it was not surprising that in speeches at the NPC towards the end of June, senior officials

connected with legal work admitted that excesses had been committed by their departments.*1 They could do so secure in the knowledge that Mao and his colleagues still insisted on the basic necessity and correctness of the campaign against counter-revolution. °? But it was a sign of the times that the work of checking on how that campaign had been conducted, begun in February by the Procuracy alone, was from July undertaken by the major legal departments—the Procuracy, the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People’s Court, and the Ministry of Justice—working in harness. ®* This should have meant that the findings of the investiga-

tion teams would be treated with greater respect.

(ili) Reactions to the thaw Despite Mao’s proposal of new policies and behind-the-scenes steps to improve the domestic political climate, the principal groups meant

to benefit, the urban bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, were slow to respond. After the public proclamation of the policy of *‘ Long term

coexistence and mutual supervision’ in June 1956,°* the CC’s UFWD held a three-day meeting of leading figures in the democratic parties, ®5 and the democratic parties held their own meetings to discuss their roles in the new political climate.®* The consensus reached at the UFWD meeting was that mutual supervision should be strengthened and there should be greater checks made on govern-

ment work in the interests of economic development.*’ Chang Po-chiin, Chairman of the Peasants and Workers’ Democratic Party, a deputy chairman of the CDL and also Minister of Communications, told the meeting that the long-term coexistence policy represented political democracy and the hundred flowers represented ideological democracy. ®* But he and other leaders of democratic parties were probably already aware that they would have to tread

84 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

carefully because CCP officials would resent the idea of paying greater deference to them. Nine months later Chang Po-chiin had to

tell his CDL colleagues that he had received a tip from a senior party official to the effect that the long-term coexistence policy was

very difficult to put into practice; he (Chang) proposed concentrating on the hundred flowers in order to create the right conditions for long-term coexistence. ®®

But in the summer of 1956, it did not seem as if the hundred flowers policy would be any more successful. True, something of a literary sensation was caused by the publication of a short story by a young writer named Wang Meng criticizing the cynicism, demoralization and bureaucratism of middle-rank party officials.’° But on the whole, the intellectuals did not throw themselves eagerly into

blooming and contending, but adjusted to the new policy with caution. The few bold spirits who did speak up were usually drawn

from the ranks of the established writers. There was a mood of relaxation in the air and literary activity and intellectual activity generally increased. New magazines appeared and independent views were expressed at forums. The literary authorities attempted to revive the flourishing literary atmosphere of the 1930s and get the famous authors of those days writing again.’} But it was only one year since the writer Hu Feng and his friends had been denounced as

counter-revolutionaries for wanting greater freedom from party control.’? The intellectuals had to hear more before they would be convinced about the reality and permanence of the thaw. 7 In the first instance the most significant response to the new line came from provincial party organizations, clearly on orders from

above. By the eve of the 8th Party Congress in mid-September, reports were coming in of a campaign against bureaucratism and subjectivism; leading cadres were said to be examining themselves for signs of arrogance and complacency. ’4 Significantly, the error of sectarianism—discrimination against non-party people—did not figure in these early reports. Clearly there were reasons for the democrats to be cautious in their new role. With so much hesitancy being displayed by men who had had almost seven years experience of

. living under the CCP, it was hardly surprising that the relaxation on the mainland did not impress the Chinese Nationalists. The new policy of long-term coexistence and mutual supervision was explained in broadcasts beamed to Formosa.** More important still, the Peking government, confident now of its control of the mainland, formally proffered an olive branch to Chiang Kai-shek. At the

THE THAW SPREADS 85

CPPCC session in January Chou En-lai had reiterated the govern-

ment’s year-old call for a peaceful liberation of Formosa and suggested the possibility of a third spell of cooperation between the CCP and the KMT. 7¢ On 28 June, before the NPC, he went further: Now, on behalf of the Government, I state formally: We are willing to negotiate with the Taiwan authorities on specific steps and terms for the

peaceful liberation of Taiwan, and we hope that they will send their representatives to Peking or other appropriate places at a time which they consider appropriate to begin these talks with us . . . I wish here to declare once again that all patriotic people, regardless of whether they joined the patriotic ranks earlier or later, and regardless of how great the crimes they committed in the past may have been, will be treated in accordance with

the principle that ‘ patriots belong to one family’ and the policy of no punishment for past misdeeds. ...?77

The termination of the civil war in order to complete the unification of the country was evidently an important additional motive for the new liberal line. But the Nationalist government on Formosa did not respond.

D

| THE ENDFORWARD’ OF THE FIRST “LEAP (i) The attack on adventurism When Mao returned to Peking in early June 1956 it was still too soon for him to feel concern about the cautious response to his liberalizing trend. What must have worried him however was the economic situation, which was now so serious that a top-level conference at Peitaiho had decided that the production drive be slowed down.! The 1956 session of the NPC opened on 15 June and on the first day Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien outlined the economic problems. In the countryside, there had been excessive investment by collectives attempting to fulfil the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme in two or three years; in industry, quantity and speed had been pursued at the cost of quality and economy, with a consequent neglect of safety and a rise in industrial accidents. Of the eight major products under the purview of the Ministry of Heavy Industry, five had dropped in quality in early 1956. ? The problems were familiar but the situation was now so serious as to require more drastic action. It had proved impossible to restrain eager officials by calling them conservative if they neglected quality

and economy; it was now clear that accusations of distorting the slogan of combating conservatism had been equally ineffective. That method of attack had permitted continued adherence to the slogan of opposing rightist conservatism, which, Chou En-lai had asserted in January, was to be a central theme of the forthcoming 8th Congress

of the CCP.? Slogans, however, sometimes assume a life of their own. Opposing right conservatism had come to epitomize the allout production drive. Accusations of distorting that slogan through neglect of quality and economy were thus not likely to convince officials who were setting records for quantity and speed. A new slogan had to be coined if the message was to get through that the government wanted to apply the brakes. It was produced in Li

86

Hsien-nien’s speech: ‘ While opposing conservatism, one must at the

same time oppose the tendency towards impetuosity and adventurism (chi-tsao mao-chin), and this kind of tendency has already appeared in many departments and many places during the past few

THE END OF THE FIRST ‘LEAP FORWARD’ 87 months.’ * Commenting editorially the next day, the People’s Daily

made sure that its readers would not miss the importance of Li’s remark: ‘ Another special aspect of this year’s budget report, and one could say it is the report’s most noteworthy aspect, is that at the same time as it opposes conservatism, it raises the slogan of opposing impetuosity and adventurism ’ (emphasis added).° The paper went

on to state that this new slogan was based on the experience of carrying out the plan over the previous six months and it reiterated the problems sketched by Li Hsien-nien, all of which had been discussed in its columns repeatedly during that period. Four days later the People’s Daily devoted an editorial specifically to the question of opposing both conservatism and impetuosity. * The editorial explained that the problem of impetuosity was particularly grave because it existed among higher-level cadres who had pushed their subordinates after the publication of the Twelve-Year Agri-

cultural Programme in order to avoid being accused of rightist conservatism. The combination of the attack on conservatism, the publication of the Programme, and the use of the slogan ‘ more, faster, better, and more economically ’ had led to the development of one-sidedness in the minds of many cadres who held that ‘ all kinds of work must be done as much and as fast as possible and all things must be done simultaneously regardless of the degree of importance and urgency and regardless of objective conditions. They attempted to do all things overnight’ (emphasis added). ’ The way the editorial was written made it clear that while conservatism would be still criticized,

Opposition to impetuosity would be the more important task. The

slogan ‘more, faster, better, and more economically’ would be maintained, but in our actual work we should carefully and on the basis of facts consider

what can be done more and fast, what cannot be done more and fast, what can be done more and fast now, what can be done more and fast in the future, how to economise appropriately, and how to achieve good quality while ensuring quantity, speed and economy. 8

This important editorial was drafted by the editor of the People’s Daily, Teng T’o, revised in the CC’s Propaganda Department by the

director, Lu Ting-yi, and a deputy director, Hu Ch’iao-mu, and finally vetted and passed by Liu Shao-ch’1, who ordered the text to be

sent to Mao for his approval.? Mao wrote on the draft the phrase pu k’an(le)—‘ I won’t read this ’. Eighteen months later, in a blistering attack on Finance Ministry officials, Mao gave his reason: ‘ Why should I read something that abuses me?’. The editorial had seemed

88 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

balanced, but in fact its real aim was to oppose blind advance. Mao revealed that he had been so furious that he had boycotted Finance Ministry documents after the publication of the editorial. Mao also

criticized the Finance Ministry for failing to give the Politburo adequate opportunity to discuss its proposals.1° But he gave no indication that he had been angry with Liu Shao-ch’i in June 1956, though this was certainly implied in the main cultural revolution

account of this episode.'! Liu’s task, possibly customary when a People’s Daily editorial presaged an important policy change, was clearly to make sure that the drafters of the editorial had not misinterpreted what the inner circle of the top leadership had agreed to do. The real ‘ culprits ’ in Mao’s eyes must have been the men who had compelled the top leadership to apply the brakes, and it seems

quite clear that Liu was not among those guilty men. No factual evidence was cited during the cultural revolution to indict him on this issue. It was not one of the points on which Liu was challenged by a leading cultural revolution propagandist to provide an explana-

tion of his conduct!?; nor did he feel compelled to raise the issue himself in any of his three confessions. 12 Perhaps the most important

indication of Liu’s position in the argument over halting the 1956

them. +4

leap was given in his speech to the second session of the 8th Congress

where he roundly condemned those who were responsible in terms which made it virtually impossible that he could have been one of

(ii) The planners victorious We have even better grounds for exculpating Liu. During the cultural revolution Chou En-lai admitted: ‘ I bore the responsibility for the opposition to adventurism in 1956 (and) I made a (self-critical)

examination.’*® Chou’s admission was hardly surprising. As Premier, he was in overall charge of the economic departments of state. At various times during 1956, and particularly at the NPC, his lieutenants in charge of those departments had shown themselves opposed to adventurism, the impact of which they were in the best position to assess. They included men as important as: Ch’en Yun, senior Deputy Premier and a member of the five-man inner circle of the Politburo 1*; Li Fu-ch’un, Deputy Premier and Chairman of the State Planning Commission?’; Li Hsien-nien, Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance?*; Teng Tzu-hui, Deputy Premier and director of the State Council office in charge of agriculture!®; Po I-po, Chair-

man of the State Economic Commission?°; and Wang Shou-tao,

THE END OF THE FIRST ‘LEAP FORWARD’ 89

director of the State Council office in charge of transport and communications. ?? If all, or even most of, these men were against the reckless advance—and the evidence suggests they were—it would

have been very hard for Mao, even backed by Liu, to reject their advice. Besides Mao himself was not insensitive to the need for realism in economic affairs and was clearly aware of the serious difficulties encountered by the production drive. It is significant that Mao seems to have taken ex post facto measures to absolve himself from blame for the unrealistic plans and targets that appeared after the drive was launched in January. During the cultural revolution the following section of the speech which he made to the conference on the intellectuals in January 1956 was circulated: The targets and plans of all departments must be based on practicability. The failure to carry out something, which should be done and is within our means to accomplish, is called Right conservatism. To carry out something that is impractical and is not fully justified is called blindness (mangmu-hsing) or * Left > adventurism (mao-hsien). At the present time, they are still not the principal tendencies in the whole party, but such tendencies are already discernible. Some comrades are not as sober as they used to be and

they dare not seek truth from facts. The reason is that the label of Right conservatism or opportunism is not pleasant to hear. If after investigation and study it is found that something is truly beyond us, we should and must dare to say that it cannot be done, and must dare to cut it away so that our plan is put on a foundation which is fully justified and entirely reasonable. 22

There is no reason for doubting that Mao said this at that time, and

it may explain why Chou En-lai had originally been prepared to back the Twelve-Year Programme. In his famous Preface that effectively launched the production drive, Mao also warned against people who went off into ‘ wild flights of fancy, or made plans unwarranted by the objective situation, or insisted on attempting the

impossible.’?* Indeed, the editorial of 20 June, which allegedly angered Mao, quoted this very passage and accused the adventurist comrades of disobeying Chairman Mao.?4* The point is that in a

speech on the subject of the intellectuals, Mao must surely have spent most of his time on the kind of problems that Premier Chou was talking about at the same meeting. Yet of that speech the only passage that was released for publication during the cultural revolution concerned not the intellectuals (who were mostly not members of the CCP) but party comrades who might be guilty of rashness.?®

This smacks of an attempt to dissociate Mao from the surge of economic adventurism in the first half of 1956 that was a direct result

90 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

of his policies, although it was also something he had warned against. Mao, like his colleagues, had learned from the experience of previous years that a production drive carried with it the grave risk of adventurism. He was probably prepared to restrain that adventurism within

the framework of a continuing production drive—which was what the April CC-State Council directive on running the APCs economically did. But what he objected to was the brake on the drive itself. He may have been particularly annoyed if he felt powerless because of his relative ignorance of the complexities of Soviet-style

industrialization. His ten great relationships speech, based on a stream of reports from the economic departments that must have revealed many industrial problems, is to be seen not just as a programmatic document on the allocation of resources, but also as an attempt to find ways of keeping the industrial drive going within the context

of Soviet-style planning. But within six weeks he had to accept the

demand of Chou En-lai and the planners for an attack on adventurism.

(iii) The Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme shelved What ultimately made it impossible for Mao to put up determined opposition to the brake on the production drive were developments in the countryside, whose importance he would have appreciated more readily. The 20 June editorial singled out as an example of reckless advance the setting of excessively high production targets for the double-bladed, double-wheeled plough, in spite of the fact that it was unusable in the paddy fields of the south, where ploughs were piling up.?® It was this kind of situation that led to an order being issued, presumably by Teng Tzu-hui’s office: ‘ Destroy the

ploughs and return the iron’. This led to the scrapping of some 700,000 ploughs. 2?

Bungling was compounded by the fact that, according to a western

expert, ‘ agriculture was suffering from planning chaos and mismanagement, leading towards crisis conditions which would soon affect the entire economy unless drastic action was taken ’.?° All sorts of technical reforms called for by the Twelve-Year Programme

were forced through by eager cadres without regard to local suitability. Excessive concentration on foodgrains led to neglecting crops that provided the raw material for light industry. 2° Restrictions placed on the size of the private plots and the forcible collectivization of trees, implements, and livestock by militant cadres led peasants to slaughter pigs and poultry (sometimes without payment

THE END OF THE FIRST °“LEAP FORWARD’ 91

or at very low prices) and to allow their draught animals to die through neglect.?° Peasant incomes declined as a result?! and bad weather made it even more unlikely that the government would be able to fulfil its pledge that 90 per cent of collectivized peasants should increase their incomes in 1956. The People’s Daily editorial on the eve of the 8th Congress greeted the assembling delegates with the

gloomy tidings that the important wheat-producing provinces of Kirin and Heilungkiang had had their worst flood disasters since the communists came to power, while the floods in Hopei and Honan were more serious than the record calamities in those provinces in 1954. The only consolation that the paper could offer was that the floods, storms, and drought that had hit various parts of the country

since the end of May did not add up to a national disaster on the scale of 1954.22 Even so, it was later revealed that 7:1 per cent of the country’s arable area had been affected. 33 The party had acted even before the People’s Daily published its round-up of the situation. On 12 September a joint CC-State Council

directive was issued on the questions of production and organization in APCs. ?4 It made a courteous but curt reference to the Twelve-

Year Agricultural Programme in its preamble, but the whole intention of the directive was clearly to rectify the distortions of the rural economy that the programme had caused—the neglect of sideline

occupations, the imposition of unrealistic production targets on APCs, the introduction of untested technical innovations by fiat, the creation of over-large APCs. Effectively, the Twelve-Year Pro-

gramme had been shelved. There was no indication that it was discussed, let alone approved, at the CC’s 7th plenum (which met on

22 August, 8 and 13 September) as had originally been intended. Since the programme had been the centre-piece of the 1956 leap, its abandonment, along with the attack on adventurism, symbolized the abandonment of the leap itself. 7° Mao’s first attempt to hustle the Chinese economy forward at a faster pace had failed.

APPENDIX 1

LU TING-YI’S INTERPRETATION OF MAO‘'S HUNDRED FLOWERS POLICY During the cultural revolution Lu Ting-yi’s account of the hundred flowers policy came under attack as an ‘ unauthorized revision’ of the party’s policy and presumably therefore of Mao’s 2 May speech. ! It is important to know whether or not this is a justifiable accusation. If it is, it would indicate how far senior officials outside the Politburo were prepared to defy Mao at this time. It would also lend support to the general thrust of most cultural revolution surveys of pre-1966 history, which is to suggest that Mao has always been consistent and that deviations indicating the contrary were the result of the revisionist activities of his opponents. With no text of Mao’s 2 May speech to hand, a direct comparison is unfortunately impossible. A comparison can be made with relevant portions of Mao’s contradictions speech of 27 February 1957 which

enlarged on the same ideas. But this is in principle unsatisfactory because the final version of the contradictions speech was issued only

after revision and in a political atmosphere that was completely different from that at the time when it was delivered, and from the time when Mao and Lu Ting-yi made their hundred flowers speeches. Still, if in these circumstances Lu’s speech does not differ on fundamentals from Mao’s contradictions speech, then there is a strong

presumption that it would also be in line with Mao’s hundred flowers speech.

The attack on Lu’s version asserted that his four grounds for the launching of the flowers and schools policy meant, in short, that

contradictions had vanished, classes had disappeared, and class struggle had come to an end. Let us examine his four grounds.

Lu stated first that there had been a decisive victory in every aspect of the work of socialist transformation and that in the next few years the country would become ‘a socialist state without exploiting classes ’.2 Mao had told the Supreme State Conference on

25 January 1956 that socialism would basically be established in 92

APPENDIX 1 93 three years. * In his contradictions speech, Mao went further, stating

that ‘the socialist system was basically established’ (emphasis added) in China in 1956.4 The one difference between Lu’s and Mao’s formulations is that Lu drew the orthodox conclusion about the future on the basis of their shared assumption. That he was not saying anything heretical can be seen by examining how the Russians write of their establishment of socialism in 1936: ‘ The Socialist

system had won... The class composition of the population had changed. All exploiting classes had been eliminated’ (emphasis in the original). 5

Lu’s second ground was that ‘the political outlook of Chinese intellectuals has undergone a fundamental change, and a still more

fundamental change is still taking place ’.6 He alluded to Chou En-lai’s lengthy disquisition on this point in January. Chou’s relevant words were: ‘ The overwhelming majority of the intellectuals have become government workers in the service of Socialism and are

already part of the working-class...a fundamental change has taken place among Chinese intellectuals in the past six years’ (emphasis added).’ The following year Mao said: Most of our intellectuals have made marked (Asien-chu) progress during the past seven years. They express themselves in favour of the socialist system. Many of them are diligently studying Marxism, and some have become Communists. ... There are, of course, still some intellectuals who are sceptical of socialism or who do not approve of it, but they are in a minority. ®

Mao might be thought a little less categorical, but basically all three men express strong optimism about the political state of the intellectuals. Equally important, Lu said no more than Chou had said in

Mao’s presence; and of course, Chou’s speech has never been attacked. Lu’s third point was We still have enemies, and the class struggle is still going on inside the country. But our enemies, and our enemies inside the country in particular, have had their teeth drawn... We must keep up a relentless struggle against them [our enemies]; we must not relax our efforts. ®

Mao dealt with the problem of counter-revolutionaries in similar terms: The present situation with regard to counter-revolutionaries can be stated

in these words: There are still counter-revolutionaries, but not many. Some people say that there aren’t any and that all is at peace; that we can pile up our pillows and just go to sleep. But this is not the way things are ... If we drop our guard we shall be badly fooled and suffer for it severely

94 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION ... It would be wrong to say that there are still large numbers of counter-

confusion. 4° |

revolutionaries at large. Acceptance of that view will also breed

Finally Lu stated that ‘the political and ideological unity of the people has been greatly strengthened and is growing stronger day by day.’!1 Almost the first words, and certainly the first words of

substance, of Mao’s contradictions speech are: ‘ Never has our country been as united as it is today’.4* Mao then went on to discuss the contradictions that still remained within the society. But then this was the subject of his speech, and it was made in the light

of the Hungarian revolt that took place after the hundred flowers speeches were made.

In short, if, as the cultural revolution attack alleged, Lu implied (for he certainly did not make it explicit) that class struggle was over, then Lu was going no farther than Mao himself. And if Lu’s words could be construed to suggest he thought the objective of the policy was ‘ only *13 to make literature and art prosper and enable scientific

work to catch up with the world’s advanced level, then Lu could

quote a similar passage in Mao in justification: ‘The policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the

progress of science; it is designed to enable a socialist culture to thrive in our land.’ +4

The attempt during the cultural revolution to suggest that Lu Ting-yi’s speech was a complete distortion of Mao’s views is extremely unconvincing.1°> Even supposing Lu had been prepared to

give an explanation of a Maoist policy that contradicted that policy’s basic thrust, then surely Mao would have taken the chance to correct the distortion in his contradictions speech or elsewhere.1®

What is possible is that in the course of the original address, Lu, on his feet, may have been somewhat exuberant in his phrasing

and had to be pulled up and corrected before publication. For instance it is alleged that he said: ‘ There must be two transmissions —Marxism-Leninism will be transmitted from generation to generation, so will be bourgeois ideology. Long live Marxism-Leninism! And long live bourgeois ideology, too!’1? There is no such passage in his published text. The nearest to it is probably the section that reads: Among the people themselves there is freedom not only to spread materialism but also to propagate idealism. Provided he is not a counter-revolutionary, everyone is free to expound materialism or idealism. There is also

: APPENDIX 1 95 freedom of debate between the two.... When it comes to questions of ideas, administrative measures will get us nowhere. Only through open debate can materialism gradually conquer idealism. 1°

Earlier he had stated that the ‘struggle between materialism and idealism will be a protracted one’ continuing even after the disappearance of classes. All this is orthodox Maoist thinking, and in the light of it we can see that the first sentence of the unpublished passage is merely another way of expressing the likely longevity of idealism. His ‘ long live bourgeois ideology ’ might have been con-

sidered out of line even in the relaxed atmosphere of 1956. But suppose that the whole passage from Lu’s speech read something like the following: There must be two transmissions—Marxism-Leninism will be transmitted from generation to generation, so will be bourgeois ideology. Long live Marxism-Leninism! And long live bourgeois ideology, too! [For] Marxism

can only develop through struggle—this is true not only in the past and present, it is necessarily true in the future also. What is correct always develops in the course of struggle with what is wrong... Fighting against wrong ideas is like being vaccinated—a man develops greater immunity from disease after the vaccine takes effect. Plants raised in hot-houses are not likely to be robust. Carrying out the policy of letting a hundred flowers

bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend will not weaken but strengthen the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field.

In such a context, Lu’s ‘ long live bourgeois ideology ’ would have sounded fairly harmless. Nor is this an unlikely reconstruction of what he said; it conveys the same idea as the previous passage. What is more important is that everything in this reconstruction after the word ‘ [For] ’ comes from Mao’s contradictions speech. 1° It is even possible that ‘ long live bourgeois ideology ’ was a direct quote from Mao. One witness claims that later in 1956 Mao said ‘ long live all the parties ’, and if he wanted the bourgeois parties to live long, he was presumably in favour of their ideology living long too. ?° In sum, on the basis of the evidence so far available, Lu Ting-yt does not appear to have distorted what Mao had in mind in May 1956. And if this conclusion is correct, then it is important to notice one particular aspect of Lu’s speech which would later be modified. Liu Shao-ch’i stated that the major object of the policy of flowers and schools was to combat dogmatism. This was consistent with Mao’s discussion of the relationship between right and wrong (relationship nine of the 25 April speech on the ten great relationships) in which his attack was directed solely against dogmatists. It also fitted in with

the assessment of Stalin in ‘On the historical experience of the

96 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

dictatorship of the proletariat’, a major portion of which was devoted to the need to struggle against dogmatism. Lu Ting-yi’s words were: ‘There are still, however, many shortcomings and mistakes in our study of Marxism-Leninism, and the main defect is a tendency to doctrinairism.’*! As we shall see, this assessment was

gradually modified over the succeeding year as Mao grew more alarmed by the growth of revisionism.

PART TWO

THE CCP’S EIGHTH CONGRESS

BLANK PAGE

8 THE POSITION MAO TSE-TUNGOF Despite the economic setbacks of preceding months, the CCP’s 8th

Congress met on 15 September 1956 in an atmosphere of some triumph. In the eleven years that had elapsed since the 7th Congress, the communists had defeated the KMT, taken over the country, and set up a strong administration that had given China the peace and

unity so notably lacking over the previous century. They had restored and developed the economy, substantially collectivized agriculture—without the drastic consequences suffered by the Soviet

Union—and they had nationalized or semi-nationalized private industry and commerce. The PLA had fought impressively in Korea, engendering a healthy respect abroad for the new Chinese regime;

more recently, especially since the 1955 Bandung Conference, Chinese diplomacy had won new friends in Asia. China had stood up, Mao had said in 1949, and by 1956 it was clear to all that it had. But the congress delegates could not indulge in self-congratulation. They were confronted with a number of substantial policy issues. These included the position of Mao in the light of the 20th CPSU Congress and the struggle against the cult of personality in the

world communist movement since then+; the policy of political liberalization initiated by Mao; the guidelines for economic develop-

ment after the recent abandonment of the 1956 leap forward. Decisions on these issues had already been taken earlier in the year, but it was important for the congress to confirm these decisions and

point the way ahead. As it turned out, the congress revealed that there were substantial areas of disagreement on these issues, even

at the summit of the CCP, despite the earlier decisions. These disagreements were to persist and become more serious in the months and years that followed, and in these disagreements lay many of the seeds of the cultural revolution. Some foretaste of what was to come was provided immediately after the congress when a

new Politburo was selected at the first session of the 8th CC, for

there were some significant promotions and demotions. : 99

100 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(i) Dropping the ‘Thought of Mao Tse-tung’ Mao played a minor public role at the 8th Congress. He gave only a short opening address, leaving the main political report to Liu Shao-

ch’1. But this indicated little about Mao’s standing in the party. Stalin had let Malenkov present the major report to the CPSU’s 19th Congress in 1952; no one then or since has suggested that this

represented a setback for Stalin. If one were to take this Soviet precedent as a guide, the most one could conclude would be that Mao was pushing forward Liu Shao-ch’i as his heir apparent.

The real blow to Mao’s prestige at the 8th Congress was the omission from the new party constitution of both references to * the Thought of Mao Tse-tung’ that had been included in the 1945 constitution. 2 During the cultural revolution this excision was one of the major grounds for denouncing Liu Shao-ch’1, whose political

report also contained no mention of Mao’s Thought, and Teng Hsiao-p’ing, who delivered the report on the new constitution. The evidence suggests that Liu may indeed have been trying to reduce Mao’s role—though not necessarily quite in the manner alleged— but that Teng Hsiao-p’ing in his report was concerned to defend Mao’s position in the context of the campaign against the personality cult in the world communist movement. The proposal that reference to Mao’s Thought should be dropped from the new constitution came originally from P’eng Teh-huai. Under interrogation during the cultural revolution, P’eng Teh-huai admitted: In 1956 when the 8th Congress was held it was I who suggested excising Mao Tse-tung’s thought (from the party constitution); as soon as I made the suggestion, Liu Shao-ch’i concurred saying, ‘ It is probably better to excise it °. I was opposed to the cult of personality. *

The first point that P’eng Teh-huai’s confession makes clear is that the excision of Mao’s Thought was proposed by someone who did not

participate in the drafting of either the new constitution or the crucial section of Liu’s report on ‘ The political life of the state ’ to which great exception was taken during the cultural revolution. The latter was written by P’eng Chen‘; the former was drawn up by a team, allegedly picked by Liu, consisting of Teng Hsiao-p’ing, An Tzu-wen (then acting director, later director of the CCP’s Organization Department), and Liu Lan-t’ao (then a CCP deputy SecretaryGeneral, after the congress an alternate secretary of the secretariat). ® P’eng Teh-huai’s confession thus suggests that the excision was decided on at a late stage.* There is other evidence to indicate that

THE POSITION OF MAO TSE-TUNG 101

the major reports were agreed to in a hasty, last-minute fashion. Liu Shao-ch’i’s wife (Wang Kuang-mei) later claimed: The report to the ‘ 8th Congress’ has shortcomings, but this is not his [Liu Shao-ch’i’s] personal problem. The resolution of the ‘ 8th Congress’

seems also to have mistakes. ... Has the Chairman read it?... Everything was done in a hurry, and Liu Shao-ch’i also seemed to have read it in a hurry. However the document was released long ago. Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee did not say anything. ’

Corroboration of Mme Liu’s allegation of hastiness has been provided by Premier Chou En-lai, who has stated that Mao was not shown the congress resolution on Liu’s political report prior to its dissemination. ® Liu Shao-ch’i stated in one confession that though Mao objected to certain sentences of the resolution ‘ there was no time to revise them ’. ®

The disjointed manner in which the CC’s pre-congress 7th plenum was held on three separate days (22 August, 8 and 13 September) is further evidence of a certain amount of disorganization on the eve of

the congress despite the fact that preparations for it had been initiated in March 1955.1° Possibly the top leadership was distracted during the weeks before the congress by natural disasters and the rural problems that led to the publication on 12 September of the joint CC-SC directive on APCs. But even if the decision was taken at the last minute, P’eng Tehhuai and Liu Shao-ch’i could clearly not have obtained the excision of Mao’s Thought without support among their colleagues. Indeed

it seems that Mao himself gave his approval. Ch’en Yi asserted during the cultural revolution: In his report at the 8th National Party Congress Liu Shao-ch’i made no mention of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought, but this omission is regarded as one out of a hundred other crimes he committed. This report was approved by Chairman Mao and the Political Bureau, and I was present at that meeting."

Mao has effectively confirmed Ch’en Yi’s evidence, for in a discussion of other charges levelled against Liu’s report he remarked: ‘We read the report, it was passed by the Congress; one cannot just hold these two [Liu Shao-ch’i and Teng Hsiao-p’iny] responsible.’ *? It seems reasonable to assume that the excision of Mao’s Thought from the party constitution, a more formal and important move, was also agreed by Mao and the Politburo, probably at the same meeting referred to by Ch’en Yi. If this assumption is correct, then the statements of Mao and Ch’en Yi mean that neither Liu Shao-ch’i nor Teng Hsiao-p’ing can legitimately be accused of wanting to denigrate Mao

102 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

just because they made the offending presentations to the congress. 13 It is necessary to look for other evidence if one is to attempt to assess

the attitudes of these men towards Mao’s role in the light of the continuing struggle against the cult of personality in the world com-

munist movement since the publication of ‘ On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat ’.

(ii) Liu Shao-ch’i's attitude to Mao The first piece of evidence is P’eng Teh-huai’s confession, which suggests that Liu Shao-ch’i wished to see Mao’s Thought dropped. Clearly when P’eng Teh-huai made this confession in the first year

of the cultural revolution, he may have been under pressure to incriminate colleagues then coming under fire. Yet it is suggestive that he named only Liu and not Teng Hsiao-p’ing too, though both men were by this time being attacked on this issue. The clear implication is that at the crucial meeting Liu Shao-ch’i played an active and important role in securing agreement to drop Mao’s Thought while Teng did not. Liu’s behaviour on this occasion would fit with his attempts earlier in the year to diminish Mao’s position. It would also fit with some of the remarks contained in his speech to the 8th Congress which seemed two-edged even when most complimentary to Mao. In one key passage Liu Shao-ch’i undertook to explain to party members who had joined since the 7th Congress—90 per cent of the total membership—how, in 1935, the correct line had replaced the incorrect line in the history of the CCP. Every CCP congress delegate would have been aware that it was in January 1935 at the Tsuny1 conference that Mao Tse-tung had achieved a position of dominance in the Politburo.1+ Most of Liu’s audience would doubtless have read the assessment of the importance of the Tsunyi conference in Hu Ch’iao-mu’s short history of the CCP: With the majority of the comrades conscious of the issues and with their support, the Tsunyi Conference removed the ‘ Left ’ opportunists from the

Party leadership, and established Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s leading position in the whole party. From that time on, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese revolution have been continuously under the Marxist-Leninist leadership of this outstanding, great and completely reliable leader—and this is the most important guarantee for the victory of the revolution. 15

In the aftermath of the Soviet 20th Congress, Liu Shao-ch’i could be excused for not being as effusive as this and for not repeating the paean to Mao he had delivered to the 7th Congress. 1° It would have

THE POSITION OF MAO TSE-TUNG 103

been enough for him to state as he did that since the Tsunyi conference, the CCP ‘ under the leadership of the Central Committee headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung ’ had made no mistakes in line. 17 The delegates would have seen this as a discreet reaffirmation of the

official position, embodied in a CC resolution, that the Tsunyi meeting had ‘inaugurated a new central leadership, headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung—a historic change of paramount importance in the Chinese Party ’.1® But Liu did not leave well enough alone. Asking how this change from incorrect to correct line could be explained, he rejected the idea that the party had simply become more experienced. He then went on: Neither can it be explained merely by the personal qualities of the leading personnel of the Party in a certain period, for the majority of the leading personnel who had previously made mistakes later did good work for the Party. The history of the Party leads us to this conclusion: the amount of

experience gained by the Party and the choice of leaders do have an important bearing on whether the Party makes mistakes, but what is more important is whether the rank-and-file Party members, and primarily the

high-ranking cadres, can, in the various periods, apply the MarxistLeninist stand, viewpoint and method to sum up experience in the struggle, hold fast to the truth and correct mistakes. 1°

This passage clearly represented a down-grading of the importance of the rise of Mao, 2° and indeed might be thought to offend against the CC resolution quoted above. It also did not include a mention of

‘the road of Mao Tse-tung’ which, Liu had indicated at the 7th Congress, was the CCP’s correct line?1; consequently there was no attribution of the CCP’s victories to Mao. Liu’s most flattering reference to Mao occurred when he discussed collective leadership and inner-party democracy: As everyone knows, the reason why the leader of our Party, Comrade Mao

Tse-tung, has played the great role of helmsman in our revolution and enjoys a high prestige in the whole Party and among all the people of the country is not only that he knows how to integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the actual practice of the Chinese revolution, but

also that he firmly believes in the strength and wisdom of the masses, initiates and advocates the mass line in Party work, and steadfastly upholds the Party’s principles of democracy and collective leadership. 7?

At the 7th Congress Liu had laid more stress on Mao’s ability to integrate Marxism-Leninism and the practice of the Chinese revolution and had not mentioned his respect for collective leadership. 7? The change of emphasis could legitimately be attributed to the need to differentiate Mao from Stalin. But in the light of Liu’s remarks on Tsunyi, a sensitive Mao could well have seen this passage as a hint .

104 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

that his willingness to consult his colleagues was as important as the

correctness of his ideas.24 Since in 1955 Mao had bypassed his colleagues to prove the correctness of his ideas on agricultural collectivization, Mao would not have appreciated such a hint.

(ii) Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s defence of Mao The ambivalence of Liu Shao-ch’i’s attitude towards Mao’s role is pointed up by the contrast between his remarks and those of Teng Hsiao-p’ing. In his report on the new CCP constitution, Teng did

not attempt to explain the dropping of the references to Mao’s Thought; this was evidently too delicate a matter for public discussion. But he did confront the problem of the cult of personality and took pains to exculpate Mao. He did this in two ways. First he

pointed out, much as had the article ‘On the historical experience ...’, that the CCP had taken measures many years earlier to ensure collective leadership. He quoted the full text of a decision made by the CC in September 1948 on strengthening the party com-

mittee system. The CCP delegates doubtless all knew that this decision (like that of June 1943 quoted in ‘ On the historical experience ...’) had been drafted by Mao Tse-tung himself.?5 Teng effectively told the congress that there was no problem of a cult of personality in China and that moreover it had been Mao who had taken steps to prevent it.?® Teng’s second way of differentiating Mao from Stalin was to state that: ‘ Love for the leader is essentially an expression of love for the interests of the Party, the class and the people, and not the deification of an individual ’.27 This passage, taken from the official translation

made at the time, was clearly designed to justify praise of Mao (‘love for the leader’) and differentiate it from the Stalin cult (‘ deification of an individual ’).28 Teng went on to reveal that at Mao’s personal suggestion the CC had decided, shortly before the

communists had come to power, to prohibit the celebration of birthdays of party leaders and the use of party leaders’ names to designate places, streets, and enterprises.” ®

Nor was Teng content just to provide this vigorous defence of Mao against possible imputations of a personality cult. He also made a number of positive references to him. At the start of his report, ina brief résumé of CCP history since the 7th Congress, he referred to the

defeat of the KMT by ‘ our Party, led by the Central Committee

with Comrade Mao Tse-tung at the head’.*° By contrast, Liu Shao-ch’i, in his brief résumé, stated simply that in 1949, ‘ our Party

THE POSITION OF MAO TSE-TUNG 105

led the people in overthrowing the reactionary rule of imperialism...’ etc.?4 In his closing paragraphs, Teng Hsiao-p’ing was even more positive: “Our Party also owes its victories to the leading personnel of the Party organisations at all levels, particularly

to the leader of our Party, Comrade Mao Tse-tung ’.°? Especially noteworthy, in view of the dropping of ‘ Mao Tse-tung’s Thought ’ from the party constitution, was Teng’s instruction to party organiza-

tions at all levels ‘to be conscientious about educating the vast numbers of new members more effectively, to take practical measures

to organise and guide their study of Marxism-Leninism, Comrade

Mao Tse-tung’s writings and the history and policy of our Party... .’3° This was in line with an intra-party directive issued by

Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen to the propaganda organs, presumably about this time, which ordered them not to talk of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought but only of Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s works. °*

But no such reaffirmation of the continuing importance of Mao’s writings—in which, of course, the ‘ Thought of Mao Tse-tung’ was embedded—was made by Liu in his political report, an omission which cultural revolutionaries were to notice.

(iv) Mao’‘s plan to retire Mao himself, we may assume, would have been sensitive to any hint that he was or might become another Stalin. But it would be wrong to suggest that he was concerned only with his personal prestige. Khrushchev’s exposure of Stalin’s faults caused Mao to think deeply

about modifying the proletarian dictatorship, and within a few months of the Soviet 20th Congress he had begun to chart new directions for China. Mao was also impelled to ponder the role of the

supreme leader and the succession problem. His own testimony indicates that he decided to step back out of the limelight in order to allow his senior colleagues to establish themselves as major political figures independent of himself. The key to Mao’s plan was the division of the Politburo Standing Committee into first and second ‘ fronts’ (see App. 3). Mao would retire to the second front, shedding duties and functions, and thus allow the other members of the Standing Committee to increase their experience and prestige. This was to ensure that when Mao died he would be succeeded by a self-confident group of men, accustomed, unlike Stalin’s successors, to taking decisions and assuming responsibility. Further, Liu Shao-ch’i would take over official functions from

106 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Mao so that the unpublicized,*5 informal, and indeed unconstitutional division of the top party leadership would be accompanied by formal and public transfers of authority. Mao almost certainly retired to the second front (i.e. line) within the Politburo Standing Committee in April 1959, about the time when Liu Shao-ch’i succeeded him as head of state. But the evidence suggests that he made the decision gradually to hand over power to

Liu Shao-ch’i and his other colleagues before the 8th Congress in September 1956.

We know that as early as February 1957 Mao was ready to communicate a hint of his decision to large numbers of people outside the party when, in his contradictions speech, he ‘ compared himself to a leading character in a certain well-known opera, but said that now he was growing too old to play the star’s part well; he hinted that he soon might step down to a subordinate role ’.*® This would surely mean that he had told his senior colleagues within the party sometime earlier. Certain aspects of the 8th Congress suggest that it was before that occasion.

One major indicator was the provision in the 1956 new party constitution for an honorary chairman of the CC, a position that would have seemed tailor-made for Mao in the event of his handing over substantive power and the party chairmanship. In 1956 Mao may have envisaged a five-year transition period during which he would divest himself of his powers and posts. If so, he carried out the

first part of his plan, handing over the state chairmanship to Liu Shao-ch’i and retiring to the second front within the Politburo Standing Committee in April 1959. The logical next step would have been to exchange the CCP chairmanship for the honorary chairmanship of the 9th Party Congress due in 1961. In the event the congress

was not held until 1969, and long before then Mao had bitterly regretted his retreat to the second front. Another indicative innovation in the 1956 party constitution was the formation of a different type of secretariat. The old secretariat had been chaired by Mao, and its secretaries had been Liu Shao-ch’1, Chou En-lai, Chu Teh, and Ch’en Yun. Its composition indicated that the secretariat had hitherto been concerned as much, perhaps more, with policy-making as with administrative and organizational questions. This conclusion is reinforced by the explicit statement that the former role of the secretariat would now be assumed by the newly created Politburo Standing Committee?’—which consisted of the members of the old secretariat plus Teng Hsiao-p’ing, who assumed

THE POSITION OF MAO TSE-TUNG 107

the new post of party General Secretary at the 8th Congress. The new secretariat, powerful though it was, had only the one man, Teng, on the policy-making Politburo Standing Committee. The reshaping of the secretariat was necessary, according to Teng

Hsiao-p’ing, because ‘ owing to the pressure of Party and government work, the existing central organs have proved inadequate ’. 3° This was easily comprehensible simply in terms of the expansion of

CCP membership from 1-2 million at the 7th Congress to 10-7 million at the 8th.?® But Mao himself later linked the formation of the new secretariat with the division of the top leadership into two fronts. This indicates that Mao also saw the new secretariat—which he had suggested 4°—as part of his plan to make himself less essential to the leadership of China; it would serve to strengthen the party organization and give it a corporate existence independent, to some extent, of its chairman. By contrast, Stalin had terrorized the party apparatus into becoming merely an extension of his own will.

A third indicator of Mao’s intentions at the time of the 8th Congress was the fact already mentioned that Liu delivered the CC’s

political report, an indication that Mao was bringing forward his heir apparent.

Even if these three aspects of the 8th Congress were signs that Mao was beginning a planned and gradual retirement from his supreme role, we still cannot be sure that he was enthusiastic about the dropping of his Thought from the political report and the new constitution. Clearly, as has been seen, he accepted the suggestion, and it fitted in with his plan for self-effacement. But he had not made

the suggestion; and especially since he was prepared to hand over actual power, he may well have privately resented the erasure of this tribute to a body of thought which had guided the CCP to its revo-

lutionary triumph. Such an attitude on Mao’s part would help explain why his supporters concentrated on this issue during the cultural revolution.

(v) Confusion in the ranks about Mao’‘s role What is certainly apparent from the cultural revolution polemics is that Maoists felt that the Chairman’s prestige received a blow at the 8th Congress. In a sense they were right. To be sure, Mao emerged

from the congress his position unchanged, his reputation untarnished. But the excision of the reference to his Thought from the constitution, Liu Shao-ch’i’s ambivalent attitude towards him, even Mao’s own well-intentioned desire gradually to retire, all combined

108 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

to confuse congress delegates about Mao’s standing. If they now hoped to be provided with a definitive attitude to adopt towards Mao

in the light of the attack on the personality cult, they were disappointed. The contrasting attitudes of Liu and Teng must have made them uneasy.

During the congress, delegates were privately briefed on the omission of Mao’s Thought from the constitution. Liu Shao-ch’i

is quoted as having said: | Chairman Mao’s leadership over the whole party was established at the time of the [party’s] seventh congress; even if we don’t talk of it [presumably Mao’s Thought] now, everyone will still know about it. Besides, if one is always repeating something so that people get accustomed to hearing it, it does not serve any purpose. 44

The acting director of the party’s Organization Department, An Tzu-wen, argued in similar vein that in 1945 it had been necessary to do everything to build up Mao’s prestige, but now ‘ Chairman Mao enjoys such a high prestige that there is no need to mention establishment of his prestige’.42 Such explanations—presumably refiecting the line agreed by the Politburo—had a certain plausibility, but it is doubtful if they convinced the more sophisticated delegates. The resulting confusion can be seen by glancing at the way speakers at the congress dealt with Mao’s opening address.

Apart from the three rapporteurs themselves—Liu Shao-ch’i, Chou En-lai, and Teng Hsiao-p’ing—virtually all party members who spoke at the congress expressed their agreement with the three major

CC reports at the beginning of their speeches. Formally there was probably no necessity for expressions of agreement with Mao’s opening address since it was not an official CC report. Yet thirty-five delegates also expressed agreement with Mao’s short opening speech, while fifty-three did not. 4? In the context, a reference to Mao, even if of a ritualistic nature, was a significant indicator of attitude to the

Chairman. One senior leader who was among the fifty-three was specifically attacked during the cultural revolution for his failure to mention Mao on this occasion. #4 In the light of that attack, it is worth noting that over half the 8th CC members who mentioned Mao in their speeches to the 8th Congress, and who held positions at the centre at the start of the cultural revolution, still survived in the post-cultural revolution 9th CC, 4° as compared with only something over one-third of those failed to mention Mao. *®

The correlations are even more interesting when the focus is narrowed down. Besides the three rapporteurs, twelve members and

THE POSITION OF MAO TSE-TUNG 109

alternate members of the Politburo elected by the 8th CC before the cultural revolution?’ addressed the congress. Of these twelve, two were dead by the time of the cultural revolution. Of the remaining ten, four—Ch’en Yun, Ch’en Yi, Li Fu-ch’un, and Li Hsien-nien— expressed agreement with Mao’s speech; all four were re-elected to the 9th CC though only one, Li Hsien-nien, remained in the Politburo. Six did not refer to Mao’s speech; of them one (P’eng Teh-huai) had been purged before the cultural revolution, three (Li Ching-ch’iian, Ulanfu, and Po I-po) were purged during it, while two ‘ elder statesmen ’ (Chu Teh and Tung Pi-wu) survived as Politburo members.

This does not suggest that cultural revolutionaries would have wished in 1966 to write off party leaders just for this one slight to Mao ten years earlier.4® The point is rather that a senior victim of the cultural revolution would have been purged as a result of his actions and attitudes on many issues over many years, and that his behaviour in the aftermath of the attack on Stalin would have been one of the items in the balance sheet. For Mao the 8th Congress may

have seemed like a litmus paper, revealing his colleagues in their true colours. After leading the revolution successfully for twenty-one

years, he may well have been disappointed that a positive attitude towards himself was not more widely in evidence.

O THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION

(i) The reception of Mao’‘s speech The uncertainties surrounding Mao’s position may have been increased by the evident unpopularity of some of his recent policy proposals. This unpopularity can be sensed in an analysis of the reception accorded his short opening speech to the congress, the main theme of which was unity in the interests of development: * The task of this congress is to sum up the experience gained since the Seventh Congress, to unite the whole Party and to unite with all those forces at home and abroad that can be united with to build a great, socialist China.’! There was no mention of class struggle. Mao’s speech was the only one at the congress for which the Official press gave the decibel rating for applause so beloved of the Soviet news media. The Chinese may have wished to demonstrate that, in spite of the attack on the cult of personality, their leader still commanded their respect. But the rating also revealingly indicated how different portions of Mao’s speech were received. There were four categories of applause and I have assigned them an arbitrary point count:

All rise, long, stormy applause 4 long, stormy applause 3

stormy applause 2

applause 1

A preliminary breakdown of Mao’s speech using this count shows the following ?:

Subject-matter % of words Points % Of total points

Formalities 11-1 22 34-3 International 45-7 33 51:5 Domestic 42:9 9 14-06

In other words, while Mao divided his speech roughly equally between international and domestic topics, the international section did much better in terms of applause—surely a surprising fact at the first congress after the CCP’s nation-wide victory ?. 110

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION I11

A breakdown of the domestic section of Mao’s speech throws some interesting light on the matter:

% of words % Of total points

Subject-matter in section Points for section

Duty of 8th Congress 6:7 26 66°6 22:2 Successes since 1945 19-2 Need to learn from

mistakes 11 0 0 party people 29:7 0 0

Working with non-

Need to combat the ‘three evils’ (Subjectivism, bureaucra-

tism, and sectarianism) 33 1 11-1

The first conclusion one derives from this breakdown is that Chinese Communists are much like everyone else: they prefer to hear about their successes rather than their failures. But a more profound conclusion emerges when one considers the major policy proposals made by Mao. These were contained in the last two items. Combating the * three evils’ here was closely linked

with working with non-party people. Sectarianism specifically denoted discrimination against outsiders, especially non-party people; but subjectivism (the blind application of Marxist theory) and bureaucratism (the issuing of orders without checking on their

feasibility) were both connected with the problem of non-party people as well. Clearly a subjectivist, bureaucratic party member would be so self-confident and self-righteous that he would tend to brush aside the opinions of non-party people and thus be guilty of sectarianism too. In other words, the latter two portions of Mao’s remarks on domestic affairs were really two aspects of one policy, the united front policy that he had been pushing since the beginning of the year, in his effort first to get the cooperation of the non-party intelligentsia in the national production drive, and then to associate them in ‘ mutual supervision ’ with the CCP in the light of the 20th CPSU Congress. But though he devoted a total of 62°7 per cent of his wordage on domestic affairs to this united front policy, it earned

him only 11-1 per cent of the applause awarded to the domestic section of his speech. There could have been no clearer indication of the lack of enthusiasm of party members for united front policies, a lack of enthusiasm that made the thorough enforcement of the policy even more urgent. °

An examination of the international section of Mao’s speech does

112 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

not provide many insights. On the whole, applause corresponded to wordage, though the delegates were more enthusiastic about Mao’s anti-imperialist remarks (8-7 per cent of the wordage, 15 per cent of

the points) than his statement that the world situation favoured peace (12:5 per cent of the wordage, 3 per cent of the points). Interestingly enough, in the light of his later diatribes against the CPSU and other foreign communists, Mao spent over half his words in this section on stressing the importance of the friendship, support, and example of Russian and other communists, and specifically on complimenting the Soviet Union. On the 20th Congress, his words

were: ‘At the 20th Congress, convened not long ago, the Soviet Communist party also formulated many correct policies and criticized shortcomings within the party. One can be sure that their work will develop very greatly from now on.’ * It is hardly surprising

that on this public and ceremonious occasion Mao did not vent his doubts of the wisdom of some aspects of the 20th Congress; but it

does render less credible the cultural revolution attacks on Liu Shao-ch’i and others for similar utterances on similar occasions. °

(ii) The question of supervision ofjthe CCP It must be remembered that Khrushchev’s secret speech was not simply a denunciation of the deification of Stalin, but also an exposé

of the mass arrests, deportations, and executions ordered by him. It thus raised the whole question of the relationship of a communist party to the people it ruled. This issue was to become even more sharply relevant for China after the Hungarian revolt in October— November 1956, though even before the CCP’s 8th Congress the riots of 28-9 June in Poznan, Poland, had indicated the popular hostility to Stalinism in Eastern Europe. ° Nothing so serious seems to have happened in China, but Mao did later admit (in his contradictions speech of 27 February 1957) that there had been disturbances: In 1956, small numbers of workers and students in certain places went on strike. The immediate cause of these disturbances was the failure to satisfy certain of their demands for material benefits, of which some should and could be met, while the others were out of place or excessive and therefore

could not be met for the time being. But a more important cause was bureaucracy on the part of those in positions of leadership. ... Another cause for these disturbances was that the ideological and political educational work done among the workers and students was inadequate. In the same year, members of a small number of agricultural cooperatives also created disturbances, and the main causes were also bureaucracy on the part of the leadership and lack of educational work among the masses. ’

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION 113

It seems quite likely that at least some of the strikes mentioned by Mao took place before the 8th Congress; but even if they had not, the CCP was certainly well aware by then of the need to remove

causes of unrest or—to put it in CCP terminology—to resolve contradictions within a socialist society.® As has been seen, in June

1956 the CC had ordered the study of rectification documents by party cadres down to the level of Asien secretary, and in July the PLA’s GPD had ordered the same five documents to be studied by senior oOfficers.® In early September Shantung province began implementing the CC directive. 1° As these measures—and the activities of Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng

Chen during the summer—indicated, there was apparently no disagreement within the top leadership about the need to improve the political atmosphere. It was accepted by all that mistakes had been and would be made by CCP cadres and that they ought to be combated. But there were clear differences of opinion over the causes of the mistakes, differences which had important implications for the kind of remedial measures that were thought appropriate. The two opposing points of view were exposed to the congress delegates in the speeches of Liu Shao-ch’i and Teng Hsiao-p’ing. Most importantly, the two men differed over which of the ‘ three evils ’°—subjectivism, bureaucratism, sectarianism—was the most serious. Liu emphasized the novelty of the conditions and tasks facing cadres since the assumption of power and the consequent dangers of subjectivism. Having discussed the party’s pre-1949 successes in

overcoming mistakes, he stated that this historical experience demonstrated that in order to ensure the smooth advance of the Party’s work and to avoid major mistakes, the key lies in overcoming subjectivism ideologically. At the present time serious mistakes of subjectivism are found in the thought

and work of many cadres; they have caused losses to our work which could have been avoided. We are now confronted with new conditions and new tasks, and we must solve many problems which are more complicated

than those of the past, and with which we are unfamiliar. Under such circumstances, subjectivist mistakes will inevitably grow if we do not endeavour to raise the level of our Marxist-Leninist understanding, do not strive to acquire new knowledge, do not diligently learn new ways of work,

but instead rest content with praise for our past victories. (Emphasis added.)

Liu also pointed out that it was easy for the large numbers of new members without adequate training in Marxism-Leninism to fall under the influence of subjectivism and doctrinairism.*?

114 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Teng Hsiao-p’ing, on the other hand, emphasized not so much the novelty of the party’s tasks as the novelty of the party’s position and the consequent dangers of bureaucratism: As a party in power our Party has been confronted with a fresh test. Generally speaking, our Party has stood the test in the past seven years... But the experience of these seven years has also shown us that, with the Party in power, our comrades are liable to be tainted with bureaucracy.

Both for Party organizations and individual members the danger of drifting away from reality and from the masses has increased rather than

decreased. Any such drifting away is bound to give rise to errors of subjectivism, that is, errors of doctrinairism and empiricism, and such errors have increased rather than decreased in our Party compared with the situation of a few years ago.!2 (Emphasis added.)

Now the trilogy of evils of subjectivism, bureaucratism, and sectarianism are so closely linked in Chinese communist analysis that one might suppose that this was simply a difference of emphasis. But in fact the difference of emphasis led to extremely important differences in policy prescription.

Liu, emphasizing subjectivism, stated that what was needed to combat it was to make ‘systematic efforts to raise the MarxistLeninist level of our Party ’.4? This meant primarily more intensive theoretical study. He also emphasized the importance of on-the-spot investigations and research as a corrective for party cadres who had become ‘ conceited and complacent ’.14 This latter sin was clearly a

version of bureaucratism, but Liu never mentioned the term in describing the faults of party members. Teng, however, had a different set of priorities for rectifying the situation, consonant with his selection of bureaucratism rather than subjectivism as the most serious of the three evils:

Therefore, apart from strengthening the ideological education of its members, the Party has an even more important task, namely, to strengthen the Party’s leadership in various ways and to make appropriate provisions in both the state and the Party systems for a strict supervision over our Party organizations and Party members. We need to carry out supervision within

the Party, and we also need supervision of our Party organizations and Party members by the masses and by non-Party personalities.4* (Emphasis added.)

A crucial distinction between Liu’s and Teng’s policy proposals was over where criticism should come from. Liu emphasized the importance of study and the correction of mistakes by party organi-

zations and party members themselves; for him the guarantee of

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION 115

success was renewed stress on collective leadership and a broadening

of democratic life within the party.1® Teng, on the other hand, underlined the need for supervision, particularly from outside the party. Again, these were not simply different sides of the same coin. Liu compared the conceit and complacency of party cadres to that of some government officials; but in the case of the latter Liu singled out bureaucratism as a principal fault and went to great lengths to describe how supervision over the government apparatus should be strengthened in the struggle against this bureaucratism. Yet Liu did not mention bureaucratism or prescribe supervision in the case of party cadres. Teng, as we have seen, specifically stated that both government and party cadres needed supervision. This difference was accentuated by Liu’s discussion of the need for ‘long-term co-existence and mutual supervision’ between the

CCP and the democratic parties, a policy which had first been enunciated by Mao in his ten great relationships speech. At first glance it might seem that any approving discussion of this policy would imply acceptance of the principle of outsiders supervising the Communist party. But in Liu’s case this did not seem to be so. He discussed the policy only in the section on the political life of the

state and not in the section on the leadership of the party. Immediately after saying that communists should be ‘adept at benefiting from supervision and criticism by members of all democratic parties, and by democrats without party affiliations * he went on to point out

that these democrats occupied important posts in state organs; he then proceeded to discuss various methods of improving these organs. It became clear that what Liu was sanctioning was the supervision of party members not qua party members, but in their role as state officials. Or to put it another way, Liu was quite prepared to see democrats on his NPC standing committee criticizing errors of Chou’s government officials who happened to be members of the CCP.*7 Indeed, over the course of the next few months, Liu and P’eng Chen drew up plans for the creation of eight standing committees of the NPC (with branches at the local level) which would compose a national supreme supervisory system (tsui-kao chien-tu hsi-t'ung) overseeing government work.’* But at no point did Liu exhibit any willingness to countenance democrats criticizing fulltime party officials.1® It was precisely such a willingness on the part of Mao that lay behind the launching of the rectification campaign seven months later.

116 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Liu-ist approach was reflected in the congress resolution on

the political report. This resolution—which may well have been drafted by P’eng Chen in view of his responsibility for the section of Liu’s report on the political life of the state—emphasized the importance of supervision of state organs, including the method of ‘ more

vigorously encouraging the masses, and subordinate personnel in state organs, to criticise and supervise the organs of state ’ (emphasis added). 2° But, while conceding (unlike Liu) that party personnel too

could lapse into bureaucratism, the resolution said only that the party’s leading organs must be * skilled in-learning from the masses

and listening to their criticism and suggestions...’ (emphasis added). #1 Clearly in the party bureaucracy, unlike the state bureaucracy, officials were entitled to retain the initiative. Mao and Teng had sustained a setback in their drive to make CCP cadres subject to criticism and supervision by non-communists.

(iii) Strengthening the mass line Mao’s reverse on the supervision issue in the political resolution was in part compensated for by a strengthening of the role of the ‘ mass

line’ in the new party constitution. There could be no doubt that this particularly striking amplification of the 1945 constitution was motivated by anxieties about party bureaucratism. In his report on the new constitution, Teng Hsiao-p’ing stated that: the present position of our party as a party in power throughout the country has greatly increased the danger of our drifting away from the masses, and the damage this can do to the masses is also greater than before. Therefore, to seriously propagate and carry out the mass line in the whole party is also of special significance at present. 2?

Teng also made it clear that the strengthening of the ‘ mass line’ was intimately connected with the question of outside supervision of the CCP: In the struggle to carry out the mass line and combat bureaucracy, it is of

vital importance to strengthen still further our cooperation with nonParty people, and to draw as many of them as possible into the struggle. . . these democratic personalities can provide a kind of supervision over our Party which cannot easily be provided by Party members alone; they can

discover mistakes and shortcomings in our work which may escape our own notice, and render us valuable help in work. 2

What was the mass line? According to Teng, it had two aspects: the party’s duty wholeheartedly to serve and guide the people as they

liberated themselves—what one might call the ‘selfless service’

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION 117

aspect; and the leadership method of ‘ coming from the masses and

going back to the masses ’—the ‘leadership method’ aspect.24 Citing a CC resolution on ‘ Some questions concerning methods of leadership ’ drafted by Mao in 1943, 25 Teng explained this method as studying, coordinating, and systematizing the diverse views of the

people and then taking the resulting ideas back to the people, explaining and popularizing them until the people adopted them as their own. 78

Teng made it quite clear that ‘selfless service’ was ineffective without the ‘ leadership method ’:

Practice has shown that there were many people who do not lack the desire to serve the masses and yet bungle their work in a way that does great harm to the masses. This is because they regard themselves as advanced elements, or as leaders knowing a great deal more than the masses. Therefore, they neither learn from the masses nor consult them, with the result that their ideas more often than not prove impracticable. 27

Teng devoted a significant portion of his speech to the mass line. He justified the length of his exposition by pointing to the influx of new members since the 7th Congress and by the assertion that the mass line had been given a ‘ richer and more profound content’ as a result of the years of struggle since 1945. 2® The first reason could not

be disputed, but the second appears to have been a cover for a radical change of emphasis as between the ‘ selfless service’ and “leadership method’ aspects of the mass line in the new constitution, a change which reflected the differing views of Mao and Teng on the one hand and of Liu Shao-ch’i on the other. In his speech to the 7th Congress on the new party constitution, Liu Shao-ch’i had also dwelt at length on the mass line, but he had placed far more stress on the ‘ selfless service ’ aspect. He had stated

that in order thoroughly to carry out the mass line, certain ‘ mass standpoints ’ had to be instilled into the mind of every party member.29 There were four of these: everything for the masses: full responsibility to the masses; faith in the self-emancipation of the masses; and learning from the masses. Only the fourth dealt with the ‘leadership method ’ aspect of the mass line. >° In the 1945 party constitution that Liu introduced, the leadership method of ‘ from the masses, to the masses’ was not mentioned as

such. In the paragraph of the general programme dealing with relations with the people—in which the words ‘ mass line ’ nowhere appear®4—most space is devoted to aspects of ‘ selfless service ’. There is only a brief allusion to the ‘ leadership method ’, and then E

118 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

only in a context that suggests that teaching the masses is as impor-

tant as learning from them: ‘ Every Party member must be fully resolved to learn from the masses of the people and, at the same time,

to educate them untiringly in a revolutionary spirit for the purpose of awakening and developing their consciousness.’ ®2 In striking contrast was the paragraph—greatly enlarged, as Teng Hsiao-p’ing emphasized 3 8—devoted explicitly to the ‘ mass line’ in

the 1956 constitution. It began with a discussion of the ‘ leadership method ’ and only subsequently went on to state the importance of * selfless service’ in terms closely reminiscent of the 1945 constitution. Moreover, the ‘ leadership method’ was described as crucial to the CCP’s success: Whether the Party can remain correct in leadership will be determined by whether the Party can systematically sum up after analysis and coordination the experiences and views of the masses and turn them into the Party’s views, and then taking the resulting ideas back to the masses, explaining

and popularizing them until the masses embrace the ideas as their own... .34 What lay behind the different approaches to the mass line in the 1945 and 1956 constitutions? Why was the ‘leadership method ’ aspect of the mass line, laid down by Mao in 1943 and discussed, accurately enough, by Liu in his 1945 report, not formally enshrined in the 1945 constitution ? The explanation would seem to have been a fundamental difference of opinion over the role of the vanguard party.

For Liu, the important point was that the party member should devote himself selflessly to the cause of the people; the purity of that devotion was the best safeguard of his ability to act correctly on their

behalf. For Mao devotion was never enough, and particularly not when the party was entrenched in power; he demanded constant learning from the source of correct ideas, the masses, and considered

that to be the firmest guarantee of correct conduct. Liu’s approach smacked of elitism, Mao’s of populism.

These contrasted attitudes shed light on the two men’s differing opinions on supervision of the CCP. Liu evidently felt that the selfless

party elite should be above external supervision; party members could make mistakes, but these could best be rectified by intra-party devices such as the study of Marxism-Leninism. For Mao, supervision was yet another method of immersion in the masses. A further question arises. Why should Teng Hsiao-p’ing, whose

position should have made him as much the protector of the vanguard party as Liu Shao-ch’i, have restated so emphatically the

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION 119

Maoist version of the mass line in the party constitution he had masterminded?®* This question will be considered below in the chapter on the new leadership elected at the 8th Congress.

(iv) Mao’‘s dissatisfaction with the political resolution Liu Shao-ch’i revealed in one of his confessions during the cultural revolution that Mao had taken exception to certain sentences in the political resolution passed at the 8th Congress, but ‘ there was no

time to revise them and it was passed in this form....’?°® The sentences alluded to by Liu occurred in the following passages (in which the offending sentences are italicized): A decisive victory has already been won in this socialist transformation. This means that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in our country has been basically resolved, that the history of the system of class exploitation, which lasted for several thousand years in our country, has on the whole been brought to an end, and that the social system of socialism has, in the main, been established in China... . However, the major contradiction in our country is already that between the people’s demand for the building of an advanced industrial country and the realities of a backward agricultural country, between the people’s need

for rapid economic and cultural development and the inability of our present economy and culture to meet that need. In view of the fact that a socialist system has already been established in our country, this contradiction, in essence, is between the advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces of society. The chief task now facing the Party and the people is to concentrate all efforts on resolving this contradiction and transforming China as quickly as possible from a backward agricultural country into an advanced industrial one. ??

Liu did not spell out what Mao’s precise objections were, but clearly they could not have been about the claim of victory for the socialist revolution. In his own speech to the 8th Congress Mao said that in all eleven years since the previous conference, the CCP had ‘completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution and we have also gained a decisive victory in the socialist revolution ’*°; and in his speech to the 3rd plenum in October 1957, Mao was to reaffirm the

assertion that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had been basically resolved. But he pointed out that ‘ basically ’ did not mean ‘ completely ’. The problem of political power had been solved, the problem of ownership had been basically solved, but these problems had not been completely solved politically and economically. And so he denied that the main contradiction now was that between an advanced socialist system and backward forces

of production, although this was in line with Soviet orthodoxy.?°

120 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

In his speech on the draft Soviet constitution in 1936, Stalin had laid it down that the victory of the socialist system meant that exploitation had been eliminated and changes had occurred in the class structure: *°®

What do these changes signify ? Firstly, they signify that the dividing lines between the working class and the peasantry, and between these classes

and the intelligentsia, are being obliterated, and that the old class exclusiveness is disappearing. ... Secondly, they signify that the economic contradictions between these social groups are declining, are becoming

obliterated. And lastly, they signify that the political contradictions between them are also declining and becoming obliterated. 41

The problem was that Stalinist orthodoxy was not Maoist orthodoxy. Less than six months earlier, in ‘ On the historical experience ..., the Chinese had reasserted that contradictions could exist in a socialist society, and that the basic contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production persisted. *? In other words, even under socialism, incorrect production relations, faults in the ° superstructure ’, could still inhibit the development of the forces of production of the economic base. The political resolution, in the passage Mao criticized, stated the opposite: that it was a back-

ward economic base that was holding back an advanced social system.

Mao’s displeasure was not prompted by a penchant for doctrinal quibbling. The distinction between the two formulations had important policy implications. The political resolution effectively stated that the main task of the CCP now was economic development; the political structure needed no further correction. This in turn implied that the CCP was not in need of rectification. Mao disagreed sharply. He believed, as he was to argue in his contradictions speech, that The basic contradictions in socialist society are still those between the relations of production and the productive forces, and between the superstructure and the economic base... socialist relations of production have

been established; they are suited to the development of the productive forces, but they are still far from perfect, and their imperfect aspects stand in contradiction to the development of the productive forces . . . survivals

of bourgeois ideology, bureaucratic ways of doing things in our state organs, and flaws in certain links of our state institutions stand in contrast to the economic base of socialism. #* (Emphasis added.)

It was the persistence of such contradictions—particularly that between leaders and led4*—that would provide Mao with the theoretical justification for his demand that CCP should rectify itself. Since by the time of the 8th Congress the signs suggested that

THE DISPUTE OVER LIBERALIZATION 121

he was already thinking in terms of launching a party rectification campaign to prevent the CCP from going the Stalinist road, he would

have been understandably annoyed at a contradictory theoretical formulation finding its way into so important a document as the political resolution. 4° It is conceivable, though unlikely, that the offending passage in the

political resolution was the product of doctrinal naiveté. After all, Mao himself had put the problem of production into the forefront in his ° Preface ’ ten months earlier, he stressed it again in his opening address to the 8th Congress, and even in his contradictions speech he

was to state: ‘ Our basic task is no longer to set free the productive

forces but to protect and expand them 1n the context of the new relations of production ’ (emphasis added). *6 But at no stage did he say that the basic contradiction had changed; only that its nature had altered from antagonistic to non-antagonis-

tic. And though Mao had not elaborated his theory of non-antagonistic contradictions by the time of the 8th Congress, the article * On the historical experience...’ provided a clear guideline to the basic Maoist approach. In his report to the CCP’s 10th Congress in August 1973, Chou En-lai blamed Liu and Ch’en Po-ta for the offending passage in the

8th Congress political resolution. If Wang Kuang-mei is also to be believed and Liu only glanced hurriedly at the resolution, then his responsibility was purely formal, though he doubtless welcomed a doctrinal formulation which justified staving off further reforms

of the superstructure. And if Ch’en was actually responsible, it would help account for Mao’s not insisting on vetting the resolution

before it was distributed. But how could a man so close to Mao,

doctrinally and personally, have made this error? Not out of malevolence, surely, for Ch’en apparently retained Mao’s confidence

for years thereafter. One must assume that the Moscow-trained Ch’en felt obliged on this important occasion to depict China marching down the Soviet revolutionary road. Whoever was responsible, it is clear that in two important respects —the failure to specify the need for supervision of party officials and the reversal of the Maoist position on the basic internal contradic-

tion—the political resolution seemed designed to head off any demand by Mao for rectification of the CCP. It required a revolt in Hungary before the party Chairman could get his way on this issue.

1 () THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN

(i) The rate of development Mao sustained a second setback at the 8th Congress, in the realm of economic policy. The ‘ leap forward’ approach to development was firmly rejected. This was only to have been expected in the light of the successful opposition to adventurism put up by Chou En-lai and his cabinet colleagues during the summer. The sole concession to speed in Chou’s report to the congress on the 2nd FYP was the tepid undertaking that the latter would be ‘ forward-looking ’ (chi-chi-ti). The report was infused with a spirit of moderation, indeed caution, engendered by the experience of the first plan. According to Chou, there were four principal lessons to be learned from it; the first set the tone: First, we should, in accordance with needs and possibilities, set a reasonable

rate for the growth of the national economy and place the Plan on a forward-looking and completely sound basis, to ensure a fairly balanced

development for the national economy... we should set the long-term targets in a comparatively realistic way and leave it for the annual plans to make the necessary adjustments. ! (Emphasis added.)

Chou pointed out that the 1955 capital construction plan had been cut back too severely because of the crop failures of the previous two years. This had led to a surplus of steel products, timber, and cement. Since no reserve projects had been prepared, the surplus of steel products and cement had been exported and this had led to shortages in 1956. But in 1956 the scale of capital construction had been set ‘somewhat larger than it should’ due to the good 1955

harvest, and in addition too many things had been attempted at once. Various sections of the economy had been under strain.? In future it was necessary to guard against impetuosity and adventurism (chi-tsao mao-chin)* on the one hand, and against ‘ timidity

and hesitancy’ on the other.4 That impetuosity was mentioned before timidity was surely no accident. Chou summed up his point by saying that we should make an over-all analysis of the objective conditions, and at the same time try as best as we can to make a unified plan for the main 122

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 123 targets of the current year and the next year, so that each of the annual plans may dovetail with the next and advance at a fairly even (pi-chiao chun-heng) pace. ® (Emphasis added.)

Chou again hammered the leap forward when giving the second lesson to be learned from experience: the importance of coordinating key projects with overall arrangements so that the various branches

of the economy could develop proportionately. Mistakes were made when departments and regions attempted to try to do everything at once and do it everywhere, ‘ taking no account of actual conditions and recklessly running ahead ’.*® This affected priority projects and led to financial problems and waste of resources of men and materials. With a slight twist of the dagger in the wound, he underlined the harmful effects of the now-shelved Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme: Such a tendency recurred in the beginning of 1956, following the publica-

tion of the Draft National Programme for Agricultural Development (1956-1967). Some departments and localities, impatient for success, attempted to accomplish within three or five years, or even one or two years, tasks that required seven or twelve years to complete. ’

Chou attacked another tendency with an example drawn from the first half of 1956—over-emphasis on important tasks to the detri-

ment of others. He cited the case of the double-bladed, doublewheeled ploughs and the small steam engines for which excessively

high targets had been set earlier in the year. The targets had been repeatedly lowered, but never sufficiently. As a result, steel had been in short supply for other projects. ® Thirdly, Chou emphasized the importance of building up reserves

and perfecting the stockpiling system. In the development of the national economy, the balance was bound to be upset frequently. Maintaining the necessary reserves was indispensable to redress lack of balance when it appeared. ?

Finally, Chou argued that while the basic consideration must be economic development, correct financial planning was vital. Here he seemed to be giving a verdict on the dispute between Mao and Ch’en Yun earlier in the year, and while he attempted to balance the opposing views, he clearly came down on the side of Ch’en: Comrades often like to argue whether or not there should be ‘ financial limitations ’. In our view, it is of course wrong to ignore the demands of economic development, and subjectively set up limitations which hamper economic development. We should oppose such limitations. But if financial

plans conform to the actual condition of economic development, and embody the correct relations between accumulation and consumption,

124 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION between priority construction projects and over-all arrangements, then such financial plans must undoubtedly be strictly carried out, and should by no means be branded as ‘ financial limitations’ and blindly challenged.}° (Emphasis added.)

Chou En-lai was supported by his planners. Deputy Premier Li Fu-ch’un was equally moderate. He asserted that the fundamental duty of the planners was to acquire a better knowledge of the conditions, maintain an objective and all-round point of view, study the inner connections of things and grasp the law of systematic and proportionate development of the economy so as to complete successfully our work of achieving a well-integrated balance and overall arrangements. 1+ (Emphasis added.)

Po I-po, Chairman of the recently established State Economic Commission, backed his colleagues when he gave his personal opinions (wo ko-jen chueh-ti)1? on the correct relationship between investment and consumption. He suggested a ratio that would keep development down below the rate for 1956.14

Clearly by this time Mao had to accept the situation, and in his only reference to the speed of economic development in his opening speech, he talked of building China ‘ step by step ’ (i-pu i-pu-ti) into a great socialist industrialized state.1* The economic section of Liu Shao-ch’i’s political report also reflected the views of the victorious economic planners. But there were significant modifications of Chou En-lai’s views which suggested that Liu, like Mao, was dissatisfied with the planners’ pace.

Chou En-lai had referred to the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme only in one place other than the backhanded mention cited above. After disclosing the major agricultural targets for the second

plan, the Premier had stated that they had been advanced on the basis of the following considerations: On the one hand, with the exception of a few areas, the advanced form of co-operation will have been reached in agriculture and thus we will be able to further implement the provisions of the Draft National Programme for Agricultural Development (1956-67), extensively adopt various measures

for increasing production and spread all the experience gained in this respect; at the same time the irrigated area and the area under cultivation will be expanded, the supply of chemical fertilizers will be increased, and the means of production and farming techniques will be improved. All this will promote the further development of agricultural production. 15

In short, Chou was thinking of the programme as a document which listed all the various technical measures with which higher outputs could be achieved. He went on to warn, however, that the

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 125 inevitable natural calamities, the difficulties of land reclamation, and

the low level of mechanization all placed ‘ a limit on the extent to

which we can increase the rate of development of agricultural production ’, 1%

Liu Shao-ch’i on the other hand reasserted the role of the Twelve-

Year Programme as a document directly concerned with output figures:17 In order to meet the requirements of the national economy as a whole, the Second Five-Year Plan should raise agricultural production to a higher

level along the line laid down in the Draft National Programme for Agricultural Development (1956-67). In 1962, the output of grain should be about 500,000 million catties. .. .18

In other words, Liu was arguing that the plan targets should be seen

as part of the effort to fulfil the Twelve-Year Programme output proposals. The implication was that the programme might have been shelved, but Liu, presumably Mao, and probably other leaders had refused to bury it. Other instructive differences between the formulations of Chou

and Liu occurred in their descriptions of the progress registered under the first plan and projected for the second. On the first plan, both men said that the successes had been ‘ tremendous’ (chii-ta), }° but Liu, unlike Chou, did not immediately stress the setbacks: Chou: Our achievements are tremendous, but there have also been some defects and errors in our work which we must strive to correct.?° Liu: Tremendous successes have been achieved in implementing the First Five-Year Plan. Even our enemies cannot deny them. 7}

Chou’s formulation underlined the need to avoid excessive complacency about the achievements of the first plan; the implication was that the second plan must be drawn up with great care. Liu’s formulation was far less cautious and implied that comrades should not be doubters.

For the second plan, the formulas preferred by Chou En-lai and inserted in the draft proposals were that the plan was ‘ forwardlooking and completely sound’ (chi chi-chi (erh) yu wen-t’o k’ok’ao-ti),*2 and the rate of development it projected was ° comparatively fast (high)’ (pi-chiao k’uai (kao)).** Liu on the other hand described the rate of development with the more tepid ‘ forwardlooking and completely sound ’ formulation, having in the previous paragraph described the development of the economy envisaged under the plan as ‘ tremendous and rapid’ (chii-ta erh hsun-su).**

Behind Liu’s departure from the formulas of the planners there

126 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

seemed to lie criticism of the projected pace of development as too slow and a hint of the kind of growth (tremendous and rapid) he

would have liked to see. Chou’s line was that the plan was both sensible and yet ambitious. Each of these differences between Chou and Liu—over the Twelve-

Year Programme, the assessment of the first plan, and the description of the second plan—might seem no more than nuances if taken in isolation. But taken together and in the contexts of the known arguments over the leaps of 1956 and 1958, it would seem likely that Liu was revealing his resentment at the slow-down imposed by the

planners in the summer of 1956.?° In other words, Liu seems to have sided with Mao on the question of the speed of economic development even though he, like Mao, had at this stage to abide by the joint advice of Chou and his planners. 2°

(ii) Provincial reports on the 1956 leap forward Chou En-lai and the planners would never have got their way on ending the 1956 leap without massive evidence to convince Mao and Liu that they were right. The basis of the planners’ case was revealed

at the congress in the reports of the provincial party secretaries which detailed the impact of the leap on the economy. Perhaps the clearest example of the impact of the 1956 production drive in general and the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme in particular was given by Yeh Fei, first secretary of Fukien. He stated that when plans were drawn up, grain targets were blindly increased as they went down through the various levels of command. At the

top level, the planned increase was 16 per cent; by the time this figure had reached the ch’ii and hsiang levels, it was universally as high as 40 per cent.*’ T’an Ch’i-lung, deputizing for first secretary Shu T’ung of Shantung, stated that while his province had committed

the mistake of rightist conservatism in 1953, in 1956 provincial directives had demanded excessively high and fast increases in agricultural production and these directives had led to very great waste and losses. The drive to increase production led lower-level cadres to resort to ‘commandism ’.28 According to Chiang Weich’ing, the Kiangsu first secretary, some of his cadres felt that after collectivization ‘ we have the cooperative members by their pigtails, and from now on we'll be able to do things well ’. They did not want to discuss matters with the masses for fear of getting involved in a welter of conflicting views (‘ pai hsing pai tiao hsin’ was the way they phrased it). 2°

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 127

Chiang gave as examples of the deviation of impetuosity and adventurism (chi-tsao mao-chin): the setting of too high production

targets, an excessively high speed for the reform of the planting system, and the distribution of two-wheeled ploughs and the elimination of illiteracy at rates which did not coincide with actual needs and

possibilities among the masses. Too many duties were assigned to the cooperatives, and this led cadres to resort to commandism. In one village these methods had prompted a suicide, which had in turn led

to a province-wide discussion of methods and the consequent abandoning of arbitrary name-calling and deducting of work points (luan tai mao-tzu, chien k’ou kung fen).*°

In Hunan the enthusiasm of cadres extended also towards evergreater collectivism. According to first secretary Chou Hsiao-chou, some cadres considered that since collectives were a completely socialist form of organization, ‘everything should be made public property ’. The running of even minor household occupations such as making straw sandals and catching shrimps was assigned to the collective. Collectivized peasants’ time was so rigorously controlled and so completely allotted to the collective that some of them complained: ‘ When you enter the cooperative, you don’t have one scrap of freedom.’ #1

In Hopei, first secretary Lin T’ieh reported, the leadership had been inspired by the production drive to attempt the rapid achievement of self-sufficiency in grain, and a target of a 36-39 per cent increase in grain production had been set. This had led to digging wells too fast, with quite a few turning out useless; inappropriate close planting which had bad effects on the maize crop; the planting of high-yield varieties in the wrong areas. 3?

If Shensi was at all typical, the setting of such high targets led cadres to neglect the health and rest of cooperative members, some even urging peasants to * make the dark night into day, and turn the

moon into an electric light’. According to first secretary Chang Teh-sheng, in the aftermath of a victorious collectivization campaign, the cadres became optimistic and impetuous. Estimating highly the enthusiasm of the peasantry, they became convinced that ‘ whatever we want to do we can do’, 38 It should be noted that even a party leader like T’an Ch’i-lung of

Shantung, who was concerned to point out the hazards of overenthusiasm, felt obliged in the presence of his peers to forecast somewhat rosy output figures. As late as 29 September he was predicting an 11 per cent increase in grain production and a 19 per

128 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

cent increase in cotton production in 1956; the actual increases turned out to be 8-8 and 3 per cent. *4 But other secretaries had learned a lesson. Said Chang Teh-sheng of Shensi: ‘ We suggest—the more victorious one is, the more the need for modesty and caution, the more the need to develop democracy; the higher the labour activism of the masses, the more the need to protect fully and develop correctly that labour activism.’ Chang also criticized those cadres who scorned peasant experience. 3°

Lin T’ieh of Hopei felt four lessons should be learned from his province’s excessively enthusiastic production drive. One should not overestimate objective conditions on the basis of subjective hopes,

though one also should not commit conservatism. Rash plans affected the enthusiasm of the peasants for increasing production much as did rightist conservative ones. Upper-level plans must be

coordinated with the lower levels and allow the latter room to manoeuvre. Technical reform was something to be achieved gradually and not in one stride; advanced experience must be coordinated with local experience before being introduced. ?®

Probably the most comprehensive discussion of the harmful effects of the 1956 ‘leap’ was given by the Hunan first secretary, Chou Hsiao-chou, some of whose remarks have already been quoted.

Among Chou’s recommendations were: the return to private management of all that was not appropriate to collective manage-

ment; greater generosity in assigning the amount of land to be retained privately by cooperative members; better management of labour so that everyone had room to manoeuvre; reasonable utilization of labour to avoid excessive increases in the burden of work and

paying particular attention to the women and the weak; targets should be fixed according to time and place, full account being taken of differences between villages with respect to natural conditions and customs. 37

One of the principal defects in the 1956 production drive noted by first secretaries was excessive concentration on grain and the major cash crops. This * tendency to simplification ’, as Chou Hsiao-chou

called it, had serious effects on the incomes of some peasants. In Hunan, the tendency was increased by peasant worries about food after two critical years for grain. Chou cited one cooperative whose income depended heavily on ramie, but where effort and fertilizer were concentrated on grain, leading to a 20 per cent drop in ramie

production. Chou said that such examples were not infrequent and underlined their importance by pointing out that in Hunan’s

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 129

mountainous areas 40-50 per cent of income was accounted for by

cash crops and subsidiary occupations, while elsewhere in the province the proportion was still as high as 30 per cent. ?°

In Fukien, according to first secretary Yeh Fei, labour, land, fertilizer, and capital were all concentrated on increasing grain production and restrictions were placed on cash crops and subsidiary occupations in the effort to fulfil the grain target. Some areas even propagated the slogan: ‘ What you plant, you eat. If you plant grain, you eat grain. If you bake bricks, you eat bricks.’ Keenness for subsidiary occupations was sometimes criticized as ‘ capitalist thinking ’. Consequently, fruit trees and tea plants were knocked down to make way for sweet potatoes; brick kilns were levelled to give place to grain; Fukien lotus-seed fields were converted into paddy fields. Owing to neglect of mountainous areas, production of certain special products had not yet recovered their pre-war levels. The setback to subsidiary occupations was particularly sharp in the first half of 1956. Pig production was down by 20 per cent as compared with the same period in 1955, bricks were down by 27 per cent, and hens, ducks, and eggs all dropped. All this affected peasant incomes (in Fukien, grain accounted for 48 per cent of the total value of agricultural production, cash crops for 28 per cent, subsidiary occupations for 24 per cent) to the extent that in some cases collective farmers had no spending money and had to borrow from the collective to buy cigarettes; and the natural rise in the price of subsidiary products and fuel in turn influenced the cost of living in the towns. Yeh Fei quoted dissatisfied peasants as saying: ‘ Last year we had money, but couldn’t buy food; this year there’s food, but we haven’t got any money to buy it with.’ ?° In Szechwan collectivization caused setbacks in pig breeding and

in the production of specialized local products such as the raw materials for Chinese medicines. But in discussing setbacks to sideline occupations, Li Ching-ch’tian also blamed commercial policy— incorrect pricing, management of commerce according to administrative area, restriction of pedlars’ activities, disruption of the old natural commercial flow lines (kuo-ch’ii ti tzu-jan liu-chuan lu-hsien).*°

One party leader, T’an Ch’i-lung of Shantung, was concerned because his province was concentrating too little on grain. Pointing out that Shantung’s annual per capita grain consumption of 180 kg was below the national average, he stated that increasing grain production was one of the provincial communist party’s major tasks. *!

130 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(iii) Provincial economic demands on the centre The evidence of economic problems provided by the provincial secretaries supported the planners’ case against the leap. But it did not mean that those secretaries were completely satisfied with the actions of the central economic authorities. Their speeches were replete with pleas for attention to the problems of their provinces. The secretaries seem to have been well aware that with Chou En-lai

outlining the 2nd FYP, the time and place were well suited for pressing, publicly, local claims on national resources. A major ground was the need for more money for water conserva-

tion. T’an Ch’i-lung, after dilating on the need to increase per unit yields (in 1955 the Shantung grain yield per mou was 241 catties) to solve Shantung’s food problem, went on to stress the importance of water conservation and fertilizer. The province could mobilize the masses to improve irrigation, but ‘ at the same time we hope that the central Ministry of Water Conservancy has an overall plan for the regulation of the above important rivers and also will give us support

with regard to technology, investments, and similar problems ’.“ Yang Shang-k’uei, the Kiangsi first secretary, made a similar demand

for central funds for water conservation,*? while Lin T’ieh concluded a discussion of Hopei’s problems with the Huai River with the words ‘ we strongly hope and firmly believe that we can receive

great support from the centre... .’44 Heilungkiang had particular reason to stress water conservation after the disastrous flooding of the Sungari River earlier in the year. With first secretary Ouyang

Ch’in concentrating on problems of party leadership, another secretary, Ch’iang Hsiao-ch’u, was deputed to announce that in the wake of the disaster his province had mapped out a plan for eleven

large and small reservoirs, of which four would be constructed during the 2nd FYP. He concluded: In order to do well the work of controlling the Sungari River, we suggest that under the leadership of the State Planning Commission, the relevant ministries, provinces, and regions should be organized to research together and plan comprehensively and moreover that there should be established a special organ charged with this work. 4°

The unhappiness of Shantung at producing too little grain had been

caused by central demands upon the province to produce large quantities of cotton, oil-bearing plants, and tobacco. T’an Ch’1-lung spoke up for the province, saying: We consider that at present it would not be appropriate to expand too greatly or too fiercely the area sown to economic crops but should tackle

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 131 the problem from the angle of increasing per unit yields. . . . Therefore, we hope that the relevant central ministries when settling sowing plans will not be too rigid but will enable us to make a reasonable apportionment in accordance with the state’s needs and the actual conditions of the area, *®

Some secretaries made more general appeals for help. Chang Yun, the first secretary from Hainan, told the congress that everyone was

agreed on the need to exploit the island’s resources. He went on: The only question has been the time element, that is, whether it is better to exploit it at an earlier or a later date. According to our opinion, it is better to exploit it at an earlier date, since it takes many special economic crops a number of years to grow. Therefore we request the central committee to include the exploitation of its agricultural resources in the 2nd FYP.*’

Yang Shang-k’uei was able to appeal for help to Kiangsi on grounds

of sentiment as well as need. He pointed out that the old Soviet areas, which embraced over two-thirds of the province and over half of the 17 million population, had been devastated during the KMT period. They often suffered from a labour shortage—he stated that

the province’s population had dropped by one-quarter under the KMT, and executions alone had accounted for one million people.

As a result, there was a high proportion of widowers, widows, orphans, and childless people. In general, living standards were low: 42 yuan per year in real terms in Juichin, the old base area capital. Widowers, etc., had hitherto been able to depend on state relief, but after collectivization their living standards depended on the success or failure of the production of the collectives. However, a new problem had arisen: there were too many households of the ‘ five guarantees’ variety (wu pao—food, clothing, fuel, bringing up of children, burial) and the cooperative members could not support them. State

assistance would continue to be needed for a comparatively long period. Yang conceded that the state had made some special allowances for Kiangsi, but alleged that while there might have been decreases in some burdens there had been increases in others, and that annually since 1951, Kiangsi’s tax burden had exceeded the national average. ‘ To sum up, the burdens of the masses of the old base areas are somewhat heavy, to the extent that they cause the masses to be dissatisfied and moreover influence the development of production enthusiasm.’ 4®

Yang Shang-k’uei, along with other provincial party leaders in

charge of more remote areas with poor communications, like Li Ching-ch’iian of Szechwan*® and Yeh Fei of Fukien, urged

132 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

reconsideration of pricing policy—both to reduce the price of goods to people in inaccessible places and to raise the buying price of their products.

Yeh Fei, with the 2nd FYP in mind, was even more concerned with getting some of the projected industrial development allocated

to Fukien. He pointed out that before 1949 modern industry had represented less than 1 per cent of the total value of agricultural and industrial production and that there had not been even one factory worthy of the name. The only modernized one had been the Foochow paper factory. With the post-1949 development of small-scale oilpressing, sugar manufacturing, wood sawing, and food processing, the value of modern industry had moved up to 11°32 per cent. But Fukien’s considerable timber, coal, iron, water, and fishing resources

were relatively unexploited; because of the weakness of the indigenous industrial base, local ability to develop them was limited and

powerful state support was required. For some years the relevant central ministries had been concerned about this—but not enough, and the basic construction plans and financial and budgetary controls were too rigid, emphasizing only negative limits rather than giving

positive directives. He gave the example of the Nanp’ing paper factory. Thanks to the repeated examination of documents, construction plans had undergone eight major changes and the foundations had been shifted three times. This had gone on six years before work really got going in the last quarter of 1955. If the first stage of the Kut’ien hydro-electric station, which even now was unable to satisfy the needs of the Foochow and Nanp’ing areas, was not completed

during the 2nd FYP, then Fukien’s industrial programme for the plan could not be fulfilled either. For this reason, we request (yao-ch’iu) the relevant central ministries to give help to Fukien, selecting the method of helping backward areas, so that we can put into operation some large-scale light industry in Fukien during the second plan, complete the construction work on the first stage of the Kut’ien hydro-electric power station in order to change gradually the backward economic face of Fukien. °°

Unlike Yeh, Liu Jen, second secretary of Peking, based his appeal for industry mainly on strength rather than weakness, though he also stated that ‘ we feel that to be the capital of a great socialist country, Peking ought to be not merely the political, cultural and scientific

centre, but should also be made into a fairly modern industrial city’. Liu listed the advantages of Peking rather like a southern mayor in the United States trying to attract northern industrialists.

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 133

He pointed out that the capital housed the Academy of Sciences and research and planning organizations of central ministries, and that the construction of new scientific and technical research departments would bring more specialists into the city. Besides, there were already

about 100,000 students and teachers at the various institutes of higher education, and making full use of all this skilled manpower must help raise the nation’s industrial and technical level and speed industrial development. ‘ We consider that Peking can stress the construction of a section of the precision machine industry’, Liu said, pointing out that such factories would be able to keep up to date by getting help from research institutes, while the latter would also benefit from being able to blend theory and practice. Liu also

pointed to Peking’s climate, natural resources, already existing industrial base, good transport, and communications. Liu’s arguments would have seemed even stronger if earlier in his speech he had

not specified in detail the problems faced by the capital due to both the 90 per cent growth in population since 1949 and the inability of government departments to make up their minds on the siting of factories or to coordinate with each other on joint projects. He tried to stave off the objection that more industry would merely increase the strains on the services of the capital, arguing that if one wanted to control the population of Peking, it had to be done by the planned

allocation of industry, not by preventing the number of workers from growing. °} Reading the speeches of the provincial secretaries at the congress

one has an impression of impatience at the inability of the central authorities rapidly to satisfy local demands. Of course this is not a phenomenon peculiar to China, or even to developing nations where the acute shortages of national resources make allocation problems particularly severe. In a country as vast as China, all such problems would be compounded by the size of the bureaucracy and slowness of its operations. It was Mao’s awareness of this that lay behind his demand for decentralization in his ten great relationships speech earlier in the year. At the 8th Congress Liu pressed strongly for decentralization, °?

and Chou En-lai revealed that a draft resolution on improving the administrative system had been drawn up and was currently being circulated for comment.®? But decentralization was not seriously implemented until the control of the planners was drastically reduced and the provincial secretaries given their heads during the great leap forward. F

134 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(iv) The question of coastal v. inland industry One victory won by the planners earlier in the year was blurred at the congress, possibly to save Mao’s face. This was the issue of coastal versus inland industrial development. Li Fu-ch’un, when discussing

the faults of the State Planning Commission in his speech to the congress, conceded only that ‘ not enough attention had been paid to the full and rational utilization of coastal industry ’,5* which was

no more than he had been prepared to admit at the NPC earlier in the year. Liu Shao-ch’i skated over the topic, declaring only that

‘attention must be paid at present to coordination between the coastal regions and the interior ’.55 Chou En-lai, having also emphasized the need for the rational use of coastal industry, defined rationality in this context as renovating those enterprises that must and can be renovated (kai-chien), and not renovating all the original enterprises; in cities where there are already relatively many industrial enterprises, in general one ought to build few new enterprises; in the case of new construction (hsin chien) and renovations, one ought to pay attention to such conditions as the source of raw materials, the market for the products, production techniques and convenience of transportation, as well as a rational division of labour with other areas. °6

Chou’s formulation was a clever one. It did not specifically prescribe

new construction for coastal towns; in fact it indicated that the coastal areas (i.e. areas such as Shanghai where there were already many industrial enterprises) were not the best places to build new enterprises, particularly in the light of the factors he suggested had to

be taken into account. On the other hand, he did not rule out the possibility that new enterprises might be built there. To judge from the formulation adopted in the congress resolution on the plan, Chou was probably merely saving face for Mao rather than reversing policy. The resolution stated: ‘ But at the same time as carrying on large-scale industrial construction in the interior, it is still necessary positively and fully to utilize and moreover appropriately. to develop the already existing industry in various coastal areas ... (emphasis added).*? Clearly ‘ to develop’ (fa-chan) could encompass both expansion (k’uo-chien) and new construction (hsinchien). The People’s Daily editorial of 8 July had stated that some expansion should take place. By talking in terms of ‘ already existing

industry ’, the framers of the resolution indicated that they were thinking also only of expansion though there is still a slight vagueness, perhaps again to save face for Mao. If Mao had managed to

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 135

persuade his colleagues to accept his advocacy of new construction in the coastal areas, almost certainly both Chou and the resolution

would have spelled out that point more clearly; and Li Fu-ch’un would almost certainly have had to criticize himself for not pushing new construction and not simply for failing to utilize fully the already existing industry of the coast. °§

(v) Defence spending If Mao had lost on the question of coastal industry, he had nevertheless preserved his victory on another important issue raised in his ten great relationships speech: reduction of defence spending. Here he had the support of the planners. At the 8th Congress Premier Chou announced that it was proposed to reduce defence and administra-

tion in the 2nd plan from 32 per cent of budgetary expenditure to about 20 per cent.°® Defence was now very definitely to assume a role secondary to economic development, as Mao had demanded. The fifth of the five principal tasks of the plan was ‘ to reinforce the

national defences and raise the level of the people’s material and cultural life on the basis of increased industrial and agricultural production ’ (emphasis added). °° The background to the cutback on defence spending was a persist-

ing optimism about the international situation. Marshal Ch’en Yi, who made the main speech on foreign policy to the congress and was

to become Foreign Minister in 1958, stated that ‘ the world-wide forces striving for peace, and defending it, are growing daily, while the international reactionary forces, which pursue a policy of war and aggression, are becoming weakened and more isolated with each passing day.’ *1 He conceded that the US ‘ aggressive circles * would not of their own accord ‘ give up their plots for war and aggression ’.

But he did not conclude from this that China’s defence had to be further strengthened; only that vigilance must be maintained, and greater efforts made to cooperate with peace-loving people and countries.*2 Elsewhere Ch’en Yi, in discussifig Sino-American relations over the previous seven years, stated that the Chinese knew

‘perfectly well that peace can be preserved only by determined resistance to aggression’. But again he did not go on to argue that this meant national defence must be strengthened. °° The only other marshal to address the conference (apart from Defence Minister P’eng Teh-huai) was Chu Teh, the deputy head of state. He backed Ch’en Yi’s analysis. The US was exposing itself

136 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

as the enemy of the peoples of the world and was increasingly isolated: All this has resulted in a relaxation of tension in the international situation. Of course we must not lose our vigilance against the danger of war. But if

the socialist countries and all peace-loving countries and people of the world continue to strengthen their solidarity and wage resolute struggles in defence of world peace and the just cause of humanity, it is possible that

the present relaxation of international tension may turn into lasting peace. °4

Neither of the marshals who had backed P’eng Teh-huai at the 1955 NPC—both of whom were raised to the Politburo after the 8th Congress—spoke up on this occasion. P’eng Teh-huai was almost a lone voice crying in the wilderness, pleading for stronger defences on the familiar ground of potential imperialist perfidy: To ensure the carrying out of our army’s policy of strategic defence and repel any surprise attack the imperialists may spring on us, our army has for the last few years been building modern defence works along the front lines of our national defence and at strategic points in depth. So long as the imperialist aggressive bloc does not abandon its aggressive scheme, we will not cease (pu-tuan-ti) strengthening and improving our defence works. We are confident that given such defence works and a people’s army equipped with modern weapons, no enemy will be able to attain his aim should he dare to attack our country. ®5

P’eng was unable, in face of the party decision to reduce defence expenditure, to demand more money. But clearly, if the PLA was to eschew guerrilla warfare and to defend China with defence emplacements and modern weapons, a great deal more investment would be necessary before it could feel confident that it could withstand a US attack. Not surprisingly P’eng saw the relationship between defence spending and national construction somewhat differently from the planners who asserted that the former depended on the latter. P’eng argued that Our people need an environment of lasting peace in which to carry on socialist construction and also a modernized revolutionary army to cope

with emergencies and safeguard socialist construction. Our task is to suitably reconcile these two needs. Therefore we should press ahead with the modernization of our army and, at the same time, in keeping with the needs of national economic construction, practise the utmost economy and oppose waste in military construction. °°

In P’eng’s exposition, military modernization was placed before economic development and not made dependent on it. P’eng’s was almost a lone voice, but not quite. In his remarks on

the international situation in his political report, Liu Shao-ch’i’s

THE SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN 137

analysis resembled Ch’en Yi’s; possibly both were drafted at Chou En-lai’s Foreign Ministry.*? On Taiwan, both Liu and Ch’en condemned the interference of the US in Chinese internal affairs, but reaffirmed China’s willingness to negotiate the issue peacefully at the Foreign Minister level. ®* Neither Ch’en nor Liu, at this point, des-

cribed the American presence on Taiwan as a threat to China’s security. But Liu also dealt with Tatwan 1n an earlier section of his speech, ‘The political life of the state’, drafted by P’eng Chen. Here Liu did describe the US presence in Tatwan as a ‘ most serious threat to the security of our country ’. Immediately preceding this assertion, Liu had discussed the PLA, and here he sounded like P’eng Teh-huai rather than Ch’en Yi: Furthermore, in order to defend our country, we must continue to strengthen our national defences, we must continue to strengthen our national defence army—the glorious Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The People’s Liberation Army must strive to raise its fighting capacity to a higher level, guard our frontiers and coast lines vigilantly and defend our territorial integrity. °°

Liu’s remarks seem to have been carefully phrased to hint at his sympathy for P’eng Teh-huai’s antagonism to the cutback on defence and his scepticism about peaceful coexistence’® without deviating

from the official party line. The juxtaposition of Liu’s call for stronger defences and his description of Taiwan as a security threat was surely understood by congress delegates as indicating a causal link; but no such causal link was adduced by Liu. More importantly,

though Liu sounded like P’eng Teh-huai when he talked of strengthening defences, he did not mention * modern weapons ’, i.e.

sophisticated conventional weapons. Indeed, two months later he was pushing the Maoist line on the relative importance of nuclear weapons. On 16 November, when the NPC standing committee approved the creation of the Third Ministry of Machine Building, the new government department thought to have been set up to take charge of the nuclear programme, ’+ Liu questioned the importance

of conventional weapons: _ We currently have a number of national defence industries, but whether they have any use is open to doubt. We’ve made many planes and guns, spending a lot of money and expending much effort, but if in the future they are of no use, won’t we have made a mistake???

Liu is said to have displayed blind faith in nuclear weapons, but since no quotation is provided to back this assertion, we may assume that he probably just repeated the arguments in favour of them used

138 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

by Mao in his ten great relationships speech. In short, Liu accepted the official Maoist line on defence policy, but seems to have wished to demonstrate sympathy for P’eng Teh-huai—possibly out of appreciation of P’eng’s call for the excision of Mao’s Thought from the party constitution.

| 1 THE NEW CENTRAL LEADERSHIP

One of the prime functions of the 8th Congress was to elect a new central leadership. Since the party had grown in size from about 1-2 million members at the 7th Congress to 10-7 million members at the 8th, it is hardly surprising that the most obvious characteristic of the new CC was its size. It comprised ninety-seven full members (as compared with forty-four in the previous one) and seventy-three alternate members (as compared with thirty-three). At the new CC’s Ist plenum immediately after the congress a new Politburo was elected.

The precise composition of the 1945 Politburo had never been disclosed, and new members had been elected since then. However, by the time of the 8th Congress its thirteen current members were

easily identifiable; after the congress, the Politburo expanded to seventeen full members and six alternates. +

The new Politburo reflected certain major political realities: the crucial role of the PLA in the Chinese revolution and the current importance of economic development. Of the ten marshals created in 1955, three had been members of the pre-congress Politburo. ? Four more were added at the new CC’s Ist plenum after the congress. ° This meant that all the commanders of the four major field armies were now full members of the party’s supreme organ. * The

two senior officials concerned with economic planning had been members of the pre-congress Politburo.® After the congress three more were added, two as full members, one with alternate status. ® The party machine as such did not increase its membership of the

Politburo greatly, gaining only one alternate.’ Perhaps this was because the earlier pre-congress Politburo already contained a high proportion of men who were thought of primarily as party officials even though they also wore other hats. At any rate the Politburo that emerged after the 8th Congress seemed designed to preserve a rough balance between party, government, and PLA (see App. 6). Beneath this broad balance in its composition, it is possible to detect in the ranking of its individual members a reflection of current political trends. 139

140 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(i) The rise of Teng Hsiao-p‘ing The most spectacular promotion was that of Teng Hsiao-p’ing from bottom man on the pre-congress Politburo to sixth place in the postcongress one. He was also accorded a place on the newly-created

six-man Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), from now on the supreme policy-making organ. But perhaps the most significant aspect of Teng’s elevation was the change of his title from SecretaryGeneral (pi-shu-chang) to General Secretary (tsung shu-chi). The post of General Secretary had been the senior position in the

CCP until the rise of Mao. When Mao turned the tables on his opponents at the Tsunyi conference in January 1935, it seems he was

still not powerful enough to secure the post of General Secretary. This went to Chang Wen-t’ien. ® Mao had to be content with replacing

Chou En-lai as the Chairman of the party’s Military Affairs Committee. ® According to one account, Chang Wen-t’ien’s position was

undermined in late 1937 after the Comintern revealed that he had associated with Trotskyists during his time at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen

University. The Comintern intimated that Chang should not continue as General Secretary.1° Allegedly, Mao also used the opportunity to organize the abolition of the post of General Secretary: the

secretariat now became responsible to a Politburo standing committee rather than to a General Secretary.U Whatever the precise mechanics of the process, two things seem certain: at Tsunyi, the post of General Secretary, then regarded as the most important in the party, went to a potential rival of Mao’s; sometime in the next few years the post disappeared. Even if Mao were not yet party Chairman, there was then no longer any organizational position from which it would be possible to dominate him. By the time of the 8th Congress, Mao’s leadership of the party, from the post of Chairman of the CC, was immeasurably stronger

than it had been in the late 1930s. But if the resurrected post of General Secretary had been handed to a man as senior as Liu Shaoch’i, there was still the potential danger that the incumbent might have come to seem as important as the party Chairman. While Mao was by now alerted to the necessity of building up the independent position of his colleagues, there is no indication in his behaviour at this time or later that he wished to create rivals. Rather he seems to have envisaged that Liu Shao-ch’1 would follow him up the ladder as he himself gradually faded into retirement. Thus with Mao’s bad memories of the post of General Secretary, it was virtually certain that the holder of the recreated post would

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case CCBe: 3 eR Lge ESTER SegengeSEE een“Soe eee Se 53 —r—OOCOC—OCOCN See, ~~—Ch .8a| L =.LLL BOE go He had to defend the article against the allegation that it did not criticize the Soviet Union. Teng asserted that ‘ we are basically satisfied with the

Soviet Union’.?® Moreover, there had already been too much criticism of the Soviet Union and it would not be seemly for the Chinese to add to it. The communist bloc needed a leader and only the Soviet Union with its immense economic and military superiority could fill that role.?7 On Stalin, Teng simply repeated the criticisms publicly voiced by the Chinese in ‘ On the historical experience .. .’

—that he had broadened the class struggle domestically when it ought to have been allowed to diminish. °° Despite the fact that ‘ More on the historical experience .. .” was a rebuttal of Tito, Teng was still prepared to assert that Yugoslavia

THE IMPACT OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLT 175

satisfied the criteria of a socialist state?®; he was even prepared to tolerate a preference for Tito’s views over those expressed in ‘ More on the historical experience . . .’, provided that Tito’s views were not used as a weapon against socialism. *° Interestingly, Teng Hsiao-p’ing did not seem to think that ‘ More

on the historical experience...’ would have much impact on the world communist movement. He warned his Tsinghua audience: Don’t have implicit faith in and don’t over-exaggerate ‘ More on the historical experience of the proletarian dictatorship ’. You cannot hope to

convince everybody ... Don’t expect that as soon as this article is published, its impact will be felt in the international arena... .*1

(iv) Chou En-lai tours Eastern Europe Even if Teng Hsiao-p’ing were right to doubt the impact of Chinese

doctrinal pronouncements, Chou En-lai’s visit to Eastern Europe in January 1957 was of historic significance. It was the first time that China had ever played a major diplomatic role in purely European

affairs. The Russians were probably unhappy at having to ask for Chinese intervention in Eastern Europe, but with their own prestige

at low ebb they had to rely on that of China to shore up their position. Chou interrupted a tour of Asia to visit the two problem countries, Poland and Hungary. His objective was presumably to press home

the arguments of ‘ More on the historical experience ...’ with his considerable diplomatic skill and personal charm. However, his success was limited. On arrival at Warsaw airport on 11 January, Chou spoke of the Soviet Union as the leader of the communist bloc; 4? but the final communiqué which he signed with Premier Cyrankiewicz did not mention that leadership.** Moreover, the communiqué did not even mention, let alone express support for, Soviet intervention in Hungary; it merely expressed opposition to

imperialist intervention there and support for the new Kadar government.44 There was no suggestion in the communiqué that imperialist intervention had been a cause of the revolt, as asserted in ‘More on the historical experience ...’.

Chou’s willingness to compromise on what the Chinese considered crucial issues was presumably explicable partly by confidence that the new Polish leadership was fully committed to the communist cause; and he was doubtless told that a formal obeisance to Soviet leadership was not advisable in the current climate of Polish

176 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

opinion. But more importantly, the Sino-Polish communiqué indicated that Mao did not yet consider the danger from revisionism to be so great that no major compromise on fundamentals could be tolerated.

Chou spent the best part of a week in Poland, but paid only a flying visit to Hungary, arriving one day and leaving the next. This suggests that his main task had been to mediate between Poland and the Soviet Union; in Hungary he only had to demonstrate support for the Kadar regime which could be accomplished by a brief stop-

over. Quite possibly, too, the Chinese were prepared to commit themselves more clearly to the new Polish than to the new Hungarian leadership, if only because the Poles had shown themselves so much more skilful at handling their domestic affairs and their relationship with the Soviet Union. Kadar, after all, was totally dependent on the

Soviet army; that was not the kind of regime that the Chinese admired. 45

Chou concluded his fence-mending trip with more talks with the CPSU, during which he again criticized Khrushchev and his colleagues for their handling of the Stalin issue.4® The communiqué issued at the end of his visit showed that the Russians, however grateful for his intervention in Eastern Europe, were not prepared to accept the theoretical explanation of intra-bloc differences contained in ‘ More on the historical experience .. .’. In that article it had been asserted that Mao’s theory of non-antagonistic contradictions could include contradictions between communist states and parties. The formulation adopted in the communiqué was pointedly different: There have been and are no essential contradictions or clash of interests in

the relations between the socialist states. Even if in the past there were some mistakes and shortcomings in these relations, at the present time they are being rectified and eliminated. 47

Here was a further indication of Soviet dislike of the theory of internal contradictions that Mao had been developing ever since the 20th Congress.

IS AGREED ON |

1 3 A RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN.

(i) Rectification scheduled for 1958 Chou En-lai resumed his Asian tour after his visit to Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, in China, party leaders had not been confining themselves to ideological pronouncements, but were taking practical measures in the light of developments in Hungary and Poland. After the 8th Congress, provincial party committees had ordered their cadres at Asien level and above to study the congress documents and

combat the three evils of subjectivism, bureaucratism, and sectarianism.* One province singled out subjectivism as the principal

evil*; another advocated self-examination and self-education in accordance with the principle of rectification?; one even launched its

own rectification campaign.“ The variety of approaches clearly indicated that no central directive on a full-scale rectification cam-

paign had yet been issued, even though Peking continued to encourage the struggle against the three evils. ®

At the same time, Peking also restated the need for the party to learn from non-party people. * In November 1956 Mao gave clear if indirect encouragement to this admonition by publishing a eulogy to

Sun Yat-sen on the 90th anniversary of the latter’s birth. In the course of it he suggested that communists should not be too severe with regard to his mistakes.’ By extension, Mao’s appreciative and

magnanimous attitude could be applied to all China’s non-communist politicians, officials, and academics, many of whom had been nurtured on the ideas of Sun Yat-sen.

On 15 November, in his summing-up at the CC’s 2nd plenum, Mao called on all officials to use rectification methods to struggle against subjectivism, sectarianism, and bureaucratism, but it is clear

from the phrasing of the plenum communiqué that this was a personal appeal and not an official CC directive. ° However, sometime between mid-November and mid-January, the Chinese leaders

agreed to launch a rectification campaign; an article in the 16 January issue of the fortnightly magazine Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien (Chinese Youth) revealed that ° the Central Committee of the Party recently decided that as from 1958 there will commence a rectification 177

178 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

of work style throughout the Party ’.® Since there had been no further plenum prior to this decision, one must conclude that it was probably taken at the enlarged meeting of the Politburo at which

the essentials of ‘More on the historical experience...’ were agreed. 1°

Behind the decision to rectify the party presumably lay a growing concern regarding relations between the party and the masses lest an East European-style crisis should ever be duplicated in China.?? Chinese leaders took steps to emphasize their interest in softening the party’s rule. Liu Shao-ch’i told a meeting of party organization

bureau chiefs in December that, with the class struggle basically concluded and with fewer counter-revolutionaries at large, the organs of dictatorship could be reduced in number and should be improved in quality.12 In January he pronounced himself in favour of * small democracy ’ (hsiao min-chu) in the handling of contradictions among

the people, but was prepared to sanction ‘a little bit of extensive democracy ’ (tien ta min-chu), 1.e. large-scale struggle sessions, for serious cases of bureaucratism,1* while Mao urged a conference of

CCP provincial chiefs not to fear strikes and riots.!4 In his report at Tsinghua in January, Teng Hsiao-p’ing admitted that dictatorship had been somewhat excessive (to hsie) in recent years, though he was quick to add that the CCP’s successes had been achieved on the basis of this dictatorship. It would be a mistake not to relax (fang-k’uan) a little now.+5 However, he too argued against

‘extensive democracy’ which resulted, in society at large, in the undermining of discipline and setbacks to production and, within the party, in the violation of democratic centralism and the overthrow of one group of leaders by another. 1* Teng strongly supported

Mao’s hundred flowers call, claiming that it was very clear that culture and the arts had benefited greatly as a result. He continued: ‘ Raising this slogan at this time sets free idealism. The object is to

, debated... .’2?

spread materialism, for the truth becomes clearer the more it is

(ii) Resistance to the hundred flowers | Despite the advocacy of the CCP’s General Secretary, there was still considerable resistance to the hundred flowers policy among propaganda officials. This resistance doubtless reflected the more general

concern on the part of CCP members that, in the current relaxed political atmosphere, their position of superiority vis-a-vis non-party people had been undermined, a concern that had been indicated in

A RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS AGREED ON 179

the reception of Mao’s speech to the 8th Congress. Now, in the wake

of the Hungarian revolt, the Chinese had attacked wavering communist intellectuals and warned against revisionism in ‘ More on the historical experience .. .’.1§ This evidently emboldened a group of army propaganda officials to deplore the impact of the hundred flowers on socialist realism. Led by a deputy director of the PLA’s GPD, Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung, these officials published an article in the People’s Daily on 7 January complaining that the attack on formulaism, while necessary, had been exploited by some to oppose the use of literature and art to serve politics.1® Also, people were too keen on reviving old literature rather than creating new socialist literature. The article aroused immense interest and stimulated a great deal

of comment, much of it in support of the authors.?9 Sympathy for these hardline views evidently extended into the upper reaches of the propaganda apparatus, for the People’s Daily failed to publish any

weighty rebuttal of this attack on Mao’s policies for two months (see below, pp. 193-4).2! As a result, Mao himself had to enter the arena and hint at his displeasure.

On 12 January, only five days after the article by the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group had appeared, Mao wrote to the editors of Poetry, a new magazine whose first number would soon appear, enclosing copies of all those of his poems that he could remember. He said: I received your kind letter some time ago and am sorry to be so late in replying. ... Up to now I have never wanted to make these things [i.e. his poems] known in any formal way because they are written in the old style. I was afraid that this might encourage a wrong trend and exercise a bad influence on young people. .. . Of course our poetry should be written mainly in the modern form. We may write some verse in classical forms as well, but it would not be advisable to encourage young people to do this because these forms would restrict their thought and they are difficult to learn. I merely put forward this opinion for your consideration. *2

As the first sentence of his letter indicates, Mao had not bothered to

reply to the editors of Poetry before, though their request for his poems had reached him some time ago. It seems highly likely that it was the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group’s attack on the hundred flowers policy that spurred Mao to action. For the strange aspect of Mao’s letter was that he stated his preference for modern forms of verse, and admitted to fears that his poems might encourage a contrary trend, and yet he sanctioned their publication without giving any reasons for suppressing his fears. The conclusion seems inescapable.

Mao wished to demonstrate that while he supported the canons of

180 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

socialist realism, he still underwrote the permissiveness of the hundred flowers policy, especially for older writers. From now on those who wished to revive traditional literature—something which particularly worried the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group—could point to the fact that Mao himself utilized the old forms. 7°

But despite Mao’s intervention on behalf of classical forms, the counter-attack of the dogmatists continued. They concentrated their fire on Wang Meng’s ‘ Young newcomer to the Organization Depart-

ment’, accusing the young writer of condemning the whole communist system. The critics, numbered in many hundreds, were doubtless encouraged by the simultaneous criticism in the Soviet Union of Vladimir Dudintsev, who had depicted a similar conflict between an idealist and cynical bureaucrats in Not By Bread Alone.**

(iii) Chou reports and rectification is brought forward Chou En-lai completed his Asian tour with a visit to Ceylon, and returned to China, arriving in Kunming in Yunnan on 6 February. Five days earlier, an NPC delegation led by its Secretary-General, P’eng Chen, had returned to Peking after a long tour of Eastern Europe. But while Chou En-lai reported on his tour to the CPPCC on 5 March, P’eng Chen did not get a chance to make his report until a meeting of the NPC SC on 31 March. *® The probable importance of this delay will soon emerge. Chou met soldiers of the PLA in Kunming on 7 February, 7° but then dropped out of sight until he arrived in Peking on the 12th. He and his delegation could have been resting in Kunming, but it seems

more likely that they were reporting to Mao Tse-tung and perhaps other leaders, probably in Hangchow in Chekiang province. 27 Wherever and whenever Chou reported to Mao, the burden of what he had to say emerged in his speech to the CPPCC. He drew the same conclusion from each of the three countries he visited: the correction of mistakes by the communist leadership was beneficial. As he said of the Soviet Union: ‘ Through our contacts with the leaders and people of all circles of the Soviet Union, we realised that their criticism of the mistakes and defects in their work had served to advance the life and work in every aspect of the Soviet Union.’ 2° After making similar comments on Poland and Hungary, he then

dealt with the problem of the imperialists taking advantage of communists’ mistakes: All reactionary forces in the world rejoice over the difficulties and mistakes of the socialist countries, they vainly attempt to make use of our difficulties

A RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS AGREED ON [81 and mistakes in carrying out disruptive activities against us. But all this will be of no avail. By overcoming difficulties and correcting mistakes -unceasingly, our socialist cause will not be weakened, but will certainly grow stronger and prosper.?® (Emphasis added.)

Chou was evidently attempting to reassure those who might fear that

rectification, and the airing of mistakes that would inevitably accompany it, would be exploited by the imperialists with dire consequences. Such anxieties are likely to have arisen on the basis of “ More on the historical experience . . .’, in which the Chinese had

accepted the official Hungarian analysis that in the revolt international imperialism ‘ played the main and decisive part ’.?° In his private report to his colleagues, Chou may well have urged them to

discard this comforting explanation; for only if he believed that domestic causes had been the prime cause of the Hungarian revolt could he have been so confident that the imperialists would not be able to take similar advantage of the correction of mistakes elsewhere. 3!

The contrary view was argued by P’eng Chen. P’eng and his NPC colleagues had spent two and a half months in Eastern Europe, from 15 November 1956 to 1 February 1957, visiting the Soviet Union,

Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. With the exception of Yugoslavia, these were all bloc countries with

conservative leaderships that had strongly supported the Soviet position in Hungary. Unlike Chou, P’eng had not heard the highly critical views of the Poles—whose views counted for more with the Chinese than those of the maverick Yugoslavs—nor had he visited Hungary himself. It would have been surprising, therefore, personal predilections aside, if P’eng Chen had not come to conclusions about

the lessons of Eastern Europe which differed from those of the Chinese Premier.

There was only one country that both P’eng and Chou visited— the Soviet Union—but P’eng’s comments on this visit there differed significantly from those of Chou. P’eng made no reference to. the correction of mistakes in the Soviet Union. Indeed, while Chou remarked on corrections of mistakes in Hungary and Poland too, P’eng Chen did not seem to have found mistakes being corrected anywhere. He emphasized instead the great successes of the fraternal countries. ?2 Though he did not visit Hungary, P’eng did manage to

insert a reference to the role of the imperialists in the revolt when describing his encounter with members of the Hungarian minority in Rumania:

182 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

After the outbreak of the Hungarian incident, the people of Hungarian race here assembled to condemn the subversive activities of the imperialists and counter-revolutionaries in Hungary, and firmly supported the stand and the directives of the Hungarian Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Government. 33

Summing up the lessons of his tour, P’eng Chen argued that the imperialist countries knew that they would be the losers in any new big war and therefore wished instead to take advantage of dissensions

and divisions between and within communist countries, and he added: The Hungarian incident and their [the imperialists] activities in sowing discord between the socialist countries are cast-iron proof of these criminal acts. This kind of criminal activity on the part of the imperialists clearly

tells the peoples of our various socialist countries that it is essential to strengthen unity between socialist countries and within those countries, and

it is essential to raise our vigilance and eliminate all counter-revolutionaries.® + (Emphasis added.)

P’eng Chen’s warning of the dangers of imperialist exploitation of internal dissension, if heeded, would have precluded the launching of a rectification campaign that would inevitably result in the public

washing of dirty linen. But Mao evidently subscribed to Chou En-lai’s analysis, and on that basis decided to advance the launching of the rectification campaign by a year.?° It was not until well after Mao had made the keynote speeches for the campaign, and the new launching schedule had been publicly indicated, that P’eng Chen was able to express his dissenting views. The probable timetable of the relevant events seems to have been as follows (parentheses indicate hypothesized events):

| February P’eng Chen returns from Eastern Europe 6 February Chou En-lai arrives in Kunming 9-11 February (Chou reports to Mao and other leaders in Hangchow)

9-26 February (Decision taken to advance date of rectification campaign at some point between these dates, probably at Hangchow meeting)

12 February Chou returns to Peking 12-26 February (Mao prepares speech on internal contradictions)

27 February Mao delivers speech on internal contradictions to SSC 2/ February—1 March SSC hears and discusses Mao’s speech

A RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS AGREED ON 183

5 March Chou En-lai reports to CPPCC on East European trip emphasizing importance of

rectification of mistakes by communist parties. On same day, propaganda chief Lu Ting-yi publishes article on 15th anniversary of original rectification movement, reveals

that a new movement is ‘about to be launched ’ 36

6-13 March CCP propaganda conference discusses Mao’s contradictions speech and forth-

coming rectification campaign | 12 March Mao addresses propaganda conference to give personal support to widest possible blooming and contending

31 March P’eng Chen reports on his East European tour, two months after his return.

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE

(i) Mao‘s speech to the Supreme State Conference, 27 February 1957

In his capacity as head of state, Mao summoned a Supreme State Conference of 1,800 leading communists and non-communists to

hear his ‘On the correct handling of contradictions among the people ’ on 27 February.! This speech had been almost exactly one year in gestation. Khrushchev’s secret speech of 25 February 1956

had prompted the Chinese CC to reaffirm, in ‘ On the historical experience ...’, Mao’s doctrine that contradictions could exist in a communist state. Mao himself had started to grapple with how such

contradictions might be handled in his speeches on the ten great relationships and the hundred flowers. After the Hungarian revolt,

the CCP had resumed analysis in ‘More on the historical experience...” and asserted that contradictions between government and people were among those that could exist within a communist state. Now, after Chou En-lai’s report, Mao was ready to elaborate the doctrine of contradictions among the people, to spell out where such contradictions could be found in specific Chinese contexts, and to advocate means of eliminating them.

Mao defined ‘the people’ at the current stage of the Chinese revolution as ‘ all classes, strata and social groups which approve, support and work for the cause of socialist construction.’? To be included among ‘ the people’ there was apparently no requirement that one should support the socialist revolution, though one could be classed as an enemy of the people if one resisted it or was hostile to socialist construction. In other words, Mao seemed prepared to tolerate passive disagreement with socialism so long as one worked for the economic development of China. Within the ranks of the people, contradictions among the working people (i.e. workers and peasants) were non-antagonistic while those

between the working people and the bourgeoisie (i.e. between exploited and exploiting classes) had a non-antagonistic aspect as well as the antagonistic one. The basically antagonistic contradiction 184

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 185

between proletariat and bourgeoisie could, if properly handled, be transformed into a non-antagonistic contradiction. * All such non-

antagonistic contradictions must be handled differently from con-

tradictions between the people and the enemy. Even strikes by workers or students were nothing to get alarmed about. They should be handled carefully and used as an opportunity for ridding the unit where they occurred of bureaucratic practices. 4 In other words, Mao believed that in a communist country it was possible to solve all problems and disputes without resort to violence on the part of either the government or the people. ‘ But if they are not dealt with properly, or if we relax vigilance and lower our guard, antagonism may arise’—as it had in Hungary. ® Even with the qualifications added before publication, this was

clearly the theoretical underpinning of a more humane form of communism, a communism under which all disputes would be resolved by discussion and persuasion, Stalinism would be avoided, and everyone would work together for the common good. This latter aspect was crucial. The assumption underlying the whole speech was that in China it would be possible for the vast majority of the population (i.e. ‘ the people ’) to work together. The substantive portion of the speech opened with a stirring paean to national unity: Never has our country been as united as it is today. The victories of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, coupled with our achievements in socialist construction have rapidly changed the face of old China. Now we see before us an even brighter future. The days of national disunity and turmoil which the people have detested have gone for ever. Led by the working class and the Communist Party, and united as

one, our six hundred million people are engaged in the great work of building socialism. Unification of the country, unity of the people and unity

among our various nationalities—these are the basic guarantees for the sure triumph of our cause. ®

This unity would ensure that the forthcoming rectification campaign would be conducted in the right spirit: The essential thing is to start with a desire for unity. Without this subjective desire for unity, once the struggle starts it is liable to get out of hand. Wouldn’t this then be the same as ‘ ruthless struggle and merciless blows ’? Would there be any party unity left to speak of ? It was this experience that led us to the formula: ‘ unity-criticism-unity ’, Or, in other words, ‘ take warning from the past in order to be more careful in the future ’, and to ‘ treat the illness in order to save the patient .. .” After the liberation of the

country, we used this same method—‘ unity-criticism-unity "—in our relations with other democratic parties and industrial and commercial circles. Now our task is to continue to extend and make still better use of

186 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION this method throughout the ranks of the people; we want all our factories, cooperatives, business establishments, schools, government offices, public bodies, in a word, all the six hundred million of our people, to use it in resolving contradictions among themselves. ?

Mao summed up his theoretical position by stating that in China a socialist system—meaning socialist relations of production—had been established. The system was suited to the development of the

productive forces, but it was far from perfect, and so there were contradictions between relations of production and the development of productive forces. Similarly there was conformity but also contradiction between the superstructure—the state system—and the economic base. The contradiction was due to survivals of bourgeois ideology, bureaucratic practices, and flaws in certain ‘ links’ in the

state’s institutions. Turbulent class struggle was mainly over; but some class struggle would continue. Time was needed for the socialist

system to be consolidated and for people to get accustomed to it.®

Mao concluded his theoretical remarks: :

It is imperative that at this juncture we raise the question of distinguishing contradictions among the people from contradictions between ourselves and the enemy, as well as the question of the proper handling of contradictions among the people, so as to rally the people of all nationalities in our country to wage a new battle—the battle against nature—to develop our economy and culture, enable all our people to go through this transition period in a fairly smooth way, make our new system secure, and: build up our new state. ® (Emphasis added.)

Here once again was the theme of Mao’s preface to Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside—the vital task in the aftermath of the victory

of the socialist revolution was the economic development of the country. The importance of resolving contradictions was that it made it possible to get on with that task. The battle against nature was clearly more important than class struggle to Mao when he made the speech—as it was to Liu Shao-ch’i and other leaders at that time. 1°

(ii) Mao addresses the CCP’s national propaganda conference, 12 March 1957

Mao’s contradictions speech made a profound impact on the noncommunist members of his audience. One man was reportedly ‘ so stimulated by Chairman Mao’s address that he could not sleep for one whole night!’11 A businessman, Robert Loh, whose plans to flee the country were already well advanced, wondered whether he should

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 187

not remain in China after all: ‘I was in a daze. After Mao’s speech anything seemed possible. For the first time in many years, I allowed myself to hope.’1? As a result of the later omissions—of admissions of mistakes—and additions—of warnings against excessively free speech—it is not possible to recapture the full flavour of the original speech. However, the available text of Mao’s second keynote speech for the rectification campaign, delivered to a national propaganda work conference on 12 March in front of an audience of almost 500 party and non-party cadres from appropriate departments, gives the appearance of being pretty close to the original and it does enable one partly to understand the stunned reaction of men like Robert Loh. 13

One of the major tasks of Mao’s contradictions speech had been to convince his non-communist auditors of his sincerity of purpose— hence his frank admission of serious CCP errors.1* The objective of his propaganda conference speech was to persuade a largely com-

munist officialdom employed in the media and in cultural and educational departments to accept far greater freedom of expression,

and so he had to convince them that this was not dangerous but positively desirable.15 In particular, he had to reassure them about the consequences of encouraging criticism of the CCP during the forthcoming rectification campaign. Directly tackling the question that must have been uppermost in party members’ minds, he restated the argument used only a week earlier by Chou En-lai, differing only in that he buttressed his point with a domestic example, whereas Chou had cited examples from Eastern Europe: ‘ Will it undermine our Party’s prestige if we criticise our own subjectivism, bureaucracy

and sectarianism? I think not. On the contrary, it will serve to enhance our Party’s prestige. The rectification movement during the anti-Japanese war proved this.’ + As Chou En-lai had done in his speech on the intellectuals a year earlier, Mao spelled out the crucial importance of non-party people to economic development and the consequent need for the CCP to

improve its relations with such people. His remarks are worth quoting at length because they constituted the essence of the message that Mao had been trying to hammer into the heads of dubious party officials since January 1956, a message whose relevance had been

sharpened by developments in Eastern Europe in the latter half of 1956. It is also worth underlining that this passage is far lengthier and more insistent than its equivalent in the contradictions speech, perhaps because the latter had been modified before publication??:

188 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

In building up the new China we Communists are not daunted by any difficulties whatsoever. But we cannot accomplish this on our own. We need a good number of non-Party people with great ideals who will fight dauntlessly together with us for the transformation and construction of our society in the direction of socialism and communism. It is an arduous

task to ensure a better life for the several hundred million people of China and to build our economically and culturally backward country into a prosperous and powerful one with a high level of culture. Therefore,

in order to be able to shoulder this task more competently and work better together with all non-Party people who are actuated by high ideals and determined to institute reforms, we must conduct rectification movements both now and in the future, and constantly rid ourselves of whatever is wrong. 1°

Mao went on, in a striking passage, to urge non-communists to help the party reform by proffering criticism: Thoroughgoing materialists are fearless; we hope that all our fellow fighters will courageously shoulder their responsibilities and overcome all

difficulties, fearing no setbacks or gibes, nor hesitating to criticise us Communists and give us their suggestions. ‘ He who is not afraid of death by a thousand cuts dares to unhorse the emperor ’—this is the indomitable spirit needed in our struggle to build socialism and communism. On our

part, we Communists should create conditions helpful to those who co-operate with us, establish good comradely relations with them in our common work and unite with them in our joint struggle.1° (Emphasis added.)

Mao clearly anticipated both the hesitancy of potential critics and the hostile reactions of CCP members to criticism. In view of this, it might have been helpful if at this stage he had inserted some criteria to guide critics and reassure cadres. Instead, he tried to reassure the critics: What if one dare not write? Some people say that they dare not write even when they have something to say, lest they should offend people and be

criticised. I think such worries can be cast aside... If what you say is right, you need fear no criticism, and you can explain your correct views further throughout debate. If what you say is wrong, then criticism can help you correct your mistakes, and there is nothing bad in that. 7°

Far from providing criteria for criticisms, he went on to advocate, in what significantly was the longest of the eight sections of his speech, that in the airing of views the policy should be to ‘ open wide’ and not to ° restrict ’.24 According to Mao, opening wide meant: to let all people express their opinions freely, so that they dare to speak, dare to criticise and dare to debate; it means not being afraid of wrong views and anything poisonous; it means to encourage argument and criticism among people holding different views, allowing freedom both for criticism and for counter-criticism; it means not suppressing wrong views

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 189

but convincing people by reasoning with them. To ‘ restrict’ means to forbid people to air differing opinions and express wrong ideas, and to ‘ finish them off with a single blow’ if they do so. That is the way to aggravate

rather than to resolve contradictions. To ‘ open wide’, or to ‘ restrict’ —we must choose one or the other of these two policies. We choose the former, because it is the policy which will help to consolidate our country and develop our culture. 2?

There was no difference in principle between what Mao was saying in this passage and the views outlined in his contradictions speech, but there was a considerable difference in tone. In the propaganda conference speech Mao was far more permissive and encouraging towards potential critics of the CCP. The difference in tone is doubtless partly explained by the need to modify the contradictions speech

before publication; but Mao was probably also concerned, in an address primarily directed to those watchdogs of orthodoxy, the party’s propaganda officials, to lay down the law on the justifiability of criticism, even at the risk of over-emphasis.

True, Mao did devote one section of his speech to encouraging critics not to be one-sided, not to see merely the negative aspects. He

then dealt with the legitimate worry that might agitate potential critics on this point: Some people say: Since there is to be a rectification movement and since everyone is to be asked to express his opinions, one-sidedness is unavoidable, and therefore in calling for the elimination of one-sidedness, it seems that you really don’t want people to speak up.2? (Emphasis added.)

Mao admitted that it was ‘ naturally difficult for everyone to avoid any trace of one-sidedness ’, ?* but asked critics to attempt a balanced or * all-sided ’ approach. In the last analysis, however, he was clearly

prepared to tolerate one-sidedness in the interests of promoting criticism. As he said, ‘ it is usually hard to avoid one-sidedness and there is nothing terrible if a certain amount creeps in. Criticism would be hampered if everyone were required to look at problems in an absolntely all-sided way.’ 25

(iii) Disagreement over the form of the rectification campaign

The necessity of party rectification had been agreed by all the chief Chinese leaders. P’eng Chen, and possibly others, had apparently been opposed to advancing the timetable, fearing that the political

atmosphere was too volatile in the aftermath of the Hungarian revolt. Mao had rejected this argument and pressed ahead, but dis-

agreements persisted. These concerned principally the form the

190 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

campaign would take, but it would seem that some of Mao’s colleagues also objected to the manner in which he prepared the country for rectification in his speech on contradictions. Mao’s idea was that the rectification campaign should be open to

all and not confined to the party. At one point in his propaganda conference speech, he said: ‘ Non-Party people may take part in it, or they need not if they do not wish to ’.2® He also said that ‘ everyone ’ was to be asked to express his opinion in the rectification campaign. But party officials jibbed at the idea of outsiders participating in the rectification campaign. In his 5 March article in the People’s Daily on the fifteenth anniversary of the first rectification campaign— presumably designed to provide the guidelines for the propaganda

conference that began the following day—propaganda chief Lu Ting-yi made no mention of non-party people participating. On the basis of a long historical account of the 1940s campaign, he invoked

precedent to describe a rectification movement as ‘a great ideological revolution within the party. The rectification movement which

Comrade Mao Tse-tung created, this form of movement which is appropriate to intra-party struggle, is a great contribution to the Marxist-Leninist theory of party building ’ (emphasis added). 2”

A little later Lu Ting-yi rubbed the lesson home; by making the party the creator of the rectification method instead of Mao, he indicated the limits of the party’s acceptance of such movements: ‘Our party created the method of the rectification movement in order to solve intra-party contradictions, and moreover starting from there gradually developed a set of work methods for solving con-

tradictions among the people’ (emphasis added).?8 The clear implication of this latter passage was that the party first rectified itself and then evolved the methods for solving contradictions among the people; the methods of the two stages were related but different. But in 1957 Mao saw the rectification of the party and the resolution

of contradictions among the people as part of the same process. And whereas he wanted non-party people to take part—though he was prepared to allow them to opt out—Lu Ting-yi was off-handedly casual about the relationship of non-party people to the rectification movement. He merely listed the appropriate documents for ‘ people who are interested in studying the rectification movement.’ ?® Even in his summing up, Lu Ting-yi made no concession to Mao’s vision of the new rectification campaign: These various circumstances compel us to arrange a new party-wide (ch’tian tang fan-wei) rectification movement in order to improve the

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 191

ideological work-style and the work (work-) style (ssu-hsiang tso-feng ho kung-tso tso-feng) of the cadres of the whole party.*° (Emphasis added.)

Lu Ting-yi’s preference for intra-party rectification was underlined

by the greater emphasis he gave to the arguments used at the 8th Congress by Liu Shao-ch’i as compared with those used by Teng Hsiao-p’ing. Like Liu, Lu stressed the importance of study (which clearly did not demand the assistance of outsiders) for the correction of subjectivism, and also cited first the party’s unfamiliarity with the

new tasks of socialist construction as a reason for error. He then went on to discuss, much more briefly, the need to solve contradictions among the people, before dealing at greater length with Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s point about the corrupting effect of power. Even here, however, Lu—unlike Teng—stressed the unfamiliarity of the tasks; only at the very end of his discussion did he bring out Teng’s major point that the simple fact of being in power led to bureaucratism. *1

The relative emphasis placed by Lu Ting-yi on various arguments indicated that Mao and his principal allies, Chou En-lai and Teng Hsiao-p’ing, were now bringing considerable pressure to bear on their Politburo colleagues in an effort to ensure that the rectification campaign would take the form they wanted. Lu could not ignore the Maoist arguments, but resistance to Mao at the highest level was sufficiently determined for him to be able to hold out against them. °? Men like Lu would have been especially encouraged by the behaviour of Liu Shao-ch’s at this juncture.

(iv) Liu’ Shao-ch’'i indicates disapproval of Mao’s contradictions speech

If they doubted the wisdom of inviting outsiders to participate in the rectification campaign, party members must have been additionally

disturbed by the tone of the contradictions speech. Indeed, their gloom was probably in direct proportion to the euphoria of Mao’s non-communist auditors; any accretion of self-confidence and initiative for the latter had to mean a corresponding diminution of the power and privilege of the former. The intensity of the concern of some of Mao’s closest colleagues on this score was revealed by the

action taken by Liu Shao-ch’i. He ostentatiously boycotted—or made it seem that he boycotted—the session of the Supreme State Conference at which Mao delivered his contradictions speech. When a picture of that session appeared in the People’s Daily on 3 March,

Liu Shao-ch’i was conspicuous by his absence from Mao’s righthand side.

192 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Liu’s attitude was thus made clear to the whole country. Mao had

been delivering the most important speech on politics that he or anyone else had made since the creation of the communist regime, but Liu was not prepared to be shown at his side on that occasion. No reader of the People’s Daily could have failed to conclude that

this was because Liu disapproved of what Mao had said (see App. 7). Further, the more sophisticated cadre would have noted that five other Politburo members—Chu Teh, Lin Piao, Lin Po-ch’ii, Lo Jung-huan, and P’eng Teh-huai—were not in their rightful places on the rostrum; and only one of these absences, that of Lin Piao, could reliably be attributed to illness (see App. 7). There were other clues to the divisions within the Politburo. This major policy initiative had apparently not been preceded by extensive discussions within the CC. In this respect it differed from the launching of the new policies on socialist transformation in the autumn of 1955 and towards the intellectuals in January 1956, and resembled

more Mao’s personal initiative on collectivization policy in the summer of 1955. This may explain why Lu Ting-yi pointedly did not announce in his article that the CC had decided to launch the forthcoming rectification campaign—as Mao claimed in his propaganda speech ?8_but instead wrote somewhat apologetically that circumstances “ compel us’ to arrange it. °4 Indeed, it is not clear precisely what men like Liu Shao-ch’i and

P’eng Chen had agreed to by the time Mao made his propaganda conference speech. Possibly Mao had secured Liu’s grudging agree-

ment in principle to advance the timing of the rectification campaign.** But the evidence of Liu’s behaviour and Lu Ting-yi’s article indicates that Mao had not yet secured Liu’s acceptance of the form of the campaign or of the precise date when it should start. There seems to be no other explanation for the continued resistance to rectification during March and early April on the part not only of P’eng Chen but even of relatively junior propaganda officials.

(v) Resistance to rectification One sign of the persisting hostility to Mao’s ideas was the failure of

party propagandists decisively to slap down opponents of the hundred flowers policy, such as the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group. Yet Mao himself, in his propaganda conference speech, had given an even clearer indication of his attitude on this matter than he had in January. He said:

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 193

We are for the policy of ‘ opening wide ’; so far there has been too little of

it rather than too much. We must not be afraid of opening wide, nor should we be afraid of criticism and poisonous weeds.... Recently, a number of ghosts and monsters have been presented on the stage. Seeing this, some comrades have become very worried. In my opinion, a little of this does not matter much; within a few decades such ghosts and monsters will disappear from the stage altogether and you won’t be able to see them

even if you want to.... Of course, I am not advocating the spread of such things, I only say ‘ a few of them do not matter much ’. ®®

Despite this firm reassertion of the aims of blooming and contending,

the major propaganda organ of the party, the People’s Daily, was slow to back up Mao. It had only been after Mao’s contradictions speech that the paper had published, on 1 March, an article by a junior party member, Ch’en Liao, criticizing the line taken by the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group. And it was only after the even stronger

endorsement of ‘blooming and contending’ and the implicit criticism of Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung and his colleagues in the propaganda conference speech, that the People’s Daily published a really weighty attack on them, on 18 March, in the form of an article by the Minister of Culture, Mao Tun. Even this could not be considered as finally disposing of the group, for Mao Tun, despite his ministerial position and fame as a writer, was not a member of the CCP. ?? This failure of the CC’s newspaper to lend official weight to the criticism of relatively junior officials who had disagreed with Mao’s policies was symptomatic of something far more serious—a failure to publicize the ideas and policies contained in Mao’s two major speeches of 27 February and 12 March. No editorials on the subject were publicized in the People’s Daily until 13 April, an extraordinary propaganda lapse if it were already known that the CC would issue its directive launching the rectification campaign only two weeks

later on 27 April.?® Since the CCP propaganda apparatus had hitherto seemed highly efficient, the inescapable supposition must be that if by 12 March Mao had secured agreement to the launching of a rectification campaign in 1957, continued debate at the highest level

was preventing any decision as to when it should actually begin. Even so, Mao was understandably furious that the People’s Daily had delayed discussion of his ideas. Sometime in April, almost certainly during the first ten days of the month, Mao denounced the party press strongly: The party press should promptly do propaganda on the party’s policies. It is a mistake that the conference on propaganda work has not been reported

in the press. This conference was held jointly by party and non-party

194 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

. people, why then has it not been reported in the press? Why is it that no editorial has been issued on the Supreme State Conference? Why are the party’s policies being kept secret? There is a ghost here; where is this ghost? We used to say that the papers were run by pedants, now we should say they are being run by the dead. More often than not you play the role of the opposition in respect to the central committee’s policies. You resist, you oppose the central committee’s policies, and you do not approve of the central committee’s policies. 29

When this broadside was published in September 1968, the context

indicated that it had originally been intended as an attack on Teng T’o, the chief editor of the People’s Daily in the first half of 1957. Now if the responsibility was Teng’s, an official who was not even a

member of the CC, then almost certainly no final decision on the launching date of the rectification campaign could have been taken before or during March. It is virtually inconceivable that so relatively junior an official would have acted in clear defiance of CC policy. *° The conclusion must surely be that, at the least, Teng T’o did not feel there was any urgency to write editorials about a cam-

paign whose launching date had not yet been agreed; and more probably, that Teng felt that the uncertainty regarding the launching

date, as well as disagreement over the form of rectification, was excuse enough to cover him. In view of Teng T’o’s later senior post

in the Peking municipal party apparatus, and the fact that at this time he must have been a member of the municipal party, it is not impossible that Teng was strongly influenced by the views of P’eng

Chen, which were probably common knowledge among party officials in the capital at the time. #1

The failure of the party’s official organ to publish editorials on Mao’s speeches must have influenced the actions of officials lower down the line. When the People’s Daily printed on 13 April, along with its first editorial on contradictions, its first report on provincial responses to Mao’s speeches, this revealed that the Liaoning pro-

vincial party had relayed Mao’s contradictions speech to senior provincial officials on 7 March. Possibly some other provincial parties had acted to inform at least their senior officials about Mao’s contradictions speech, but in the absence of mention of this in the People’s Daily we must assume that whatever action was taken in other provinces had been relatively informal. No major action was taken by any provincial-level organization, it would seem, until the last ten days of March. According to the same report in the People’s

Daily, during that period the Yunnan provincial party began to organize reports on Mao’s speeches. #2 And on 25 March, the Peking

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 195

municipal party committee initiated an eight-day propaganda work

conference on them;** the following day Shansi, P’eng Chen’s native province, likewise started a propaganda work conference. 44 The summoning of the Peking propaganda conference may have been in response to an order from Mao himself. Mao and most other members of the Politburo’s standing committee were absent from Peking during the second half of March and the first week of April. Mao was in Hangchow on 3 April, *® and was not reported to be in the capital between 12 March, when he made his propaganda conference speech, and 8 April when he gave a banquet for the visiting Polish Premier. If Mao was in Hangchow for most of this period,

then the appearance there of Chou En-lai on 21 March assumes particular significance. Chou, it is clear, was Mao’s principal supporter in pushing the ‘ liberal’ policies of 1956-7.4® He may well have gone to Hangchow to consult with Mao on the failure of the party organization in Peking and elsewhere to do anything in response to Mao’s speeches, *” and returned to Peking with a message

from Mao. ‘it is unlikely to have been coincidental that the Peking

party held its first propaganda conference shortly after Chou’s return from Hangchow. In view of P’eng Chen’s opposition to the rectification campaign, the Peking party’s propaganda conference might seem to be a turning

point. But there are clear indications that the holding of the conference did not mean that P’eng had finally given way. It was while the Peking party’s conference was still in session, on 31 March, that

P’eng delivered his report to the NPC standing committee on his East European visit, giving warning of the dangers of allowing internal disunity and discord. Even more significantly, P’eng himself did not address his own municipal party conference; nor indeed was his name mentioned in the long NCNA dispatch on the conference, even though it was attended by more than 1,400 party and non-party cadres and was clearly important enough for Peking’s first secretary to grace with his presence. Crucial in this context was the eighth point made by Mao in his propaganda conference speech. Mao had stated

flatly that the party committees at the provincial level ‘ must’ take up the question of ideology, and went on to add: The first secretaries of the party committees in all localities should personally tackle this question, which can be solved correctly only when they have given it serious attention and gone into it. All localities should call meetings on propaganda work, similar to our present one, to discuss local ideological work and all related problems. 4® (Emphasis added.)

196 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

After Chou’s return from Hangchow, P’eng had evidently thought it prudent to order his municipal committee to hold a propaganda conference, but had not retreated to the extent of obeying Mao’s instruction concerning the duties of first secretaries. *®

(vi) Liu Shao-ch’i's provincial tour The most likely explanation of the hiatus during March and early April is that Mao had had to agree to postpone the fixing of a launch-

ing date of the rectification campaign until after Liu Shao-ch’i, Chou En-lai, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, and other leaders had sounded out and prepared provincial officials. This encouraged reluctant officials like Teng T’o to drag their feet. Liu himself took a 2,400-mile swing through Hopei, Honan, Hupei, Hunan, Kwangtung, and back. 51 He arrived in Hsuch’ang in Honan province on 5 March. ®? and at some point in March made a speech in Chengchow, the provincial capital.>3 On 24 March he addressed a conference of city cadres in Changsha, the capital of Hunan. °* By 6 April he was in Kwangtung,

for he greeted the Polish Premier in Canton on that date, and on 10 April he addressed local cadres on contradictions. 55 By the 12th he was well on his way back to the capital, for on that day he visited his one-time residence in Hankow in Hupei province, leaving the town by rail the same day. *® On 15 April Liu was at hand in Peking for the arrival of the Soviet head of state, Marshal Voroshilov, and remained there for various ceremonies connected with this visit until 18 April, when Voroshilov left for the north-east on the first leg of a tour round the country. Later in the month Liu spent several days in Shanghai, probably from 22 April, when he greeted Voroshilov

there, until 27 April, when he addressed a Shanghai cadres con-’ ference. 5’ The following day he addressed Hopei cadres’ presumably

in Paoting, then the provincial capital.°* This seems to have concluded Liu’s pre-rectification touring, for that night, 28 April, he was

back in Peking for a banquet. ®? Unfortunately, only isolated quotations are currently available from Liu’s speeches on his six provinces tour. The one long extract comes from his Shanghai speech, °° and, as we shall see, by the time he made this latter speech, the political situation had altered. However, a passage from his Honan speech reappeared virtually word for

word in his Shanghai speech, suggesting that Liu may have had a standard address which he varied to take account of any special local circumstances. °?

Sparse though it is, the material relating to Liu’s tour is sufficient

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 197

to suggest that he had two objectives; so too, presumably, had the other leaders touring elsewhere. The first was to explain the nature of

non-antagonistic contradictions among the people and how they should be handled; this is the main topic of the extract from the Shanghai speech on 27 April, which merits comparison with the rectification directive drawn up on the same day(see below pp. 210 ff.).

The second objective was to discuss in the various places visited concrete manifestations of such contradictions. The practical problems which Liu chose to discuss in March helped to explain why he

and P’eng Chen and others were dismayed at the prospect of an open-door rectification campaign. In Chengchow and Hsuch’ang, Liu tried to persuade an audience

of students and teachers that it was an honour to become the first generation of educated peasants. The shortage of educational facilities

would prevent many of them from continuing their studies. Liu attempted to moderate their disappointment by citing his own example to prove that educational deprivation did not necessarily mean failure in contemporary China.*? This topic was of great current concern; it was the subject of a People’s Daily editorial on 8 April. Shanghai provides an important example of what was happening. The year 1957 was to witness a sharp drop in the rate of growth of the intake into the middle schools and an absolute decline in university entry. For the first time since 1953 the intake into the universities was less than the number of graduates from the senior middle schools. ®* A western journalist reported from Peking that the student strikes of 1956 mentioned by Mao in his contradictions speech ®4 were provoked by dissatisfaction with job prospects. ®®

Mao himself wrote to Chou En-lai in March 1957 requesting increased political and ideological study in schools and universities, where political classes had been virtually eliminated. ** And as Mao

indicated to the Supreme State Conference, the reason why his contradictions speech could not be published was because his colleagues feared that it would spark even more serious student riots and also strikes by factory workers. ®’? Strikes were another major topic dealt with by Liu on his tour. His outwardly relaxed attitude matched that of Mao and belied the heated debate behind the scenes; but Liu’s anxiety was suggested

by his proposal that union and party officials should participate in strikes in order to retain the workers’ sympathy. °° The unorthodox conduct which Liu was suggesting for union and party officials underlined his concern about the diminution of the party’s control I

198 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

over the workers. Already the relaxed political atmosphere of 1956 had undermined discipline in the factories. Reports from Shanghai

and elsewhere talked of moral deterioration, citing as examples young workers whose output had dropped because they exhausted themselves at dance parties. The slackening of political education had led workers to put individual interests above state interests—in other words to demand better living conditions. *® How much more difficult it would be to preserve discipline if people were encouraged to air their grievances, *° especially at a time of economic crisis. The serious natural calamities of 1956 had affected food supplies. In addition, the massive increase 1n investment in 1956—over 60 per cent above 1955—had led to an increase in the number of workers three times bigger than planned, and the inflationary pressures thus generated had been augmented by the general wage rise in 1956 and the doubling of bank loans in the countryside and to handicraft and state-private enterprises. Consequently, in late 1956 and early 1957 there were serious shortages of consumer goods. These eventually forced the government to release perhaps as much as 10 per cent of its stockpiled goods, cut the cloth and urban food rations, and call

for a 15-25 per cent reduction in the use of coal for heating and cooking by government offices, the army, and schools. *? Liu Shao-ch’i’s anxieties about rectifying in such conditions were clearly shared by officials; the press report of the 1,600-man propaganda conference held in Canton while Liu was in the city makes this quite clear: Contradictions within the ranks of the people must not be treated as contradictions between the enemy and ourselves. On this point, there was spirited debate at the conference. Many cadres could not become ideologically enlightened, could not distinguish clearly between contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and contradictions within the ranks of the people. Some held that in the handling of the contradictions within the

people, the method of ‘ rectification’ would prove more effective than mere persuasive education. Some even went further and advocated the

‘dual measure of persuasion and force’, that is to say, in addition to the formula ‘ unity-criticism-unity ’, there should be added some ‘ pressure ’. 72 (Emphasis added.)

“Most’ cadres rejected the use of ‘ rectification’ or ‘ pressure’, because they considered that tense internal contradictions were often caused by bureaucratism on the part of leaderships; even when the demands of the masses were excessive, ‘ rectification ’ and ‘ pressure ’ could only obtain a temporary easing of the situation and would in

the long run only aggravate non-antagonistic contradictions, and

MAO ANALYSES CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE 199

could even turn them into antagonistic ones.’? The Maoist view evidently prevailed in the end; but the press report indicated how unpopular Mao’s line was with party officials in Kwangtung. 74 But the split between Mao and Liu did not stem just from differing

estimates as to the riskiness of rectification at a time when the country was faced with serious economic and social problems. To judge from the speeches he made from March through May, Liu believed that the spectre of a Hungarian-type uprising could be exorcised by economic means, whereas Mao insisted on political

measures. During these months Liu argued that the principal domestic contradiction concerned distribution (fen-p’ei).”75 In his

most extended discussion of this question that is available, Liu talked of the disruptive effect of wage differentials between workers

and peasants, workers and cadres, new workers and old workers, and of dissatisfaction stemming from the ranking system (p’ing-chi)

the level of wages, inability to work in one’s speciality (i.e. job distribution), and inability to proceed further up the educational ladder (i.e. distribution of educational opportunity). A particular problem was the distribution of more goods and privileges to leaders.7* It was these problems of wages, housing, food, and

transportation that really interested the masses, and socialist democracy meant being able to speak up about them. To solve the problems, Liu recommended ‘a bit of egalitarianism’ (tien p’ingchiin-chu-i),** in other words, a fairer distribution of economic resources. Mao doubtless would not have disputed the existence of

the problems or rejected a bit of egalitarianism.’* But for him economic egalitarianism was not enough; an open-door rectification campaign was also necessary in order to eliminate the contradictions between leaders and led and bring about greater political equality. Liu, on the other hand, described the ‘ relationship ’ (not contradiction) between the party and the masses only as ‘ the most important question in the political and ideological field ’.*® The fundamental difference between the two men would seem to have been that Liu still saw China’s problems mainly as a reflection

of the country’s economic backwardness, whereas after Hungary Mao had become even more convinced that the underlying issue

was the relationship of party and people. Liu sought solutions principally through altering the relations between men and goods, while Mao, though fully aware of the importance of economics, was more concerned to alter the relations between men and men. *°

1 b THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS LAUNCHED

(i) The People’s Daily falls into line The resistance to Mao’s policies in Kwangtung caused concern to local intellectuals. All those who spoke on the ‘ hundred flowers ’ policy at the local propaganda conference were reported as agreeing that if the policy were to be better implemented ‘ there must first be eliminated the doubts over the policy by not a few cadres. Next there

must be established a correct understanding of the policy. ’+ It is significant that the Kwangtung intellectuals were requesting a * correct understanding’ of the ‘ hundred flowers’ policy almost a year after it had been launched; nor were they alone in their anxieties. According to the well-known social anthropologist Fei Hsiao-t’ung, a non-party man himself, intellectuals throughout the country feared political ‘ early spring weather ’—by which Fei meant mild weather

which promised greater warmth but carried the threat of a sudden frost which would destroy flowers that had bloomed too early. ? Clearly intellectuals in particular would be wary in the absence of any endorsement of Mao’s latest ideas in the People’s Daily. Their doubts would have been reinforced by two editorials in the paper in the first week of April dealing with issues raised by Mao in his two speeches, but issues on which Mao had defended the party. ®

Down in Hangchow, Mao fulminated against the People’s Daily,

asking whose paper it was, asserting that it would have to be reformed. Many conferences had been held, but no news of them had

been published; was it the People’s Daily or the Nationalist Daily (Kuo-min Jih-pao)? Mao was addressing a meeting of the Shanghai party bureau, presumably summoned to his side as one of the few CCP committees he could trust—or so his frankness would suggest. Mao admitted that he was isolated on the hundred flowers issue, estimating that the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group represented the views of 90 per cent of CCP members, and adding: ‘I have no mass base ’. Despite his weak position, Mao reaffirmed his ‘ liberal’ policies. The party had to ‘ open wide’ even if it meant steeling itself for abuse for a few months. Somewhat defensively, Mao asserted: ‘ I am not encouraging the people to make disturbances; I am not holding 200

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riot-promoting conferences °—which must have been how disaffected

party members were describing the Supreme State Conference. It was important to hear an opposing point of view—which was not possible in Russia—and so the democratic parties must survive. Objections to the hundred flowers policy as being untimely and in conflict with political and ideological work were incorrect. As laid down at the 8th Congress, the period of large-scale political struggle was over and the party had to bridge the deep divide separating it from non-communists. + Mao’s next move may have been discussed in Hangchow, for on

9 April the Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Pao published an interview with Chou Yang, in which this senior propaganda official, responsible for the literary world, attacked the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group. The adherence of the hated Chou Yang® to the Maoist cause was noteworthy but not clinching; even more significant than what he said was the fact that the interview was printed in a non-party, Shanghai paper and not in the official People’s Daily.® It seems almost certain that it required Mao’s personal intervention to change the attitude of the party newspaper. On 10 April, two days after Mao’s reappearance at official functions in Peking, the People’s Daily published an editorial criticizing Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung and other opponents of the ‘ hundred flowers ’ policy and also criticizing itself for not having tackled them earlier. * The editorial stated openly that

there were people who feared that the blooming and contending policy could throw the cultural sphere into confusion and it attributed this misapprehension to comrades who disagreed with the policy and so ‘ onesidedly collect a few negative phenomena, dress them up and

exaggerate them, and plan to use them to prove the “ danger ”’ of the policy and to “urge” the party quickly to change its policy’. & Towards the end of the editorial, the People’s Daily denounced the Ch’en Ch’i-t’?ung group as dogmatists and sectarians and said that

their remarks could only create and indeed had already created ideological confusion. It then added: ‘ One must recognize that the failure of this paper to criticize them for a long time after publishing their article is one major reason for the creation of this confusion ’, Next day the People’s Daily reprinted the text of the Chou Yang interview from the Wen Hui Pao. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Mao delivered his rebuke to the editor of the People’s Daily on his return from Hangchow and

that this galvanized Teng T’o into activity. For now the paper not only defended the ‘ hundred flowers ’ policy; it also began belatedly

202 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

to propagate the main themes of Mao’s contradictions and propaganda conference speeches. On 13 April it published the first of five editorials on them. ?°

This first editorial was particularly interesting because it pinpointed what Mao presumably considered to be the major problem facing the regime before the events of May and early June forced him to revise his contradictions speech—the contradiction between leaders and led. And the editorial stated categorically: ‘ The contradictions between the masses of the people and their leaders in our country at present are mainly due to the work style of bureaucratism in their work on the part of the leaders ’,44 Even Mao in his two speeches earlier in the year had listed subjectivism in its conventional first position among the three evils. But now, for a time, bureaucratism emerged as the principal evil in central propaganda. The editorial of 13 April clearly reflected the Maoist position elaborated

by Teng Hsiao-p’ing at the 8th Congress, and also like Teng it argued that the failings of party members since 1949 were an outgrowth of the CCP’s possession of office. Liu’s emphasis on sub-

jectivism and his stress on the novelty of the tasks facing party members had apparently been set aside. Again like Teng, the editorial advocated tighter supervision of the leaders by the masses to combat bureaucratism; at the same time the masses had to submit to continuous ideological education since they were often unable to grasp the overall national situation.

(ii) P’eng Chen gives way One of the most important ways in which the People’s Daily editorial

of 13 April reflected Mao’s views was in its declaration that ideological education was the responsibility of party first secretaries. Echoing Mao’s propaganda conference speech, the editorial stated: To strengthen leadership over the ideological and political work among the masses, Party committees of all levels, especially the first secretaries of the Party committees, must take up this task earnestly, regularly understand the ideological situation of the masses, and solve the ideological questions of the masses. We must urge the leadership personnel of the various depart-

ments of the Party and the government to act in this manner, and xot merely entrust this task to the propaganda departments of the Party and the educational departments of the government.12 (Emphasis added.)

Already the Kwangtung first secretary, T’ao Chu, had fallen into line, for he was presiding over his party’s propaganda conference that had begun on 6 April. T’ao may have acted on the advice of

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Liu Shao-ch’i who was in Canton at least by the 6th, but his willingness to obey Mao’s instructions was not generally publicized until

later. Indeed, an examination of the People’s Daily’s publishing policy during the ten days from 13 to 22 April indicates that an editorial decision had been taken to omit mentions of such activities

by party first secretaries. The evidence suggests that behind this decision lay a desire to avoid highlighting the fact that the nation’s premier first secretary, P’eng Chen of Peking, had so far failed to obey Mao. This may have been motivated by a wish to protect P’eng, or to save Mao’s face, or simply to give no publicity to the top-level split in the party. At the same time the paper appeared to be appealing to P’eng Chen—’ we must urge the leadership personnel ’—to end his resistance. P’eng was a hard nut to crack. Though in public he seemed always to wear a jovial grin—during the cultural revolution he was labelled the * smiling tiger ’—he was apparently a bully,13 and not very fond

of non-communist intellectuals.14 A burly northerner—his nickname was ‘ thick neck ’15—he had acquired his organizational skills the hard way, mobilizing students and workers in the Nationalist or

warlord-held cities of north China during the late 1920s and early 1930s. His activities earned him about six years in jail. By the time he reached Yenan in 1937 he was a hardened revolutionary and he rose rapidly within the party hierarchy. Ironically, in the early 1940s, he was one of Mao’s chief lieutenants in running the first rectifica-

tion campaign, eventually becoming head of the Central Party School.?® A western journalist, Gunther Stein, who met him then, was impressed by his intellect and his energy, describing him as a * tall, muscular man of forty-two, one of those in Yenan of whom it is difficult to tell whether the peasant or the intellectual element is the

main characteristic of his personality ’. Stein correctly sensed that P’eng was one of the party’s ‘ most important coming men ’,17 but overestimated his intellectual element. His colleagues thought of him as a man who did not read books and newspapers. +* P’eng seems to

have resented their attitude, suggesting that he was capable of theoretical work but that someone had to get on with the job.1° But, unwittingly, he used to confirm his colleagues’ opinion with one of his favourite remarks: One need not read too many books. One needs only to read one book thoroughly. While I was in the prison in the old days, I got a copy of Feuerbach’s Thesis and I read it over and over again. Even down to the present day, the book still forms my theoretical foundation. 2°

204 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

P’eng, then, was a tough, down-to-earth type. One man with long experience of P’eng’s organizational work regarded him as having ‘ ability of a high degree. His style of work is good. He sees far and stands high.’?! He also ran a tight ship. Ten years later Mao was to complain that P’eng’s Peking bailiwick was a place into which no

needle could penetrate, no drop of water could enter.?2 This was probably already true in 1957, by which time the fifty-five-year-old P’eng had been running the city for eight years. It would clearly not be easy to do anything in the capital against his wishes. For instance, on 14 April the People’s Daily held a forum of intellectuals at which one professor asserted that Marxism had stagnated since 1895, 23 But more interesting than the airing of such critical views was the fact that the forum was held not in Peking, where the People’s Daily was published, but in Tientsin. Nor were details of the forum published immediately; they would have revealed that the paper was not

holding forums in Peking, due presumably to the opposition of P’eng Chen. It will be recalled that P’eng had not officially attended the propa-

ganda conference run by his municipal party from 25 March to 1 April, but since no report of this conference had yet appeared in the People’s Daily, his defiance was not generally known. On 14 April the paper printed a report on the clearly less important propa-

ganda conference in P’eng’s native Shansi which had started on 26 March; but the report omitted to mention that the first secretary had run the conference.?4 Another report in the People’s Daily on the same day revealed that Mao’s views on contradictions were being studied by organs of the CC and the central government. Members of these organs, who would also have been members of the Peking

municipal party, were thus able to contrast the lead given by Chou En-lai and Teng Hsiao-p’ing with the foot-dragging of P’eng Chen. On 16 April the People’s Daily gave another broader hint to P’eng Chen to fall into line. Jt announced that its editorial of 10 April on

blooming and contending and the Chou Yang interview, which it had reprinted on 11 April, had greatly deepened Peking intellectuals’

understanding of the spirit of Mao’s contradictions speech. Those readers who knew about the Peking party’s propaganda conference might reasonably have wondered why it was getting no public credit , for deepening local intellectuals’ understanding. The following day the paper’s second major editorial on contradictions—‘ Criticism based on the wish for unity ’—dealt with what P’eng Chen’s report

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on his East European tour had shown to be his principal objection to Mao’s policy: Some comrades have a different view on the beneficial effect of criticism in

solving contradictions within the ranks of the people. They fear that criticisms will sharpen and complicate internal contradictions and place the Party and government or the leadership in a passive position. 7°

The paper admitted there was some justification for this fear, but argued that leaders, after being placed in a passive position, would then be better able to take initiatives; and moreover that the result of a failure to solve contradictions would be that the leadership would find itself in an even more passive and difficult situation. Again the paper repeated its plea to P’eng Chen and others like him: * It is now necessary for leaders of Party organisations, government

departments and enterprises first and foremost to encourage and help the masses to make full use of the weapon of criticism.’ *®

In Peking’s factories thousands of cadres were exhibiting enthusiasm for the ideas expressed in Mao’s speeches, claimed a People’s Daily report on 18 April. But if the intellectuals and the workers of the capital supported Mao, the first secretary was clearly lagging behind the masses, a most dangerous position to be in. He was also lagging behind the first secretaries of the other great cities

of China. The first secretary in Shanghai, K’o Ch’ing-shih, had already convened a series of forums on contradictions and the first

secretary in Tientsin had presided over a nine-day propaganda conference.*’ But in its reporting of these two events, and of the Kwangtung propaganda conference, the People’s Daily again shielded P’eng Chen, by holding up the reports or by omitting to mention the role of the first secretary. For instance, an NCNA dispatch of 17 April which revealed K’o Ch’ing-shih’s role in Shanghai was not printed. ?® The same fate befell an NCNA dispatch

of 18 April from Tientsin which reported not only the role of the local first secretary but also that K’ang Sheng had addressed the municipal propaganda conference.?° That these were not journalistic oversights was indicated by the People’s Daily report, published on 19 April, on the Kwangtung propaganda conference; this report

made no mention of the role of first secretary T’ao Chu or of Liu Shao-ch’i’s speech. An NCNA dispatch of 19 April which did mention both men never appeared in the People’s Daily.*° By 19 April, however, P’eng Chen had probably been prevailed on to give way. The previous day his municipal paper, the Peking Daily,

had at last published a report of the municipal party’s propaganda

206 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

conference.*! This report showed that P’eng had not played the desired role at the conference and this fact was probably only revealed because the first secretary had already decided to retreat. P’eng Chen’s decision must have been made after the return of Liv Shao-ch’i and Teng Hsiao-p’ing to the capital to be present for the arrival of President Voroshilov on 15 April.?2 Sometime between the ceremonies of the next few days, the top leadership presumably met and decided to go ahead with the rectification campaign in the

near future—though even now thay may not have agreed on a launching date. Liu’s report was probably crucial for P’eng Chen. If Liu’s assessment was that rectification could be risked in the five provinces he had visited, P’eng could hardly continue to hold out. An alternative possibility, in the light of the mystery which surrounds

the events of the last week of April, is that when the leaders reconvened in Peking, Mao still did not secure agreement on the precise launching date, but he did obtain general acceptance of the need to propagate his views. At any rate, on 20 April, the first day after Voroshilov had left Peking to tour the country (thus freeing the mayor of the capital from having to look after his distinguished guest), P’eng Chen summoned a second Peking propaganda conference—twice as big as the first?@—and delivered the main report. P’eng had to eat a lot of words. He welcomed the participation of outsiders in rectification. He played down the danger of civil disturbance. He stressed the importance of allowing people to bloom and contend. But in one important respect, he had apparently still

not accepted the Maoist analysis, for he insisted that relations between the party and outsiders were basically good and that the key problem was within the party. 34

The crucial importance of P’eng’s retreat was immediately signalled in the pages of the People’s Daily. The paper had published a report of the first Peking propaganda conference only on 19 April,

the day after the report had appeared in the Peking Daily. On 21 April, again taking a lead from the Peking Daily, the People’s Daily finally printed the NCNA dispatch of 18 April regarding the propa-

ganda conference in Tientsin and the action of the first secretary there—a dispatch which the Peking paper had printed a day previously. On another page it published some of the speeches from its

own forum for Tientsin intellectuals held on 14 April. Then on 22 April, under its first banner headlines on the contradictions issue, the People’s Daily devoted its front page to a report of P’eng Chen’s speech to the second Peking propaganda conference®® and a story

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on the Shanghai conference of 16-19 April, which for the first time revealed to its readers the leading role of the first secretary there.

_ If the headlines had not been sufficient to alert readers to the significance of P’eng’s retreat, the following day’s major editorial on the contradictions issue must have done so. Pointedly entitled * The whole party must seriously study how to solve contradictions within the ranks of the people ’, the editorial repeated for the first time Lu Ting-yi’s revelation, made in his 5 March article, that a nation-wide

rectification campaign was about to be held. Moreover, the editorial’s minatory tone towards reluctant party officials suggested that with P’eng brought to heel, the centre felt strong enough to get tough with lesser men: People in the leading positions who fail to see or are unable to solve correctly the internal contradictions within the ranks of the people undoubtedly are in danger politically. The danger arises not only from their lagging behind history but from the possibility of becoming dizzy with success, since the revolutionary victory has made them leaders of the people. *5 (Emphasis added.)

Earlier the editorial had repeated its call for party first secretaries to

take the lead and then criticized the passive role of party papers, itself included: Many party organizations have already acted in this manner. But there are also many Party organizations which are taking action rather slowly, and lack the necessary vigour. The newspapers of the Party (starting from ourown paper) are also lagging behind in this work. There are still many papers and

publications which have not paid sufficient attention to the discussion of this question. .. . This is because, apart from the fact that certain comrades still entertain doubts over the policy of the correct handling of the people’s internal contradictions, there are even more comrades who have not yet

realized the real important significance of the question of the correct handling of the contradictions within the ranks of the people in our domestic life today.?’? (Emphasis added.)

Now it was highly unlikely that the editor of the People’s Daily (or

P’eng Chen for that matter) was unaware of the ‘important significance ’ of the handling of contradictions. This self-critical passage

thus confirmed that the editor (and P’eng Chen) had entertained ‘doubts’ about the policy, since the editorial offered no other explanation for laggard behaviour.

(iii) Rush into rectification Mao moved rapidly to get the rectification campaign launched after

P’eng Chen’s retreat. Four days after the People’s Daily had said

208 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

that a campaign was about to be launched, a campaign directive had been drawn up. Three days after that, on 30 April, the directive was published, and on 1 May the campaign began. Even allowing for the fact that thousands of cadres up and down the country had heard recordings of or reports on Mao’s speeches in April, public preparation for the rectification campaign was brief. And indeed there is evidence to suggest that the plan agreed by the leaders when they congregated in mid-April envisaged a much longer period of ideological preparation.

It is clear that the publication of the 23 April editorial in the People’s Daily was accompanied by the issuing of an unpublicized directive to party secretaries, possibly because Mao was dissatisfied with the reactions to the two previous major editorials.?® Reports from Shanghai and Kiangsi indicated that this directive was entitled ‘Check up on the conditions of implementation regarding ‘“‘ the problem of correctly solving contradictions among the people’”’’, and was probably issued on 22 April or early on the 23rd. ?° To judge from provincial reactions, this directive was probably as minatory in tone as the 23 April People’s Daily editorial. In Shantung the provincial party committee hastily called a high-level cadres’ conference at 2 p.m. on the 23rd.*° On the same day, the Kiangsi provincial committee issued a notification (t’ung-chih) entitled ‘ On continuing to study deeply “‘ the problem of correctly solving contradictions among the people ”’ ’. 41 In Szechwan, despite evidence of

earlier activity with the summoning of a propaganda work conference on 19 April, the provincial committee also felt compelled to

Issue a ‘ notification’ on 24 April, suspending normal theoretical

studies for a month in order to allow for the study of Mao’s speeches.*2 The Anhwei first secretary conducted a telephone conference with party secretaries on 25 April and scheduled a propaganda conference for 3 May.*? Reports began to come in from other provinces designed to publicize what they had done so far that could legitimately be construed as following Mao’s policy line. *4 Mao’s desire to put pressure on foot-dragging provincial secretaries was understandable. What is not clear is why the centre issued

a directive on 22 or 23 April if it knew it was going to issue the rectification directive on 30 April. At the least it might have warned provincial leaders of the imminence of the rectification directive and

so saved them much confusion. In Kiangsi, for instance, the provincial committee was put in the embarrassing position of publishing on 27 April an elaborate notification charting its proposed

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methods for handling the contradictions issue, only to have to announce less than ten days later that it was now considering new plans in the light of the CC’s rectification directive and that cadres should proceed on the basis of the provincial notification only until it had time to organize a province-wide rectification campaign. *® The Kwangtung party also published a directive on studying the problem of correctly solving contradictions among the people on 27 April, but had to issue a new directive on rectification just over three weeks later. *®

If Mao did suddenly decide during the last ten days of April to press ahead with the rectification campaign immediately, a powerful reason could have been the continuing uncertainty about his intentions in intellectual circles. On 20 April the People’s Daily published an article by a noted Marxist historian, Chien Po-tsan, in which he argued that the intellectuals’ feeling of ‘ early spring ’ was due to the

fact that leadership cadres were only paying lip-service to the hundred flowers slogan. As a result, intellectuals were saying: ‘ The thunder clap is loud, but the raindrops are small!’ The intellectuals

had to speculate as to whether the call to bloom and contend was sincere or just a means to uncover wrong thinking.+’ This article apparently gave great offence to Mao and one can see why. *§ Unlike Fei Hsiao-t’ung’s article on ‘ early spring ° feelings, Chien’s had been

written after Mao’s contradictions and propaganda conference speeches; yet Chien still reported doubts about the sincerity of the bloom and contend policy. These doubts clearly reflected on Mao’s honesty or at least on his ability to enforce his policies. *°

On 21 April the Kuang-ming Jih-pao published a report of a debate among non-party intellectuals on what Mao had meant by his contradictions speech. One of them, Teng Ch’u-min, argued that

there should be restriction in blooming—something specifically rejected by Mao in his propaganda conference speech—and proposed four criteria by which blooming should be guided.*° Clearly Teng Ch’u-min could not have heard the propaganda conference speech,

and his remarks indicated that if the propaganda authorities failed to spread its message, the intellectuals would adopt a policy of selfcensorship. Sensing this mood, worried that the effect of his speeches had already been dissipated, Mao may have felt he had to act fast. It is possible that in mid-April Mao secured agreement only that

rectification would take place in the near future and that a nation-

wide study programme should be launched to prepare people ideologically for it; this agreement permitted the issuing of the

210 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

directive of 22-3 April. The decision to proceed immediately with rectification may have been taken by Mao after that, while both his main opponents in the Politburo, Liu Shao-ch’1 and P’eng Chen, were away chaperoning President Voroshilov. If the date of the directive—27 April—means anything, it signifies that it was approved

(and almost certainly drawn up) while Liu and P’eng were out of town, °+ though the fact that it was not issued until 30 April suggests

that Mao felt it necessary to show it to them before publication. Even so, they may have been faced with a virtual fait accompli. As

early as 28 April the party committee of the central government departments decided to launch a rectification campaign, undeterred by the fact that it had apparently not yet seen the CC’s rectification directive. 5? Moreover by the time Liu and P’eng returned to Peking, Mao had presumably set the wheels in motion for the convening of the Supreme State Conference which met, hugger-mugger, on 30 April. °? That this 12th session was never given any official publicity,

though it must have been the launching-pad for the rectification campaign, does indicate that there was grave dissatisfaction among Mao’s opponents at the way in which the campaign had been sprung on party cadres.

(iv) The rectification directive and Liu Shao-ch’i’s Shanghai speech

Evidence that Mao did not keep his most senior colleagues informed on the eve of the rectification movement is provided by a comparison of the rectification directive with the speech that Liu Shao-ch’1 made

in Shanghai to local party cadres. Liu delivered his address on 27 April, the same date as that on the rectification directive. One would have expected concordance on basic essentials if a full agreement had been hammered out earlier. Instead Liu was at odds with the directive on the most crucial issue: the respective importance of the evils the party had to combat. The directive stated that social relations had undergone a funda-

mental change and that the party and the working class had to remould themselves for the tasks ahead, though many cadres did not understand this. At the same time, because the party was in power, officials were liable to use purely administrative methods in solving problems; ‘. . . some wavering elements are liable to be contaminated with remnants of the Kuomintang style of work from the old society,

to think of themselves as privileged and even resort to attacks or Oppression when dealing with the masses ’.°4 This stress on the

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corrupting effect of power clearly reflected the analysis made by Teng Hsiao-p’ing at the 8th Congress. It was not surprising therefore that the directive went on to describe the new growth of the ‘ three

evils ’ over recent years, listing them in the order bureaucratism, sectarianism, subjectivism, and giving this as the reason for launch-

ing a new rectification campaign. 55 , , Hitherto even Mao and Teng had always put subjectivism in the first place it had occupied in the attack on the three evils in the 1942 rectification campaign. ®* But the thrust of their arguments—Teng at the 8th Congress, Mao in all his major speeches since the Soviet 20th Congress—had been that ideological backwardness (the source of subjectivism) was now less dangerous than holding office (the source of bureaucratism). Even the People’s Daily in its editorial of 13 April, had begun to stress bureaucratism. Liu, on the other hand, had continued to profess that sybjectivism was the main danger in fact as well as in theory, acknowledging at the 8th Congress only that party cadres were not always intellectually prepared to meet the new post-revolutionary tasks. From the evi-

dence of his Shanghai speech, he persisted in this stand as the rectification campaign was launched, for in his long discussion on what were the principal contradictions in China, he listed the three evils in the order: subjectivism, bureaucratism, sectarianism. *? Also, he discussed ideological errors first and at far greater length than bureaucratism; he took up the latter ‘ evil ’ only to drop it fairly smartly and return to ideological problems. 58 Moreover, he referred to the contradictions between leaders and led—the main reason for the rectification campaign—only as one among others. 5° Liu’s failure to treat bureaucratism as the major evil was proof of

his continuing disagreement with Mao’s conception of the aim of the rectification campaign. Furthermore, Liu stressed the intra-party

nature of the ideological contradictions and implied, as had Lu

Ting-yi in March, that they should be solved by intra-party methods. *° But his speech also suggests that he was unaware even that the rectification campaign was just about to be launched. One cannot be categorical about this since only one section of his speech

is currently available, but in his opening remarks he made no reference to the rectification campaign, a strange lapse if he had known that a rectification directive had been approved that day and would be published in three days time. ®1 Chou En-lai, on the other hand, did discuss the forthcoming rectification campaign when he talked to cadres in Hangchow on 24 April. °? Indeed, to judge by the

212 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

long first section of Liu’s speech, his remarks were framed in the spirit of the unpublished earlier directive of 22-3 April. He was publicizing the ideas put forward by Mao in his contradictions and propaganda conference speeches with the objective of explaining to party officials why it was now necessary to treat the people more gently. The rectification directive, on the other hand, had gone a stage beyond this and was concerned, as we have seen, to explain why it was necessary to have a rectification campaign in order to ensure that party officials treated people more gently. The different contexts within which the speech and the rectification directive were framed were indicated by the different. contexts

to which the ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain’ policy was applied. The directive stated that the campaign should be a movement of ideological education carried out seriously, yet as gently as

a breeze og a mild rain. It should be a campaign of criticism. and self-

criticism carried to the proper extent. Meetings should be limited to small-

sized discussion meetings or group meetings. Comradely heart-to-heart talks in the form of conversations, namely exchange of views between

individuals, should be used more and large meetings of criticism or * struggle ’ should not be held. ®?

This was clearly an attempt by Mao to reassure party members that they would not have to endure the kind of mass struggle campaigns

through which they had put the bourgeoisie. Liu Shao-ch’i also advocated the use of ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain’ methods, but he was referring to the manner in which party members should deal with the people: ‘ In handling contradictions among the people, we advocate less struggle; we advocate gentle breeze and mild rain and stressing small democracy (hsiao min-chu), because they (i.e. the contradic-~ tions) are non-antagonistic °, °4 What the above remarks underline yet again is that there was no

difference between Liu and Mao on the need to ameliorate the manner in which the CCP ruled China. Liu’s Shanghai discussion of

how to handle contradictions among the people, while tediously repetitious, seems to have reflected Mao’s views faithfully.** What was at issue was which specific type of ‘ evil ’—bureaucratism or subjectivism—was to blame for the CCP’s mistakes and, flowing from that, what form of rectification campaign to conduct—intra-party or open-door—and when to launch it—sooner or later.

(v) The People’s Daily changes sides again Since the rectification directive reflected the Maoist analysis, it was not surprising that it stated that Mao’s contradictions and

THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS LAUNCHED 213

propaganda conference speeches should be the ideological guidelines for the rectification campaign. Further, the directive described these speeches as reports delivered by Mao on behalf of the CC; this had not been claimed in the original announcement about the Supreme State Conference at which he had made the contradictions speech. °°

Party committees were adjured to study these and other relevant documents and improve their work accordingly, reviewing how contradictions among the people were being handled. Perhaps as a sop to Liu Shao-ch’1, it was also stated that cadres with an intellectual background would, at some future date, study dialectical materialism

in order to overcome subjectivism. However, plans for this study programme would be worked out later. Clearly Mao did not regard the matter as a first priority. After promising party members that they would not be exposed to struggle meetings, the directive said that those criticized should not justify everything they had done and reject all criticism. But it provided further reassurance by stating that except for serious offences against the law or party discipline, all transgressions discovered during the campaign would be exempt from punishment. The directive made four other important points. Non-party people who wished to participate in the campaign should be welcomed; Mao was insisting on open-door rectification. Secondly, strong emphasis was placed on leaders getting close to the masses by participating in physical labour; the directive disclosed that a special directive on this topic would be issued shortly. Next, it was emphasized that first secretaries should assume personal responsibility for the campaign and it was stated that small groups should be set up by party com-

mittees to run it. Finally, the directive laid down: ‘ The plan of rectification should keep to the principle of hindering neither the campaign nor the current work...’.°? It will be noted that this instruction placed the campaign in front of current work. The rectification directive was issued by NCNA on 30 April and published in the People’s Daily on 1 May. *® The failure of the party newspaper to publish an explanatory editorial on the same day might

have been unremarkable, except that when the editorial—’ Why must we “‘ rectify working style’ ?’*®*—did appear on 2 May it contained significant divergences from the directive. The divergences indicated continuing disagreement, indeed anger, with Mao on the part of some of his colleagues and also that the People’s Daily had changed sides again. The divergences concerned, first, the reasons for the rectification

214 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

} campaign. The directive cited both the change in social relations and the position of the party in power; the editorial cited only the change in social relations, though it did mention some of the evils which the directive had said were due to the party’s position in power. However, even when referring to these evils—evils such as the inability to

distinguish between internal contradictions and contradictions dividing the. people and the ‘ enemy ’—the editorial continued to emphasize the role of subjective factors, the failure of understanding or knowledge on the part of individual cadres—a striking change from its editorial of 13 April. ?° The persistence with which Liu clung

to this analysis—for the editorial certainly reflected his views— suggests what may have been his deepest anxiety about the MaoTeng analysis of the causes of contradictions between leaders and led. Once it was admitted that the position of the party in power was

a fundamental cause of bureaucratism and it was argued that bureaucratism led to a dangerous alienation of the people from the party, then the way could be open to argue not just for a modification of the methods of the party but even for a modification of its position. In 1957 Mao did not go as far as that. But Liu was perhaps right to be apprehensive; in the cultural revolution, nine years later, Mao was to strike at the position of the party in power. A second important divergence between directive and editorial concerned the guidance of the rectification campaign. The editorial stated: The theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other authors of Marxist classics on proletarian unity and international proletarian solidarity, the workerpeasant alliance, the proletarian dictatorship and socialist democracy, the opposition to bureaucracy within socialist states and other questions are our fundamental guidance (chi-pen chih-chen) at present in handling contradictions within the ranks of the people. 71

The editorial justified this statement by asserting that the question of handling contradictions among the people was ‘ of course’ not one that had emerged only just now. ’2 Mao’s speech on contradictions was mentioned later in the editorial, but not specifically as a guide to rectification. All this represented an open snub to Mao, a snub that probably reflected the anger felt by some of his colleagues at the way in which he was railroading the rectification campaign through. For those thousands of Chinese who had heard the original version of Mao’s contradictions speech, the snub was even plainer, because in it the Chairman had asserted: These problems are new in Marxism-Leninism. Marx and Engels did not know about these problems for obvious reasons. Lenin mentioned them

THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS LAUNCHED 215 but did not enlarge upon them because during his lifetime, as a result of foreign intervention, it was difficult to speak about internal problems only. As for Stalin, his opinions can be considered only negatively. ??

The attempt in the editorial to deprive Mao of the credit for pathfinding analysis of contradictions among the people went further. The editorial stated that the rectification directive carried forward the resolution of the party’s 8th Congress. 74 In so far as the resolu-

tion had talked about the fundamental change in the domestic situation this was partially true; but the resolution had been framed before the Hungarian revolt which had clearly been the major spur to rectification, and so the editorial writer had also to cite ‘ More on the historical experience... .’?5 as an authority. There would have been nothing inappropriate in this if the editorial had also paid Mao’s

speeches the tribute they deserved in this connection. Instead it quoted at some length from Mao’s ‘ On the people’s democratic dictatorship ’, written in 1949, to illustrate the Chairman’s concern for gentle methods towards the people, and then went on: ‘ The views on the question of the correct handling of contradictions within the ranks of the people expressed in the speech by Comrade Mao Tsetung at the Supreme State Conference in February this year and the above views are imbued with the same spirit.’’* True enough, if hardly enlightening, and the effect of this tribute to Mao’s consistency was again to play down the novelty and importance of his contradictions speech. Yet the directive had prescribed Mao’s two speeches as guides to rectification and claimed that they had signalled the effective start of the rectification campaign. 7”

The motives behind the editorial’s analysis were probably not purely vindictive. Liu and his supporters may have been determined that, if a rectification campaign was to be launched, it had to seem to derive from agreed party resolutions and not from unauthorized declarations by the party Chairman. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the editorial did not copy the directive and refer to Mao’s speeches as reports delivered on behalf of the CC, but continued to describe the contradictions speech as a speech. 78

Ironically, in order to trace the link between the rectification campaign and the resolution of the 8th Congress, the editorial writer had to reinterpret the passage in the resolution that had offended Mao in a manner that must have been more acceptable to the party Chairman. It will be remembered that the political resolution asserted that, as a result of the changes in property ownership in 1955—6, the fundamental contradiction in China had become that

216 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

between a backward economic base and an advanced social system. Mao disagreed with this, arguing in his contradictions speech that

the basic contradiction was still that between an imperfect superstructure and the socialist economic base. The importance of the difference between the formulations was that the one in the resolution implied that economic development was now the CCP’s main task, while Mao’s permitted of further reform of the superstructure, such as rectification of the party. If the resolution was to serve as a basis for rectification it had, therefore, to be reinterpreted. Accordingly, the 2 May editorial in the People’s Daily stated: Since the contradiction between antagonistic classes is no longer the major contradiction in our country, the major task of the party in the domestic field is to unite the whole body of the people for the development of production. We may also say it is the struggle against nature. But this is

not to say that the major contradiction in the country under the new situation has become the contradiction between man and nature. The struggle between man and nature has always been, and forever will be, carried out through society, through definite production relations. For this reason, the contradiction between the people’s demand for the building of an advanced industrial country and the realities of a backward agricultural country ... must still be maintained as contradictions between man and man, though these contradictions have been transformed from contradictions between antagonistic classes to contradictions within the ranks of the people. *®

The aim of the rectification campaign was to reform erring party members. The 2 May editorial, however, subtly suggested that they were not really all that bad. The quotation from Mao’s 1949 prescription for gentle methods towards the people implied that this was how

the party had acted since then, for there was no assertion to the contrary. This impression was heightened by the analysis of what precisely in the new social situation was causing internal contradictions. The editorial cited first the insufficient re-education of the bourgeoisie and their intellectuals, and only second the mistakes of the party cadres—and mistakes, moreover, in regard to economic construction rather than in dealing with the people.*® Even when

discussing bureaucratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism, the editorial introduced modifications to mitigate the aspersions on party

members. The directive had said that ‘some’ (i pu-fen) wavering elements were even contaminated with the Kuomintang work style §'; the editorial computed such elements only as a ‘ few’ (shao-shu) and used the wider term ‘ some ’ (or ‘ a portion of ’) to describe comrades with ordinary bureaucratic, sectarian, and subjective tendencies. ®?

THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN IS LAUNCHED 217

The 2 May editorial showed that the People’s Daily, after reflecting

Maoist views for about three weeks, had reverted to its prior antiMaoist position. It was to persist in this latter position throughout the blooming and contending of May and early June. How was this possible? How was the paper controlled ? In the present state of our knowledge it is not possible to do more than advance a hypothesis. My hypothesis would be as follows. The editor of the People’s Daily, Teng T’o, was responsible in the first

instance to the Propaganda Department of the CC. Within that department, Hu Ch’iao-mu was the vice-chairman in charge of the press. 3 He in turn was responsible to the head of the department,

Lu Ting-yi, an alternate member of the Politburo since the 8th Congress. Theoretically, Lu should have been answerable to Teng Hsiao-p’ing, who, as General Secretary, was in charge of all the CC departments. However, the evidence suggests that Liu Shao-ch’i had been propaganda and press overlord since before the communists had taken over, and that Propaganda Department officials normally reported to him direct.§4 I would assume that Mao did not usually interfere with this chain of command, but that during Liu’s absence from Peking in early April he did so. When Liu returned from his provincial tour in mid-April, he came to an agreement with Mao which permitted the issuing of the CC directive of 22-3 April and continued publicity for Mao’s ideas in the People’s Daily. By rushing

into rectification, Mao overstepped this agreement. Mao’s precipitancy may have been founded on the knowledge that he had majority support in the Politburo (see below, pp. 248-9). If so, Liu could not stop the rectification campaign. But he could ensure that the People’s Daily’s attitude towards the campaign, while strictly correct, would reflect his own doubts, and the evidence suggests that this is what he did. And it was precisely Mao’s fury at being able to exert only fitful control over the People’s Daily that had led him in early April to make the radical suggestion that each province should have a non-party paper published in competition with its party one. °°

1 6 BLOOMING AND CONTENDING

(i) The five weeks of unchecked criticism The rectification campaign lasted effectively from 1 May to 7 June. During that period many intellectuals and students, evidently convinced that ‘ early spring ’ weather had finally given way to summer, poured out their pent-up grievances against the party.4 What their criticisms proved was the rightness of Mao’s judgement that it was essential to act quickly to rectify the party and remedy its abuses of power. But the vehemence of many critics also confirmed the belief of Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen that it was perilous to permit opendoor rectification. On 8 June the People’s Daily sounded the alarm and beleaguered party cadres eagerly rounded on their critics. The campaign against ° bourgeois rightists ’ began. It is not essential here to chronicle all the events of those turbulent five weeks of unchecked criticism, or to examine the substance of the

charges of the critics. But it is necessary to outline the course of developments in order to provide a background to the continuing top-level argument about rectification and to understand why Mao eventually had to agree to abandon the form of rectification campaign he had launched. The rectification directive was published on the front page of the People’s Daily on 1 May. Beneath it was a news story reporting that the party committee of the central state organs had decided to launch its rectification campaign immediately. The following day the paper reported that the party committee of organs directly responsible to the CCP’s CC had started immediate preparations for its rectification campaign. Chou En-lai and Teng Hsiao-p’ing were clearly spurring the units under their control into action. However, Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen seem to have restrained any enthusiasm for rectifica-

tion in that portion of the central governmental apparatus under their control, the NPC’s standing committee. A revealing news item in the People’s Daily of 6 May stated that the secretary-general of

Chou En-lai’s State Council, Hsi Chung-hsun, had summoned a meeting of party secretaries in organs of the State Council and the NPC’s standing committee to decide how to expand rectification. 218

: | BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 219 The conference agreed on a number of aspects of rectification, but when discussing how to run the campaign it decided that a small group with Hsi Chung-hsun at its head should be set up only for the State Council organs. No provisions were made for the NPC organs.

This would seem like an unsuccessful effort by Chou En-lai to pressure his reluctant colleagues into action. ? The opponents of rectification concentrated their efforts on three main issues during the campaign: ensuring that the ‘ gentle breeze,

mild rain’ policy was adhered to; physical labour for leaders; and the way in which rectification interfered with normal work.? The People’s Daily, while overtly pro-rectification, played an important role in presenting these issues as the anti-rectification forces would have wished. However, the paper did reprint strongly pro-rectification editorials from the Shanghai party paper, possibly at Mao’s insistence. 4

But the most important step taken by the pro-rectification camp was to open up the campaign to non-party people. From 8 May, at the invitation of the CC’s UFWD—presumably instigated by its overlord, General Secretary Teng MHsiao-p’ing—leading noncommunist politicians and intellectuals met in Peking in a series of forums to voice their criticisms of the party.> Similar forums were then held under the auspices of various organizations in all the chief cities of China. Chou Yang, the chief propaganda official in the literary sphere, made a major speech before the Chinese Writers’ Union on 13 May in which he encouraged critics by saying that even

‘those who say counter-revolutionary things are not necessarily counter-revolutionaries ’.6 Open-door rectification was under way. But Mao had to agree that critics would only go unanswered for a month; a secret CC directive gave 7 June as the cut-off date. * By mid-May the pro-rectification forces had won the battle over physical labour for leaders, but their opponents were opening up a new front by providing evidence that rectification was harming work. However, as late as 19 May it seemed that Mao felt that the campaign was proceeding as planned. An editorial in the People’s Daily that

day encouraged continued debate and reproved anxious party members; the paper also carried the announcement that the NPC’s standing committee had decided to hold the NPC’s annual session on 3 June. Between 19 and 25 May the top leadership, perhaps including Mao, began to have second thoughts. On 25 May it was decided that the NPC session would be postponed till 20 June ® and Mao gave

a personal warning to critics. Speaking to a.group of delegates

220 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

attending the 3rd Congress of the Young Communist League (YCL), he stated: Your conference has gone very well. I hope you will unite to become the leading core of the youth of the whole country. The Chinese Communist Party is the core of all the peoples of China. Without this kind of a core, the socialist enterprise could not win. Your conference is a conference of unity and can have a very great influence on the youth of the whole nation. I congratulate you. Comrades, unite and struggle firmly and bravely in the cause of the great socialist enterprise. All words and actions that depart from socialism are completely mistaken.*® (Emphasis added.)

As it turned out later, the sentence emphasized in this quotation was

of great significance.1° But why was the warning issued, and to whom was it addressed ?

The fact that Mao chose to make the remark to youth leaders

indicates that it was the youth about whom there was most concern. It is noteworthy, however, that he had made no similarly significant remark when he chatted with YCL delegates on 15 May at the start of their conference. 11 What had happened in the interval was that blooming and contending had started at Peking University

(Peita), the nation’s premier university, had spread to other universities, and was snowballing rapidly. On 19 May, encouraged by

the convocation of forums for non-communists by the CCP’s UFWD, !? students at Peita started to stick up posters on what came to be known as the ‘ Democratic Wall ’.12 According to an observer on the spot, there was a ‘ stormy outburst of long-suppressed feelings,

demands, resentment and frustration. Hundreds of posters were stuck up every day expanding the targets of the movement and attacking the policy of the Party towards the intellectuals ’.14 Among

the issues raised were injustices committed during the campaigns against counter-revolutionaries, party rule in educational establishments, adherence to the Soviet educational model, excessive politicization of academic courses, the ‘sectarian’ attitudes of party officials towards non-party teachers and students.+*° Soon students began to discuss issues beyond their immediate concern—the relations between party and people and whether or not living standards had really been raised under communism in China.?® On 23 Maya girl student from the China People’s University, Lin Hsi-ling, came to speak in Peita’s ‘ Democratic Plaza ’.1* Miss Lin, who emerged as one of the most outspoken of the dissident students, raised the case

of the writer Hu Feng who had been denounced as a counterrevolutionary in 1955, affirming that he had really committed no

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 22]

serious faults and that his case ought to be regarded as a contradiction among the people. In the course of her remarks on Hu Feng, she asserted that Mao’s talks on literature and art made in Yenan in _ 1942 were no longer applicable.+® She also accused party members of wanting to suppress the people and adopting policies aimed at deceiving them. ?°

Towards the end of her speech, Miss Lin Hsi-ling said: ‘ Peita has acted, and it is a good beginning. Now the students in the Northwest, Wuhan, Nanking, and elsewhere are stirring.’ 2° This was what worried the top leadership, as was confirmed by a striking disclosure

during the cultural revolution. On 25 May, when he told the NPC standing committee that the annual session would have to be postponed, Liu Shao-ch’i warned his audience that ... looking after the rectification [campaign] better is a question to which everyone should pay attention. If it’s conducted badly, problems could

arise; people might come out on the streets....The universities and schools are already on the move; it’s best if the worker masses are slower. If the worker masses, the teachers from the middle and primary schools, and other mass organizations also start mobilizing, then we won’t be able to stand our ground. ... If we don’t control things, then in a jiffy millions of people will be on the move and then we won’t be able to do anything— that wouldn’t be to our advantage (pu-li-ti).*}

The anxiety expressed by Liu Shao-ch’i is particularly noteworthy since up till this time, 25 May, student activities had been to some extent restrained by lack of knowledge as to how contemporaries were behaving elsewhere. Miss Lin had complained in her speech two days earlier that ‘we have no way to communicate with each other. No reports are available; there is a news blackout ’. #2 This situation was soon to change with the reports of activities at Peita carried in the Kuang-ming Jih-pao on 26 May and the Wen Hui

Pao on 27 May, reports which soon made an impact on students elsewhere in China.?* Some Peita students also took matters into their own hands and went down to Tientsin on 2 June to stir up the _ students at the universities there. 24 The student dissidents knew they

were playing with fire,?° but chose to ignore Mao’s remark to the YCL delegates, ‘ All words and actions that depart from socialism are completely mistaken ’, although it had been swiftly painted up in large white characters at Peita’s ‘ Democratic Plaza ’.*°

One important reason for the rapid upsurge of blooming and contending among the students, and for the anti-party direction it took in a number of cases, may have been that during the crucial

222 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

early days the most experienced YCL cadres, who might have been able to steer debates on to safer ground, were attending their congress.2’ By the time student delegates to the congress returned to their campuses, they may have found that the situation was beyond their control. 2 By 27 May?° portions of Khrushchev’s secret speech denouncing Stalin, translated from an abridged version published by the New York Daily Worker,*°® had been posted up at Peita. News of its contents must have spread fast among students at Peking’s institutions of higher learning, even though the Peita party com-

mittee removed the extracts after a day or so. As they watched the tumult develop, Mao and his colleagues must have been thinking of two worrying precedents. While the domestic situation in China in 1957 was very different from that in Hungary in

1956, the Hungarian revolt had demonstrated the way in which intellectuals and students could spearhead a powerful attack upon the party. Some Chinese intellectuals felt they were imitating the PetOfi Circle of their Hungarian counterparts, ?? and others were subsequently attacked for doing so.** Nearer home, there was the precedent of the May Fourth Movement of 1919.34 In May 1957, as

student unrest increased, no Chinese leader could have failed to remember how much he and his fellows had achieved by demonstra-

tions almost forty years earlier. Certainly Chou En-lai had not forgotten ®5; and on 30 May Mao told the former French Premier,

Edgar Faure: ‘ With a people like this it is necessary to observe certain limits ’. 36

Both the Hungarian and May Fourth parallels were cited when a number of senior non-communist political and academic leaders met on 6 June to discuss the situation. According to Tseng Chao-lun, a Deputy Minister of Higher Education, who was presumably wellinformed: The. students have many problems today and things have reached a saturation point. Once they are in the streets, the townsfolk will gather ' together and the situation will worsen. For the masses are also dissatisfied with the Party today. ... The Party had estranged itself from the masses

to a serious extent. Because of this and the impact of the Polish and Hungarian incidents, the situation had reached a critical point. The present

situation was much the same as that on the eve of the eighth plenary session of the United Workers’ Party of Poland. It was possible that the Party had made a mistake in its estimate of the present rectification campaign. Possibly the Party had thought higher intellectuals would pose many problems while young students definitely would not pose any problems. In the

event it had been just the opposite and the Party had been forced into a

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 223 passive position. .. . The situation in Shanghai might be more serious than in Peking.®?” (Emphasis added.)

Tseng Chao-lun’s estimate of the party’s surprise at the turn the rectification campaign had taken sounds very plausible. Chang Pochiin, Minister of Communications, who was later denounced as one of the two principal rightist leaders, agreed and made another point: The present rectification movement requires non-Party people to express opinions. The consequences of this, I think, were estimated by the venerable Mao: the democratic parties always put forward criticisms politely. But the estimate was incomplete. It was not thought that the Party could have committed so many mistakes, 38

Another educationist at the meeting, the vice-president of Tsinghua University—one of the principal institutions in the capital—said that he had had letters from parents wanting him to dissuade their children from making trouble: ‘I did, but the students were determined. It really looks like the eve of the May 4th Movement. They would not heed the advice of their parents in the same way as we

would not accept the advice of our parents when we were students....’ Another participant, basing himself on what was going on at Peking Normal University, stated that ‘ some said the present situation was without precedent since the May 4th Movement ’. ?® It is quite likely that the participants in this meeting, as their critics later alleged, saw political opportunity for themselves in the crisis. Chang Po-chiin seems to have felt that he and his party, the Demo-

cratic League, could gain increased influence if they helped the CCP to calm things down. *® But it does not seem that they had been

carried away by events and were hopelessly overestimating the explosive potential in the situation, as was also later alleged. Certainly the occurrence of a student riot in Hanyang in Hupeh province

on 12 and 13 June—described by its instigators as a ‘ Hungarian incident in miniature ’—was shortly to confirm their opinions. 41 When Chang Po-chiin and others attempted to approach Chou En-lai with offers of assistance, the Premier would not comment. #2 But many Politburo members must privately have agreed in large measure with the appraisal made at the 6 June meeting. Support for this hypothesis is provided not only by the public and private warnings issued by Mao and Liu respectively on 25 May, *® but also by Liu Shao-ch’!’s estimate that academics were no threat to public order. He dismissed the danger from that quarter with the remark that ‘ the revolt of the scholars will not succeed, even given

three years’.44 There is a striking contrast between the CCP’s

224 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

casualness in allowing Lo Lung-chi, Minister of the Timber Industry

and, allegedly, with Chang Po-chiin, one of the two leaders of an anti-party plot, to go abroad on 3 June**—1.e. shortly before the anti-rightist counter-attack was about to start—and the tough treatment meted out to student dissidents during the counter-attack,

including the execution of the leaders of the student riot in Hanyang. 4° The executions took place as the 1957-~8 academic year began, and a month later 1,000 principal party officials were transferred to work in the universities, 200 of them being assigned to such

senior posts as president or vice-president.*’ A decision had been made even earlier to require every graduate of institutions of higher learning to take a political examination before being assigned to jobs. *®

Fears of a May Fourth-style eruption probably convinced the majority of the Politburo of the need to counter-attack. Mao may have thought such fears unwarranted; Ch’en Po-ta had visited the Peita campus and pronounced the secret NCNA reports on the unrest there to be exaggerated.4® Besides, Mao was avowedly insouciant about disturbances.®° However, his position had been undermined

by his failure to keep his pledge to the party of a ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain ’ campaign, and the ferocious denunciations of CCP cadres

had brought their morale to a dangerously low level.?! Mao had to agree to the counter-attack and his fury at this reverse was vented

on the papers whose reports had helped escalate the bitterness of the campaign. Already in mid-May he had written, confidentially, about revisionism in the press: Our Party has a large number of new members who are intellectuals (there

are even more such members in the Youth League), and some of them actually possess rather grave revisionist ideology. They renounce the Party spirit and class character of the press, obliterate the differences in principle

between proletarian journalism and bourgeois journalism, and confuse journalism for reflecting the collective economy of socialist countries with

journalism for reflecting the anarchic state of the economy based on competition between groups in capitalist countries. They appreciate bourgeois liberalism and are opposed to the leadership of the Party. They endorse democracy but are opposed to centralism. They are opposed to exercise of a leadership, planning and control over culture and educa-

tion (including journalism) which is necessary for the enforcement of planned economy, but which is not excessively centralized. 5 2

And it is noteworthy that the major public, albeit anonymous, expression of Mao’s feelings after the counter-attack had begun took the form of a denunciation of a newspaper, the Wen Hui Pao.5* It was probably inevitable that the party would have to allege the

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 225

existence of an anti-communist plot to account for the torrent of anti-party criticism. But the selection of the non-party ministers Chang Po-chiin and Lo Lung-chi as its leaders was probably due to their connections with the non-party newspapers that had played a leading role in blooming and contending. Chang Po-chiin was the director-general of the Kuang-ming Jih-pao,®* whose editor was attacked for sending out his reporters to nine cities to hold forums for criticism.°5 Lo Lung-chi had great influence over the Wen Hui Pao through his long-time, friend Miss P’u Hsi-hsiu (sister-in-law of Defence Minister P’eng Teh-huai), who was the effective chief of that paper’s Peking bureau. °°

(ii) The ‘gentle breeze, mild rain’ tssue When the rectification campaign began, its opponents did not know that before the end of May they would be supplied with powerful arguments on which to base their demand that it should be halted. Consequently they sought out issues on the basis of which they could argue at least for a modification of the campaign. The first of these, ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain’, turned out to be crucial. The phrase ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain ’ had been used by Mao at the Supreme State Conference two months earlier. °’ He linked it with ‘ small democracy ’, the comradely heart-to-heart chats advocated by the rectification directive. But whereas, like Liu, Mao had also envisaged the inevitability of ‘ extensive democracy ’—largescale struggle sessions—-where bureaucratism was otherwise incorrigible, the directive forbade such methods. °° Clearly, Mao had made a major concession to make rectification more acceptable to party

members. Yet their anxieties may have persisted because Mao implied that the CCP had always treated the bourgeoisie in a ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain ’ manner. This may have been the theory, but

the criticisms voiced in May indicated that it was not the practice. Mao himself later suggested that the CCP had treated the intellectuals worse than the notorious persecutor of the Confucian literati, Ch’in

Shih Huang-ti !°° An editorial in the People’s Daily on 7 May on ‘ Why we must use

the method of “ gentle breeze and mild rain’’’ reflected party members’ worries. Explaining why the rectification directive em-

phasized this method, the editorial said that if the party did not act | to correct bad work methods: This would be very dangerous from the point of view of a proletarian political party which took service of the people as its duty. But there is

226 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION another aspect. If our party, in order to rectify its work style, one-sidedly

stresses disciplinary punishment for those comrades who have committed mistakes, to the extent of using disciplinary punishment instead of ideological education (and so) developing punishment-ism, this would also be extremely dangerous for our party.

Here the editorial virtually equated the seriousness of the consequences of harsh treatment of the people and harsh treatment of erring party members. Yet the reason for launching the rectification campaign was Mao’s concern about the former, and not the latter. The editorial went on to quote from Liu Shao-ch’’s report to the 8th Congress to emphasize the pointlessness of an excessively harsh policy which failed to remove the ideological problems at the root of

the cadres’ mistakes. Later the editorial reassured anxious party members on Mao’s understanding of this question: ‘Since the Tsunyi conference of January 1935, our party has established a correct policy towards mistakes within the party’. As the Tsunyi conference was the occasion from which Mao’s leadership of the CCP is dated, this reference suggested that Mao and Liu agreed on how to deal with erring party cadres, even if they disagreed about the rectification campaign. °°

The importance placed on the ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain’ method by Mao’s opponents was underlined by P’eng Chen when he addressed an expanded conference of the Peking municipal party’s standing committee on the rectification campaign. Over half of the People’s Daily report of P’eng’s speech was devoted to this issue and

he was quoted as saying that the ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain’ method was the ‘ special point’ about this particular rectification campaign. *! This pinpointed party members’ anxieties. So long as they were told that the * gentle breeze and mild rain’ method had characterized previous ideological education campaigns, they were not comforted. P’eng appeared to be giving his personal assurance that it was a new method, even if this could not be admitted explicitly because it would reflect on the conduct of previous campaigns. The People’s Daily’s report of P’eng’s speech was carried on its front page. The paper re-emphasized the significance of this issue for

cadres by printing on page 2, in its regular ‘ Letter from a party member’ feature, a demand for clarification of the policy entitled ‘How ought we to understand and utilize the gentle breeze and mild

rain principle?’. The writer, Tseng Chih, asked what acting in accordance with this principle precisely meant. Did it apply to any person in any circumstances? The importance of this letter was not

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 227

just that it summed up cadres’ worries.. It was the identity of its author that gave it real impact. Though the paper failed to identify Tseng Chih, she was in fact a senior official of the Canton municipal party committee and, even more significantly, the wife of T’ao Chu, the Kwangtung province first secretary.

This letter, coupled with the Kwangtung party’s actions on the physical labour issue (discussed in the next section), suggests that P’eng Chen’s visit to Canton at the end of April with Voroshilov had important political consequences, perhaps even political motives. As suggested (ch. 15, n. 51), P’eng may have accompanied Voroshilov in an effort to dissociate himself publicly from the preparations of the

rectification campaign. If he was aware that something was in the wind, he might also have wanted to consult T’ao Chu, whose views on rectification could have been conveyed to P’eng by Liu Shao-ch’1. *? It would seem that Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen were deliberately

depicted to party members as guarantors of the * gentle breeze and

mild rain’ policy, while the Kwangtung party’s intervention, through T’ao Chu’s wife’s letter, emphasized how important a role

this was. However, it would be over-simplistic to see Liu, and probably P’eng too, as unquestioning defenders of all erring party cadres. On 7 May Liu Shao-ch’1 told the Director of the Higher Party School, Yang Hsien-chen, and one of his colleagues: One must get matters of principle clear, but one must do it in the right manner. One shouldn’t hurt people’s feelings or damage their self-esteem. At the same time, one shouldn’t be casual about matters of principle just because one is using this kind of gentle breeze and mild rain method to solve problems. The manner in which to solve ideological problems and handle contradictions among the people is both to unite comrades and to distinguish right from wrong. The deviation that often occurs in implemen-

tation is to emphasize one and not the other. To distinguish right from wrong and at the same time unite comrades—that is a very great art... only to emphasize one won't do.** (Emphasis added.)

It would also be over-simplistic to suggest that T’ao Chu saw eye to eye with Liu and P’eng on all issues connected with rectification. T’ao’s summing up at the Kwangtung provincial propaganda work

conference in April had been nearer in spirit to Mao’s views than Liu’s, and T’ao, like Teng Hsiao-p’ing and unlike Liu, clearly recognized that the position of the CCP in power was the source of bureaucratism. ®°* Where Liu, P’eng and T’ao united was in opposing

an over-heated rectification campaign that might demoralize the CCP; and when the ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain’ policy collapsed, Mao had to agree to halt the campaign.

228 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

(iii) The question of manual labour Another key feature of the rectification directive was its insistence on the performance of part-time manual labour by leading cadres. This was designed to ‘ strengthen the contact between the party and the

broad mass of working people and to change thoroughly the situation where many of those in leading positions are separated from the masses *.°° The directive had stated that a special directive would be issued on this subject, ample proof of the importance of the subject to Mao. Equally it was a subject on which the party Chairman again ran up against resistance from Liu Shao-ch’i, P’eng Chen, and T’ao Chu.

On 3 May the People’s Daily published an editorial entitled * Sharing joys and sorrows with the masses ’.®® It stated that the performance of manual labour by leading cadres was an important way of avoiding estrangement from the masses. Tracing leaders’ participation in manual labour back to Yenan days, it asked: ‘ On what grounds can they [i.e. leaders] refuse to take part in productive work if they have the time and opportunity? (emphasis added). °’

The editorial then proceeded to expatiate on the importance of sharing joys and sorrows with the masses and quoted at length from Liu Shao-ch’i’s report to the 8th Congress on this subject: An important hallmark of a good party member and a good leader is that he is familiar with the living and working conditions of the people, concerns

himself with the welfare of the people and knows what lies deep in their hearts. He always works hard and lives simply, and shares their joys, sorrows, and hardships. He can accept the people’s criticism and supervision and does not put on airs in front of them. He takes his problems to the masses to consult with them, and the masses willingly tell him what they have to say. As long as our Party is made of such Party members, we shall possess a force that is inexhaustible and unconquerable. §* (Emphasis added.)

The striking thing about this quotation was that at no point did it mention manual labour. The picture Liu painted was of a leader capable of infinite self-sacrifice and understanding, but not necessarily one who actually participated in manual labour. Indeed, the second phrase I have emphasized in the quotation suggested that the

qualities Liu had enumerated were sufficient to ensure a leader’s virtue without resort to manual labour. Of course, Liu’s remark was made at a time when the leadership almost certainly was not considering this question and he cannot necessarily be blamed for not

mentioning manual labour. But it is significant that in the altered context of May 1957, the People’s Daily chose to cite a passage from

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Liu which omitted any mention of what was ostensibly the prime topic of the editorial. The implication of the title of the editorial and the quotation from Liu became even clearer in the final paragraph of the editorial which followed immediately upon the quotation: Every leading person must concern himself with the welfare of masses, share joys and sorrows with them and do everything possible to help the

masses overcome their difficulties. Break all the man-made barriers

between themselves and the masses! Wipe out the influence of class society like garbage as quickly as possible! Discard ‘ high and mighty airs ’ and go amid the masses! °°

Admirable sentiments indeed, but again, nothing about manual labour. It is also significant that in this editorial such examples as were given of cadres participating in manual labour all concerned low level officials.

What this editorial indicated was that there was an argument going on about how necessary it really was for a dedicated party member to participate in manual labour, and that those who felt - that it was unnecessary were stressing how busy leading cadres were. They possibly hoped to insert a clause in the manual labour directive

that would allow cadres to exempt themselves if they could claim they did not have the ‘ time and opportunity ’. The argument lasted for two weeks after the publication of the rectification directive. On 4 May, the day after the People’s Daily editorial appeared, the first secretaries of Hopei province (which surrounds Peking) and Tientsin reported for manual labour; their pictures appeared in the People’s Daily next day.7° This news item

appears to have convinced first secretaries in other parts of the country they would be unable to shirk manual labour, for a later People’s Daily round-up report on ten provinces gave 5 May as the earliest date for other first secretaries performing manual labour. 7} On 7 May the Peking military region commander, General Yang Ch’eng-wu, and the political commissar, General Chu Liang-ts’ai, turned up for manual labour. However, their pictures did not appear in the following day’s People’s Daily. It had already been revealed that P’eng Chen was lagging behind the neighbouring party first secretaries in Hopei and Tientsin; but possibly it was thought to be too tactless to point up a division between him and the local military officials. Only on 9 May, the day P’eng Chen himself in the end performed manual labour, did the People’s Daily print pictures of the two generals. P’eng, with the Peking party’s second secretary and other officials, did some road-mending. On 10 May the People’s K

230 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Daily published a picture of him at work and printed what he had said on this occasion 1n bold type: I am still quite at home with manual labour. I had taken up farm work for over 12 years since childhood. While in Yenan, many responsible comrades and cadres of the Central Government laboured in the field or on his farm. This fine tradition should now be kept up and propagated. 7?

Only now did the People’s Daily print its round-up report on ten provinces, a report which revealed that the first secretaries there had nearly all acted in advance of P’eng, some by several days.*? But a more important conclusion to be drawn from this round-up, if it was up to date, was that first secretaries in well over half of China’s provinces and province-level municipalities were still waiting to see which way the wind would blow on this issue.

P’eng’s support for the policy was probably decisive, for the manual labour directive was dated 10 May, the day after Peking’s roads had benefited from his attentions. But that the issue was not completely settled was indicated by the fact that the directive was not released until the 14th. In the interval, Kwangtung province struck out on its own. Kwangtung was one of the provinces that had held out on the manual labour issue. Leading party officials there participated in manual labour only from 11 May, the day after the story about P’eng

appeared in the People’s Daily.?* On 13 May the Kwangtung party’s standing committee met to draw up its own programme of manual labour, even though it had been clearly stated in the rectifica-

tion directive that a CC directive on the subject would be forthcoming. It seemed as if the Kwangtung party wished to rush out its own directive, perhaps to influence the provisions of the CC directive.

It was also striking that at no point in a long NCNA dispatch on Kwangtung activities in this field was first secretary T’ao Chu’s name mentioned 7 5—in marked contrast with the pointed mention of first secretaries’ names in every one of the much briefer reports on the nine provinces published in the People’s Daily on 10 May.

The Kwangtung plan for manual labour was published in the Nan-fang Jih-pao on 14 May, the very day the CC directive on the subject was being issued in Peking.*® The Kwangtung plan prescribed an average of two half-days manual labour a month for all physically fit?’ leading cadres under sixty. There was no such age qualification in the CC directive, which ordered all leading cadres who were physically able (neng-kou) to do so to participate in manual

labour. The CC directive indicated the main ground for argument

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behind the scenes when it stated that ‘ some comrades still have misgivings about functionaries of county, district and hsiang levels and

those above county levels taking part directly in some productive labour. They regarded this as liable to interfere with the work of leadership ’.*® The directive dismissed such objections as unfounded, made no qualifications as to ‘ time and opportunity ’, and specifically

included members of the CC within its provisions; possibly Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng had tried to get CC members at least excluded on grounds of busyness. Nevertheless, on 15 May, the day the CC directive was published in the People’s Daily, Lia Shao-ch’i gave the programme his blessing, telling a YCL official: ‘ If you don’t participate in manual labour, then you'll do bad youth work ’.7° Both guardians of the party cadres’ interests had now supported the manual labour policy and on 17 May the People’s Daily published

its second editorial on the subject. This time the editorial’s title did emphasize manual labour—‘ The very great significance of leadership personnel participating in physical labour ’—and confirmed that exceptions would be made only in cases of physical incapacity. °°

I have been unable to find any sign that the Kwangtung party rescinded its sixty-year age limit as a result, and T’ao Chu conspicuously failed to make any public demonstration of his adherence to the whole policy.®1 This does not necessarily mean he had dis-

obeyed the directive by abstaining from manual labour himself, a risky course of action once Liu and P’eng had fallen into line, but it suggests that he wished to demonstrate his continuing disapproval of the policy,

(iv) Rectification v. work By taking up the questions of ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain’ and manual labour for leaders, Mao’s opponents tried to modify the impact of rectification. When these seemed to be settled, an attempt was made to undermine the whole campaign with the argument that

rectification was harming vital economic tasks. The rectification directive had stated: ‘ The plan of rectification should keep to the principle of hindering neither the campaign nor the current work and should coordinate the campaign with the improvement of work and

with the actual solution of contradictions within the ranks of the people.’ ®? It will be noted that while the objective was clearly to get

the best of both worlds, the rectification campaign had been given precedence over work.

232 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

On 4 May the People’s Daily published a report on rectification

in the central state organs which, presumably at the instance of Premier Chou En-lai, had already shown themselves desirous of acting as pacemakers for the campaign. The report stated that there were still some units that were insufficiently clear on the principle of harming neither rectification nor work, and went on to imply that confusion prevailed because the average cadre had not been ideologically prepared for the advancement of the date of rectification from 1958 to May 1957. This was possibly a sly dig at Mao’s insis-

tence on bringing rectification forward. A week later the paper published a short article by its own ° Critic’ on neglecting neither rectification nor work; but while the article’s title listed rectification and work in this correct order, in the text ° Critic ’ stated incorrectly that in the rectification directive the CC had laid down the principle of neglecting ‘ neither work nor rectification ’. This reversal of the correct order, repeated later in the article, was clearly not accidental, for the burden of ‘ Critic’s ’ argument was that a number of central government organs had gone overboard on rectification. While the party committee of the central government organs had prescribed two or three afternoons a week for study, some units had allocated three whole days or five afternoons. While studying was going on, work stopped completely, no one answered the phone, and not a single senior cadre was on duty. This state of affairs had to stop, said ‘ Critic ’. 8? It is unlikely that * Critic ’ would have invented this overenthusiasm on the part of government organs. But the People’s Daily may well have welcomed the opportunity of pointing up the hazards of rectification and of criticizing Chou En-lai’s subordinates. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that in the same issue of

the paper, the editor, Teng T’o, wrote a pseudonymous article berating the ‘ politics of simpletons’ (yung-jen cheng-chih).®4* By this phrase, Teng T’o meant the busybodyness of cadres who interfered with everything and thus often did more harm than good. At the present moment there were cadres who only wanted to emphasize ideological and political work, who endlessly held meetings, made speeches, and wrote reports so that they did not even have time to draw breath. Clearly Teng T’o must have had the central state organs in mind when writing this, and he advised people to wait for such simpletons to cool down a bit. However, he admitted that it was not

easy to pursue sensible policies because ‘the simpletons we see around are numerous and they have the power to issue orders ’. He

advocated a cautious approach to problems which one did not

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understand, but admitted that such an approach was difficult at a time when ‘ our leaders demand that we boldly open wide (fang shou), open wide, and open wide yet again ’, for it made one vulnerable to accusations of abdicating leadership. This time there could be no doubt that a sharp dig at Mao was intended. The import of these two articles was that cadres should not allow rectification to mess up their everyday duties. There was no indication that this message had any effect except in Kwangtung. Or rather, the available evidence suggests that the Kwangtung party may have

collaborated with the People’s Daily in an attempt to get an antirectification pro-work band-wagon rolling. On 20 May the paper published an NCNA report from Canton stating that the standing committee of the Kwangtung party had decided to support the principle of harming neither rectification nor work and to avoid both ‘gales and storms’ (k’uang-feng pao-yii) (i.e. the opposite of ‘ gentle

breezes and mild rain’) and ‘rushing one’s duties’ (kan jen-wu). Both these phenomena had appeared, and to eliminate them the committee had agreed on 17 May—within a week of the appearance

of the People’s Daily articles—that the rectification programme should be lengthened: units that had been scheduled to start in June

and end in September were now to start on 20 May and end in November. The curious thing about this story was that the Kwangtung party was releasing details of modifications of a rectification programme that had not yet been published; the Kwangtung rectification plan was dated 15 May, but did not appear in the Nang-fang Jih-pao until 20 May.®* Assuming that the NCNA story was accurate, and that within two days of drawing up the original directive the provincial party’s standing committee decided to modify it, it is significant that the committee chose to publicize not the plan but

modifications to it, modifications that were calculated to please Mao’s opponents in Peking. But it is again curious that the plan itself

gave no hint of the considerations that had allegedly induced the revisions; there were no warnings In it against ‘ gales and storms’ or ‘rushing one’s duties ’. This means that the NCNA correspondent

was deliberately briefed on the anxieties of the Kwangtung provincial committee regarding the ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain’ guarantee and the rectification versus work problem. A further indication of first secretary T’ao Chu’s attitudes was contained in the

section on manual labour in the Kwangtung rectification plan; it referred to both the relevant directives on the subject, but contained no indication that the concession to the over-60s in the provincial

234 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

one would be abandoned in the light of the less easy-going attitude of the CC directive.

No other provinces were reported in the People’s Daily to have followed Kwangtung’s lead, and a week after this report the paper went further and devoted an editorial to the topic ‘ How to guarantee

that neither rectification nor work are harmed ’.®* This time the paper was not so bold as to reverse the order of priorities by putting work before rectification, but spelled out its message very clearly. The main concern of the People’s Daily was evidently about work, not rectification. Taking over the baton from Kwangtung, the paper advocated that to avoid harming work, the rectification campaign should be prolonged. It again singled out the central state organs for criticism, condemning now even the majority of units which were devoting a mere two afternoons a week to it on the grounds that if

they completed the campaign in two or three months as planned, they would have achieved only a very superficial rectification. In the second place the paper advocated stopping or at least cutting down on rectification when urgent tasks such as flood prevention cropped up.

Since an editorial was more authoritative than an article by ‘ Critic’, this pronouncement met with a more immediate response. The following day, 28 May, NCNA reported that the Hopei provincial committee had decided to postpone rectification inspection

in view of the onset of the summer harvest and summer sowing season. ®? On 29 May the Honan party took a similar decision ®* and on the 30th the People’s Daily revealed that Sinkiang was permitting similar measures for similar reasons. The policy advocated by the People’s Daily was of course a sensible

one. Even Mao would not have wanted the harvest harmed by rectification; and it would seem unlikely that a provincial first secretary would actually have allowed rectification to harm vital agricultural tasks. But by editorializing on the subject, the People’s

Daily lent its authority to another escape clause for provincial leaders who were doubtful about rectification 1n the first place. The

principle of harming neither rectification nor work had not been formally abandoned or modified. But the editorial had pointed out

how it could be undermined in the application. It must be remembered that a crucial aspect of Chinese ‘ campaigns ’ was that

they plunged people into hectic activity which impressed upon participants the urgency of the aims of the campaign. °° In the cities this did often mean a stoppage of everyday work, but in the past this

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 235

had been regarded as an acceptable loss. By encouraging official prolongations of the rectification campaign, the People’s Daily was advocating measures which would inevitably blunt the impact of the campaign, however much they could be justified on common sense grounds. Perhaps editor Teng T’o felt able to do this because he knew by now that Mao was worried about the course of the rectification campaign, albeit for other reasons.

But Mao’s supporters were evidently not prepared to knuckle under to the People’s Daily’s mounting attack. On 3 June Chou En-lai signed a State Council directive on increasing production and

practising economy. °° It sparked the sharpest clash on the work versus the rectification issue.

In view of what the official party paper had been saying about rectification harming work in general and causing long stoppages in central government organs in particular, one would have expected the directive to address itself to this problem. Instead it apparently

ignored it, while at the same time making Chou En-lai’s contrary views on the matter quite clear.

First, the directive claimed that the movement to increase production and practise economy had already ‘ developed tremendously (p’eng-p’eng-po-po-ti) ’ and ‘ achieved preliminary results ’ (emphasis added). It admitted that the campaign was progressing in an uneven manner and went on to list some failings—but these did not include

government departments falling down on the job because of over-

concentration on rectification. Instead the directive went on to affirm vigorously that rectification was an essential pre-condition for increasing production and practising economy: The important key (chu-yao kuan-chien) to developing further the move-

ment for increasing production and practising economy is for various levels of leading cadres, basing themselves on the directive of the CCP’s CC, to develop actively the rectification movement and firmly combat bureaucracy, sectarianism, and subjectivism. The phenomena of extravagance and waste and low efficiency in our work obviously is connected with our lack of experience, (but) at the same time it is also created by the bad work style of departing from reality and the masses. Therefore the development of the rectification movement will inevitably (pi-jan) create favourable conditions for the thorough implementation of the policies of building our country with industry and thrift and increasing production and practising

economy; at the same time, the further deepening of the movement to increase production and practise economy, the continued fostering of the good tradition of struggling hard and overcoming difficulties, can also fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the masses and cause the rectification movement to obtain even greater results. 4 (Emphasis added.)

236 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Chou En-lai was here refusing to acknowledge that rectification had any deleterious effects on production; quite the reverse—he affirmed that the rectification campaign would inevitably provide the appro-

priate conditions for the economic drive. He argued this on the grounds that although economic setbacks were connected with inexperience, they were created by the ‘ three evils ’.

The People’s Daily could not take this lying down and published an editorial alongside the directive to give it a different perspective. Whereas the directive had simply been entitled ‘ Further develop the

movement to increase production and practise economy’, the editorial indicated its concerns by the title ‘ The rectification movement must be coordinated with the movement to increase production

and practise economy ’. The implication of this title was that the directive was designed to curb rectification in favour of the produce/

economize movement; but, as we have seen, the directive implied

no such thing. The editorial started off sharply, describing the directive as ‘ very timely ’. Departing from the conventional formula, it did not list the gains made by the produce/economize movement so far, and did not back up the directive’s claim that it had already * developed tremendously ’, but stated curtly: ‘ This year’s movement to increase production and practise economy already has preliminary

results; but the development of the movement is still uneven’ (emphasis added). °* Thus the editorial did not just cite the less fulsome of the two claims made by the directive for the campaign; it

even reduced that claim by talking in terms of ‘ having’ (yu-le) results rather than ‘ achieving’ (huo-te) them. After this grudging start, the editorial reprinted in full the passage from the directive quoted above and stated that this explained the new significance of the movement to increase production and practise economy; but it then proceeded implicitly to reject the points made in that passage. Whereas the State Council directive had underlined the importance of rectification for the movement to increase production and practise economy, the editorial alleged that departments for which the State Council was responsible had dispensed with the produce/economize movement as a result of rectification: Experience tells us that when we need to implement at the same time two important (pieces of) work like the above, we definitely cannot set them up against each other, and under the pretext of advancing this work neglect that work. Most recently there have been some state organs, undertakings and enterprises that have emphasized discussing contradictions among the people and rectification, and have put the movement to increase production

and practise economy to one side; there are some that have only fixed

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 237 plans for increasing production and increasing economy, but have still not fully mobilized the masses, and there are some that have not even fixed

plans. These kinds of conditions ought to be changed immediately, 9° (Emphasis added.)

The paper then rebuked government departments for destroying earlier close links between the produce/economize and rectification movements—listed in that order of precedence—and adjured them that the business of economic departments was economics. Underlying the rebuke was the implicit suggestion that the rectification movement as launched in May 1957 was unnecessary: Actually, the movement for increasing production and practising economy and the rectification movement were originally closely linked. The directive

of the central committee of the party on the rectification movement prescribed that one had to check on the state of implementation of the policy of * building the country with industry and thrift’, that is to say, opposing extravagance and waste and developing the movement to increase

production and practise economy. The rectification directive enunciated the principle of ‘ harming neither rectification nor work’. As far as the economic departments are concerned, there is no more important work than (tsui chung-yao ti kung-tso mo-kuo yii) the movement to increase production and practise economy. ®* (Emphasis added.)

But what of the argument in the State Council directive that since extravagance, waste, and low efficiency were created by bureaucratic

work styles, promoting rectification would inevitably favour the movement to increase production and practise economy? The paper did not duck this point, but simply reversed the relative importance of lack of experience on the one hand and the ‘ three evils’ on the other: Extravagance, waste and similar failings and mistakes in economic work naturally have very many causes, and in particular they have a very close flit. very great] relationship with lack of experience; but if we inspect them from the angle of the thought of the leadership they also have different degrees of relationship with bureaucracy, sectarianism, and subjectivism. 9° (Emphasis added.)

Not surprisingly, the editorial, unlike the directive, did not go on to argue the crucial importance of rectification for the produce/ economize campaign, but only conceded that at present ‘in order to develop further the movement for increasing production and practising economy... one must help leading personnel to combat bureaucratism and sectarianism ’. °° The message of the People’s Daily editorial of 4 June was that the

basic national problems were economic, and that the party’s chief

238 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

task was economic development. It buttressed its argument with quotations from the political resolution of the 8th Congress, including the passage that had angered Mao. The editorial insinuated that

in this context rectification was a considerable hindrance, rather than, as Chou En-lai averred, a vital prerequisite. The People’s Daily was swiftly supported in this contention by the Peking party. The municipal party’s standing committee met on 5 June, officially

to implement the State Council directive, in fact to underline the message of the editorial. The Peking party acknowledged its shortcomings in the produce/economize campaign and pointed out: * In the most recent period there have been some departments that have neglected production leadership because they have been busy with rectification ’.°’ There was no echo of the directive’s emphasis on the importance of rectification to the produce/economize campaign. In its only other reference to rectification, according to the People’s Daily report, the Peking party talked of ‘ seriously’ implementing the principle of harming neither rectification nor work. The whole tenor of the report indicated that ‘ seriousness > would be demonstrated best by those who did not allow rectification to harm work. On the same day as this Peking party meeting, the People’s Daily contrived to suggest that provinces which were enthusiastic about rectification were irresponsibly foolhardy. It did this by reprinting

a 1 June editorial from the Kiangsu provincial paper, Hsin Hua Jih-pao (New China Daily), alongside its own report of the economic problems facing Kiangsu province. ** The editorial, entitled ‘ Continue to develop the rectification movement deeply’, opened with a ringing call for action: At this point, we must concentrate our forces to continue to develop this great movement, and we definitely do not permit satisfaction with present conditions, we definitely do not permit hesitation and not advancing, and even more we do not permit timidity and retreat. ®® (Emphasis added.)

The bulk of the editorial continued in this vein to advocate continued blooming and contending, and only in the last paragraph did it take up the question of the heavy current work load. After describing the rural and other tasks that had to be done in the coming weeks, the editorial said that ‘ the various levels of party organisations and relevant departments must firmly and thoroughly implement the principle of harming neither rectification nor work and in the course of the rectification movement must firmly grasp the above

duties ...°.1°° It went on to acknowledge that some units would temporarily have to suspend rectification to complete economic

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 239

tasks, but clearly saw this as an ad hoc affair which did not require any general slow-down to be ordered by the provincial committee: Units which temporarily are not implementing rectification must definitely concentrate all their forces to perform well current production and work (tasks), strengthen ideological education of the broad masses of cadres and people, and solve urgent problems that require and permit solution. Action on these lines will on the one hand create better conditions for the rectification movement in an area’s own units; and on the other hand it will guarantee that units which are currently implementing rectification can successfully continue to deepen the movement.1°! (Emphasis added.)

Clearly not all Kiangsu units were expected to suspend rectification. The People’s Daily placed its own story about Kiangsu’s economic problems just above this reprinted editorial. Whereas the Hsin Hua Jih-pao editorial had described the immediate agricultural tasks only as ‘extremely strenuous’ (shih fen fan-chung), the People’s Daily

report characterized the situation in the province as ‘ extremely critical (shih fen chin-chang): Kiangsu province’s agricultural production has entered an extremely critical stage. Summer harvesting, planting and transplanting work have to be carried out almost in the same period and already a number of striking

problems have emerged. If they are not solved in time and the farming season is hindered, extremely great losses could be sustained. 1°? (Emphasis added.)

The story then went on to detail the problems, but no one reading

just this first paragraph and then reading the reprinted editorial could fail to get the message: though Kiangsu province faced the prospect of an economic crisis, its party committee had its head in the rectification clouds and was delaying vital rural work. However, Chou En-lai rallied to the support of pro-rectification provincial leaders. On 10 June the State Council issued another directive, this time on leadership and agricultural production. It

pointed out that the busy agricultural season was at hand and admitted that there had been serious natural calamities in the first half of the year. But while the directive accepted that some cadres would

have to devote themselves full time to agriculture, it by no means envisaged that the rectification campaign would have to be set aside: To carry out agricultural production well and to increase the quantity of agricultural products is a most important material basis for adjusting contradictions among the people. In the interest of obtaining a great agricultural harvest this year, each area, while implementing the rectifica-

tion movement, must grasp leadership of agricultural production and effectively implement the principle of harming neither rectification nor

240 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

production. The provincial leadership organs must ensure there is a definite force to lead agricultural production. At the Asien level, where rectification is postponed until after the provincial level rectification, it is even more important that all forces should be used to lead agricultural production.?°* (Emphasis added.)

The People’s Daily editorial on this directive again went to the heart of the matter in its somewhat ambiguous title—* Rectification cannot [be permitted to] harm production ’1°4—and stated that ‘ the close coordination’of the rectification with the agricultural task of obtaining a bumper harvest is a great current problem that must be solved well ’.4°5 The paper stressed the importance of a great increase in

agricultural production, varying the formula of the directive by describing it as ‘ the important material basis for solving correctly contradictions among the people’ (emphasis added). Having made this point the paper went on: ‘ Therefore we must give all our attention to coordinating closely rectification and agricultural production

work and we must not be impeded at this critical juncture for agriculture because of rectification. ’1°® The editorial cited approvingly the action of the Honan provincial leadership in sanctioning the interruption or postponement of conferences where necessary.

The directive had implied that the situation was not so serious because rectification had not begun at the Asien level and below, where the grass-roots leadership of agricultural production was concentrated. It was necessary only to ensure that some higher level

provincial leaders were still free to oversee the lower levels. The editorial took a gloomier view: Past experience still tells us that during the development of a movement, the actual work problems of the lower levels are often shelved because the

leading personnel of the relevant departments are busy with the movement. ...In the course of the rectification movement, we definitely must avoid this kind of deviation and must firmly and thoroughly implement the

principle of harming neither rectification nor work. Everything that concerns current production problems must be solved in a timely manner. 1°?

However, by now the argument was largely academic. On 8 June the People’s Daily had published the first of a series of editorials counter-

attacking the ‘ bourgeois rightists’. It soon became apparent that the rectification campaign as originally envisaged by Mao and Chou would be abandoned. But the continuation of the dispute over work

versus rectification right up to the start of the counter-attack and even later does indicate that this issue had not been the one that prompted the change of direction.

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 241

(v) The balance of forces within the Politburo Disagreements among party leaders over the harm rectification might be doing to production hardly demanded an assault on nonparty critics for their criticisms. The counter-attack was prompted by the unrest among the students. The party could probably have ridden out the storm on the campuses, but its morale and authority were being impaired by the unrestrained denunciations of student dissidents. In so critical a situation, even those Politburo members who had been supporters of rectification—including Mao himself— could have changed their minds. And even if Mao was unperturbed, as the evidence suggests that he was, it would not have required many to have become disenchanted for him to have been put in a minority.

There were at this time seventeen full and six alternate members of the Politburo; of these, six were members of the PSC. In the PSC, Mao, Chou En-lai, and Teng Hsiao-p’ing were definitely behind the policy. Ch’en Yun, who had shown his concern for good relations with the country’s businessmen during the first stage of nationalizing

private industry and commerce, would almost certainly have favoured a policy of relaxing pressure on capitalists. The fact that he

sat between Chou and Teng on the rostrum at the Supreme State Conference on 27 February is another indication of his attitude. Liu Shao-ch’i’s opposition to Mao on rectification has already been documented, but there is further evidence of his attitude after the campaign had started. When discussing with Yang Hsien-chen the problem of work versus rectification at the Higher Party School,

he said the students should both read books (i.e. do their normal theoretical work) and rectify their style of work, in that order.?°° It was alleged during the cultural revolution that Liu also supported Yang Hsien-chen’s refusal to agree to a suggestion by K’ang Sheng that the school should suspend its study programme and concentrate on Mao’s contradictions speech.1°® What is certain is that in his talk with Yang Hsien-chen, Liu twice distinguished between con- _ tradictions among the people and contradictions among comrades

(’ung-chih-chien-ti mao-tun), which suggests that even after the rectification campaign had been launched he, like Lu Ting-yi earlier, still would have preferred not to involve outsiders in rectifying party cadres, 11°

But in the light of the role of student unrest in terminating the rectification campaign, a most revealing remark was made by Liu during May in a speech to the graduating class of the Peking Institute of Geology:

242 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION People say, ‘ It is wonderful you have been partisans, but you show off that you are the veterans and you are affected by bureaucracy ’. This remark is not untrue. But you have not been partisans; you have lived in the cities all the time. Are you, or are you not, affected by bureaucracy? My cultural level is not so high as yours—I was only a high school graduate. Some of my school-mates were university graduates. Is there any bureaucracy in them? To my mind, those who have never been partisans in the mountains may even be more deeply affected by bureaucracy—not only bureaucracy but also capitalism. What about us? Only some bureaucracy but very little capitalism, if any.112

Here one can sense a bitter resentment at the effrontery of students in criticizing the veteran cadres who had helped achieve the victory of the communist revolution, a resentment exacerbated perhaps by a feeling of intellectual insecurity. These were emotions that were doubtless shared right down the line within the Communist party. 112 The only other member of the PSC was Chu Teh. His absence from the photograph of the 27 February Supreme State Conference might

not be conclusive; but in addition, he made no mention of rectifica-

tion or contradictions when he addressed young activists of CC organs on 7 May.1!° Thus at the start of the rectification movement, there were four members of the PSC in favour of it and one, probably

two, against it. Of the other eleven full members of the Politburo, two seem to have been ill: Lin Piao and Ch’en Yi.11!4* They may have taken little part in the discussions that led up to the launching of the rectification

campaign; but Ch’en Yi did state publicly that Mao’s raising of the issue of contradictions and the preparations for rectification were ‘completely correct ’’.14° As for Lin Piao, his intimacy with and

support for Mao on important occasions from the early 1930s through the cultural revolution leaves little doubt that he would have backed the Chairman. Of the absentees from the Supreme State Conference picture besides Liu Shao-ch’i, Chu Teh, and Lin Piao, P’eng Teh-huai would seem to have been opposed to rectification. He referred to contradictions

but not to rectification in an address to a PLA conference on 29 May?!; more importantly, there was no report of his giving a lead to the PLA’s rectification work, which seems to have been handled,

in public at any rate, only by his subordinates. It must also be remembered that the propaganda officials who attacked Mao’s hundred flowers policy in January 1957 were PLA men; their boldness would have been more understandable if they knew the Minister

of Defence was on their side. The seventy-two-year-old party

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 243:

veteran Lin Po-ch’ii is a less certain case, but he too would seem to have had reservations about rectification. In an interview with the youth magazine Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien11" he stressed the ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain’ method, which he described as ‘ very important ’ and justified by saying that ‘ very many comrades can reform

their own shortcomings and mistakes °—a remark which would seem to obviate the need for the rectification movement.11& While

he agreed that because the CCP was in power, problems were broader than in previous rectifications, he did not specifically state

that this justified the participation of non-communists.11° Lin seemed to want to play down the ‘ evil’ of sectarianism, that is the

error of discriminating against non-party people. Only on one occasion did he list the three evils in their correct order as set out in the rectification directive—bureaucratism, sectarianism, subjecti-

vism. On all other occasions he either listed sectarianism last or omitted it altogether, mentioning only the other two evils. Such liberties were not usually taken with standard formulations from party directives.

There seem to be no clues as to the attitude of the third absentee from the Supreme State Conference photograph, Marshal Lo Junghuan. He apparently made no public appearance between the 8th Congress in September 1956 and the arrival of Voroshilov on 15 April 1957, which may indicate illness, especially as he seems to have performed only ceremonial roles from the middle 1950s till his death in 1963 at the age of sixty-one. Another marshal who was possibly ill was Liu Po-ch’eng. He too was little in evidence during this period; like Lin Piao, he turned out to greet Voroshilov only when he came to Shanghai. 12° Of the other full members of the Politburo, P’eng Chen was clearly

opposed to Mao on rectification. The seventy-year-old President of the Supreme Court, Tung Pi-wu, was probably ambivalent, but loyal

to Mao. He gave a personal lead to rectification in the Supreme Court, but like Lin Po-ch’ii listed the three evils in the wrong order; in Tung’s case, it was subjectivism, bureaucratism, sectarianism. 12+ Tung appeared to wish to stress ideological problems (subjectivism) and to play down mistreatment of non-party people (sectarianism). Since critics of the CCP were demanding a re-examination of the conduct of campaigns against counter-revolutionaries, Tung’s listing could reflect a concern for the fate of his judicial personnel. According to the student leader, Lin Hsi-ling, the courts were very worried about being investigated:

244 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION Public Security Bureaus and courts are beginning to change the records of past cases for fear of their being checked by the People’s Deputies. This makes me furious. The dispositions of cases in the courts were written by the Party committee members and these are being torn up. There are too many instances of false charges. 122

If there is any truth in this allegation, Tung must surely have been aware of what was going on and the reasons for it, and doubtless wanted to protect his men. At the same time his links with Mao seem to have been strong enough to make him wish to give a public

demonstration of his willingness to carry out the rectification directive. 123

Marshal Ho Lung was on the rostrum at the Supreme State Conference and in the absence of other evidence must be reckoned a

supporter of rectification.124 The two other full members of the Politburo were concerned with economic affairs—Li Fu-ch’un, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, and Li Hsien-nien, Minister of Finance. At a national design conference that started on 31 May Li Fu-ch’un encouraged rectification, listed the three evils in the correct order, but seemed to attribute mistakes almost equally to them and to inexperience; thus he took a middle line between the State Council directive of 3 June and the People’s Daily editorial of 4 June. }25

Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien made only one public speech during the rectification period. This was when he attended the tenth

anniversary celebrations of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region on behalf of the central authorities.12° He was, however, speaking on the very day that the rectification directive was issued and so his failure to mention the rectification campaign may mean nothing—especially if Mao did initiate it at short notice. Nevertheless his brief reference to the handling of contradictions is worthy of note: Strengthening the leadership and ideological work of the Chinese Communist Party has extremely great significance for the further development of the Autonomous Region. The Marxist-Leninist level of all cadres must be further raised to help them learn how correctly to handle contradictions among the people, prevent and combat bureaucratism, subjectivism, and dominant nation chauvinism and local nationalism, develop the glorious

tradition of braving hard and bitter struggles, closely link up with the masses, and wholeheartedly serve the people of all nationalities.127 (Emphasis added.)

Bureaucratism was placed first, as Mao would have desired, but

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 245

subjectivism took second place. Perhaps sectarianism—in the shape of ‘ dominant nation chauvinism ’, i.e. the discrimination of Chinese against Mongols—-was played down at the request of the local party leader, Ulanfu, an alternate member of the Politburo. Another indicator of Li Hsien-nien’s attitude was his budget speech to the NPC after the counter-attack on critics had started. He took

the trouble to insert approving references to the importance of resolving contradictions among the people,12° but he did not mention the rectification campaign; nor was his enthusiasm as wholehearted as that of Chou En-lai who, in his speech on that occasion, said: Basing ourselves on the brilliant directives of Chairman Mao Tse-tung on the correct handling of contradictions among the people, we are forging an even stronger unity through our rectification campaign against bureau-

cratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism and through our victorious struggles in exposing and repudiating the anti-socialist right wing. 12°

On balance it would seem that Li Hsien-nien may be counted as a supporter of rectification, but not a totally enthusiastic one. Both he and Li Fu-ch’un can be assumed to have been in favour of the overall aim of rectification in so far as it was designed to promote economic

development by bettering relations between the CCP and noncommunist intellectuals, technicians, and businessmen whose cooperation was vital to the success of the FYPs. On the other hand,

they could not have been particularly happy about a campaign which, as the People’s Daily pointed out, tended to disrupt work, especially at a time of economic difficulties.13® However, by con-

trasting their statements with those of another major economic planner, Po I-po, Chairman of the State Economic Commission, and an alternate member of the Politburo, it can be seen that the two Li’s displayed more positive attitudes. Po I-po made a speech in Szechwan on 9 May entitled ‘ How to implement the rectification movement in capital construction work ’ which was the main front-page story in the People’s Daily two days later. Po had called on all cadres, especially the economic cadres, to acquire the talent for constructing the country with industry and thrift and to combat bureaucratism and subjectivism in capital construction work. Po I-po said: Constructing the country with industry and thrift is an extremely important component of the general policy of solving contradictions among the people raised by the party’s central committee. If this problem is handled badly it could expand

contradictions among the people and influence state construction. +3 (Emphasis added.)

246 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Po then discussed a number of practical problems and shortcomings which he asserted were ‘ mainly created by lack of experience and the

bureaucratism, subjectivism, and doctrinairism existing in our work ’.432 To solve these problems he advocated, ‘apart from deeply developing the rectification movement ’, a series of concrete solutions. Po’s aim in this speech seemed to be to emphasize the importance of rectification as a means of solving practical problems in work— something certainly mentioned in the rectification directive—and to play down what was in fact the main purpose of rectification—the

improvement of the party’s relations with the masses. This was a subtle way of saying that production was more important than rectification. Po’s speech was published only two days after this precise problem had been raised in the People’s Daily in: another * Letter from a party member ’.12° The letter-writer, an apparently unknown party member called Kuo Jui, suggested that there were two possible ways of checking up on internal contradictions as laid down in the rectification directive. A unit could either inspect how it had handled the implementation of policy; or it could inspect how

it had handled relations between party and non-party people. The writer expressed himself in favour of the former approach, and the People’s Daily introductory note called this an ‘ important opinion ’

and called for other opinions. The report of Po I-po’s speech two days later must have seemed to many readers like support for Kuo Jui’s opinions from one of the highest levels of the party.

Po also made some supplementary remarks after Li Fu-ch’un’s speech in Chungking on 16 May. Again he misstated the three evils,

being reported as considering that ‘the basic key (chi-pen kuanchien) in thoroughly implementing the policy ‘‘ constructing the nation with industry and thrift ’’ lies in combating the subjectivism and sectarianism of departing from the realities of China ’.134 Here he left out the most important of the three evils, bureaucratism, and placed sectarianism second to Liu Shao-chi’s favourite evil, sub-

jectivism. His statement that the ‘ basic key’ for production and economy lay in combating subjectivism and sectarianism bore an interesting resemblance to the phrase in the State Council’s directive of 3 June where it was said that the ‘ important key ’ to the produce/

economize campaign was ‘to develop actively the rectification movement and firmly combat bureaucratism, sectarianism and subjectivism ’. The crucial difference between the formulations was that Po did not see fit to mention the rectification campaign.

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 247

Po I-po gave even clearer indications of his attitude to the rectification campaign in early June, emboldened perhaps by the knowledge that a decision to counter-attack the critics had been taken. Speaking at the design conference addressed by Li Fu-ch’un, Po patronizingly

dismissed the critics and attributed shortcomings exclusively to inexperience, whereas a month earlier he had also blamed the ‘ three evils ’. Unlike Li Fu-ch’un, Po apparently did not once refer to the rectification campaign or contradictions among the people!*5; and,

unlike Li Hsien-nien, he also failed to mention them when he addressed the NPC on 1 July.+*6 During the cultural revolution Po I-po came under attack for his close relations with P’eng Chen.137 Since they had both worked in north China in the 1930s and came from the same province, being the only men from Shansi in the Politburo, the allegation may have been well-founded. If so, they could have collaborated in opposing the rectification campaign. Of the other alternate members of the Politburo, two presumably

supported Mao. Ch’en Po-ta’s special relationship with Mao has been described; it persisted until after the cultural revolution. K’ang Sheng, who was also to benefit from the cultural revolution, inter-

vened in Tientsin and at the Higher Party School in the spring of 1957 in support of Mao. Propaganda chief Lu Ting-yi, on the other hand, had given evidence of his distaste for the Maoist form of rectification in March 1957; he had failed to compel Teng T’o to publicize Mao’s speeches; and in contrast with his deputy Chou Yang, during the campaign itself his silence was deafening.

Ulanfu, Deputy Premier, boss of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and Chairman of the Nationalities Commission, would have seemed a likely backer of rectification, given the campaign’s

emphasis on bettering relations with national minorities. He did mention the correct handling of contradictions among the people as one of the tasks ahead when writing on 30 April on the occasion of

the tenth anniversary of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. 128 In his speech in Huhehot on the same day he said: In order to handle correctly contradictions among the people and further strengthen the unity of the people, we must implement the policy of starting

from the desire for unity and passing through criticism and struggle to reach a new unity on a new basis, we must combat subjectivism, bureaucratism and sectarianism in our leadership work. . . .43° (Emphasis added.)

Like Li Hsien-nien on the same occasion, Ulanfu had muddled the

order of the ‘three evils’ though in a different way. Like Liu

248 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Shao-ch’i, Ulanfu focused on the ideological problems of cadres by emphasizing subjectivism. Another indication of Ulanfu’s attitude was provided by a news story in the People’s Daily on 20 May which

reported that the Inner Mongolian party had agreed on a ‘ new’ rectification work plan two days earlier. The story explained the use

of the word ‘ new’ with the revelation that the Inner Mongolian party had already conducted a rectification movement against bureaucratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism, making the produce/ economize drive and the streamlining of organizations its core, from December 1956 through March 1957. The implication was that the new rectification campaign was redundant, an idea that was taken up by the People’s Daily in its editorial on 3 June; the further implication was that the essence of rectification was to facilitate economic growth directly rather than to improve the party’s relations with the

masses. A final indication of Ulanfu’s position was his failure to mention contradictions or rectification in “his speech to the NPC after the counter-attack had started. 14° There seems to be no explicit indication as to the attitude of the

remaining alternate member of the Politburo, Chang Wen-t’ien. However, he had been one of Mao’s main rivals during the 1930s, he

was demoted from full membership of the Politburo at the 8th Congress, and he later emerged as one of the sharpest critics of the party Chairman after the great leap forward. It seems reasonable to assume that he was unlikely to have been an enthusiastic supporter

of Mao on any issue and that his silence during the rectification period probably indicated disapproval.

On the basis of all this admittedly fragmentary evidence, the following tentative reconstruction can be made of the attitudes of Politburo members towards the rectification campaign: Full members

Dubious but Against or For or probably for —_loyalto Mao probably against Uncertain

Mao Tse-tung Tung Pi-wu Liu Shao-ch’i (Lo Jung-huan

Chou En-lai Li Hsien- Chu Teh — ill 7)*

Ch’en Yun nien Lin Po-ch’ii (Liu Po-ch’eng Teng Hsiao-p’ing P’eng Chen —ill ?)* (Lin Piao—ill 7)* P’eng Teh-huai (Ch’en Yi—ill)*

Li Fu-ch’un Ho Lung

BLOOMING AND CONTENDING 249 Alternate members

Ch’en Po-ta Ulanfu K’ang Sheng Chang Wen-t’ien Lu Ting-yi

Po I-po * Brackets indicate that the man in question probably did not play a major role in Politburo debates on rectification.

If this line-up is at least approximately accurate, the weakness of Mao’s position is immediately apparent. His supporters numbered nine full members of the Politburo, of whom probably only five were firmly behind him and active in debate, while his opponents could muster five full members. If the Politburo voted, alternates probably could not participate, but clearly their views would count.!4! With the alternates added in, there were twelve for rectification on Mao’s

terms and nine against with two uncertain. It would only have needed men like Tung Pi-wu and Li Hsien-nien to waver for Mao’s slim majority to disappear; therefore, any doubts Mao may have had

as to the wisdom of continuing the campaign would have been reinforced by his knowledge of the narrow base of his support. The situation was just the reverse of that in the summer and autumn of 1955 when Mao went it alone on collectivization in the face of his colleagues’ opposition. Then his bold initiative had been swiftly legitimized by success; now it had opened Pandora’s box. Then, too,

he had had the backing of provincial party leaders; now many supported his opponents. One ‘ rightist ’ party member is alleged to have said that: ‘ Chairman Mao was under very great pressure, and

in this domestic crisis the telegrams [from party opponents of ** blooming and contending ’’] flew like snowflakes, all demanding restriction [of the rectification] ’.142 Some of these telegrams doubtless came from provincial leaders, anxious lest their officials would be demoralized by the outburst of criticism. The evidence suggests

that the first secretaries of at least nine provinces, embracing 250 million people or over 40 per cent of the country’s population, were against Mao (see App. 8). With that kind of opposition in the provinces ranged behind his opponents in the Politburo, it is no wonder

that Mao had to abandon the rectification campaign when the situation began to get out of hand on the campuses in late May and early June.

APPENDIX 7

WHERE WAS LIU SHAO-CH’I ON 27 FEBRUARY 1957? Did Liu not attend the Supreme State Conference session at which Mao delivered his contradictions speech, or did he simply arrange that the published photograph should be one taken while he was absent from the room? Liu was not visible in Peking after 14 February and it is possible that he started his 2,400 miles provincial tour later that month. Even so, he had only reached Honan province by March, whence he could easily have returned to Peking if he had got so far as there by 27 February?; besides, if he had started his tour, one would still want to know why he had left, realizing, as he must have done, that Mao was about to make this important speech. It seems more likely that Liu was at the session but prevented the publication of a photograph showing this. One piece of evidence is

that P’eng Chen was sitting to the right of Mao in the place that should have been Liu’s. The formula for these occasions, established by the January 1956 session of the Supreme State Conference, was that the head of state should be flanked by the Chairman of the NPC and some of his deputies in order of precedence on the one side, and by the Premier and some of his deputies, again in order of precedence, on the other. At this time P’eng Chen ranked only as eighth Deputy Chairman of the NPC and should rightfully have sat several places away from Mao. In January 1956 he had not even rated a seat in the front row. (See the picture in the People’s Daily, 26 January 1956.) It seems likely that Liu left the room for a time and asked P’eng (in his capacity as NPC Secretary-General) to sit in for him. If Liu had not been there at all, Mme Soong Ch’ing-ling would surely have sat on Mao’s right as the top-ranking NPC Deputy Chairman. Some corroboration of the hypothesis that Liu was only out of the

room when the photograph was taken was later provided by the apparently well-informed? dissident student leader, Miss Lin Hsiling. On 23 May 1957 she stated that: It was said that when Chairman Mao in his speech proposed the principle 250

APPENDIX 7 251 regarding the correct handling of contradictions among the people, eighty per cent of the high-ranking cadres disapproved and some of them even got up and walked out of the meeting.* (Emphasis added.)

This remark by Miss Lin gave rise to an interesting sequel. The president of Peking University, on whose campus Miss Lin had made the allegation about high-ranking cadres leaving the hall, immediately issued a denial. But even though the president, Professor Ma Yin-ch’u, had attended the Supreme State Conference, he was not allowed to get away so easily. A poster was stuck up asking

him the following questions: ‘1. Did Mr Ma sit in the last row? 2. Did Mr Ma concentrate all his attention in observing whether or not there were people leaving the room?’ The poster supplied the answers for Ma Yin-ch’u: ‘1. Mr Ma was not necessarily sitting in

the last row and he did not necessarily frequently turn his head backwards. 2. Mr Ma was definitely not able to discern whether those going out were leaving or going to the lavatory.’ 4

Professor Ma Yin-ch’u may have been compelled to deny the evidence of intra-party disunity. If not, possibly the cadres who left the hall were not sitting on the platform where he should have seen them leaving, but were less senior men sitting at the back of the hall.

Or, more likely, it is possible that Liu Shao-ch’i (and perhaps others) did leave the platform at some stage, but had returned after the symbolic photograph had been taken and so gave the appearance to non-communists present of having just gone to the lavatory. Another significant aspect of the photograph of the Supreme State Conference was that it was taken from an untypically low angle so

that the faces behind the front row were indistinguishable.* This could have been done either to prevent the reader from learning that

there was a large number of important absentees at the meeting and so noting the wide extent of party disunity; or, more likely, it might have been designed by anti-Maoists to suggest symbolically

that only the clearly visible front row on the rostrum—with the exception of P’eng Chen, as argued above—really supported Mao’s speech. Even so, the front row alone revealed a number of important Politburo absentees apart from Liu Shao-ch’i. ® They were Chu Teh, Lin Piao, Lin Po-ch’ii, Lo Jung-huan, and P’eng Teh-huai. Of these

Lin Piao was almost certainly absent for health reasons,’ but this would still leave a total of five Politburo members (including Liu) absent for no obvious reason. ® It is also significant that the People’s Daily did not supplement the

photograph of this session of the Supreme State Conference, as it

252 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

had done the one in January 1956, with a list of names of those present. If, as argued above, Liu was present but wished to register a symbolic protest, his aim would have been thwarted by the inclusion of his name in a list of those attending, The same would apply to any other ‘ symbolic ’ absentees.

APPENDIX 8

THE ATTITUDES OF PROVINCIAL LEADERS TO RECTIFICATION The attitudes of provincial leaders to rectification can be gleaned from the publicity they chose to have given to their activities connected with the campaign. In the rectification directive it was laid down that first secretaries should take command and small groups should be set up to lead the campaign. It can probably be assumed that all provincial leaders did obey this instruction. Not to have done so would have amounted to organizational indiscipline and the

defaulters would have incurred severe penalties; but only one provincial first secretary was dismissed in the aftermath of the rectification campaign and this does not appear to have been for disobeying the directive. }

Nevertheless, it was possible for provincial leaders to obey the directive and still indicate their disapproval. Immediately after the directive was published, the NCNA and the People’s Daily published a series of reports indicating how rectification was to be organized

in the various provinces. These reports must have been based on information given to the correspondents by the information officials of the provincial apparatuses. These officials were in a position to underline publicly their respective first secretaries’ obedience to the directive by getting the correspondents to report that they had taken

command of special groups set up to run the campaign. Yet in reports on twenty-five provincial-level organizations (see table, p. 255),? in only eleven cases? was it unequivocally stated that the first secretary would take command. In ten of those eleven cases it was also stated that a leadership group had been set up. * In another three cases 5 it seems very probable, and in a further two cases ® it is possible that the first secretary wanted to indicate public agreement with rectification. This still leaves nine’ provincial-level leaders who failed to insist on getting their name into the national press on this issue. Of these, six ® also failed to ensure the mention of their special

leading groups and five got no reports of their leaders performing manual labour into the national press. ® In view of the injunction in 253

254 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

the directive regarding leadership of rectification, and the formulistic

manner in which eleven news reports recorded obedience to this injunction, it is difficult not to conclude that the missing nine leaders deliberately chose to indicate disapproval in this manner. The disapproving provinces included Szechwan, the most populous

in the nation; if Chu Teh’s absence from the Supreme State Conference on 27 February was indicative of his attitude towards Mao’s ideas, then possibly he utilized his stay in his native province in the early spring to line up its first secretary, Li Ching-ch’iian, against Mao. Two?! of the five provinces visited by Liu Shao-ch’i during his tour in March-April are among the nine (and a third! is among the doubtfuls). P’eng Chen’s Peking is among them, as is P’eng’s native province of Shansi. Altogether the ‘ missing’ nine leaders were in charge of some 250 million people, over 40 per cent of the country’s

population. )

APPENDIX 8 255

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Y >) ° It was presumably on the basis of this Mao—Liu compromise that

Teng was able to praise and incorporate in his report much of what Mao had said in his Tsingtao statement. In some cases Teng repeated points made by K’o Ch’ing-shih a month earlier, which suggested that these points also derived ultimately from Tsingtao. In his opening section on the general situation of the campaign Teng paid high tribute to the analysis and policy suggestions con-

tained in the Tsingtao statement.*’ Teng then underlined the importance of the anti-rightist campaign in Mao’s own words, °° and, like K’o Ch’ing-shih, he declared that unless the party could win the debate on the political and ideological fronts it would be impossible to continue to advance. ®® Teng described the aim of the

rectification movement and the anti-rightist struggle as to solve antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions and, again quoting from Mao, he described those between the people and the ‘ reactionary bourgeois rightists ’ as antagonistic, irreconcilable, and life-anddeath contradictions. °° Teng went on to differentiate between different kinds of rectification for different groups within the ranks of the people: the bourgeoisie, bourgeois intellectuals, and petty bourgeoisie had to accept

socialist remoulding; for the working class and the Communist party it was a matter of rectifying the style of work. ®1 The purpose of the rectification campaign was ‘ to direct the struggle along the line

of correcting political orientation, raising the ideological level, correcting shortcomings in work, uniting the masses, and isolating and breaking up the bourgeois rightists and all other anti-socialist elements ’.°* There must be resolute struggle against the enemy, while within the ranks of the people the principal method should be education. °3

It was at this point that Teng stated that the development of the movement in the past four months had conformed entirely to the analysis of the CC and Mao. This is highly suggestive that the whole

of the preceding analysis, which, it will be remembered, was also introduced by an approving reference to Mao’s Tsingtao statement,

COMPROMISE 309

in fact represented a fairly close reproduction of Mao’s July appraisal. There is another piece of evidence too that lends confirmation to this suggestion. Almost all those sections of Teng’s analysis up to this point which cannot be traced directly to Mao’s speech have

great similarities with sections of the analysis presented by K’o Ch’ing-shih a month earlier.®* There was just one significant difference, over the question of methods. K’o had stated that the method of putting facts on the table and reasoning was appropriate for both the anti-rightist struggle and the rectification movement. °5

Teng accepted this method of solving contradictions among the people, but in the case of the enemy he talked in terms of resolute struggle and methods of ‘ exposing, isolating and breaking up’. °° This difference probably reflected a concession by Mao on how to conduct the anti-rightist struggle.

In the second section of his report, on the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals, Teng again leaned heavily in parts on Mao’s Tsingtao analysis, suggesting that the whole section might have been Maoinspired. Like Mao, Teng alleged that the rightist offensive showed that the majority of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals were unwilling to accept proletarian leadership and suggested that only when a decisive victory over the rightists had been won would the middle-of-the-roaders and part of the rightists come over to the side

of the proletariat.°’ By late September Teng was able to claim a decisive victory in many quarters and foresee progress from the stage of anti-rightist struggle to the third stage of the movement, renewed rectification.°* Mao later confirmed this assessment when on 17 November he told Chinese students in Moscow that the victory on the political and ideological fronts had been won and the rightists had been ‘ crushed ’. °° Despite these claims, in spelling out what victory meant Teng was

as cautious in late September as Mao had been two months earlier. Mao had said that the struggle to defeat the rightists and win over the middle-of-the-roaders might go on for another ten to fifteen years. 1°° Teng’s report indicated that he, and presumably Mao in November, adhered to this assessment despite the ‘ crushing ’ of the rightists: When we say that the anti-rightist struggle has reached a certain stage, we mean that all the rightists have been exposed, criticized and isolated, and the majority of the rightists have been made to bow before the masses and admit their crimes. We do not say that the review of, and admissions by all

the rightists have been carried to a state of thorough completion. There must be a portion of the rightists who will not repent, and they must bring their reactionary viewpoints with them to their graves. 1°! The majority of

310 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION the rightists will also not really change themselves within a short time. But as long as they are isolated from the masses, our struggle has been success-

ful. ... The ideological transformation of the intellectuals is a long-term task, likely to take another ten or more years to complete.+°?

Given this long-range forecast, it was hardly surprising that Teng should also echo Mao on the crucial need for the proletariat to train up its own intellectuals in all spheres.1°? But Teng still felt, presumably like Mao, that the old bourgeois intellectuals were necessary for this task and asserted that they must be included in the plan of the working class to train its own intellectuals. They are an important asset of the country, and their efforts are needed in socialist construction in the fields of economy and culture and in training new forces. Great efforts need, therefore, to be made to unite with them, win them over, and educate them, correcting their erroneous points of view, helping them to reform themselves and, using appropriate and not crude methods, to enable them gradually to abandon a middle position and

come over to the working class.... We must have more conversation with them, make friends with more of them, listen to their recommendations on work, assist them in the solution of difficulties in work. Our past defects in this field must be overcome. The absolute majority of the views brought forward by the intellectuals during

the period of full and open discussion are correct, and they should be earnestly studied and dealt with. A series of concrete measures should be adopted to carry through the policy of letting a hundred schools contend and letting a hundred flowers bloom in academic and cultural work. Of course, this is a socialist policy, and the policy must be executed in conformity with the six standards [1.e. criteria] listed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, to encourage socialist and not capitalist science and culture to flourish.1°4

Teng went on to confirm that the united front, the corollary in the political sphere of the hundred flowers in the intellectual sphere, was also still in force, if also with qualifications: A new united front which serves socialism is needed during the period of

socialist revolution. The policy of long-term co-existence and mutual supervision among the parties should be carried out on the basis of the six standards. The opinion that the democratic parties and groups no longer have a role is erroneous.19® (Emphasis added.)

All this represented a strong reaffirmation of Mao’s ‘ liberal’ policies of the previous eighteen months. In effect, Teng was trying to say: the rectification campaign is dead, long live the rectification campaign! But the anti-rightist struggle (and the formulation of the six criteria) ensured that there was little chance that Mao’s policies would in fact be implemented as originally intended.1°® Mao’s bold experiment was over.

CONCLUSIONS The collapse of Mao’s experiment in liberalization was a grave blow to the Chairman’s prestige and authority. He had exposed the party to contumely, antagonized a number of senior colleagues, and under-

mined his own credibility. Though he had correctly perceived the need to improve relations between party and people, he had seriously

underestimated the bitterness of the students and the intellectuals. It was Mao’s first major mistake since the regime had come to power, and his miscalculation can be explained quite simply: because there had been no previous airing of views, Mao had no means of knowing how people really felt. It was unrealistic of Mao to suppose that any long-term change in the conduct of party members could be achieved by rectification. As Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s speech to the 8th Congress revealed, Mao and his

supporters were well aware that it was the position of the party in power that had led cadres to behave in bureaucratic and sectarian ways. Consequently cadres’ conduct could be reformed only by changing the status of the party in Chinese society. This Mao was not prepared to do in 1957, partly because of his life-long belief in

the importance of party leadership, partly because he was then broadly satisfied with the society which the party had created. It was only when he became totally disenchanted with the character and evolution of Chinese society in the mid-1960s that he was prepared to strike at the party itself and not just at erring cadres—and to use as his spearhead the very same group, the students, whom he had

agreed to suppress in 1957. : The consensus among all members of the Politburo that the leading

position of the CCP in state and society was sacrosanct was what made compromise possible in the autumn of 1957. The Politburo’s long tradition of unity must also have played an important role. The purge of the ‘ anti-party group’ in the CPSU in mid-summer 1957

came as a sharp and timely reminder of the dangers of unbridled intra-party struggle. As Liu Shao-ch’i told some Indian communists

in December 1957: . |

No matter whether the party’s line is correct or mistaken, the party must safeguard its unity. ... A party split is more damaging than a defeat to the revolution, so one must endure even bitterness. . .. Our party has guarded its unity at all times, there’s been no split, and the party rules have been obeyed; no one has gone his own way, publicized his own ideas. !

By this time, Liu could afford to be magnanimous. The following 311

312 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

month Mao was to reveal to cadres his intention of stepping down from the post of head of state at the end of his term in 1959. The decision was probably taken around the time of the 3rd plenum and may have been one more reason why Mao was able to win Liu’s support for his Tsingtao statement.? As the CCP’s second-ranking official, Liu was clearly odds-on favourite to be Mao’s successor and may have been privately assured of the Chairman’s support. Mao’s

decision to retire was almost certainly part and parcel of his own programme of gradual withdrawal from the first line of power. However, the timing of the revelation—well over a year before Mao

was to retire, but only a few months after his setback during the rectification campaign—may well have been regarded by cadres as an implicit form of self-criticism on the part of the Chairman. Liu’s relative standing within the hierarchy was also to be en-

hanced by the resignation of Premier Chou En-lai from his concurrent post of Foreign Minister at the NPC session in February 1958. Since Chou thereafter continued to devote as much attention to foreign affairs as before, there can be little doubt that this resignation was forced on him in part as a symbolic retribution for his role

in the rectification movement although, as we shall see, Chou’s standing had also been undermined by the state of the economy. Not surprisingly, Mao was in a weak position to retaliate even

against lesser opponents. Teng T’o had been dismissed as chief editor of the People’s Daily in the summer, but had continued to run the paper much as before. It is also possible that the resignation of the Kwangtung first secretary, T’ao Chu, from his concurrent post of governor of the province in August 1957 was at Mao’s insistence. He was in fact the only one of the six provincial officials holding both posts to resign one of them at this time. 3 It was disclosed during the

cultural revolution that in 1957 T’ao Chu’s links with Kao Kang were investigated anew. T’ao had to make two statements before clearing himself.+ It is conceivable that Mao attempted to pin a major crime on T’ao in reprisal for his support of Liu and P’eng Chen. If this was so, he was evidently unsuccessful and T’ao was not disgraced until the cultural revolution ten years later. °

The Mao-—Liu alliance on the economy There was also an economic dimension to the reconciliation of Mao

and Liu in the autumn of 1957. In its origins—that is before the CPSU’s 20th Congress—Mao’s liberalization had been designed to enlist the enthusiastic support of all branches of the intelligentsia

CONCLUSIONS 313

for faster economic development. But the economy had overheated—

the 60 per cent rise in investment produced ‘acute inflationary pressures, supply bottlenecks, and serious shortages of consumer goods ° *—and the 1956 ‘ leap ’ had been called off. But the economic

situation had continued to deteriorate, partly because of the serious natural calamities in 1956 and to a lesser extent in 1957, partly due to the continued reverberations of the 1956 leap. At the NPC session in midsummer 1957, it was stated that capital investment would be 20 per cent down on the previous year and the 1956 budget deficit would be tackled by a 4 per cent reduction in expenditure and a 2 per cent increase in revenue.’ By the late summer the press was talking about a severe grain-supply crisis. Although the first plan was in the process of being over-fulfilled, the economy was in bad shape. The fault was not entirely theirs, but the planners were the obvious scapegoats. They had insisted on curbing the 1956 leap, but in the twelve months since then the economic situation had only deteriorated further. But it was not just the planners who were in the dock; the system they operated was also in question. Had the Chinese been right to adopt the Soviet development strategy, lock, stock, and barrel,

when their population-resource mix was totally different? Mao had hinted at his dissatisfaction with aspects of the Soviet system in his ten great relationships speech. In mid-1957 Liu Shao-ch’i indicated that he too had serious doubts about Soviet development methods, even as applied in the Soviet Union. When discussing distribution with the head of the party school, he said: In connection with these problems, one can learn nothing from the Soviet textbooks. We must investigate and sum up our own experience. In investigating the economic problems of socialism, we must also stress one problem in particular, and that is that the socialist economy must be planned but at the same time multi-faceted and flexible. In this respect the lesson of the Soviet Union is very worth noting. They only have the planning side of a socialist economy; they’ve perfected only the planned economy and it’s very stereotyped and not multi-faceted and flexible. A responsible Soviet comrade in the economic field told me: ‘ Operating a planned economy has cost the Soviet Union dear; planning has reduced economic activity and resulted in economic life being stereotyped.’ When Soviet comrades get to capitalist countries or to China and see that one can buy anything, then they’re very interested. ®

Dissatisfaction with the Soviet development model was no doubt increased by two other factors in the autumn of 1957. It must have been clear for some time to the Chinese leaders that the Soviet Union

would be unable to supply China with the considerable economic assistance—in the form. of medium-term trade credits—that the

314. THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

2nd FYP would demand. The Russians had been forced by the upheaval in Eastern Europe to divert some $1,000 million in shortterm credits to countries like Hungary and Poland. This was a major contributory factor in the abandonment of the Soviet 6th FYP in September 1957.° It helped decide the Chinese to abandon Sovietstyle planning altogether when they plunged into the ‘ great leap forward ’ in 1958.

The other factor behind the jettisoning of the Soviet model was

the trahison des clercs, the very vigorous and often anti-party response of students and intellectuals to Mao’s call for criticism. The intelligentsia had been courted since January 1956 because they were

considered essential to economic development. But if such large numbers of them were disaffected—26,000 had their ‘ rightist ’ label

removed in the amnesty on the 10th anniversary of the regime in October 1959, Mao, speaking in April 1958, put the aggregate as high as 300,000,1° and during the cultural revolution Ch’en Yi said that 400,000 rightists had been seized in 195711—then it would be extremely hazardous to base the country’s economic future on their skills; and without loyal intellectuals, could the cumbersome superstructure of the Soviet economic model be maintained? Moreover

had not the Russians decided that their economic apparatus was inappropriate even for themselves? In May 1957 Khrushchev had introduced sweeping reforms which had included the dissolution of

twenty-five central economic ministries and the transfer of their powers to new regional economic councils called sovnarkhozy.+*

All these factors—economic crisis, disillusion with the Soviet model, gloomy aid prospects, distrust of the technocrats, the Soviet economic reforms—combined to put the planners on the defensive and to throw Mao and Liu into each other’s arms. In 1956 both men had favoured rapid economic development; both had pinned their faith to the Twelve- Year Programme for Agriculture. In the autumn

of 1957, when a stagnant agriculture was the country’s gravest economic problem, they were able to insist that the Twelve-Year Programme be revived as the signal for a new attempt at a leap forward. At the 3rd plenum Teng Hsiao-p’ing asserted: *‘ Only by increasing production and consequently, the income of the peasants, thus showing the great superiority of cooperation, is there a reliable

guarantee for the triumph of the socialist road over the capitalist road.’+* He then reintroduced the Twelve-Year Agricultural Programme, which he said had inspired the peasants and played a constructive role. The CC had amended the programme on the basis

] CONCLUSIONS 315 of experience and asked the plenum to endorse it. After the debate in the countryside on the socialist and capitalist roads, there should be

a debate on agricultural production, focused on the Twelve-Year Programme, to bring about a high tide (kao ch’ao) in rural production and construction during the winter. Then the CC would amend the

programme again and, after discussion at the party congress at the end of the year (nien ti),14 it would go to the State Council and finally to the NPC to be formally promulgated. However, the programme could not be achieved without a struggle against conservatism. ‘ The gigantic achievements of the high tide of production in 1956 must be affirmed.’!5 A week after the end of the plenum, T’an Chen-lin, like Teng Hsiao-p’ing a member of Mao’s ‘ clique’ 1n the 1930s, reported on the Twelve-Year Programme to the NPC standing

committee; as with the collectivization drive two years earlier, at this critical juncture Mao was turning to a man on whom he was certain he could rely.

Inevitably, the determination of Mao and Liu to attempt another leap seriously affected the position of Chou En-lai and the planners. Chou had been uneasily aware for a year that his opposition to the 1956 leap had strained his relationship with the Chairman even

though Mao had relied on him heavily during the rectification campaign. }* It was probably around this time that he made his selfcriticism for attacking the reckless advance a year earlier. Chou had been on the losing side on both rectification and the economy. This was surely why he was made to lose face by being deprived of the Foreign Ministry. As the great leap forward got under way, Chou and his chief economic planner Ch’en Yun?!’ retreated into the background; neither of their reports to the 3rd plenum was published. Nor was the blow only to their prestige. The whole central economic apparatus suffered as Mao and Liu, doubtless encouraged by Khrushchev’s example, pushed through their decentralization programme.1*® In May 1958 two of the planners, Li Fu-ch’un and Li Hsien-nien, were drafted into the party secretariat, evidence that from then on any central economic planning would be handled through the

party apparatus and not through the government machinery.?° China was beginning to abandon the Soviet economic model.

Sino-Soviet relations In the autumn of 1957 the Russians could hardly have been aware

that the Chinese were shelving Soviet development strategy. It probably was not clear to Mao and Liu at this point that they were

316 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

doing this; they were merely starting to work out a distinctive Chinese pattern of economic development. What would have been clear, and pleasing, to Khrushchev was that Mao had abandoned his

rectification campaign. This had opened up an ideological rift between Russia and China, for although the Soviet ambassador in Peking, Yudin, had told Chou En-lai that his country also contained contradictions among the people,?®° Khrushchev had later categorically denied this heresy. #1 With the abandonment of rectification, Mao’s doctrine of internal contradictions was no longer of immediate

operational significance and indeed for a period seemed to have been virtually forgotten. The Sino-Soviet ideological rift was thus healed for the time being. Khrushchev would have been less than human, however, if he had

not also experienced a certain schadenfreude at the way in which the rectification campaign had exploded in Mao’s face. He must have been irritated at the confident manner in which the Chinese had laid down the law for the communist bloc on destabilization, encouraged

Polish demands for greater independence, and created a model of ‘ liberal ’ communism which attracted East European intellectuals. ?? But now the hundred flowers had withered and Mao was no longer prepared to tolerate Polish reluctance to subscribe to Soviet leadership of the bloc—probably partly because he had been angered at the leak of his contradictions speech from Warsaw, but mainly because of changes in the international situation. The Chinese had been disappointed in their hopes of recovering

Taiwan by offering a new united front to the Nationalists. Even before the anti-rightist campaign, it must have been clear in Peking that Chiang Kai-shek would not respond to the CPR’s overtures; after the anti-rightist campaign had started, there was no longer any

point in appealing to the Nationalists on the basis of renewed cooperation between communists and bourgeoisie. Nor had talking to the Americans in Geneva helped to resolve the Taiwan problem. The Chinese had secured American consent to allow Chinese citizens to return to China if they so desired, but all attempts to persuade Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to agree to a mutual renuncia-

tion of force were met by counter-demands that China should renounce the use of force in the Taiwan area.?2 In May 1957 the Americans and the Nationalists signed an agreement which permitted

the emplacement on Taiwan of US matador surface-to-surface missiles, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead several hundred miles into the Chinese mainland. This agreement appeared to be

CONCLUSIONS 317

part of a general stiffening of American forces in East Asia with more

modern weapons. In his speech to the 1957 NPC, Chou deplored similar developments taking place in South Korea. On 28 June, in a major address on China policy, Dulles reaffirmed his hard line—no recognition of China, no trade with China, and continued opposition to the seating of China in the UN—and, encouraged by the upsurge of criticism in China, he stated his belief that communism was only a passing phase there. 24 By midsummer 1957 it was clear that Peking’s soft line towards both Americans and Nationalists had failed. In the light of these developments, the Chinese leaders must have |

been greatly heartened by the news of major advances in Soviet rocket technology. On 26 August Tass announced the successful testing of the first Soviet ICBM. Six weeks later, on 4 October, the

Soviet Union launched its first sputnik. Within a month, on 3 November, a second sputnik had been sent up, this one with a dog on board. The United States was shaken by the news because it demonstrated that the Soviet Union was far ahead in rocketry. The Chinese were surprised, ?° but delighted. Mao arrived in Moscow for the fortieth anniversary celebrations

of the Bolshevik revolution on the day before the second sputnik was launched. It must have confirmed his assessment of the significance of Soviet missile superiority. He expressed it graphically with the assertion that the east wind prevailed over the west wind.?°® He was calling for a harder policy towards the west, and he was no longer prepared to tolerate disunity within the bloc; the startled Poles were told to fall into line. It was discipline that Mao emphasized now rather than freedom, unity of purpose rather than personal ease of mind. In foreign as in domestic policy, the Chairman had changed course. *7 Mao’s new militancy at home and abroad made the autumn of 1957 into a major turning point in the history of the People’s Republic. Behind lay the optimism and disillusion of the hundred flowers period which saw the emergence of the problems that increasingly preoccupied Mao over the next decade—the nature of the ideal communist society,

the role of the Communist party, the pace of economic development, the validity of the Soviet model, and the ambiguity of his own posi-

tion. Ahead lay the euphoria and demoralization of the great leap forward, the three bitter years and the Sino-Soviet dispute during which the contradictions among the Chinese leaders on these issues sharpened. These will be the subject of the second volume of this study. In the third I will attempt to show how all these developments finally led to the unleashing of the cultural revolution.

Abbreviations used in notes

, 68.*

Case of Peng Teh-huai The Case of Peng Teh-huai, 1959-

CB Current Background (Hong Kong:

US Consulate-General). CLG Chinese Law and Government (White Plains, NY). cQ The China Quarterly (London). DT Daily Telegraph (London). ECMM Extracts from China Mainland

Magazines (Hong Kong: US

Consulate General).

8th National Congress Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China.*

Halpern MS. A. M. Halpern. The People’s Republic of China inthe Postwar World.*

HHPYK Hsin Hua Pan-yueh-k’an (New China Semi-monthly).

IR, Who's Who Inst. of International Relations, Chinese Communist Who's Who.*

JMJP Jen-min Jih-pao (People’s Daily).

JMST (dates) Jen-min Shou-ts’e (People’s Handbook), 1956, 1957, 1958.*

JPRS Joint Publications Research Service (Washington).

Liu, 1945-57 and 1958-67 Collected Works of Liu Shao-clvi, 1945-57 and 1958-67.*

Liu, Fourth Collection Ta-tao tang-nei tsui-ta-ti tsou tzupen-chu-i_ tao-lu tang-ch’lian-p’ ai

—Liu Shao-ch’i, ti ssu chi Strike

down the greatest power-holding, capitalist-roader clique [sic] within the party—Liu Shao-ch’i,

| Fourth Collection).*

Liu, Selected Edition Selected edition of Liu Shao-ch’i’s counter-revolutionary revisionist crimes (SCMM 651-3).

Mao, HC Mao Tse-tung, Hsuan Chi (Selected Works).f

Mao... lun wen-yi Mao Chu-hsi lun wen-yi yii-lu (Chairman Mao’s sayings on literature and the arts). Mao, Propaganda Conference Speech Mao Tse-tung, Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s Conference on propaganda work.*

Mao, SW Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works.* 318

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES 319

Mao, Untitled Collection Mao Tse-tung, Untitled Collec. tion.

NPC SC National People’s Congress,

Standing Committee. NYT New York Times. Pol. Docs Communist China, 1955-9: Policy

PR Peking Review SCMM & SCMM(S) Selections from China Mainland documents with analysis.*

Magazines and ditto (Supple-

) ment) (Hong Kong: US Consulate-General).

SCMP & SCMP(S) Survey of the China Mainland Press and ditto (Supplement) (Hong Kong: US Consulate-General).

SSC Supreme State Conference.

SWB, Pt 1 BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 1, The Soviet Union.

SWB/FE & SWB/FE/ES Ditto, Part V, The Far East and ditto, Economic Supplement.

The Polemic The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist

Movement.*

URI, Who’s Who Union Research Inst., Who’s Who in Communist China.*

URS Union Research Service (Hong Kong: Union Research Inst.).

* See Bibliography. + See Bibliographical and Methodological Note.

BLANK PAGE |

NOTES

Notes to pages 1-6 INTRODUCTION 1 See Mao, Propaganda Conference Speech, p. 13; this speech was first made in 1957, first published in 1965.

2 For a further discussion, see MacFarquhar, ‘ Leadership cohesion in communist China and under-developed Asian countries ’, in London, ed., New

Nations in a Divided World, pp. 222-35. 3 Snow, Red Star over China, pp. 125-80.

4 Mao Tse-tung, Hsuan Chi (Selected Works, hereafter referred to as HC) (Peking: People’s Publishing House, 1960); or the English version, Selected Works (SW) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, vols i, ii, iii, 1965, vol. iv, 1961). These are the main sources for the pre-1949 period. Important ones for the post-1949 period used in this study are listed in the bibliographical note. 5 Schram, Mao Tse-tung (rev. ed., 1967); idem, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, rev. ed., 1969; Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution; Siao-Yi, Mao Tse-tung and I were beggars; Michel Oksenberg, ‘ Policy making under

Mao Tse-tung, 1949-68 ’, Comparative Politics, Apr. 1971.

6 See Loh & Evans, Escape from Red China, pp. 135-7; Chow Ching-wen, Ten Years of Storm, p. 81. 7 Snow, Red Star over China, p. 84. 8 See his poem ‘ Snow ’, trans. in Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution, p. 340. 9In an interview with Edgar Snow in late 1970, Mao described himself as just a ‘ lone monk walking the world with a leaky umbrella ’ and said he wanted to

be described only as a teacher; see Snow’s ‘ Conversation with Mao Tse-

tung ’, Life, 30 Apr. 1971, pp. 46-8. 10 Snow, Red China Today: the other side of the river, p. 165. 11 For the first version (7 July) see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 118. (In this source, p. 109, the date is wrongly given as 8 July; for correct dating see pp. 281-2 above.) For the final version (later in July) see ° The situation in the summer of 1957’ in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui ! (Long live Mao Tsetung’s thought) (no publisher, Apr. 1967), p. 16; also trans, in CB 891, p. 25.

13 Thid. |

12 Cited in Stuart R. Schram, ‘Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-ch’i, 1939-69 ’, Asian Survey, Apr. 1972, p. 278.

14 Teng Hsiao-p’ing tzu-pai shu (Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s Confession) (reprinted by Kwangtung Province Ascend the Mountains, Go to the Countryside * Conquer the Tiger (?)’ Youth Combat Corps, no date), p. 6. (This item is reproduced in Group X, Roll 1, Part 1 of the microfilmed cultural revolution material distributed by the Center for Chinese Research Materials, Washington.) _ 15 See Chang Kuo-t’ao’s introduction to the URI 3-volume edition of Liu’s Collected Works, p. iin each volume. 16 See for instance his speech to geology students, ibid., ii. 423. 17 4 chronicle of events in the life of Liu Shao-ch’i, 1899-1967 in CB 834, p. 23. 18 Snow, Red China Today, p. 336.

19 See ‘Maniacs ” of the new era, in SCMM 603, p. 28.

20 The history and the formation of the Mao-Liu alliance is still wrapped in mystery. According to one source, Liu was on the same side as Mao in the debate at the Tsunyi conference (see pp. 8, 140), though not for the same reasons (Kuo, Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party, ili, p. 17). According to the same source, at a CCP national conference in May 1937, Liu presented a report that was highly critical of the party’s leadership throughout 321

322 NOTES TO PAGES 6-9 the previous decade. He had been encouraged to deliver this attack by Mao, and the latter was able to prevent him being disgraced though the report was rejected (ibid., pp. 251-61). According to Chang Kuo-t’ao, in June 1937 Liu wrote a letter to the party leadership criticizing policies over the previous sixteen years. Though this letter did not mention Mao by name, it criticized policies he had espoused. However, when Mao found out through an intermediary that Liu had not written the letter in collusion with Chang Kuo-t’ao to oust him in favour of Chang, he decided to cultivate Liu, and brought him into the 7 aaa as an ally against some of its other members (Liu, 1945-57, pp. Vi—viii). Little light has been thrown on these events by cultural revolution revelations, but one attack on Liu did accuse him of writing a letter to the CC on 4 March 1937, in which he vilified Mao and praised Wang Ming, one of Mao’s Russian-trained opponents. This source also says Liu attended the national party conference in May and a Politburo meeting in August 1937 (A chronicle of events in the life of Liu Shao-ch’i, 1899-1967, in CB 834, pp. 4-5). 21 Compton, Mao’s China, pp. ix—x. 22 Quoted in SCMM 603, p. 28, where Liu’s contribution to revolutionary theory

is also acknowledged. While the author of this attack on Liu was a very humble party member, his ascription to Liu of contributions in the fields of

organization and theory presumably reflected the current conventional

wisdom within the CCP. 23 « Strike down three-anti element Liu Ping-yen ’, Fei-ming-ti (Whistling Arrow), 29 May 1967, in SCMP@G) 209, p. 32. 24 One of Liu’s brothers, privy perhaps to Liu’s feelings, once remarked: ‘ Liu Shao-ch’i graduated from the Soviet Marxist-Leninist Academy. It was Liu Shao-ch’i who gave Chairman Mao his position; the very first election was Liu Shao-ch’i’s’ (see the Peking Aeronautical Institute’s Red Guards’, Hung

Chi (Red Flag), 10 Feb. 1967, p. 6, col. 1). It is not clear whether by the second part of the last sentence Liu’s brother meant that Liu organized the proceedings the first time Mao was elected party Chairman (at the 7th Congress ?—earlier Mao may have been chairman only of the CC’s Military Affairs Committee) or whether he meant that Liu had beaten Mao in some election. The same article is translated from another Red Guard source in SCMP 3916 where on p. 6 this passage is rendered: ‘ Liu Shao-ch’i could have won the first election ’. The original in Hung Chi reads: ‘ Pen-lai t’ou-i-tz’u

_ hsuan-chii shih Liu Shao-ch’i-ti’.

25 See Schram, in Asian Survey, Apr. 1972, p. 279. 26*TV iu Shao-ch’i is guilty of heinous crime of staging counter-revolutionary seizure of power three times in our country’s journalistic circles ’, Jen-ta San Hung (People’s University Three Reds), 11 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 201, p. 26).

y.

a7 See Schram, loc. cit., pp. 279-80, where Liu’s first eulogy to Mao is dated 28 Liu, Selected edition (SCMM 651, p. 20). 29 Schram, p. 280. 30 Liu’s confessions are included in Liu, 1958-67, pp. 351-77. 31 For details of Chou’s career (and indeed of other CCP leaders) see his entry in Klein & Clark, Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921-65. See also Kai-yu Hsu, Chou En-lai: China’s gray eminence; Thomas W. Robinson

‘Chou En-lai: a statement of his political “‘ style ’, with comparisons with

ct. .

Mao ino and Lin Piao’ (Santa Monica, Rand Corporation, P-4474, 32 This reconstruction is based on the following accounts of the Tsunyi Conference, not all of which agree: Kuo, iii, 16-27; Jerome Ch’en, ‘ Resolutions of the Tsunyi conference ’, CQ, Oct.-Dec. 1969, pp. 1-38; Dieter Heinzig, ‘ comment: pp. Lolo. Otto Braun and the Tsunyi conference ’, ibid., Apr.—June 1970, 33 Both Lin Piao and Chou En-lai admitted as much during the cultural revolution. Lin is quoted in Oksenberg, Comparative Politics, Apr. 1971, p. 347; for Chou, see his speech of 2 Feb. 1968 in ‘ Premier Chou’s speech at a reception for representatives from various departments and committees of the Industry

NOTES TO PAGE 9 323 and Communications, Finance and Trade, and Agriculture and Forestry Sectors, and from units under the direct jurisdiction of the State Council ’ (no publisher).

34 Hermia Oliver has pointed out to me that Lord Chesterfield advocated suaviter in modo, fortiter in re in terms with which Chou En-lai might well agree. ‘ The suaviter in modo alone would degenerate and sink into a mean, timid complaisance, and passiveness, if not supported and dignified by the fortiter in re, which would also run into impetuosity and brutality, if not tempered and softened by the suaviter in modo. The warm, choleric man, with strong animal spirits, despises the suaviter in modo, and thinks to carry all

before him by the fortiter in re....On the other hand, the cunning crafty

man thinks to gain all his ends by the suaviter in modo only: he becomes all things to all men. ... The wise man... alone joins the suaviter in modo with

the fortiter in re....In negotiations with foreign ministers, remember the fortiter in re; give up no point, accept of no expedient, till the utmost necessity reduces you to it, and even then, dispute the ground inch by inch; but then, while you are contending with the minister fortiter in re, remember to gain the man by the suaviter in modo. If you engage his heart, you have a fair chance

for imposing upon his understanding, and determining his will. ...The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so... The

countenance, the address, the words, the enunciation, the graces, add great efficacy to the suaviter in modo, and great dignity to the fortiter in re, and consequently they deserve the utmost attention ’ (Charles Strachey, ed., The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his Son (London, Methuen, 2nd ed., 1924), ii. 123-6 (emphasis in the original). 35 For a longer discussion see MacFarquhar ‘ Communist China’s twenty years: a periodization ’, CQ, July—Sept. 1969, pp. 55-63.

PART ONE: THE ‘FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE’

Notes to page 15

Chapter 1. ‘The High Tide’ of Socialism 1 Chung-kuo Nung-ts’un-ti She-hui-chu-i Kao Ch’ao (Peking: Jen-min Ch’upan-she, 1956), compiled by the General Office of the CCP’s CC, The Preface is translated in Pol. Docs, pp. 117-19. The quotation appears on p. 118. The expression ‘kao ch’ao’, translated as ‘ upsurge’ in Peking’s English-Language abridged volume (published by the Foreign Languages Press in 1957), literally means ‘ high tide’. 2 Three volumes, 1,360 pages, 176 articles, 900,000 Chinese characters. To gain a wider readership, an abridged edition of 270,000 characters—505 pages in the English translation—was also issued. Mao told the 6th plenum that the CC’s Rural Work Department had by then, October, sifted through 1,200 articles and he himself had shut himself up for 11 days to read 120 of them (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 20; this speech is here dated September, but since it is described as the summing up of the plenum and the

plenum ctober).yas held from 4 to 11 October, the correct date is presumably 11 3 The official translation of Mao’s speech, entitled ‘ The question of agricultural cooperation ’, is reprinted in Pol. Docs, pp. 94-105. This quotation appears on p. 94. 4 The Chinese communists had a three-stage approach to collectivization after

land reform. The first stage was the organization of mutual aid teams, on a temporary and then a year-round basis; as the name suggests, these were organizations in which peasants helped each other out, mainly with labour at busy seasons. In many regions the teams only represented a formalization of what had been a regular practice over the centuries. After the mutual aid teams came the stage of semi-socialist or primary-stage APCs. These APCs were fully collective in terms of organization; land, labour

and tools were pooled and centrally managed. But peasants were paid not only for their labour but also for the land they had contributed. At the third stage of fully-socialist or higher-stage APCs (which I shall call collectives), the payment for land (i.e. rent paid by the collective to the individual farmer, a practice which clearly benefited the richer peasants) was abolished. For a summary chart of the differences between the various forms of rural

cooperation and collectivization organized by the Chinese communists see Chao Kuo-chiin, Agrarian Policy of the Chinese Communist Party, p. 294. For a fuller discussion and a more detailed table, see Kenneth R. Walker, Planning _in Chinese Agriculture: socialisation and the private sector, 1956-62, pp. 3-19. 5 Pol. Docs, pp. 95-6. 8 CB, No. 373, p. 23. * Pol. Docs, p. 118. 8 Bernstein, ‘ Leadership and mass mobilisation in the Soviet and Chinese collectivisation campaigns of 1929-30 and 1935-56: a comparison ’, CQ, July— Sept. 1967, p. 47. So critical did the situation become in the Soviet Union that

Stalin had to throw his collectivization drive into reverse. The process of

collectivization was not completed for ten years. (See Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, p. 531.) ® Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside (abridged English ed.), pp. 159-60.

10 In his speech to the Supreme State Conference (SSC) on 25 January (JMJP, 26 Jan. 1956).

324

NOTES TO PAGES 16-18 325 11 In his Political Report to the CPPCC (Suppl. to People’s China. No. 4, 1956,

p. 12). According to the Chinese version in JMST 1956, p. 619, Chou’s

explanation was greeted by ‘* prolonged, stormy applause ’. 12 For accounts of land reform see Crook, Revolution in a Chinese Village: ten

mile inn and Harold Hinton, Fanshen. Both these accounts are based on first-hand observation; both deal with land reform in communist-controlled areas in the late 1940s before the creation of the People’s Republic. For a survey of the post-1949 development of the land reform programme, see Chao, pp. 94-146. 13 For a brief description of the five-anti and three-anti campaigns see App. 5. See also Barnett, Communist China: the early years, 1949-55, pp. 125-71; also Theodore H. E. Chen, Thought Reform of the Chinese Intellectuals, pp, 1-71. 14 The text of the speech by Li Fu-ch’un, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, introducing the Ist FYP to the NPC is trans. in Pol. Docs, pp. 42-91.

15 The constitution is trans. in Tang, Communist China Today, ii, 90-110. . 16 * Thoroughly expose Liu Shao-ch’i’s counter-revolutionary revisionist crimes , in political and legal work ’, Cheng Fa Kung-she (Politics and Law Commune), 16 Apr. 1967 in CLG, Spring 1968, p. 70.

17 Mao dealt with the question of what lessons should be learned from the

18 Thid. p. 103.

Soviet example in his speech of 31 July 1955 (see Pol. Docs, pp. 101-3).

19 Bernstein has demonstrated that the regime had a fairly strong grip on crop surpluses, through the policy of unified purchase and supply (or marketing), as early as 1954, prior to general collectivization. But a JMJP editorial (26 June 1955) which he quotes indicates the enormous administrative problems in dealing with peasant households individually: ‘ It is. ..a most complex and difficult task to investigate thoroughly the food production, consumption, and stocks of surplus food of more than one hundred million agricultural households in the country.’ Clearly a million collectives would be easier to handle. See his ‘Cadre and peasant behaviour under conditions of insecurity and deprivation: the grain supply crisis of the spring of 1955’, in Barnett, ed., Chinese Communist Politics in Action; the quotation is on p. 371. 20 See Walker, ‘ Collectivisation in retrospect: the “ socialist high tide” of autumn 1955-spring 1956’, CQ, No. 26, pp. 22-6. 21 In his speech on 4 October explaining the Politburo’s draft decision on the problem of agricultural cooperativization (JMST 1956, p. 92). Ch’en Po-ta’s relationship to Mao is discussed below, n. 25. 22 See n, 4 for a brief account of the stages of collectivization. 23 Pol. Does, p. 120. 24 Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, p. 12. 25 See their biographies in URI, Who’s Who, i, 77 & 95; also in IIR, Who’s Who, i, 80 & 104. On Ch’en Cheng-jen’s relationship to Mao in the Kiangsi Soviet in the early 1930s see Kuo, ii, 435. Ch’en Po-ta became Mao’s political secre-

tary in Yenan in the late 1930s; the full extent of his importance to Mao

became evident during the cultural revolution when he emerged as the regime’s fourth-ranking leader. Both men gave considerable assistance to Mao during the period covered by this study, as will be seen. 26 Mao made his collectivization speech on 31 July. Ch’en Po-ta was a deputy director of the Rural Work Department by July and Ch’en Cheng-jen by June (URI, Who’s Who, i). To what extent these two men made use of the machinery

of the department is not clear; it is interesting to note that the book Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside was prepared not by the Rural Work Department but by the CC’s General Office. 27 Basic completion of semi-socialist cooperativization was scheduled for spring 1958 as compared with Mao’s target of 1960. This target, like the others, was. swiftly overwhelmed by the ‘ high tide’. (For the draft decision, see SCMP,

No. 1151, pp. 9-23.) oo

28 Quoted in ‘ Chairman Mao’s important instructions on literary and art work since the publication of “‘ Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (1942-67) ”’, Wen Yi Hung Ch’i (Literature and Art Red Flag), No. 5, 30

May 1967 (SCMP 4,000, p. 16). N

326 NOTES TO PAGES 19-2] 29 Quoted in ‘ Completely settle the heinous crimes of China’s Khrushchev and company in undermining agricultural mechanisation’, Nung-yeh Chi-chieh

Chi-shu 610, p. 18).eral

Machinery Technique), No. 5, 8 Aug. 1967 (SCMM

30 He criticized himself twice for this during the cultural revolution; see Liu, 1958-67, pp. 360 & 366. In both confessions, Liu stated that the APCs were reduced in number by 200,000, but actually the figure was only 20,000 according to Mao’s speech of 31 July 1955 (Pol. Docs, p. 95). It seems unlikely that the same mistake was made twice by those publicizing his confessions. Either the figure was deliberately multiplied by 10 by Maoists wishing to exaggerate the seriousness of his crimes; or Liu’s memory played him false; or just possibly he wished to indicate by a deliberate error that this particular selfcriticism was not to be taken too seriously. As he indicated in both confessions,

he saw his mistake as one of omission—failing to criticize Teng Tzu-hui’s proposal—rather than one of commission. Whichever the explanation, the Maoists were quite happy to make use of the incorrect figure; it appeared in an editorial article entitled ‘ The struggle in China’s countryside between the two roads ’ jointly prepared by the People’s Daily, Red Flag, and the Liberation Army News on 23 November 1967 (see SCMP 4068, p. 6). 31 Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, p. 9. 32 Chang, Patterns and Processes of Policy-making in Communist China, 1955-62: three case studies, ch. 2. 33 See ibid. for Teng’s behaviour at this time; see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 21, for Mao’s criticism of Teng. 84 Teng Tzu-hui’s name was not among those listed as attending in the JAZ/P, 26 Jan. 1956.

35 Teng Tzu-hui’s speech to the 8th Congress is trans. in CB 421, pp. 1-9. His self-criticism is on p. 3. Teng could have practised self-criticism earlier in his speeches to the Conference of Advanced Producers in May and in the NPC in June, but though he mentioned the successful struggle against right conservatism in both, he did not convict himself of that deviation. Perhaps he was only prepared to practise self-criticism in front of a party forum. (See NCNA, 7 May 1957 in SCMP 1286, pp. 7-10 and JM/JP, 8 May 1957 for

ory versions speech.

of his May speech, and CB 393, pp. 22-30 for his NPC

36 For Teng Tzu-hui’s closeness to Mao during the Kiangsi Soviet in the early 1930s, see Kuo, ti, pp. 486-93; Hsiao, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930-4, pp. 231-3, 242-3; Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution, p. 178; Rue, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, 1927-35, p. 259. These works describe how the attack on the ‘ Lo Ming line’ in 1933 was used against Mao’s supporters and how Teng Tzu-hui was one of those to suffer. Rue, p. 249, describes Teng Tzu-hui as ‘ one of Mao’s old friends ’. When criticizing Teng at the 6th plenum, Mao acknowledged his long years of successful work (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 21). It is worth adding that

although Teng apparently continued to maintain a conservative stance on rural affairs during the leap forward period, he nevertheless survived the cultural revolution and was re-elected a full member of the CC at the CCP’s 9th Congress in April 1969.

38 SWB/FE, No.pp. 507, p. 11.: 39 JMST 1956, 104~6. 37 JMST 1956, p. 104.

40° Ch’en Shu-t’ung’s speech is reproduced ibid., pp. 106-9; the passage relating to capitalist styles of management is on p. 108. 41 Thid., p. 105. 42 Thid., p. 109.

43 See SWB/FE/ES, No. 192, pp. 7-12. 44 Tt was mentioned in the list of meetings given by Teng Hsiao-p’ing, the party’s

General-Secretary, in his report on the new party constitution to the 8th

Congress in September 1956 (see CB 417, p. 14). 45 Quoted in ‘ The defender of capitalist economy: Thoroughly taking stock of

China’s Khrushchev’s capitulationism in the socialist transformation of

NOTES TO PAGES 21-3 327 capitalist industry and commerce ’, Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 21 July 1967 (CB 836,

p. 34). The precise dating of the speech is obtained from another quotation from it which appeared in ‘ The black record of quotations from the counterrevolutionary revisionist Liu Shao-ch’i’, Chin Chiin Pao (Advancing Army News), 16 Apr. 1967 (JPRS, No. 41889, 19 July 1967, p. 55). 46 Quoted in Liu Shao-ch’i’s Reactionary Speeches (Peking: The criticise LiuTeng-T’ao liaison station ‘ Red Flag Commune’, Peking Railway Inst., Red Guard Congress, Apr. 1967) (SCMM(S), No. 25, p. 6). 4° The Huaihai campaign of 1948-9 was one of the decisive battles of the Chinese civil war; see Chassin, The Communist Conquest of China, pp. 192-9. Over the centuries, the Huai river valley had been the major battleground when China was divided between hostile northern and southern regimes; see Ch’ao-ting Chi, Key Economic Areas in Chinese History, pp. 104-7.

48 Quoted in Liu Shao-ch’i’s Crimes in carrying out the capitulationist line for transforming the capitalists at the People’s Commercial Centre (Tientsin:

Proletarian Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters of the People’s

Commercial Centre of Tientsin Municipality and the ‘ East is Red ’ Group of Investigation of Liu Shao-ch’i’s crimes, Hopei College of Finance and Economics, June 1967) (SCMM 619, p. 66).

49 Quoted in ‘Thoroughly destroy Liu Shao-ch’i’s counter-revolutionary revisionist line in united front work’, Pa Pa Chan Pao (8 August Fighting

News), 21 Apr. 1967, p. 4, col. 2. A similar quotation, referring to two Deputy Premiers but omitting ‘ named Ch’en ’, appears in SCMM 645, p. 8. 50 Toh & Evans, p. 136. 51 Ibid. A Dane who returned to China on a visit in 1956 with his Chinese wife (some of whose family were still in Peking) reported that the following anec-

dote was going the rounds to illustrate the different methods of Mao, Liu

Shao-ch’i, and Premier Chou En-lai. Mao had asked Liu and Chou how they would make a cat eat pepper: ‘ That’s easy ’, replied Liu Shao-ch’!. . . ‘ You get somebody to hold down the cat, stuff the pepper into its mouth, and push it down with a chopstick.’

‘No, no!’ Mao raised his hands in horror. ‘ Never use force—that is undemocratic. Everything must be voluntary. How would you do it?’ He turned to Chou En-lai.

‘I would starve the cat’, replied the premier...‘ Then I would wrap the pepper with a slice of meat. If the cat is sufficiently hungry it will swallow it whole.’

Again Mao shook his head. ‘ One must not use deceit either’, he said— ‘never fool the people ’. The two others looked questioningly at him. Then what would he do? It was so easy, Mao replied—one rubs the pepper thoroughly into the cat’s backside. When it begins to burn, the cat will lick it off—and be happy that it is permitted to do so (see Karl Eskelund, The Red Mandarins, pp. 150-1. Mr Eskelund’s wife, who had heard the story, used it to explain the enthusiasm for socialist transformation of a Shanghai capitalist who, she suggested, had ‘ eaten his pepper ’. It seems likely that the anecdote was circulating in business circles.

52 For te hostile account of Ch’en Yun’s activities see ‘ Look at Ch’en Yun’s crimes of opposing the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce ’, 7s’ai Mao Hung Ch’i (Finance and Trade Red Flag), 15 Feb. 1967 (SCMP(S), 175, p. 25). For Mao’s endorsement see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 25-6. 53 SCMP 1210, p. 7.

54 SWB/FE/ES 196, p. 1. |

55 Peking Radio, 6 Jan. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 198, p. 12). 58 See the editorial in Commercial Work, 19 Jan. 1956 (SCMP 1226, pp. 16-18). 57 NCNA, 15 Jan. 1956 (SWB/FE 527, pp. 14-15). According to Ch’en Shu-t’ung, in his speech to the CPPCC on 31 January 1956, Peking had accelerated the transformation process by the simple device of getting the businessmen themselves, rather than state officials, to take inventories and assess capital values (CB 377, p. 24).

328 NOTES TO PAGES 23-6 58 Loh & Evans, p. 137. A Swiss writer who was in China at this time reported

that Mao appeared in Shanghai ‘ together with a crowd of marshals’ on

13 January to speed things up (Schmid, The New Face of China, p. 93); but there is no mention of this by Robert Loh who would surely have heard of such a visit. Perhaps the date should have been 13 December; the ‘ crowd of marshals ’ might mean simply the mayor of Shanghai, Ch’en Yi, who was also a marshal. 59 JIMJP, 17 Jan. 1956. 69 Ibid. $1 NCNA, 2 Feb. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 201, p. 9). _

62 At a conference of businessmen and women in March, Ch’en Yun stated that in the case of mistaken mergers ‘ the final responsibility lies with the higherlevel cadres in Peking ’ (quoted in ‘ Down with Ch’en Yun, old hand at opposing Chairman Mao’, Ts’ai Mao Hung Cl’i, 15 Feb. 1967 (SCMP(S) 177, p. 9)).

This was probably a criticism of P’eng Chen and his colleagues in the

municipal party; but it is conceivable that it was a general stricture on party officials, including himself, who had held the responsibility for transformation. Less than a week after he attended the celebratory rally in T’?ien An Men Square, Mao, addressing the CC’s conference on the intellectuals, derided the way in which the Peking party had abdicated leadership by making the capitalists themselves responsible for much of the work of transformation— clearly in the interests of speed (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 30-1; see also n. 57 above). 83 CB 393, p. 14.

64 According to 1954 statistics, Shanghai’s private industry accounted for 41-8%

in terms of value, of the output of all private industry in the country; the Capital invested in its private commerce accounted for 13-9% of all capital invested in private commerce in August 1955 (NCNA, 2 Feb. 1956, in SWB/

FE/ES 201, p. 9). 65 CB 393, p. 19.

66 According to the State Council decision of 8 February (SCMP 1232, p. 16). 6? * Political Report ’, suppl. to People’s China, No. 4, 1956, p. 11. Yet Liu Shaoch’i was pilloried during the cultural revolution for telling the Ministry of Foreign Trade in 1956 to regard the methods of capitalists, specialists, and

foreign as ‘ legacies’ Thoroughly the immeasurable crimes oftraders Liu Shao-ch’i in the Cfield of foreignliquidate trade’, Pei-ching Kung-she (Peking Commune), 27 May 1967, p. 3, cols. 1—2).

68 The decision is trans. in SCMP 1232, pp. 16-18; the quotation comes on p. 17.

If, as the evidence indicates, it was P’eng Chen who took the initiative in

speeding up the transformation programme, the Maoists of the cultural revolution could not acknowledge this as P’eng Chen was one of the principal victims of their purge. Perhaps this is why the ‘ caution’ of Ch’en Yun, who survived the cultural revolution, was not more thoroughly exposed. 89 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 30. 79 See ibid, p. 23. In this connection, Mao used an earthy metaphor: a pregnant woman who had her child after seven months was ‘ leftist ’; if she delayed beyond nine months she was ‘ rightist ’!

Chapter 2: The First ‘ Leap Forward ’ 1 Pol, Docs, p. 118. 2 JMJP, 26 Jan. 1956.

3 Mao told the former French Premier Edgar Faure in 1957: ‘ You have seen

for yourself what sort of state the country is in, and how backward we are.

The task is immense’ (Faure, The Serpent and the Tortoise, p. 28). It seems likely, too, that Mao was the ‘ Very High Official’ who told Edgar Snow in 1960: * China is still a backward country. ... We have enormous difficulties

to overcome before we can call ourselves a forward nation ’ (Snow, The Other Side of the River, p. 15; emphasis in original). = 4 IMJP, 26 Jan. 1956. :

NOTES TO PAGES 26-9 329 5 Pol. Docs, p. 118. Only eight days after the publication of his Preface, Mao was complaining about over-enthusiastic interpretations of this passage from it (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 31). ° By Liu Shao-ch’i in his speech to the second session of the 8th Congress in May 1958 (JM ST 1959, p. 21).

? The official translation reprinted in Pol. Docs, p. 118, omits the key word ‘but ’ (tan-shih). This word is often used as a turning point in Chinese articles to indicate that what follows is the important issue, problem, or policy, taking precedence over what came before even though they seem to be equally ranked. In this case, the ‘ but ’ indicates that ‘ rightist conservatism ’, and not ; rotiempting the impossible ’, is the real problem. id. ® Ibid., p. 129.

10 According to art. 4 of the state constitution, the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic convened an SSC ‘ whenever necessary’ and acted as its chairman (Tang, ii.99), As used by Mao, this ad hoc body was a national forum of top communists and non-communists to which major new policy initiatives could be presented.

11 The process of consultation was described by the Minister of Agriculture, Liao Lu-yen, in his speech explaining the programme to the SSC VUMJP, 26 Jan. 1956). The programme was also discussed at the CC conference on the intellectuals between 14 and 20 January (ibid., 30 Jan. 1956).

I have added details to Liao’s description on the basis of one of Mao’s speeches to the Nanning conference in January 1958. The most important point not mentioned by Liao was that the ‘17 articles’ were preceded by ‘11 articles ’ devised, again according to Mao, in Hangchow. I assume that if the ‘ 11 articles ’ had been, like the ‘ 17 ’, the product of some kind of formal

party meeting, Liao would have mentioned them; I have therefore described the ‘11’ as Mao’s articles and suggest they were drawn up by the Chairman, secluded in his beloved Hangchow, perhaps in consultation with Ch’en Po-ta and one or two other advisers. (For Mao’s account of the formulation of the 12-Year Programme, see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 150; for Mao’s fondness for Hangchow, see below, p. 370 n. 27). 12 JMJP, 26 Jan. 1956. 13 The programme is trans. in Pol. Docs, pp. 119-26. 14 NCNA, 28 Nov. 1955 (SWB/FE/ES 193, p. 11). 15 Various Peking Radio broadcasts in SWB/FE/ES 194, pp. 14-15. 16 A catty is half a kilogram or 1-1 lb; a mou is about a sixth of an acre. 17 NCNA, 3 Jan. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 197, p. 23). 18 Under art. 6 (see Pol. Does, p. 121). 19 Pol, Docs, p. 97. 20 NCNA, 8 Dec. 1955 (SWB/FE/ES 194, pp. 10-11). 21 Peking Radio, 17 Dec. 1955 (SWB/FE/ES 196, p. 26); emphasis added. 22 Under art. 31 (Pol. Docs, p. 125). 23 NCNA, 18 Jan. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 199, p. 11).

24 The 1955 figure was 10:9 million metric tons; see Nai-ruenn Chen, Chinese Economic Statistics, p. 359.

25 According to an estimate by the NCNA, 2 Dec. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 245, p. 14), it was 2 billion catties (1 million metric tons).

26 JMJP, 24 Jan. 1956.

27 The CPPCC was the ‘ organizational form of the people’s democratic united front ’ which was based on a four-class coalition of workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. Till the election of the NPC and the passage of the constitution in 1954, the CPPCC acted as a constituent

assembly and the country’s highest representative body. The small noncommunist political parties accounted for about one-third of its membership (see Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends: the united front in Chinese communist history, pp. 208-10).

28 Chou En-lai, ‘ Political Report ’, suppl. to People’s China, No. 4, 1956, pp.

12-13. 29 In his address to the party’s 8th Congress (JMJP, 1 Oct. 1956).

330 NOTES TO PAGES 29-34 39 Chou, ‘ Political Report ’, p. 9; Ch’en Po-ta in CB 377, pp. 36, 42. 31 Chou, ‘ Political Report’, p. 9. 32 NICNA, 5 Feb. 1956 (SWB/FE/ES 202, p. 6). 33 © The 1956 annual plan must be drawn up well ’, JM/P editorial, 10 Oct. 1955. 34 SWB/FE/ES 197, pp. 3-4. 35 Thid., 176, p. 22. 36 Thid., 196, p. 24. 37 Thid., p. 23.

38 See Nai-ruenn Chen & Galenson, The Chinese Economy under Communism, p. 160, n. 21. 39 Tn his report on the FYP to the 1956 NPC (see CB 393, p. 4). 40 Tn his speech to the 2nd session of the CCP’s 8th Congress in May 1958 (Pol. Docs, p. 425). Li Fu-ch’un was on the defensive on this score in his 1956 NPC speech in which he admitted underestimation of the people’s initiative and a

consequent setting of low targets, but claimed that ‘ throughout the actual

carrying out of the plan, we have never restricted ourselves to the old targets ’ (CB 393, p. 4).

41 See various reports in SWB/FE/ES 197, pp. 4-5, and ES 201, pp. 12-14. 42 Liu Shao-ch’i attributed the slogan—to, k’uai, hao, sheng or yu to, yu k’uai, yu hao, yu sheng—to Mao in his speech to the 2nd session of the 8th Congress in May 1958 (Pol. Docs, p. 426). However, as originally formulated by Mao in his speech to the CC’s 6th plenum in autumn 1955, the slogan comprised only ‘ more, faster, better’ (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 19); it is possible that the ‘ more economical ’ was added at the suggestion of the lanners.

438 NCNA, 10 Mar. 1956 (SCMP 1250, pp. 8-10). 44 * VT aunch socialist emulation drives to fulfil FYP ahead of schedule’, JMJP, 29 Feb. 1956 (SCMP 1246, pp. 8-10). 45 SCMP 1266, p. 8. 46 See Mao’s description of the genesis of this speech in Jerome Ch’en, ed., Mao, p. 66. For a discussion of the speech, see below, ch. 5. 47 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 24. 48 Ibid, p. 34.

Chapter 3. The Thaw Begins 1 For a discussion of the divergence between the theoretical views of the Chinese and the Russians, in the first half of the 1950s, on the role of different classes in the building of socialism, see Schwartz, Communism and China: ideology in flux, pp. 80-9. 2 SWB/FE 516, pp. 15-16; 517, p. 14; 518, p. 26.

3 Chou’s speech was entitled “On the question of the intellectuals ’; it was published in the JMJP, 30 Jan. 1956 and trans. in CB 376 (an official NCNA translation being used for some passages). The CB version was reproduced in Pol. Docs, pp. 128-44. There are a few mistakes in it which should be noted: a sentence is missing at the end of the penultimate para. of p. 129; it has * 45% ° instead of the correct ‘40%’ on p. 130, 4th line from the bottom; ‘ education ’ is used instead of ‘ culture ’ in the 4th and 6th paras. on p. 131;

‘ four units ’ should be ‘ five units ’ in para. 8 on p. 133. 4 Pol. Docs, p. 129. 5 Thid.

6 Tbid., p. 131. According to Chou En-lai, there was ‘ really no definite boundary line between the so-called higher intellectuals and general intellectuals ’. He made it clear that the term * higher intellectuals ’ did not include all graduates

from institutions of higher learning, though presumably most ‘ higher intellectuals ’ would be drawn from the ranks of graduates. A rough definition of the phrase ‘ higher intellectuals ’ would seem to be university lecturers and above and their equivalents in other professions.

7 Thid., pp. 130-1.

NOTES TO PAGES 34-8 331 8 Ibid., p. 138. 9 Ibid., pp. 133-5. 19 Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, 1: Ai-cl’ ii, p. 396. 11 JM JP, 30 Jan. 1956. 12 Tbid., 26 Jan. 1956. (The SSC was publicized before the CC conference on the intellectuals though it was held after it.) 13 See Theodore H. E. Chen, pp. 105-7, 14 During the first half of 1956 provincial and municipal authorities investigated

the situation regarding unemployed intellectuals. A report in the Kuangming Jih-pao, 5 Sept. 1956 (SCMP 1377, pp. 19-20) suggested that the unemployed or mis-employed intellectuals were a small minority. An office to recruit unemployed intellectuals was opened in Shanghai on 1 September and over 6,800 people registered in the first 12 days. Most had been unemployed (SCMP, pp. 4-5). In Peking a similar office was set up and by the time it closed

on 4 October, over 2,900 unemployed intellectuals had been registered and assigned work (ibid. 1396, p. 14). This latter report from NCNA singled out

for mention one T’ang Mao-ju, a Columbia Univ. M.A. who had been

idle for six years. 15 See reports in SWB/FE 548, p. 13; 549, p. 10; 561, p. 17. This drive to recruit intellectuals for the CCP followed a drive to recruit peasants during the collectivization campaign. See various statistics on party membership published on the occasion of the CCP’s 35th anniversary on 1 July 1956, ibid. 575, pp. 13-14. During the cultural revolution Liu Shao-ch’i and An Tzu-wen of the party’s Organization Department were criticized for admitting intellectuals without adequate investigation of their backgrounds. There was apparently resistance at the time to the policy of recruiting among bourgeois intellectuals; An Tzu-wen alleged that it came from ignorant party members who preferred that other party members should also be ignorant. (See San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih (The history of the crimes of the three-anti element, Liu Shao-ch’i) (Peking: Peking Mining Institute’s East is Red ‘ huan hsin tien ’” of the Red Representative Conference, May 1967), p. 31.) 16 See Lindbeck, ‘ The organisation and development of science’, CQ, Apr.—

June, 1961, pp. 98-9. For an account of the difficulties associated with the subsequent Soviet vetting of the plan and the fate of the plan itself, see Klochko, Soviet Scientist in Red China, pp. 6-8. According to Klochko, of the almost 600 scientific and technological projects foreseen in the plan, only

a few barely managed to survive. 17 Suppl. to People’s China, 1 Apr. 1956, p. 5. 18 Pol, Docs, p. 121. 19 See Art. 8 (CB 399, pp. 2-3). 20 Tbid., p. 23. 21 See Art. 11 (3) in suppl. to People’s China, 1 Apr. 1956, p. 5. 22 Pol. Docs, p. 121. 23 Tbid., p. 128. Mao had also listed the suppression of counter-revolution as one

of the CCP’s main achievements a few months earlier. See above p. 18. 24 See Yang Ching, ‘ Why should we absorb former landlords, rich peasants and counter-revolutionaries into the cooperatives ’, Shih-shih Shou-ts’e (Current Events), No. 17, 25 June 1956 (ECMM, No. 49, pp. 31-4). 25 Ibid., p. 32. 26 Thid.

27 See NCNA, 2 Feb. 1956 (SWB/FE 533, p. 19); NCNA, 10 Mar. 1956 (SWB/ FE 543, p. 19); NCNA, 31 Mar. 1956 (SWB/FE 549, p. 14). For an account of the uniformity of clothing in the period just before this new line by a western correspondent who was so appalled by it as to coin a new phrase to describe the Chinese people, see Guillain, The Blue Ants, pp. 104-7. 28 * Liy Shao-ch’i’s counter-revolutionary revisionist utterances on culture and art’, Hung-se Hsuan-ch’uan Ping (Red Propaganda Soldier), No. 4, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, p. 32).

23 The band played Strauss waltzes and two Gershwin tunes. See Croft, Red Carpet to China, p. 111.

332 NOTES TO PAGES 39-41

Chapter 4: The Soviet 20th Congress 1 For an account of the atmosphere in China in the spring of 1956, see Bertram, Return to China. Bertram had been a correspondent in China in the 1930s and his interview with Mao appears in the latter’s selected works. 2 The Polemic, p. 59. The particular polemic from which this quotation comes is called ‘ The origin and development of the differences between the leadership of the CPSU and ourselves ’, by the editorial departments of the People’s Daily and Red Flag, which is dated 6 September 1963. 3 Leonhard, The Kremlin since Stalin, p. 122. 4 In Khrushchev Remembers it is stated only that the decision was taken after

the congress began; see the extract in The Times (London), 14 Dec. 1970. For western analysis suggesting the last-minute nature of the speech, see Rush, The Rise of Khrushchev, pp. 57-8, 60; Conquest, Power and Policy in the USSR, pp. 277-83; Leonhard, pp. 184-7. The Chinese say they criticized the Russians in 1956 for * failure to consult with the fraternal parties in advance ’ (The Polemic, p. 64).

5 For the importance of Mikoyan’s speech see Rush, pp. 50-5, 60-1, 65-70; Conquest, p. 281; and Hudson, ‘ China and the Communist “‘ Thaw ”’, in MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals, pp. 298-9. As Edward Crankshaw points out in a comment on Khrushchev Remembers, the former Soviet leader failed to mention the importance of Mikoyan’s intervention. Instead Khrushchev portrayed himself as spurring the CPSU Presidium into accepting his own proposal for a secret speech. See the extract in The Times, 14 Dec. 1970.

6 Conquest, p. 282. The testament had been known for decades outside the Soviet Union, but had been suppressed by Stalin within the country. See Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 271-2, 283, 296, 302;

also Carr, A History of Soviet Russia, iv: The Interregnum 1923-4, pp. 258-63, 360-1. ? The two texts are trans. in SCMP 1231, pp. 33-7. 8 Tbid., p. 36.

9 Chu arrived on 4 February, Teng on 11 February. 10 See the report by Kenzaburo Seki of a Red Guard wall poster giving the main points of a Chou En-lai speech of 6 Apr. 1967 carried in Yomiuri Shimbun, 14 Apr. 1967. Yet the one quotation cited during the cultural revolution to prove Chu Teh’s agreement with Khrushchev suggests a critical attitude not

towards Stalin but towards Khrushchev himself. Chu called the latter ‘ so stiff-necked (kuo-ying) that he would criticize someone for his error even if he is dead ’. (See ‘ Down with the old swine Chu Teh ’, Tung-fang Hung (The

East is Red), 11 Feb. 1967 in SCMP(S) 172, p. 23). The date of Marshal Chu’s remark is not given; it may well date from the 1960s after the start of the Sino-Soviet dispute. 11 * Down with the old swine Chu Teh ’, Tung-fang Hung, 11 Feb. 1967. 12 Teng reached Peking on 3 March; Chu reached Tiflis on 7 March. 13 JMJP, 10 Mar. 1956.

p.1 .

14 For a summary of events in Georgia, see Keesing’s Archives, x, 1955-6, 15 Neither the NCNA reports carried in the People’s Daily, 10 & 13 March, nor Tass or Moscow Radio (SWB/SU 707, p. 35; 708, pp. 39-40) mentioned a visit to Gori, though both Chinese and Soviet sources do refer to a trip out of Tiflis in the opposite direction to visit the Metallurgical Plant at Rustavi— which only NCNA described as the ‘ Stalin ’ Metallurgical Plant.

16 The article ‘ The origin and development of the differences between the leadership of the CPSU and ourselves ’ lists a number of occasions in 1956 on which Mao told Russians that he disagreed with the conclusions of the 20th Congress. In every case he referred specifically only to the attack on Stalin (The Polemic, p. 64). 1? The principal Chinese attack in 1960 was levelled in the article ‘ Long Live Leninism!’, reprinted in Hudson, Lowenthal, & MacFarquhar, The SinoSoviet Dispute, pp. 82-112. Halpern emphasizes the almost single-minded

NOTES TO PAGES 41-4 333 concern about the Stalin issue in the aftermath of the 20th Congress (Halpern 18 SCMP 1237, p. 27. 19 Thid., 1239, p. 30. 20 There was no indication in cultural revolution material that I have seen of any debate within the Chinese leadership on this issue. 21 Halpern MS.

22 The relevant portions of Khrushchev’s report are contained in Hudson, Lowenthal, & MacFarquhar, pp. 42-6.

23 The Polemic, p. 65.

24It was Nehru’s idea to have China invited. See Kahin, The Asian~African Conference: Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955, p. 2. 25 Thid., pp. 14-15, 31, 37-8. 26 Halpern MS, ch. 4. 27 See Kahin, p. 7. Halpern (MS, ch. 4) sees China’s shift away from its tough

attitude towards independent countries of the third world as being part of a

general if gradual shift of foreign policy attitudes beginning about mid—1951. Harold Hinton, in Communist China in World Politics, p. 27, dates China’s new line towards its Asian neighbours as beginning in 1952. 28 In their confidential ‘ Outline of views on the question of peaceful transition ’

dated 10 Nov. 1957, the Chinese stated: ‘ Nevertheless, we should not tie our own hands because of this desire [for peaceful transition]. The bourgeoisie

will not step down from the stage of history voluntarily. This is a universal law of class struggle. In no country should the proletariat and the Communist Party slacken their preparations for the revolution in any way. They must be prepared at all times to repulse counter-revolutionary attacks and, at the critical juncture of the revolution when the working class is seizing state power, to overthrow the bourgeoisie by armed force if it uses armed force to suppress the people’s revolution (generally speaking, it is inevitable that the bourgeoisie will do so) (The Polemic, pp. 105-6; emphasis added). Later the document reaffirmed the main point: ‘ To the best of our knowledge, there is still not a single country where this possibility [of peaceful transition] is of any practical significance ’ (ibid., p. 106; emphasis added). 29 Peking’s views on peaceful transition, although drawn up in November 1957, were not published until September 1963 (ibid., p. 55). $0 Ibid, p66. The relevant part of Liu’s report is section 1 (see Pol. Docs, 31 The official English trans. is reproduced ibid., pp. 144-51. 32 During one of her interrogations by Red Guards (see CB 848, pp. 16, 22). 33 * The black words of the clown of the masses ’, Hsin-wen Chan-hsien (News

pp. .

Battlefront), No. 4, 13 May 1967, p. 4, col. 1. Hu’s book is called Thirty Years of the Communist Party of China; he and his book were denounced during the cultural] revolution.

34Edear Snow confirmed Mao’s agreement with this article and its sequel ‘More on the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat * published in Dec. 1956. Snow says: ‘I can affirm that Mao Tse-tung was asked in a direct question, what lessons he personally drew from Khrushchev’s speech denouncing the cult of Stalinism. Mao’s reply was that two

articles in the People’s Daily exactly expressed his impressions. The articles were entitled ‘ The historical experience of the Proletariat ’ [sic] ‘ based on’ discussions at enlarged meetings of the Politburo held in April and December 1956 (Snow, Red China Today, p. 331; emphasis added). 35 To the SSC on 27 Feb. 1957; see below Part III. 36 Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956-61, p. 44. 37 Pol, Docs, p. 147. 38 Thid., p. 146.

39 The analysis in this paragraph relies heavily on Zagoria, pp. 43-9. 40 Pol, Docs, p. 148. 41 Mao, HC, iii. 899-904. (The official Peking trans. is in Mao, SW, iii. 117-22.) This volume first appeared in 1953 according to the information supplied at the end of the 1960 edition. Foreign communists with a bent for research

334 NOTES TO PAGES 44-7 could have ascertained Mao’s authorship of the 1943 decision without much difficulty, for an English trans. of this volume was published in 1956 by Lawrence & Wishart of London as Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, iv. (Vol. ii of the Chinese edition, being long, was split into two volumes (ii & iii)

in this English translation; see Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tsetung, p. 312.)

42 Mao became Chairman of the party’s Military Affairs Committee (chungyang chiin wei) at the Tsunyi conference of Jan. 1935. The post of General Secretary was assumed by Chang Wen-t’ien at the same time (Kuo, p. 23). Though Mao was thus not yet the undisputed supreme leader of the party,

communist historians have dated his leadership from this time without

specifying the post he assumed (see Hu, p. 39). The article ‘ On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat ’ stated that Stalinist-style attacks on middle-of-the-roaders occurred in China between 1927 and 1936 (Pol. Docs, pp. 149-50). 43 Pol. Docs, p. 150. 44 Tbid., p. 147. 45 Ibid., pp. 147-8.

46 Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, rev. ed., pp. 84-9. (All subsequent citations from this book refer to the revised edition.) 47 Tbhid., p. 89.

48 Zagoria, p. 45. 49 Pol. Docs, p. 148; this was a quotation from the 1943 document on methods of leadership written by Mao. 50 Thid., p. 149. 51 Thid.

52 Thid., pp. 149-50.

53 The two speeches, together with other major documents of the 1942-4

rectification campaign, are translated in Compton. 54 See Leonhard, pp. 168-9. 558 Ch’en Yi became Foreign Minister in February 1958; he gave up the post of mayor of Shanghai in November 1958 (see URI, Who’s Who, i. 107).

°6 Quoted in ‘ Topple Ch’en Yi, Liberate the foreign affairs system’ in the pamphlet Wen Ko Feng-yun (Cultural Revolution Storm) (Peking: Red Flag Revolutionary Rebel Corps, Peking Foreign Languages Inst., Capital’s Congress of Red Guards, No. 4, 1967) trans. in SCMM 635, p. 12.

57 Ibid., p. 14. 58 Tbid., p. 12.

58 Mao indicated as much in a speech to provincial party leaders in February 1959. See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 276, where Mao refers

to ‘X’ and ‘ Chou’, particularly ‘X’, as being the principal targets for Kao’s attack. ‘X’ can only be Liu (Shao-ch’i) as he would be the only

person senior enough for Mao to list before Chou En-lai, who must surely be the ‘ Chou’ in question. (In this volume, it is normally only survivors of the cultural revolution, like Chou, Lin Piao, and K’ang Sheng, who are named; victims appear as ‘ X ’, ‘ XX’, or ‘ XXX’, presumably because the editors did not want to publicize the fact that Mao spoke well of them at any time.) The resolution of the CCP’s national conference of March 1955 on the Kao Kang affair contained the following passage: ‘ He even tried to instigate party members in the Army to support his conspiracy against the CC of the party. For this purpose he advanced the utterly absurd ‘‘ theory ”’ that our party consisted of two parties—a so-called ‘* party of the revolutionary bases and the Army ” and a so-called “‘ party of white areas ’’—and that the party was created by the Army. He claimed himself as the representative of the so-called ‘* party of the revolutionary bases and the Army ” and should hold the major authority, that the CC of the party and the government should therefore be reorganized in accordance with his plan and that he himself should, for the time being, be General Secretary or Vice-chairman of the CC of the party and the Premier of the State Council ’ (SWB/FE 446, p. 13). Both Liu and Chou qualified as ‘ White area ’ men; Liu had been in charge

NOTES TO PAGES 47-8 335 of underground work in Nationalist and Japanese-held areas; Chou had

worked as chief liaison official at the Nationalist wartime headquarters. 6° Chou Yang, for example, was attacked for instructing dramatists to moderate their praises of Mao; see ‘ Proof of Chou Yang’s mad crime of opposing Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line for literature and the arts ’, Chin Chiin Pao, 6 May 1967, p. 2, col. 1. 61 Mao’s speech to music workers is reproduced in Mao Chu-hsi-ti ko-ming wen-yi lu-hsien sheng-li wan sui (Long live the victory of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line for literature and the arts) (Peking: Peking Film Factory Revolution and Rebellion Liaison Headquarters, July 1967), pp. 6-9; see p. 7. 62 See the report and pictures of the celebrations in the JMJP, 2 May 1956. 63 See Eskelund, p. 29, where he reports drinking in an old people’s home under the ‘ usual’ portraits of Mao Tse-tung and Stalin. See also Cameron, The Chinese Smile, pp. 50-1, where he describes the ‘ adulation ’ of Mao on May Day 1957; and p. 219, where he reports that members of the Tai minority whom he met called the electricity from a newly-built power station * the light from Chairman Mao ’. That this kind of imagery was not peculiar to the Tais of China is illustrated by the following passage from a short story by the Nobel Prize-winning Soviet author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: * The village had electric light, laid on back in the "twenties, from Shatury. The newspapers were writing about “‘ Ilyich’s [i.e. Lenin’s] little lamps ”’, but the peasants talked wide-eyed about “‘ Tsar Fire’’?’ (‘ Matryona’s Home’, trans. by H. T. Willetts, Encounter, May 1963, p. 30). 64 Quoted in Liu Shao-ch’i’s crimes in carrying out the capitulationist line for transforming the capitalists at the People’s Commercial Centre (SCMM 619, p. 61). No date is given for the comment but it sounds as if it would have been made in the aftermath of the 20th Congress; moreover it is quoted in conjunction with Liu Shao-ch’i’s comments on the 20th Congress made in

his speech to the CCP’s 8th Congress on 15 September 1956. Another

capitalist is quoted in the same context as saying: ‘ The posters of the Hsinhua

Book Store propagate the thought of Mao Tse-tung. This is the cult of the individual ’ (ibid.). 65 The Polemic, p. 64. 66 Mao’s speech has never been officially published. The first official mention of

its having been made appears to be in Liu Shao-ch’i’s report to the 2nd

session of the CCP’s 8th Congress in May 1958 in which he stated what the

ten relationships were and summed up their importance (see Pol. Docs,

p. 426). A text, based on notes taken when Mao delivered the speech, became

available in the West during the cultural revolution. It was included in an

untitled collection of statements by Mao (no publisher, no date but seemingly authentic; hereafter Mao, Untitled Collection). This text was first translated in Jerome Ch’en, ed., Mao, pp. 65-85, Later

it was translated, along with the other items in the collection, in CB 892,

pp. 21-34. This particular speech was said to have been printed and reprinted at the Peking College of Economics in December 1966, apparently from a text distributed to local party committees by the CC in late December 1965. The date of the speech in this collection is given simply as April 1956. It was given the more precise date of 25 April in the collection of ‘ Chairman Mao’s

important instructions on literary and art work since the publication of

‘“* Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art *’ (1942-67)’, Wen Yi Hung Ch’i, No. 5, 30 May 1967 (SCMP 4000, p. 16). (See also Parris H. Chang, ‘ Research notes on the changing loci of decision in the CCP’, CQ, Oct.~Dec. 1970, p. 185, who gives Hsin Chien-she (New Construction), No. 6, 1960, p. 4, as his source for the 25 April date.)

67 According to Liu Shao-ch’i, at the 2nd session of the 8th Congress (Pol. Docs, p. 426). It is not clear what the relationship of this meeting was to the Conference of Secretaries of Provincial and Municipal Committees, held from 25-28 Apr., mentioned by Teng Hsiao-p’ing in his report to the Ist session of the 8th Congress (8th National Congress, i. 197). It would be unusual for the same meeting to be designated by two different titles. But

336 NOTES TO PAGES 48-52 since the meeting Mao addressed was described as an ‘ expanded ° Politburo conference, possibly some of the provincial secretaries attended it, especially in view of Mao’s discussion of the correct relationship between the central

and local authorities (relationship 5). The fact that the two meetings both met on 25 April would not invalidate this hypothesis; Mao could have addressed the Politburo conference in the morning and the secretaries’

conference could have opened in the afternoon. 68 7 iu told the 2nd session of the 8th Congress: ‘ The remaining items (relationships 6-10) centred mainly around the view of correctly handling contradic-

tions among the people, a view which was later elaborated’ (Pol. Docs, p. 426). In April 1957 T’ao Chu told Kwangtung cadres that Mao first raised the problem of internal contradictions in April 1956 (see Nan-fang

Jih-pao (Southern Daily), 4 May 1957).

6° The five relationships were: (6) the relationship between the Hans (i.e. Chinese proper) and minority nationalities; (7) that between the party and non-party people; (8) that between revolution and counter-revolution; (9) that between right and wrong; and (10) that between China and foreign countries (Ch’en, Mao, pp. 66—7). 70 Ibid., p. 77. 71 See Van Slyke, pp. 190-210. 72 Ibid., p. 210.

?3 When Stalin proclaimed the complete victory of socialism in the USSR in 1936, he stated this meant that all exploiting classes had been eliminated, leaving only the working class, the peasant class, and the intelligentsia (see Stalin, Leninism, pp. 564-5).

74 Ch’en, Mao, p. 77. Mao’s use of the word ‘ all’ suggests that he expected that the democratic parties would survive as long as the CCP. 75 Pol. Docs, p. 188. 76 Ch’en, Mao, p. 78. ?7 Thid., pp. 78-82. 78 Thid., pp. 76—7. Ch’en uses the term ‘ pan-Hanism ’ to translate ta Han-tsuchu-i, which is normally translated ‘ great Han chauvinism ’. 79 Tbid., pp. 82-5.

89 For a discussion of the council meeting and the possible influence on it of Soviet literary developments, see Fokkema, Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence, 1956-60, pp. 59-67, 70-81. 81 Longish extracts from Liu’s directive are given in ‘ Liu Shao-ch’i’s counterrevolutionary revisionist utterances on culture and art’, Hung-se Hsuanch’uan Ping, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, pp. 27-8). 82 Tbid., p. 27. 83 Ibid., p. 28.

84 Mao apparently played the dominant role in such early literary struggles as the attack on the film * The Life of Wu Hsun ’ in 1951, the attack on a critical work on the classical Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber in 1954, and the denunciation of Hu Feng in 1955. See the speech by Ch’i Pen-yu on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Mao’s Yenan talks on literature and

art, NCNA, 24 May 1967 (SCMP 3949, p. 6). For a discussion of those

struggles, see Theodore H. E. Chen, pp. 38-42, 81-3, 85-90; Merle Goldman, Literary Dissent in Communist China, pp. 91-3, 115-19, 129-57. 85 The festival lasted from 1 March to 5 April (see Fokkema, pp. 67-70). 8° Hung-se Hsuan-ch’uan Ping, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, pp. 28-30). Liu’s instruction seems to have been reflected at the National Drama Repertoire Work Conference (see Fokkema, p. 70). For Chinese versions of portions of Liu’s directives of 5 and 8 March see also ‘ 100 examples of Liu Shao-ch’i’s black line for literature and the arts, opposing Mao Tse-tung’s thought and promoting counter-revolutionary revisionism’, in Mao Tse-tung-chu-i Chan Pao (Fighting Paper of Maoism), May (1st ten days) 1967, pp. 3-6, Nos. 33-5, 38, 40-1, 45, 51, 54, 61-2, 69-71, 73-4, 76-7. Nos. 33, 35, 40 are from the 5 March directives, the rest from the 8 March one. Long quotations from the

8 March directive can also be found in ‘ Thoroughly eliminate the chief

NOTES TO PAGES 52-5 337 originator of the counter-revolutionary revisionist black line in literature and the Shao-ch’i’, Wen-hua Feng-lei (Cultural Storm), 5 Apr. 1967, pp. arts—Liu 3-4. 87 * Raise high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought, thoroughly root out the black line for literature and art of the “‘ August 1 ”’ factory ’, Tien-ying Ko-ming (Cinema Revolution), 16 May 1967, p. 4, col. 2. This source assigns this remark to a speech at a symposium on literature and art in March without giving a date. A precise date for such a symposium is given in the source cited in the next footnote, and I have assumed that there was only one such symposium in March 1956. 88 Chou Yang was referring particularly to drama here. See ‘ Look how Liu Shao-ch’i, P’eng Chen, and Chou Yang have opposed the reform of Peking Opera ’, Hung-se P’i-p’an-che (Red Critic), 24 May 1967, p. 4, col. 4. 89 For a discussion of the origins and development of this slogan see Li Chi, The Use of Figurative Language in Communist China, No. 5, Dec. 1958, pp. 32-7. Miss Li says that Mao coined the slogan in 1951, but gives no source for this dating. A cultural revolution collection of Mao’s statements (Mao Chu-hsi lun wen-yi yii-lu (The Sayings of Chairman Mao on Literature and Art (Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Drama ‘ Revolution Tower ’ Editorial

Board, n.d.; hereafter referred to as Mao... lun wen-yi), p. 94) includes

this slogan and gives the Tientsin Jih-pao, 26 Sept. 1952, as its source. 90 Chou Yang stated this in a talk on 1 August 1956 to the Literature Study Office of the Writers’ Union. See ‘ Proof of Chou Yang’s crime of ferociously

opposing Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line for literature and art’, Chin

Chiin Pao, 6 May 1967, p. 3, col. 1. 91 The ch’un-ch’iu, or spring and autumn period, is conventionally dated B.c.

722-481, and the warring states period s.c. 403-221. See Reischauer & Fairbank, East Asia: the great tradition, p. 54. This was the time before Confucianism became the official state doctrine when a large number of

schools of philosophy flourished (ibid., pp. 69-84). 92 Hung-se Hsuan-ch’uan Ping, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, p. 31). Presumably Liu and other leaders were deputed to explain the flowers and schools policy to selected groups.

°3 The editor of this collection of Liu utterances alleged that Liu had devious motives in making this statement. Another Maoist editor excerpted what was clearly the same passage in a manner designed to make the indictment even more damning. In ‘ Thoroughly criticise and overthrow the head boss of the black line in literature and art °’, Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 10 May 1967 GCMP 3952, p. 8), the passage simply reads: * The letting of one hundred schools of thought contend came into being during the period of the Warring States... Chairman Mao has only summed it up and elevated it.’ Liu’s possible motives

for chipping away at Mao will be discussed in Part II. For Mao on the origins p. 38. of the hundred schools, see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969),

94 Hung-se Hsuan-ch’uan Ping, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, p. 31). Liu concen-

trated on the hundred schools side of the policy presumably because it was

more relevant to history students. Later in the year Chou Yang told an editorial conference of the magazine Wen-hsueh (Literature) that the object of ‘ Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend ’ was to

break away from dogmatism in thought and administrative methods in organization (Chin Chiin Pao, 6 May 1967, p. 3, col. 1).

°5 Lu Ting-yi’s speech was published, after revisions, in the JMJP, 13 June

1956. The official trans. is reprinted in Pol. Docs, pp. 151-63. 96 He meant scientists in the widest sense of the term, not just natural scientists. 97 Pol. Docs, pp. 153-4. 98 For the cultural revolution attack on these four factors, see App. 1. °9 Pol. Docs, p. 156; Mao’s speech was ‘ Rectify the party’s style of work ’. In

a was2more pp. . concerned with intra-party sectarianism (see Compton,

100 Po], Docs, p. 157. At a meeting of the CC’s Propaganda Department on 14 May, at which Lu Ting-yi had presumably outlined what he was going to

338 NOTES TO PAGES 55-60 say in public later in the month, he stated: ‘ Restriction must be done away with in the matter of themes. There may be ancient and modern themes, Chinese and foreign themes. Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend ...In the sphere of literature and art, there is only one rule and that is ‘ to serve the workers, peasants and soldiers ’. Other rules, such “‘ themes portraying the workers, peasants and soldiers ’’, must

be shattered’ (quoted in ‘Completely smash the counter-revolutionary revisionist black line in literature and art’, Wan Shan Hung-p’ien (All Mountains are Red), No. 1, Apr. 1967 (SCMM(S) 33, p. 5). Apart from his

use of the strong verb ‘shatter’, there was nothing to differentiate this

presentation of the question of themes from what Lu Ting-yi said in public. 101 Po], Docs, p. 158. 102 See Leonhard, pp. 127-30. 103 The three speeches were: ‘ Reform our study ’; ‘ Rectify the party’s style of work ’; and ‘ Oppose party jargon ’ (Mao, HC, iii. 795-803, 813-30, 831-47;

SW, iii. 17-25, 35-51, 53-68; they are also trans. in Compton, pp. 59-68, 932, 33-53).

104 Po], Docs, p. 160.

105 See Ch’iang Hsiao-ch’u, ‘ Foster the party’s experience of the study of rectification ’, JMJP, 17 Feb. 1957.

Chapter 5: Mao Against the Planners 1 Ch’en, Mao, p. 66. 2 Conquest, p. 258. 3 Po I-po worked under Liu Shao-ch’i in north China in the 1930s. For a hostile

account of their relationship going back to those days, see ‘ Strike down

China’s Khrushchev, the big boss of the renegade clique—Liu Shao-ch’i; the inside story of the renegade clique of Liu Shao-ch’i, An Tzu-wen, and Po I-po’, Ch’e-ti Mai-tsang Liu Shao-ch’i P’an-t’u Chi-t’uan (Bury Completely Liu Shao-ch’i’s Renegade Clique) (Tientsin: Tientsin City Workers, Peasants, Students and Cadres’ Congress’ Liaison Station for Criticizing Liu, Teng and T’ao, 17 Apr. 1967), pp. 11-21. 4 This was in 1960: see ‘ Down with “‘ three-anti ’’ element and big renegade Po I-po, sinister despot on the industrial and communications front’, Tungfang Hung, 15 Feb. 1967 (CB 878, p. 7). 5 Po was Minister of Finance from 1949 to 1953, Chairman of the State Construction Commission from 1954 to 1956, and Chairman of the State Economic Commission from 1956 till the cultural revolution. 8 CB 407, pp. 5-6.

2 p. Ciren, 66. Mao, p. 66. Provincial officials were consulted on wages; see above 8 Mao admitted this in a speech to the CC’s 8th plenum in August 1959 (see Case of Peng Teh-huai, p. 25) and also in his speech to the 7,000 cadres conference in January 1962 (see Mao Chu-hsi Wen Hsuan (Chairman Mao’s Selected Writings), p. 72). ®* Urgent tasks of enterprise leaders °, trans. in SCMP 1266, pp. 7-10.

10pp. improve /-7). quality, increase variety ’, JMJP editorial, 16 Mar. (SCMP 1258, 11 Trans. SCMP 1259, pp. 3-5. 12 The directive is trans. in SCMP 1268, pp. 3-7. This quotation appears on p. 3. 13 SCMP 1273, p. 8. 14 See the JMJP editorial of 16 Mar. 1956 (SCMP 1258, pp. 7-9). A similar accusation was levelled against officials who failed to translate the advanced producers’ movement into a mass movement in a JM JP editorial of 30 Mar. (SCMP 1274, pp. 7-9). 15 SCMP 1282, p. 13. Liu also mentioned approvingly the slogan ‘ More, faster, better, and more economically ’; but he placed ‘ better ’ before ‘ faster ’ which looks like an attempt to stress the importance of quality. However, I have found no other example of this slogan being altered in this way, even by men

NOTES TO PAGES 60-5 339 who were clearly in opposition to the 1956 ‘ leap ’, and am unable to offer any

conclusive explanation of this change of order, assuming it was not just a printing error by the Chinese press (ibid.). 16 JM JP, 8 May 1956. 1% Quoted in ‘ Thoroughly settle the account of Ch’en Yun’s heaven-shaking crimes against Chairman Mao ’, Pei-ching Kung-she, 14 Mar. 1967, p. 2. [am grateful to Mr Charles Neuhauser for allowing me to use a translation he has had made of this article for a documentary volume he is preparing. 18 Ch’en, Mao, pp. 65-76. 191i Fu-ch’un’s report on the Ist FYP, made to the NPC on 5 and 6 July 1955, is in Pol. Docs, pp. 42-91. The discussion of the ratio question 1s onreproduced p. 59, 20 See Conquest, pp. 249-56; Leonhard, pp. 79-92. 21 Ch’en, Mao, p. 67. 22 Ibid., p. 68. To judge from the accounts in Conquest and Leonhard, Malenkov did not use this argument to justify his consumer goods policy in 1953-4. Perhaps he felt that with heavy industry as well developed as it was in the Soviet Union, the justification of consumer need was sufficient. But interest-

ingly Lenin used the same type of argument at the beginning of the New Economic Policy designed to restore the Soviet economy after the destruction of the civil war. Defending NEP against allegations that it would undermine large-scale industry, Lenin said that the latter could not be revived without

more abundant supplies of goods and raw materials; these could only be obtained by a process of exchange; and encouraging the development of small industry was the way to get this started. He went on: ‘ In order seriously and systematically to pass over to the revival of this large-scale industry, we need a revival of small industry.’ Lenin’s context was different, but perhaps Mao, or more likely Ch’en Po-ta, had noted the way in which the Soviet leader had turned the tables on critics by asserting that if you were serious about industry you had to adopt a pro-consumer policy. Ultimately, what both were saying

was: What’s good for the consumer is good for heavy industry. (Lenin’s emphasis on ‘small’ consumer goods industries was occasioned by the fact that large-scale light industry had been as devasted by war and civil war as

heavy industry.) (Carr, History of Soviet Russia, ii: The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-23, pp. 297-9.) 23 CB 393, p. 6. 24 Tbid., p. 5; JMJP, 19 June 1956.

25 CB 393, pp. 5-6. Po I-po, Chairman of the State Economic Commission, announced in 1957 that investment in light industry in 1958 would have to be

reduced due to the shortage of agricultural raw materials. (Referred to in Choh-ming Li, Economic Development of Communist China, p. 49 n.48.) 26 This qualification might indicate that Li Fu-ch’un had obtained agreement that if the production drive slowed down, the alteration of the investment ratios

could be reconsidered. The passage quoted is omitted in the translation in

CB 393, p. 6 (see JMJP, 19 June 1956); so too is the reference to ‘ this year and next ’, which suggests that the alteration was on trial and that no commitment had been made for the 2nd FYP. (Cf. previous footnote.)

27“ Why is the proportion of light industry investments increased?’, JMJP editorial, 9 July 1956 trans. in SCMP 1334, pp. 7-9; however, there the passage quoted starts with the words ‘ It might be asked . . .” which loses the

ey assertion in the original that ‘ There are people who ask’... (yu jen: wen). 28 Pol. Docs, p. 60. 29 Ch’en, Mao, p. 69. 39 Ibid., p. 70.

31 CB 393, p. 7. Mao’s extra provinces were the inland ones, Anhwei, East 3 Honan, id. and Kwangsi. His missing municipality was Tientsin. 33 The original quotes are to be found in the text of the plan in JMST 1956, pp. 16, col. 1 and 19, col. 2. The CB 393, p. 7, trans. of Li’s June 1956 speech gives these quotations as reported speech.

340 NOTES TO PAGES 65-9 34 CB 393, pp. 7-8. 35 JMJP, 19 June 1956. The trans. in CB 393 (p. 9, line 3) misses the distinction by giving ‘ renovation and expansion ’ as the translation of Li’s general heading kai-chien, For the Chinese source for Mao’s remarks, see p. 335 n. 66. 36 JMJP, 8 July 1956. 37 Ibid., 19 June 1956. The CB 393 version translates the end of this passage to

read: ‘...and there were no active measures taken to plan and utilise...’

which would have been a far more damaging admission. 38 JMJP, 8 July 1956. The publication of an editorial on the location of industry followed by an editorial the next day on the ratio of investment in heavy and light industry (see above, p. 63) suggests that there may have been a top-level meeting early in July to settle these and other issues. Another occurrence which supports this hypothesis is that on 6 July (/MJP, 7 July), the NCNA

announced the date on which the 8th Congress would meet. Further, on 6 July the JMJP had an editorial on yet another issue connected with Mao’s speech on the ten great relationships—wage reform (relationship four).

397 deal with Mao’s third relationship, that between defence and economic

development, below. 40] have translated this from the original collection of Mao statements (Untitled Collection, p. 22). 41 Thid, p. 23. 42 CB 393, pp. 9-12.

48 NCNA announced on 14 April 1956 that a national conference on wage reform had recommended an increase (SWB/FE/ES 212, pp. 17-18). An

editorial in the JMJP, 7 July 1956 said that the State Council had promulgated its regulations on wage reform ‘ (A)fter a considerably long period of preparations ’ (SCMP 1331, p. 4). It is possible that this was an insinuation that the planners had been excessively cautious on this issue. 44 Actually the increase was 13% if new workers inducted in 1956 were included.

Mao’s speech is in SWB/FE Suppl.: Third Session of the Chinese NPC,

No. 5, pp. 21-8. 45 See for instance the editorial in the JMJP, 26 June 1956. 46 On the Poznan riot, see Zinner, ed., National Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe, pp. 126-42. tg Ch’en, id., p.Mao, 77. pp. 75-6. (I have made a slight alteration in the translation.) 49 Pol. Docs, p. 190. 50 Ibid., p. 235. 51 Ch’en Mao, p. 71. 52 Audrey Donnithorne has concluded on the basis of various pieces of evidence that the decision to go nuclear was taken in the first half of 1956, perhaps after Mao’s speech but before the publication of the budget in June. I am grateful

subject.

to Miss Donnithorne for letting me consult her unpublished paper on this

53 See Halperin, China and the Bomb, p. 72. 54 p. The Chinese position is quoted in Gittings, Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 105. 55 Quoted in Case of Peng Teh-huai, p. 175.

56 P’eng Teh-huai attended the commemorative ceremony of the 30th ‘anniversary of Lenin’s death held in Peking on 21 January 1954. I have been unable to find any record of his presence in the Chinese capital over the

previous year; in particular, he did not attend the 1953 1 October celebrations, nor was he on hand when a Korean government delegation visited China in November 1953. He would therefore seem to have returned to Peking sometime in December or January. 57 See Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army, pp. 24, 120. 58 See Joffe, Party and Army: professionalism and political control in the Chinese officer corps, 1949-64, p. 12. 59 Gittings, Role of Chinese Army, pp. 120-1. 60 Khrushchev was to develop similar views. See Kolkowicz, The Soviet Military and the Communist Party, pp. 150-3, for.a discussion of Khrushchev’s speech

NOTES TO PAGES 69-74 341 of 14 January 1960, in which the Soviet leader proclaimed his desire to rely more on nuclear weapons and to reduce conventional forces in order to divert resources to economic development. 61 See Halpern MS, ch. 4 for an analysis of why the Chinese launched their ‘liberate Taiwan ’ campaign in mid-1954, a campaign that contrasted sharply with their generally moderate posture in foreign policy at the time.

62 For a chart showing the ups and downs of the (visible) defence budget, see Halperin & Perkins, Communist China and Arms Control, p. 37. 63 JMST 1956, p. 163, col. 2. 64 CB 337, p. 6. 65 The official conferment of ranks, part of the remodelling of the PLA on Soviet lines, did not take place until later in 1955, but the seniority of men like Liu Po-ch’eng would have been known to all NPC delegates. 66 CB 347, p. 26. 67 See Mackintosh, Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 107-11. 68 CB 347, p. 29. 69 Ibid., p. 30. 70 JMST 1956, p. 186, col. 1. 71 Thid., p. 187, col. 1. 72 CB 347, p. 30. 73 Ibid. 74 Tbid., p. 27. 78 JMST 1956, p. 176, col. 2.

76 CB 337, p. 3. Marshal P’eng Teh-huai seems to have been prepared to accept that some of the financial savings expected to accrue from the introduction of conscription and the reduction of ‘ an over-sized peace-time standing army ’ (ibid.) should go to economic development (ibid., p. 4). But he clearly regarded

the conscription bill he was introducing as primarily designed to allow the

PLA to modernize itself (ibid., p. 3). Both Liu Po-ch’eng and Yeh Chien-ying

strongly supported the conscription bill, which presumably meant they supported the reduction in the size of the armed forces that it would bring about; and in view of this and of the remarks made by P’eng and quoted above, I doubt that he was any less concerned than his military colleagues to

ensure the modernization of the forces and to defend the military budget against encroachment. For a contrary view see Hsieh, Communist China’s Strategy in the Nuclear Era, pp. 36-43. 77 Pol, Does, p. 47.

78 Chou En-lai revealed this publicly in his report to the 8th Congress on the 2nd FYP (Pol. Docs, p. 226). Mao also mentioned the figure of 32% as being the proportion spent on ‘ chiin cheng’ expenditure during the 1st FYP period (Mao, Untitled Collection, p. 22). In Ch’en, Mao, p. 72, chiin cheng is translated ‘ defence ’; but the phrase is also used by the Chinese to mean ‘ military and administrative ’ and in view of the correspondence between Mao’s figure and Chou’s it seems likely that the latter is the correct translation. (In CB 892, p. 25, chiin cheng is translated ‘ military and government ’.) 78 Pol. Docs, p. 87. 89 Ibid., pp. 89-90. 81 In 1955 the Eisenhower administration ordered a cut in the armed services by 100,000 men; I assume that this was what Mao was referring to in his speech

to the CC’s conference on the intellectuals on 20 January (Mao Tse-tung

ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 33). For Chou’s remarks see Suppl. to People’s China, No. 4, 1956, p. 8.

82 Ibid.

7 SWB/FE Suppl. : Third session of the Chinese NPC, No. 5, 5 July 1956, p. 5. id., p. 14. 85 The marshals were two ranks senior to this particular general. As already pointed out, no military ranks were conferred until after the 1955 NPC, but the seniority of P’eng Teh-huai, Liu Po-ch’eng, and Yeh Chien-ying would have been known. 86 In the original text of Mao’s ten great relationships speech, on p. 22 of the untitled collection of Mao items, he is quoted as calling for a reduction of

342 NOTES TO PAGES 74-5 military and administrative expenditures to 30% of the budget. In view of the

fact that they were only 32% in the Ist FYP, this seems far too paltry a

demand. Probably the text is incorrect and the figure should have been 20%, which was the percentage advocated by Chou En-lai for the 2nd FYP at the 8th Congress five months later (Pol. Docs, p. 226). 87 See ‘Record of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s reactionary utterances’, How Vicious They Are! (Peking: Liaison Post for Criticizing Liu, Teng and T’ao, ‘ Red Flag

Commune’ of Peking Railways Inst., Red Guard Congress, April 1967) in SCMP(S) 208, p. 1, where Teng Hsiao-p’ing is quoted as saying: * Everyone has subjectivism and so has Chairman Mao. Even when everyone disagreed with his swimming (in the Yangtse River), he insisted on doing it.’ It should perhaps be added that this swim did not have and was not meant to have the political significance of the one Mao made ten years later as the cultural revolution got under way. The 1966 swim was clearly designed to demonstrate Mao’s health and prove his fitness to resume direct command of the nation’s affairs; there was no need for any such demonstration in 1956, 88 A description of Mao’s swims was carried in Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien Pao (Chinese Youth Newspaper) on 17 May 1957 (the anniversary of the first swim ?) (see SCMP 1958, pp. 6-9). This revealed that on the first swim Mao covered just over 20 km. in two hours between Wuchang and Hankow; in early June he swam over 12 km. from Hanyang to Wuchang. Both swims were downstream with the current. In 1956 Mao also swam the Hsiang River when visiting Changsha, the capital of his native province of Hunan, according toa

Hong Kong report (see SCMP 1484, p. 13). For Mao’s early interest in

physical exercise, see Schram, pp. 152-60; also Snow, Red Star over China, p. 145. In Khrushchev Remembers (pp. 467-70) an account is given of conversation between Mao and the former Soviet leader beside a swimming pool. 89 This translation of the poem, which was dated May 1956, is by Jerome Ch’en and Michael Bullock in Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution, p. 346. Mao’s

second and third swims took him through the props of the Yangtse bridge

(SCMP 1548, p. 8).

Chapter 6. The Thaw Spreads 1* The black words of the clown of the masses ’, Hsin-wen Chan Hsien, No. 4, 13 May 1967, p. 4, col. 1.

2 The dating of the directives is given in the NCNA English version of ‘ Carry the great revolution on the front of journalism through to the end—repudiate the counter-revolutionary revisionist line on journalism of China’s Khrushchev’ (Red Flag, No. 2, 25 Aug. 1968), which is reprinted in SCMP 4253, pp. 17—31, footnotes (12), (13), (16)-(19), (22), (23); and in ‘ Liu Shao-ch’i’s

counter-revolutionary revisionist utterances on culture and art’, Hung-se

Hsuan-ch’uan Ping, 10 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 205, pp. 31-3).

3 Sources for Liu’s directives, other than the two cited in the last footnote, include ‘ Liu Shao-ch’i is guilty of heinous crime of staging counter-revolutionary seizure of power three times in our country’s journalistic circles ’, Jen-ta San Hung, 11 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 201, p. 28); ‘ A hundred examples of Liu Shao-ch’i’s black line for literature and the arts of opposing Mao Tse-tung’s thought and promoting counter-revolutionary revisionism ’, Mao Tse-tung-chu-i Chan Pao, May (Ast 10 days), 1967, pp. 3-6, Nos. 23-6, 39, 52, 63-6, 75, 78, 82. CNos. 52, 75, & 82 are incorrectly dated May 1955; comparison with quotations from the directive of 28 May 1956 given in SCMP(S) 201 & 205 reveal this); ‘ The confession of Wu Leng-hsi ’, Hung-se

Hsin Hua (Red New China), No. 43, May 1968, trans. & annotated by Dr Parris H. Chang in CLG, Winter 1969-70, pp. 68-71. * Red Flag, No. 2, 25 Aug. 1968, p. 11. This was the phraseology used by Liu in his directive of 28 May. When he returned to the subject in his directive of 19 June he used the terms kuan pan (officially run) and min pan (run by the people). (See Mao Tse-tung-chu-i Chan Pao, \oc. cit., No. 64; the quotation is not dated in this source, but part of it is reproduced in Red Flag, loc. cit.,

NOTES TO PAGES 75-8 343 where it is dated.) Mao Tse-tung was to make an equally radical suggestion in April 1957 when he proposed that each province should have a non-party _ paper published in competition with the party one; see above, p. 217. 5 Mao Tse-tung-chu-i Chan Pao, No. 64; Red Flag, loc. cit. 6 This is my reading of the second quotation on p. 32 of SCMP(S) 205. ’ Ibid., p. 32, Ist, 2nd, and Jast quotations; p. 33, Ist quotation. 8 According to Wu Leng-hsi, Liu’s audience consisted of himself (the director of NCNA), one of his deputies, Chu Mu-chih, and Hu Ch’iao-mu (CLG, Winter 1969-70, p. 68). 3 SCMP(S) 205, p. 31, quotations 2 & 3. It is worth noting that the policy of reprinting attacks on China made abroad was followed by the Chinese during the Sino-Soviet polemics of the 1960s. 10 Thid., last quotation. 11 Tbid., penultimate quotation. 12 CLG, Winter 1969-70, p. 69. The change in the state of Sino—Soviet relations

between the time of Liu’s instructions and the time of Wu Leng-hsi’s confession over ten years later, involved the former NCNA director in some

tortuous reasoning. Liu Shao-ch’i had opposed Tass’s dogmatism and advocated the study of the methods of western news agencies; but by the time he made his confession, Wu Leng-hsi felt compelled to say that already in 1956 Tass had become revisionist ‘ having learned from the experiences of the 13 Western imperialist news agencies ’ (ibid.). id.

14 Ibid., p. 71. This trip was not publicized, but Dr Chang confirmed with iP Reuter id,, p.that 71. Wu Leng-hsi had visited them that year (ibid., p. 81 n. h). 16 Mao stated this in his speech on the correct handling of contradictions among the people on 27 February 1957 according to the version obtained in Poland by Sidney Gruson and published in the NYT, 13 June 1957. Mao excised this remark for the revised version of his speech which was published in a completely different political atmosphere in June 1957 (see below, Part IV). In January 1957 Mao had explained this proposal to party officials in forthright terms: ‘ Many people hate Chiang Kai-shek, but most don’t know what kind of a bastard (wang pa tan) he is; so we must publish his collected works, as well as those of Sun Yat-sen and K’ang Yu-wei’ (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 85). But it seems likely that he did not convince all his audience; at any rate he later told the SSC that there were people who opposed this suggestion of his (ibid., p. 95). 17 Mao talked about the founding of this paper to provincial party officials in January 1957 and on 1 March told the Supreme State Conference that it was planned to expand it from an edition of 2,000 copies to 300,000 (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969) pp. 86, 95. The second reference comes from his summing up speech at the SSC which is incorrectly dated 2 March 1957; the SSC ended on 1 March). When the present author visited China in the autumn of 1972, he was told that the Ts’an-k’ao Hsiao-hsi had a circulation of 6 million

(see MacFarquhar, ‘A visit to the Chinese press’, CQ. Jan.-Mar. 1973, p. 148 n. 7). For a full account of the paper, see Henry G. Schwartz, ‘ The Ts’an-k’ao Hsiao-hsi: How well informed are Chinese officials about the outside world ?’, CO, July-Sept. 1966, pp. 54-83; esp. p. 57 (for a calculation that the paper first appeared in November 1956) and p. 78 (for a comparison of “ extent of use of non-communist sources in this paper and in the open press).

18 Mao Chu-hsi-ti ko-ming wen-yi lu-hsien sheng-li wan sui, pp. 6-9. 19 CLG, winter 1969-70, p. 69. 209 Trans. in SCMP 1328, p. 3. 21 Thid., pp. 3-4. 22¢°Tiu Shao-ch’i is guilty of heinous crime of staging counter-revolutionary seizure of power three times in our country’s journalistic circles ’, Jen Ta San Hung, 11 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 201, pp. 28-9). 23 Thid., p. 28. 24 Leonhard, pp. 195-6, 202-4.

344 NOTES TO PAGES 78-80 25 See Lasky, ed., The Hungarian Revolution, pp. 192-3.

26 SWB/FE Suppl.: Second plenary session of the second National Committee of 42. the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Part I, 7 Feb. 1956, p.

27 Tbid., pp. 37-43. 28 Ibid., pp. 41-2. 29 See the speech by the Chief Procurator, Chang Ting-ch’eng, to the 1957 NPC (CB 466, p. 4). 30 Quoted in Liu, Selected edition (SCMM 653, p. 38). Liu is said to have been speaking on the occasion of a work report made in February by a responsible

official of the Procuracy. The omissions were made by the editors of the

pamphlet. $1 Tbid., p. 41. 32 It will be remembered that the secret speech was delivered early on 25 February. Foreign delegates were excluded from the session—see the announcement

by the chairman of the early session on 24 February, quoted in Rush, p. 58, which stated that the closed session would be attended by delegates ‘ with deciding and consultative votes’. Leonhard (pp. 167-8), argues that the version of the secret speech which was published in the west was probably a censored version of the original prepared for foreign communist parties; this

would imply that no foreign delegates could have heard Khrushchev speaking. Since the preparation of a censored version would have taken a little time, it seems reasonable to suppose that the Chinese were unaware of the contents of the secret speech until early March. Possibly Teng Hsiao-p’ing brought a copy back with him when he returned to Peking on 3 March. 33 Cohen, The Criminal Process in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-63: an introduction, p. 11. 34 Tbid., p. 12. 35 The NCNA report of 7 April on the conference (SCMP 1272, pp. 3—4) only said that it had taken place recently. P’eng Chen’s speech of 6 March is the only firm date I have been able to find in connection with it. The date of the speech was revealed during the cultural revolution. 38 J have been unable to trace any quotations from Ch’en Yi’s speech. 37 SCMP 1272, p. 4. 38 Cohen, p. 11. The Chief Procurator’s speech is also not available. 39 * Perhaps even the counter-revolutionaries themselves were informed of their roles, for in 1955, as if by signal, they began stepping up their activities in every

nook and cranny of the country, thus earning the 1955 mass drive against themselves. A year later, again as though on cue, the counter-revolutionaries started confessing in droves, thereby enabling the Party to adopt a posture of leniency ’ (George Ginsburgs & Arthur Stahnke, ‘ The people’s procurate in

De China: the institution ascendant, 1954-7’, CQ, Apr.—June 1968, p. . 40 This is a modest estimate of the number of capitalists who had entered joint state-private enterprises bearing in mind the victorious transformation led by P’eng Chen in January. Perhaps it reflects a realistic estimate following on the halt called by Ch’en Yun in February (see above, p. 25).

41 Quoted in ‘Selections from P’eng Chen’s black counter-revolutionary

utterances ’, Ts’ui Chiu Chan Pao (Destroy the Old Combat News), 25 May 1967, p. 2, col. 2. 42 See é 13 of the text of the secret speech issued by the USIS, London, 5 June 43* Nung-min yao-ch’iu pai fan-ko-ming chua-le’. This is a slightly obscure passage but presumably P’eng Chen is referring to the recent decision to absorb counter-revolutionaries into APCs (see above, pp. 36-7). Judicial officials may have protested that this was a risky course of action because it would

undermine popular alertness against counter-revolution and result in the APCs not exercising the necessary degree of supervision. As we have also

seen, however, there were also ordinary cadres and peasants who disliked the policy.

NOTES TO PAGES 80-4 345 44 Here P’eng Chen was apparently arguing that the mutual denunciations among business circles proved that: the enemy was defeated, so why should a policy of leniency not work? 45 P’eng Chen of course means materialism in the philosophical sense.

46 At this point the compilers of this collection of P’eng Chen’s statements inserted the comment: * Obviously there are (counter-revolutionary) activities after (counter-revolutionaries start) surrendering.’

47 * Selections from P’eng Chen’s black counter-revolutionary utterances’,

Tsui Chiu Chan Pao, 27 May 1967, p. 3, col. 3. 48 * A record of P’eng Chen’s crimes ’, Man Chiang Hung (The River is All Red), 31 May 1967, p. 2, col. 2.

50 Interpolation by editor of Man Chiang Hung. id. 51 * P*eng Chen’s utterances against the thought of Mao Tse-tung in the sphere of

proletarian dictatorship (continued)’, Cheng Fa Hung Chi (Red Flag of Politics and Law), 17 Oct. 1967, p. 8, No. 50 (see also Nos. 42 & 57).

52 NCNA, 26 Apr. (SWB/FE 557, pp. 18-19). The lawyer was Elwyn Jones, Q.C., M.P., who later became Attorney-General in the 1964 Labour government. He was visiting China with another British lawyer and two French lawyers.

53 For instance the creation of legal advisory offices all over the country, 295 by

early August (see SWB/FE 585, p. 13). See also Minister of Justice Shih

Liang’s report to the State Council on 25 May (SWB/FE 565, p. 12). 54 Ginsburgs & Stahnke (CQ, Apr.—June 1968), p. 101. 55 Liu, Selected Edition (SCMM 653, pp. 36, 37, 39).

56 Tbid., p. 38. (There is another quotation from Liu’s remarks on this date, 7 July, on p. 40.) 57 The dating of the conference is suggested by the dating given to a remark made by Teng Hsiao-p’ing to a public security conference (see ‘ The counterrevolutionary revisionist utterances of Teng Hsiao-p’ing in the field of culture and the arts’, Hung-se Hsuan-ch’uan Ping, 23 May 1967, p. 4, col. 1). Teng was said to have been speaking to a public security work conference, P’eng to a national conference of public security chiefs of the provincial (ting chang)

and bureau levels. I am assuming that the two conferences probably took

place around the same time for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. 58 Ginsburgs & Stahnke, loc. cit. 59 * P’eng Chen’s anti-Mao Tse-tung thought utterances in the field of proletarian dictatorship ’, Cheng Fa Hung Chi, 17 Oct. 1967, p. 8, No. 51.

80 Thid., No. 52.

$1 See for instance the speech of the Minister of Public Security, Lo Jui-ch’ing, in SWB/FE Suppl.: Third session of the Chinese NPC, No. 3, 28 June 1956, pp. 17-24, esp. pp. 19-20. 62 Mao had indicated this in his ten great relationships speech (Ch’en, Mao, p.79). 63 See the speech of the Chief Procurator to the 1957 NPC, CB 466, p. 4. 64 Van Slyke, p. 242.

65 SWB/FE 576, pp. 4-5. 86 Thid., 577, p. 8; 579, pp. 10-11. 8” Tbid., 576, p. 4. 88 Tbid., p. 5. 69 Revealed in the JMJP, 18 July 1957. Chang Po-chiin’s remark is quoted and discussed on p. 276. 70 The story, ‘ Young newcomer to the organization department ’, is discussed in Merle Goldman, pp. 179-80, 182-3, 185, and Fokkema, pp. 99-103. 71 Chou Yang, in a remark attacked during the cultural revolution, stated that it was regard the addresses 1942 Yenan onasliterature and artof(to Maoincorrect had madetohis famous on forum culture) the beginning thewhich new literature and art. In view of the fact that Lu Hsun, for Mao and Maoists the

pinnacle of 20th-century Chinese literature, had died six years before the Yenan forum, this was hardly the anti-Maoist remark it was later held to be. See Hsu Kuang-p’ing, ‘ Chou Yang is not allowed to attack and disparage Lu

Hsun ’, Red Flag, No. 12, 1966 (SCMM 544, p. 10). . :

346 NOTES TO PAGES 84-8 72 See Merle Goldman, ch. 7. 73 For a description of the response to the May speeches of Mao and Lu Ting-yi, see ibid., pp. 165-82; Fokkema, pp. 90-108; Theodore H. E. Chen, pp. 121-6. 74 SWB/FE 597, p. 11; 599, p. 8. 75 On one occasion, for instance, an article written by a senior member of the KMT Revolutionary Committee was broadcast to his former KMT colleagues on the island (see SWB/FE 597, p. 12). 76 SWB/FE suppl.: Second plenary session of the second National Committee of the CPPCC, No. 1, 7 Feb. 1956, pp. 21-2. 7 Tbid.: Third session of the Chinese NPC, No. 5, 5 July 1956, p. 13.

Chapter 7: End of the First Leap Forward 1 Mao was back in Peking by 10 June (JMJP, 11 June 1956). In one of his speeches to the Nanning conference in January 1958, Mao revealed that a conference at Peitaiho in the summer of 1956 had come out against ‘ blind advance ’ and had influenced the reports at the NPC. I infer that the conference was a high-level one, probably attended by Mao, or it could not have had so profound and immediate an impact on policy (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 149). 2 CB 392, pp. 11-12. 3 Pol. Docs, p. 129. 4 JMJP, 16 June (CB 392, p. 12). Mao-chin literally means ‘ blind advance ’. 5 Ibid. editorial (CB 392, p. 20).

6 * One must oppose conservatism and also a disposition towards impetuosity (chi-tsao ch’ing-hsiu)’, JMJP editorial, 20 June 1956 (SCMP 1321, pp. 11-14). SCMP translates the title ‘ Oppose both conservatism and hastiness ’, I have given a more long-winded translation to bring out the point that even in an editorial which was mainly designed to check adventurism, conservatism (as

an ‘ism’) was clearly regarded as a more serious long-term danger than

impetuosity (which was not an ‘ism’ but just a ‘ disposition ’). ? Tbid., p. 13. 8 Ibid.

9 «The confession of Wu Leng-hsi ’, CLG, Winter 1969-70, p. 72. 10 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 148, 151-2; CLG, Winter 1969-70,

p. 72. (In the former source, p. 152, Mao says he wrote pu k’an; in the latter source, Wu Leng-hsi says he wrote pu k’an le. The remark is somewhat enigmatic, but Dr Parris Chang had divined the correct connotation before Mao’s own explanation recently came to light (see CLG, loc. cit., p. 82). The trans‘ator of Wu’s confession in SCMM 662, p. 5, also got it right: ‘ Not read ’. 11 CLG, Winter 1969-70, p. 72. Wu, who apparently knew nothing about how the editorial was written until Mao mentioned it at the Nanning conference in January 1958, based his accusation against Liu solely on the grounds that he had approved the editorial.

(PR, 7 Apr. 1967, p. 15). |

12Ch’i Pen-yii, ‘Patriotism or national betrayal’, Red Flag, No. 5, 1967

13 Tiu’s three confessions are most conveniently available in Liu, 1958-67, pp. so0365-8. TE He replied specifically to Ch’i Pen-yu’s charges in ‘ Confession ’, pp.

14 Pol. Docs, pp. 424-7. 15* 56 nien fan-mao-chin wo fu-ch’i tse-jen, wo shih chien-t’ao-le-ti. 1 am most

grateful to Mr Kenzaburo Seki for sending me a copy of the text of a wall poster quoting from Chou’s speech of 6 April 1967 in which this passage occurs. Unfortunately when Mr Seki cabled the text of this poster from

Peking to his newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, this passage emerged garbled, so that the story which appeared in that paper on 14 April 1967 suggested that Chou had taken responsibility for the reckless advance itself rather than for opposition to it. 16 For Ch’en’s clash with Mao on financial limitations, see above, pp. 60-1. 17 His failure to raise FYP targets in January 1956 was indicative of his position.

NOTES TO PAGES 88-92 347 18 He had of course opened the attack on adventurism at the NPC. 19 It will be recalled that Teng Tzu-hui did not attend the Supreme State Conference at which the 12-Year Programme was launched.

20See Po’s speech to the NPC, CB 407, pp. 5-6. Po was accused during the cultural revolution of having participated in the opposition to the reckless advance; see for instance ‘The great crimes committed by the counterrevolutionary 7, p. 14. Po I-po’, Ching-kang Shan (Chingkang Mountains), 1 Jan.

21 See Wang’s speech to the NPC, ibid., p. 39. 22 CB 891, p. 21. 23 Pol. Docs, p. 118. 24 SCMP 1321, p. 11.

25 There was, of course, a very brief reference to what Mao said in the press release about the conference on the intellectuals; see above, p. 35. After the cultural revolution a text was published in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 28-34. 26 SCMP 1321, p. 12. Another example was the attempt to eliminate illiteracy, not in the 5-7 years prescribed by the 12-Year Programme, but in 4-5 years in some provinces, in 3 years in certain Asien, and in even shorter periods at lower levels. To achieve such targets, cadres had used peasants’ rest periods, even during busy farming seasons, for illiteracy classes, with the result that peasants

dozed off in the class rooms. The JMJP commented: ‘ The ardour of these activists is commendable but their method is wrong ’ (ibid.).

27 Hung Chi-ping, ‘ China’s Khrushchev’s crime of thwarting the farm tool renovation movement must be thoroughly reckoned with’, Nung-yeh Chihsieh Chi-shu, No. 3, 1968 (SCMM 624, p. 9). This source gives no precise identification of the men who gave the order, describing them only as ‘ the small handful of top Party capitalist roaders headed by China’s Khrushchev fi.e. Liu Shao-ch’i] ’. Nor is any precise date for the order given, but it seems likely it was sometime during the late summer and early autumn of 1956. The ploughs were based on a Soviet model used in the Siberian virgin lands. The 12-Year Programme had proposed the production and popularization of 6 million of them in 3-5 years. Some 1:4 million were produced in the first half of 1956, but only 10% were distributed and only 5% were actually used. The problem was that draught animals were not strong enough to pull them through wet soils (see Roy Hofheinz, ‘ Rural administration in communist China ’, CQ, July—-Sept. 1962, p. 148).

28 Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, p. 63. For an official account of rural problems in mid-1956, see Teng Tzu-hui’s speech to the NPC (CB 393, pp. 25-7).

29 Walker, pp. 63-5. 39 Ibid., pp. 61-3. Walker states that the decline in the number of pigs was also encouraged by the scarcity of fodder, low buying prices, and a high tax for killing pigs. 31 Tbid., p. 63.

32° The most important way of overcoming natural calamities and famine ’,

JMJP editorial, 14 Sept. 1956 (SCMP 1384, pp. 5-6). 33 Walker, p. 65. 34 SCMP 1382, pp. 12-26.

35 Byven the Minister of Agriculture, Liao Lu-yen, who had presented the programme to the SSC in January, appears to have lost faith in it; see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 152. (The reference here is only to Liao X X, but in this context the Minister of Agriculture must be the partially identified Liao in question.)

Appendix 1: Lu Ting-yi’s Interpretation of Mao’s Hundred Flowers Policy 1See ‘Lu Ting-yi’s reactionary contending-blooming programme must be

orgy criticised and repudiated’, JMJP, 29 Aug. 1967 (SCMP 4019, pp. 1-8).

348 NOTES TO PAGES 92-6 2 Pol. Docs, p. 154. 3 JMJP, 26 Jan. 1956. 4 Pol. Docs, p. 290. 5 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 501. This formulation is based on Stalin’s report on the draft state constitution to the extraordinary 8th Congress of Soviets on 25 November 1936, printed in Stalin, Leninism, pp. 561-90. See in particular pp. 563-7. In Lu’s remarks in this context, there is a foretaste of the dispute that developed over the political resolution at the

8th Congress (see above pp. 119-21). But Lu did not commit what Mao considered to be the error of that resolution and say that the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was no longer the principal one

in China. Moreover, Lu in this speech talked only of the elimination of exploit-

ing classes when socialism had been established; Mao’s point was that the

bourgeoisie/proletariat contradiction was basic during the transition to socialism (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 125). 6 Pol. Docs, p. 154. ? Ibid., p. 130. 8 Ibid., p. 286. 9 Ibid., p. 155. 10 Ibid., p. 283. 11 Ibid., p. 155. 12 Thid., p. 275. 13 SCMP 4019, p. 2. 14 Pol, Docs, p. 288.

15 The attack on the four grounds is the only serious attempt in the article specifically to isolate an objectionable section of Lu’s speech. Many other brief quotes clearly come from other periods. Where the 26 May speech seems to be specifically indicated, the allegations are simply unfounded. For instance iu is stated that he spoke only of co-operation and never mentioned criticism, struggle or ideological remoulding (SCMP 4019, p. 6). In fact he devoted a whole section to criticism and study and earlier he had said: ‘In some organisations the campaign against the reactionary ideas of Hu Feng and Hu Shih has not been carried to a proper conclusion; and the

work of ferreting out hidden counter-revolutionaries has not been completed. In all such organisations we should carry on, not stopping half way, because only by carrying through the campaign can we create conditions favourable to the many things that need to be done in the future’ (Pol. Docs., p. 155). The above passage also makes nonsense of the allegation (SCMP 4019, p. 7) that Lu attacked the struggles to criticize Hu Shih and Hu Feng. In the same

place it is stated that he attacked them by making use of an analogy from Lu Hsun’s Ah Q. In fact he used the analogy (Pol. Docs., p. 159) only to stress the need for constructive criticism within the ranks of the people; and Mao had made use of precisely the same analogy a month earlier in his ten great

relationships speech to point precisely the same moral! (Ch’en, Mao, pp. 80-1).

It is true, as alleged, that he criticized the campaign against the scholarly

Study of the Dream of the Red Chamber. But he did not, as is implied, denounce it root and branch. He merely criticized some, not the majority, of the articles

written during the struggle as being too virulent in tone (Pol. Docs., p. 155).

16 On 13 Oct. 1957, at a meeting of the SSC, Mao referred to his hundred flowers speech and to an article by an author only identified as ‘ XXX’ but who, from the context, must be Lu Ting-yi and whose article must be the one discussed in this appendix. Mao gave no indication that he disagreed with anything that

Lu had said; on the contrary, he was pointing out the similarity between the speech and the article. I conclude that any differences between the two were

p. .

ea as minor by Mao. (See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), 17 SCMP 4019, p. 6. 18 Pol. Does., pp. 153-4. 19 Thid., pp. 288, 289. 20 See Chow Ching-wen, p. 163. Chow was a senior member of the CDL before taking refuge in Hong Kong in 1957. 21 Ibid., p. 160.

PART TWO: THE CCP’s EIGHTH CONGRESS

Notes to pages 99-101

Chapter 8: The Position of Mao Tse-tung 1 For a discussion of the impact of the 20th Congress on the world communist movement, see Leonhard, pp. 194—209.

2In art. 2 of the 1945 constitution’s general programme, Mao’s Thought was described as the guide for the work of the CCP; in art. 2a of the section on

membership, understanding the Thought of Mao, along with MarxismLeninism, was ranked among the prime duties of a party member. For a

side-by-side comparison of the 1945 and 1956 constitutions, see CB 417, pp. 3 Case of Peng Teh-huai, p. 445. 4 See A compilation of dossiers (suppl. to Kung Nung Ping (Worker, Peasant, _ Soldier), September 1967) trans. in SCMM(S) 27, p. 35.

° See ‘Chronology of big events concerning the counter-revolutionary_revisionist line for party building formulated and pushed by Liu Shao-ch’i’ in Tzu-liao Chuan Chi (Special Collection of Material) (SCMP(S) 246, p. 13). These men were also responsible for the report on the constitution. 6 P’eng Teh-huai’s indication as to timing is ambiguous. His phrasing K’ai pa ta shih could mean ‘ At the opening of the 8th Congress ’ which would mean that the decision was taken on the eve of the first session at which Liu delivered the political report. So late a decision seems unlikely, however. * See the pamphlet Three trials of pickpocket Wang Kuang-mei (CB 848, p. 17).

A Russian who was in the team translating the major documents at the 8th Congress has informed me that numerous revisions of Liu’s report were received, the last one reaching the congress secretariat only about a couple of days before the report was delivered. As a result, my informant had virtually no sleep in the 72 hours before the congress opened, The resolution on Liu’s report reached the translators about half-way through the congress; some revisions were received later, but there was no rush comparable to that with the political report. 8 See the report of Kenzaburo Seki, Yomiuri, 14 Apr. 1967. The report is based on a wall newspaper which quoted Premier Chou as referring to the report and resolution of the 1958 session of the 8th Congress. There seem to me to be two strong arguments for believing that the wall newspaper misquoted Chou and that the Premier was actually referring to the 1956 session. When Chou was speaking, in April 1967, the 1956 report was repeatedly being denounced for the omission of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and these condemnations remained unchanged during the cultural revolution. Chou described the report and resolution to which he was referring as anti-Mao Tse-tung’s Thought. To the best of my knowledge, the 1958 report and resolution have not been denounced in these terms; by 1958 the dropping of Mao’s Thought from the report and the party constitution was no longer a live issue. The second argument is that the resolution on the 1958 political report was extremely brief—it took up only 7} lines on p. 17 of JMST, 1959; even in a rushed situation it would not have taken more than a few minutes to have got Mao’s opinion on it. Nor was there anything in the 1958 resolution to which Mao would have been likely to object. The 1956 resolution on the other hand was a far longer—over 3 pages of JMST, 1957—~and weightier document and we do know, as we will see, some of the specific objections Mao had to it. Assuming, therefore, that Chou En-lai was referring to the 1956 resolution, there is a slight ambiguity about his statement which merits brief elucidation. 349

350 NOTES TO PAGES 101-4 Chou talks about the political report and the resolution as both being antiMao’s Thought and he does not specifically state that it was only the resolution

that was not shown to Mao in advance. The whole sentence is mei-yu kei chu-hsi k’an, chiu tsai hui-shang hsuan-pu-le (° It/they was/were promulgated at the congress without having been shown to the Chairman ’). However, Chouw’s use of the verb Asuan-pu—publish abroad, promulgate, proclaim— suggests the distribution of a report and not the delivery of a speech. There is

also other strong evidence that Mao did see the political report, if not the

resolution before the congress; see above p. 101. ° Liu, 1958-67, p. 367. 10 Ror a discussion of the preparations see CB 411, pp. i-ii. 11 Versions of this quotation cropped up in a number of the attacks on Ch’en Yi. This one comes from the pamphlet Wen Ko Feng-yun, No. 4, 1967 (SCMM 635, p. 14). The occasion on which the report was approved may have been an expanded meeting of the Politburo as Ch’en Yi was not a member of that body before the 8th Congress; alternatively it may have been one of the three pre-Congress sessions of the CC’s 7th plenum, though in that case Ch’en Yi would surely have said the report had been approved by the CC. 12 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! (CB 891, p. 46). It is clear that Liu is one of the ‘ two’ referred to by Mao; that Teng is the other is suggested by earlier passages of this speech and interventions made by Mao’s supporters (ibid., pp. 44—6). However, it is just possible that in this instance Mao was referring not to Teng, but to P’eng Chen, as he drafted the political section of Liu’s report. 13 This would presumably apply also to the men who prepared the reports. 14 Formally, Mao re-entered the Politburo, joined its standing committee, and took over the chairmanship of the CC’s Military Affairs Committee from Chou En-lai; see Kuo, iii. 23-4 and the biography of Chou En-lai in Klein & Clark. 15 Hu Ch’iao-mu, p. 39. 16 See Liu Shao-ch’i, On the Party, pp. 8-10. 17 8th National Congress, i. 98. 18 This was the ‘ Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party ’ passed in 1945; see Mao, SW, ii. 193. 19 8th National Congress, i. 98. Michel Oksenberg has suggested to me that in this passage Liu may in addition have been pleading for himself on the collectivization issue; he has also suggested that the first sentence may have been an attempt to justify party ‘ renegades’ who now occupied high offices. See below, p. 358 notes 33, 41 for a discussion of the ‘ renegade ’ issue. 20 That the implications of this passage did not escape Mao is seen by attacks on it during the cultural revolution; see the pamphlets in Liu, Selected Edition (SCMM 651, p. 18) and Liu Shao-ch’i’s reactionary speeches (Peking: Criticise

Liu-Teng-T’ao Liaison Station, ‘Red Flag Commune’, Peking Railway

Inst., Red Guard Congress, Apr. 1967, trans. in (SCMM(S), 25, pp. 2-3). 21 On the Party, p. 9. 22 8th National Congress, i. 104-5. 23 On the Party, pp. 8-10. 24 Sung Jen-ch’iung, then a Deputy Secretary-General, of the CCP, made a

speech to the 8th Congress on collective leadership. During the cultural revolution he was attacked for contrasting, in this speech, collective leadership with ‘ paternalistic individual leadership’ (chia-chang-shih ti ke-jen ling-tao). It is conceivable that this was a veiled attack on Mao, but it seems

unlikely since Sung is concerned exclusively with the functioning with lower-

level party committees. His speech is translated in CB 419, pp. 10-15. The attack on this particular passage is contained in a six-page account of Sung’s sins entitled Chien-chueh ta-tao tung-pei ti-ch’ii tang-nei t’ou-hao tsou tzu-penchu-i tao-lu ti tang-ch iian-p’ ai—Sung Jen-ch’iung (Resolutely topple the num-

ber one power-holder going the capitalist road within the party in the

North-East region—Sung Jen-ch’iung), (no date, apparently published by the Liaoning Proletarian Revolutionary Group Liaison Station ‘ Unseat Sung Corps’), p. 1, col. 1. Sung may have presided at a group session at the 8th Congress at which the excision of Mao’s Thought from the party constitution was formally agreed

NOTES TO PAGES 104-8 35] upon; see the attack on him in Hung Chi T’ung-hsun (Red Flag Bulletin), 26 May 1968 SCMP 4201, p. 10). 25 See SW, iv (1961), pp. 267-8. A footnote quotes Teng’s comment in his 8th Congress report on this decision with evident approval. Fraternal delegates may have been ignorant of the authorship of the 1948 CC decision because the relevant volume of Mao’s Selected Works had not yet been published. 26 8th National Congress, i. 192-4. 27 Tbid., p. 200. 28 Interestingly enough, a very similar device was used by the Soviet ideologist L. F. Ilyichev at the CPSU’s 22nd Congress to defend his patron Khrushchev against charges of encouraging a cult for himself. His words were: ‘ It would be incorrect and harmful to confuse the authority of our leaders with the cult of personality ’. Quoting this sentence, the French specialist on Soviet affairs Michel Tatu comments: ‘ This meant that praise and whatever else enhanced Khrushchev’s prestige and authority was not a bad thing in itself’ (see Tatu, Power in the Kremlin, p. 203).

Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s remark was used against him during the cultural

revolution, unjustifiably I believe. But mistranslations of it may lend credence

to the attack. For instance, in SCMP(S) 208, p. 1, the passage is rendered;

‘ To care for the leader is expressed in essence in caring for the interests of the party, the class, and the people, and not in mysticising the individual ’. This version suggests that Teng was telling CCP members that they could best express their affection for Mao by caring for the party etc. and not by direct praise of the Chairman. For analysis of other charges made against Teng’s report, see App. 2, p. 149. 29 8th National Congress, i. 200-1. 30 Tbid., p. 171. 31 Ibid., p. 15. 32 Tbid., p. 227; emphasis added. 33 Ibid., p. 216.

34See ‘The black relationship between P’eng Chen’s counter-revolutionary

clique and2.Liu and Teng ’, Hsin Pei-ta (New Peking University), 10 June 1967, p. 4, col. 35 * Unpublicized ’ in the sense of not being publicly announced; but the ‘ two front ’ arrangement must have been known to many party cadres. 36 Loh & Evans, pp. 221-2. Loh’s report is corroborated in Mu Fu-sheng, The Wilting of the Hundred Flowers, p. 166, n. 1. 37 8th National Congress, i. 222—though a comparison of the 1945 and 1956

CCP constitutions reveals that officially the functions remained the same: attending to the daily work of the CC.

38 Thid.

39 See Lewis, Leadership in Communist China, p. 110. 40 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! p. 40.

41 This quotation is to be found in many cultural revolution sources; see, for instance, Ta tao Liu Shao-ch’i—fan-ko-ming Liu Shao-ch’i-ti i sheng (Strike down Liu Shao-ch’i—a life of counter-revolutionary Liu Shao-ch’i) (Peking: Chingkangshan Combat Force of Peking City’s No. 4 Hospital, May 1967), p. 13.

42 Tzy-liao Chuan Chi (SCMP(S) 246, p. 14). 43 Twenty-three delegates, mainly junior ones, did not specify agreement with anyone. Perhaps their speeches were not reported in full.

44 See the attack on Sung Jen-ch’iung in Chien-chueh ta-tao tung-pei ti-ch’ii fang-nei tsou tzu-pen-chu-i tao-lu ti tang-ch ’iian-p’ ai—Sung Jen-ch’iung, p. 1, col. fowhao 4. 45 Though not necessarily with the same seniority. 46 T have excluded provincial CC members from the calculation on the grounds that Mao and the Cultural Revolution Group had far less control over what happened outside Peking during the cultural revolution. At the centre, on the other hand, a valued cadre could more easily be helped to survive if thought desirable—Yii Ch’iu-li, the much attacked Minister of the Petroleum Industry, was a case in point. When provincial cadre members of the CC are included

352 NOTES TO PAGES 108-14 the correlation is less striking but still obvious: 40-9% of all CC members mentioning Mao’s speech at the 8th Congress re-emerged in the 9th CC as compared with only 31:2% of those who did not.

47 Either in September 1956 or after the 2nd session in May 1958. 48 The analysis of mentions of Mao in App. 4 indicates that it was not by itself a decisive factor.

Chapter 9. The Dispute Over Liberalization 1 8th National Congress, i. 7. 2 ¥ have made this calculation on the basis of the Chinese text in JMST 1957.

31 have not lumped the welcoming applause for non-party guests at the congress, which Mao effectively asked for at the end of his speech, with that for united front policies, principally because it was so clearly part of the formalities. Besides, it would be difficult to distinguish how much of the applause was for the non-party guests and how much for Mao on sitting down. But there may be some significance in the fact that Mao ended his speech with this welcome and not with some rousing call for great efforts by congress delegates.

(The third paragraph from the end of his speech would have seemed a more

natural and effective peroration. Compare the peroration to his opening speech to the 7th Congress, SW, iii, 253.) 4 JIMST 1957, p. 9.

5 Liu was attacked repeatedly during the cultural revolution for saying on a number of occasions in 1956 and 1957 that China should learn from the Soviet Union; see for instance, ‘ Chronology of the two-road struggle on the educational front in the past 17 years’, Chiao-yii Ko-ming (Educational Review), 6 May 1967 (JPRS 41, 932, pp. 16 & 25). But Mao, in his introductory speech to the 8th Congress, stated: ‘ The tasks confronting us today are in general similar to those confronting the Soviet Union in the early period following its foundation. In transforming China from a backward, agricultural country into an advanced, industrialised one, we are confronted with many strenuous tasks and our experience is far from adequate. So we must be good at studying. We must be good at learning from our forerunner, the Soviet Union, from the People’s Democracies, from the fraternal parties in other parts of the world as well as from the peoples the world over’ (8th

National Congress 1. 2). It seems, however, that privately Mao was very much more critical. One example is the modification of Soviet economic strategy in the ‘ ten great relationships ’ speech. Another was his attack on the Ministry of Education made in March 1957, when he said: ‘ Is the Ministry of Education the Ministry of Education of the Soviet Union or that of China? If it is the Soviet Ministry of Education, then it is necessary to abolish your set-up. (‘ Chronology of important events in the struggle between the two lines in the field of higher education ’, Chiao-hsueh P’i-p’an (Criticism and Repudiation of Pedagogics), No. 2, 1967, trans. in SCMM(S), No. 18, p. 11). Even this remark, however, by no means indicated a complete rejection of the Soviet experience, only a condemnation of blind copying of it. In January 1957, after Hungary, Mao told provincial officials in closed session: ‘ We must still study the Soviet Union. They have very many good things which we can study. We must study selectively; we must definitely learn the progressive and useful

things, and we must also study the mistaken things, but critically ’ (dao

Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 84). 8 See Leonhard, p. 209, and Zinner, pp. 126-42. * See Pol. Docs, p. 291. 8 See ‘ On the historical experience . . .’, ibid., p. 148. ® See the editorial discussing this decision in Chieh-fang Chiin Pao (Liberation Army News), 24 July 1956. 19 See NCNA report from Tsinan (SCMP 1382, p. 38). 11 8th National Congress, i. 100-1. 12 Thid., p. 173. 13 Thid., p. 101.

NOTES TO PAGES 114-20 353 14 Thid., p. 102. 15 Tbid., p. 174. 16 Thid., p. 103. 1% Ibid., pp. 73-1, 18 See ‘ Material from the dossier'of the three-anti-element P’eng Chen (1957-8) ’, Tung-fang Hung Pao, 8 Aug. 1967, p. 2, col. 1, and San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-

ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 30. The matter was apparently raised by Liu Shao-ch’i at a meeting of the NPC SC on 5 November, and P’eng Chen gave a report of it

in February 1957. The proposals—of which nothing came, presumably

because of the events of May-June 1957—may have represented an attempt by Liu Shao-ch’i to assert himself as chairman of the NPC SC, to oversee the activities of Chou’s government apparatus. 19 In a speech to members of democratic parties made sometime in 1956 Liu indicated that he supported ‘ long-term coexistence ’ because he believed that the democratic parties could mobilize some sections of society (presumably for economic development) better than the CCP (see Shao Pai, ‘ Refuting several “bases of argument ’’ for the theory of “‘ class cooperation ’’ of the No. 1

mst p. 2)).in the party ’, Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 29 June 1967 (SCMP 3987, 20 8th National Congress, i. p. 126. 21 Ibid., p. 132. 22 Ibid., pp. 181-2 23 Thid., pp. 186-7. 24 Tbid., pp. 166-7. 25 Mao, SW, iii. 117-22. 26 8th National Congress, i. 177. 27 Tbid., p. 178. 28 Ibid., p. 176. 29 Liu Shao-ch’i, On the Party, p. 53. 39 Tbid., pp. 53-62. 31 The phrase ‘ mass line ’ does not in fact appear anywhere in the 1945 constitution. 32 CB 417, p. 35. The 1956 version is printed opposite on p. 37. 33 8th National Congress, i. 176. 34 CB 417, p. 37. 35 See above p. 141. This question is particularly important since a number of western analysts have assumed that Liu and Teng were cast from the same

mould. See for instance John Wilson Lewis ‘ Leader, Commissar, and Bureaucrat: the Chinese political system in the last days of the revolution ’, in Ping-ti Ho and Tang Tsou, eds., China in Crisis, i, Book 2, p. 465, where he describes 1956 as ‘ the undisputed year of the Yenan political commissars, notably Liu Shao-ch’i and Teng Hsiao-p’ing ’. 36 Liu, 1958-67, p. 367. Presumably this remark by Liu means that Mao did not get to see, or at least come to read, the text of the political resolution until the session at which it was due to be passed; for surely, if he had read it even 24

hours in advance, he could have had the offending passages altered. If this hypothesis is correct, was his late inspection of the political resolution due to

inefficiency or to Mao’s trust in Ch’en Po-ta (see p. 121)? 3? 8th National Congress, i. 115-17. 38 Thid., p. 7.

39 See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 122-6. 40 Stalin, pp. 564-7. 41 Thid., p. 567. 42 See above, pp. 44-5 and Pol. Docs, p. 148.; see also Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 122-6. Production relations are the relations between men

in connection with the production process. When some people control the

means of production and employ others to do the producing, then the relations

of production are antagonistic class relations (see Hunt, The Theory and

Practice of Communism, pp. 37-8). 48 Pol, Docs, pp. 280-1. 44 Thid., p. 276.

354 NOTES TO PAGES 121-5 45 The implicit rejection of the political resolution’s analysis in Mao’s contradictions speech may date, and the explicit rejection in his 3rd plenum speech does date, from after the start of the anti-rightist campaign (in the case of the contradictions speech because it could have been altered before publication).

But there is clear evidence that Mao rejected the formulation before the

anti-rightist campaign led China’s leaders to put renewed emphasis on class contradictions: see his speech to the Shanghai party bureau in April 1957 in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 107. Unfortunately for Mao, by the time he was in a position to carry the day on this point, he felt that publicly to alter the resolution would ruin any hopes of rectification achieving even minimal results (see ibid., p. 124). 46 Pol. Docs, p. 282.

Chapter 10. The Second Five-Year Plan 1 8th National Congress, i. p. 272. 2 Ibid., pp. 272-3.

3 The phrase is translated ‘impatience and rashness’ ibid., p. 274; I have ' adhered Ibid. to the translation chosen above (p. 101). 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

“Tbid., pp. 274-5. It was later revealed that even the 12-year plan document itself had had an unfortunate effect on the economy. According to a JMJP editorial of 12 December 1956 (SCMP 1441, p. 25), 1:2 million out of 1-7 million copies of an illustrated edition of the programme had remained unsold, involving a large waste of paper and thus preventing the publication of other books. The editorial was entitled ‘ Why are books short and in excessive supply at the same time ?’ 8 8th National Congress, i. p. 275; see above, p. 90.

°Ibid., pp. 276-7.

10 Tbhid., pp. 278-9. 11 Thid., ii. 296.

12 JMST 1957, p. 75, col. 1. 13 Po suggested a ratio of accumulation to national income of not Jess than and

perhaps slightly more than 20%. This was in line with the 1955 figure of 20:5% but less than the figures for 1954 (21:6%) and 1956 (22:8%). As corollaries of this figure, he advocated that the proportion of the state budgetary income (the main channel for investment) to national income be somewhat over 30% (as compared with 32-4% in 1954, 31-9% in 1955, 31:5 in 1956), and that the proportion of the state budget allocated to capital construction

should be somewhat over 40% (a sharp cutback from the 1956 figure of

46°7%, though a considerable increase on earlier years). (Po I-po’s speech is in 8th National Congress, ii, 45-62.) Po’s proposal to cut back capital construc-

tion was attacked during the cultural revolution; see ‘ Down with “ Threeanti ’’ element and big renegade Po J-po, sinister despot on the industrial and communications front’ Tung Fang Hung, 15 Feb. 1967 (CB 878, p. 6); and ‘History of struggle between the two lines’, Nung-yeh Chi-hsieh Chi-shu,

No. 9, 1968 (SCMM 633, p. 5). 14 IMST 1957, p. 9. 15 8th National Congress, i. 298-9. 16 Tbhid., p. 299.

1% The 12-Year Programme set yield targets for 1967, not output targets, but clearly the two were intimately related; see above, pp. 28-9. 18 3th National Congress, i. 46. 19 JMST 1957, p. 14, col. 1, p. 37, col. 1. 20 8th National Congress, i. 264. 21 Thid., p. 40. 22 IMST 1957, pp. 40, col. 1, 59, col. 1. 23 Tbid., pp. 41, col. 1, 59, col. 1, 63, col. 2.

NOTES TO PAGES 125-36 355 24 Thid., p. 15, col. 1. 25 Chou En-lai’s self-criticism for opposing adventurism in 1956 mentioned on p. 88 was presumably made in late 1957 or early 1958 as the great leap forward got under way; see Conclusions; the projected vol. 2 of this work, The Great

Leap Forward and the Three Bitter Years, 1958-62, will also deal with this subject. 26 At a meeting of the NPC SC in December 1956, Liu stated: ‘ The crux of the problem is that the pace of development has been too fast. Next year we will have to slow down. To develop at too fast a pace will give rise to many problems’ (‘ History of the struggle between the two lines [on China’s farm ea front] 633, p. 5).°, Nung-yveh Chi-hsieh Chi-shu No. 9, 1968, trans. in SCMM 27 IMJP, 1 Oct. 1956. 28 Tbid., 29 Sept. 1956. 29 Ibid. 30 Thid.

31 Tbid., 30 Sept. 1956. 32 Thid., 20 Sept. 1956.

33 Thid., 21 Sept. 1956; the similarity between the mood described by Chang Teh-sheng and that of the great leap forward of 1958 will become evident in vol. 2 of this work. 34 IMJP, 29 Sept. 1956. 35 Tbhid., 21 Sept. 1956. 36 Thid., 20 Sept. 1956.

37 Tbid., 30 Sept. 1956. In the light of this speech it is perhaps not surprising that Chou Hsiao-chou emerged as one of the four principal critics of the great leap forward in 1959. This will be dealt with in the projected vol. 2 of this work. 38 JMJP, 30 Sept. 1956. 39 Thid., 1 Oct. 1956. 49 Ibid., 19 Sept. 1956. 41 Thid., 29 Sept. 1956. 42 Thid.

43 Tbid., 30 Sept. 1956. 44 Tbhid., 20 Sept. 1956. 45 HHP YK, No. 21, 1956, p. 171. 46 JMJP, 29 Sept. 1956. 47 Thid.

48 JMJP, 30 Sept. 1956. 49 Tbid., 19 Sept. 1956. 50 Tbid., 1 Oct. 1956. 51 Thid., 21 Sept. 1956. 52 8th National Congress, i. 77-8. 53 Thid., pp. 310-12. 54 IMST 1957, p. 110, col. 1. 55 8th National Congress, i. 51. 58 IMST 1957, p. 42, col. 2. 57 Tbid., p. 60, col. 1. 58 For a discussion of some of the economic factors involved see Howe, Employment and Economic Growth in Urban China, 1949-57, pp. 148-9.

59 8th National Congress, i. 286-7. The text of Mao’s ten great relationships speech available in the west has the Chairman calling for a reduction of defence and administrative expenditure in stages from 32% to 30% (CB 892, p. 25); as argued above, this must surely be a misprint. 60 8th National Congress, 1. 232. 61 Thid., ii. 329. 62 Tbid., p. 340. 63 Ibid., p. 346. 64 Thid., p. 12. 65 Thid., p. 30. 66 Thid., p. 31.

356 NOTES TO PAGES 137-41 67 Michel Oksenberg has suggested to me that it is also possible that Liu’s

section on international affairs was drafted by the CC’s International Liaison Department. 68 8th National Congress, i. 93-4; ii. 345-7. 69 Tbid., i. 84. Liu and P’eng Teh-huai used ‘ chia-ch’iang ’ for strengthening in this context; the plan resolution used ‘ tseng-ch’iang ’. It is not clear if this is a significant difference as the words are usually interchangeable. 70 Tt is conceivable that Liu may have disliked the considerable extra prominence which the policy of peaceful coexistence gave to Chou En-lai. With China’s growing pattern of friendly relations with foreign countries, Chou, as both Premier and Foreign Minister, enjoyed far greater publicity than in the days of China’s isolation. (Equally, Liu’s emphasis on decentralization of state power, while perfectly legitimate since Mao had urged it too, may have been given added bite by a desire to weaken the state bureaucracy, Chou’s constituency, and thus reinforce the position of the party machine.) An interesting example of Chou’s greater prominence was provided by Indonesia’s President Sukarno shortly after the close of the 8th Congress during his visit to China. In a speech he said: ‘ Each great nation has its great personages. India has Mahatma Gandhi, Russia has V. I. Lenin, China has Dr Sun Yet-sen, Mao Tse-tung, Chu Teh and Chou En-lai ’ (SWB/FE/602, p. 15). A western writer who visited China in the first half of 1957 and took some trouble to inform

himself on Chinese affairs referred to ‘Mao, Chou En-lai, Chu Teh and oO) p. 50).> when discussing the Chinese need for popular heroes (Cameron,

71 For a summary of the proceedings of this session of the NPC SC see JMST 1957, p. 308. For the attribution to the new ministry of this responsibility (which was renamed the 2nd Ministry of Machine Building in February 1958), see Donnithorne, China’s Economic System, p. 128.

72 See San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 30. This source does not mention the Third Ministry of Machine Building; it talks of the establishment of a ‘ national defence management institution ’.

Chapter 11. The New Central Leadership 1 For details of the two Politburos see App. 6, pp. 165. 2 Chu Teh, P’eng Teh-huai, Lin Piao. 3 Lo Jung-huan, Ch’en Yi, Liu Po-ch’eng, Ho Lung. 4 They were Ho Lung (ist Field Army), Liu Po-ch’eng (2nd), Ch’en Yi (3rd), and Lin Piao (4th). 5 Chou En-lai, Ch’en Yun. 6 Deputy Premier, Li Fu-ch’un, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, Li Hsien-nien, Finance Minister (full), Po I-po, Chairman of the State Economic Commission (alternate). (Po I-po was appointed a Deputy Premier just after the 8th Congress.) ? Lu Ting-yi, director of the party’s Propaganda Department. 8 Kuo, iii. 23-6; Jerome Ch’en, ‘ Resolutions of the Tsunyi conference ’, CQ, Oct.—Dec., 1969, p. 20.

®Kuo, loc. cit.; Jerome Ch’en has suggested that the chairmanship Mao

assumed at the Tsunyi conference was that of the Central Committee, the post he held after the 7th Congress in 1945. As far as I know there is no evidence to back this view (see Ch’en, loc. cit., p. 36). 10 Kuo, iii. 326-8. 11 Tbid., p. 340.

12 %t is unclear whether or not Teng took this post over from someone else or whether it was recreated at this time. One source states that the post existed from the 1920s but disappeared in the 1940s; see the biography of Teng Hsiao-p’ing in Klein & Clark, ii. 823. 13 According to Klein & Clark (ii. 715, 716), P’eng Chen was director of the CCP’s Organization Department in the early 1940s and then again from 1949 to 1952. A cultural revolution source states that P’eng Chen became

NOTES TO PAGES 141-3 357 head of the Organization Department (again?) in 1950; see ‘ Chronology of big events concerning the counter-revolutionary revisionist line of party

building formulated and pushed by Liu Shao-ch’i’, Tzu-liao Chuan Chi (Special Collection of Material), Nov. 1968 (SCMP(S) 24, p. 12). 14 it is possible that the appointment of Teng Hsiao-p’ing as a Deputy Premier was proposed by Chou En-lai at the instance of Mao for reasons given later in this section. The same argument might apply to Lin Piao’s appointment to a Deputy Premiership senior to P’eng Teh-huai in 1954; see also section three

of this chapter. |

15 The above biographical data are derived from Klein & Clark, ii. It was perhaps fortunate for Teng that he took the most important step towards becoming Secretary-General in 1954 if he owed his rise to Mao; at the 8th Congress, the Chairman was somewhat on the defensive and possibly would have been unable to get his nominee made General Secretary if he had not

effectively been doing the job for over two years already. 16 * Thoroughly expose, criticize and eradicate the flowing poison spread by Liu,

Teng, P’eng, Po and their black lackeys in the industrial and communications front in Liaoning’, Liao-lien Chan Pao (Liaoning Alliance Combat News) 21 July 1967, p. 1, cols. 2-3. The admiring official was Huang Huo-

ch’ing, successively Ist secretary in Tientsin and Liaoning. 17 Liu, Selected edition (SCMM 651, p. 5). 18 Carlson, Twin Stars of China, p. 252. Teng’s interest in international affairs presumably developed during his six years in France. 18 SCMM, 651, p. 5. 20 Croft, p. 251. 21 Tbid., p. 250. 22 SCMM 651, p. 5. A slightly different translation of the same remark, which

makes Premier Chou seem even more subservient to Teng, is to be found in ‘Strike down Liu Shao-ch’i and Teng Hsiao-p’ing, drag out T’ao Chu, loyal salesman pushing the sale of Liu and Teng’s bourgeois reactionary line’,

ier ayeden » DP. 4).Pao (Revolutionary Workers’ News), 12 Jan. 1967 (SCMP 23 See for instance Kuo, ii. 435, 489-96, 497-502, 502-4, 504-8; Rue, pp. 249, 2589 p. 178.; Hsiao, pp. 240, 242, 245-6; Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution, 24 See Kuo, ii. 493-7; Rue, pp. 258-9. 25 See e.g. ‘ Lifting the lid from Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s counter-revolutionary activities ’, Hsin Pei-Ta, 18 Apr. 1967 (SCMP(S) 232, p. 6); and ‘ The odious history of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s counter-revolutionary crimes (1)’, Jen-ta San Hung, 10 Aug. 1967, p. 4, col. 2.

26 See * Premier Chou talks about why firepower must be concentrated on criticizing the party’s top person taking the capitalist road ’, Hung Chan Pao (Red Combat News), 29 Nov. 1967 (JPRS 44574, p. 28). 27 ISee Mao’s about in his Oct. 1966 files, (CB 892, p. 38). 28 make this remarks assessment on Teng the basis of speech the sizeofof24my various 29 As indicated in note 20, p. 321, Liu’s emergence as Mao’s No. 2 in the early 1940s is still shrouded in obscurity. One possibility is that it was his reward in a bargain that committed him to building up Mao as a great theoretician who had accomplished the sinification of Marxism (as he did in his speech to the

7th Congress). What is clear is that prior to that time, Liu had not been a devoted adherent of Mao. (See Stuart R. Schram, ‘Mao Tse-tung and Liu

Shao-ch’i, 1939-69 ’, Asian Survey, Apr. 1972, pp. 278-81.) The Chairman, we are told by Chou En-lai, did not finally decide that Liu had to be replaced as No. 2 until 1964-5, (‘ Premier Chou’s criticism of Liu Shao-ch’i’, Wen-ko T’ung-hsun (Cultural Revolution Report), 9 Oct. 1967

(SCMP 4060, pp. 9-10).) But in view of certain fundamental differences

between the two men—over the mass line, for instance—and Liu’s opposition to Mao on certain crucial issues—most recently on the pace of collectivization—the Chairman may have wanted to reinsure himself as early as 1956.

This would certainly seem to be the background of the rise of Lin Piao— second-ranking Deputy Premier in September 1954, Politburo member in oO

358 NOTES TO PAGES 143-5 March 1955, senior Politburo member under the PSC in September 1956, member PSC in May 1958—at a time when he played so little part in public life that it is generally assumed he was ill. Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s rise might be accounted for in the same way, especially if Lin Piao’s health was so poor that he could not be counted on as a credible successor. 30 See the present author’s ‘ On photographs ’, CQ, Apr.—June 1971. 31 This comparison is based on the data in Teiwes, Provincial Party Personnel in Mainland China, 1956-66, appendix on p. 67. 32 Jao was purged with Kao Kang in 1954—5. Prior to his disgrace he had worked

closely with Liu Shao-ch’i on a number of occasions; see his biography in Klein & Clark, 1. 408-11.

33 An Tzu-wen was one of a group of communists criticized as ‘ renegades’ during the cultural revolution, who in 1936 signed confessions to secure their release from prison. They did this on the orders of the Secretary of the CCP’s North China bureau, Liu Shao-ch’i, who hoped by this device to replenish his bureau with experienced cadres. Liu had secured the permission of the CCP’s General Secretary, Chang Wen-tien, for his order. See ‘ Overthrow Liu Shao-ch’i—boss of a big clique of renegades’, Hung Chi (Red Flag), published by Hung Ch’i Combat team of the Peking Aeronautical Institute), 8 Mar. 1967 (SCMP(S) 182, pp. 25~38). An Tzu-wen had worked in the Organization Department in a senior role from 1946 onwards; see Klein & Clark, p. 4. 34 See ‘ The black relationship between the P’eng Chen counter-revolutionary clique and Liu and Teng’, Hsin Pei-ta, 10 June 1967, p. 4, col. 3. 35 8th National Congress, i. 95. 36 Thid., p. 101. 37 Tbid., p. 215. 38 Thid. 39 Thid.

40* Chronology of big events concerning the counter-revolutionary revisionist line. . ., SCMP(S) 246, p. 12. 41 Teng Hsiao-p’ing, however much he may have been emboldened by Mao’s backing, was probably not yet powerful enough to have his own way entirely within the party organization. Before the 8th Congress, a meeting of central party officials was called to discuss the status of members who had published recantations of their communist beliefs in the 1930s in order to get out of enemy prisons (see above, n. 33). While these men were linked to Liu Shao-ch’i

and included An Tzu-wen, currently deputy director of the Organization Department, there was no special reason why Teng would have wanted to exculpate them. Indeed, the expulsion of some of them from the party might have enabled him to promote more men of his own choice. However, at the pre-congress meeting, formulas were allegedly devised which permitted most ‘renegades ’ to escape censure. Interestingly, the cultural revolution attack on these formulas attributed them to An Tzu-wen, manipulated by Liu Shaoch’i; Teng Hsiao-p’ing was only criticized for being partly responsible for convening the meeting. This suggests that Teng may not have been wildly enthusiastic at Liu and An Tzu-wen’s efforts to exculpate their comrades (see

ibid., p. 14). See also ‘ Arrest arch renegade Wang Ho-shou’, Hsin Kang Yuan (New Steel Inst.), 6 May 1967 (SCMP(S) 188, p. 20). It is noteworthy that throughout this particular cultural revolution polemic, nefarious activities in

the field of party organization work are attributed mainly to Liu Shao-ch’i and An Tzu-wen. Even in the post-1954 period, when he was the party’s

principal executive official, Teng Hsiao-p’ing escapes relatively lightly (ibid., pp. 13-17). This presumably means that Teng’s performance in the running of the party was not so distasteful to Mao. In 1957 Liu Shao-ch’i is quoted as instructing An Tzu-wen to allow renegades back into the party in opposition to an (undated) Mao directive stating that all except the worst renegades could be treated leniently, but should not be readmitted to the party. These quotations suggest that the pre-8th Congress issue was not really about men like An Tzu-wen, who had already been back

NOTES TO PAGE 145 359 in the party for many years. But as Mao’s directive could date back to the 1940s or even the 1930s, it is difficult to clarify this matter any further. (See San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 34.)

42 See ‘ The relations of P’eng Chen’s counter-revolutionary clique with Liu, Teng ’, Hsin Pei-ta, 10 June 1967, p. 4, col. 2; and the ‘ dossier ’ on P’eng Chen trans. in SCMM(S) 27, p. 37. 43 Hsin Pei-ta, loc. cit. Liu Shao-ch’i stated in 1966 that P’eng Chen was often invited to attend meetings of the PSC; see Liu, Selected Edition (SCMM 653,

p. 15). Another source states that at some point P’eng Chen ‘ was made to

serve on’ the PSC, but when this was or what P’eng’s precise status was is not made clear; see the pamphlet Counter-revolutionary revisionist P’eng Chen’s towering crimes of opposing the party, socialism and the thought of Mao Tsetung (Liaison Center for Thorough Criticism of Liu-Teng-t’ao, Tungfanghung Commune, China Univ. of Science and Technology, Red Guard Congress, 10 June 1967, trans. in SCMM 639, p. 18).

44 This is a peculiar episode. As far as one can reconstruct it, the Politburo order just prior to the fall of Kao Kang was: Mao, Liu, Chou, Chu Teh, Ch’en Yun, Kao Kang, K’ang Sheng, Lin Poch’ii, Tung Pi-wu, Chang Wen-t’ien, P’eng Teh-huai, P’eng Chen. After the purge of Kao, Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-p’ing were added at the bottom. Then in the autumn of 1955, P’eng Chen moved to the seventh position, above Lin Po-ch’i. There is no obvious reason why. On 28 February 1956, P’eng Chen was listed above K’ang Sheng for the first time; this ranking was repeated on 29 February and 2 March.

On 13 March the Chinese Politburo turned up at 11 p.m. at the Polish

Embassy to express their condolences on the death of the Polish leader Bierut. The lateness of the call suggests that they had just learned of the event and hurried round at short notice. The following morning the JM/JP report of the

nocturnal call listed P’eng Chen below K’ang Sheng. Yet a day later, the paper listed not only P’eng Chen but also P’eng Teh-huai above K’ang. During the subsequent six weeks K’ang suffered further slights of this type, being listed on various occasions below P’eng Chen, P’eng Teh-huai, Tung Pi-wu, and even Chang Wen-t’ien. The last time this occurred was in the JMJP of 1 May. In an NCNA report of 8 May K’ang was restored to his former ranking at No. 6, just below Ch’en Yun, a position which he retained until after the 8th Congress. What can one infer from this information ? The first point of interest is that during the period when K’ang was ranked below only P’eng Chen (i.e. 28 Feb.—

2 March), Teng Hsiao-p’ing was attending the Soviet party’s 20th Congress. K’ang Sheng’s brief recovery in the JMJP of 14 Mar. was the first listing of Politburo members after Teng’s return. Could it be that P’eng Chen, charged with secretariat affairs in Teng’s absence, had taken the opportunity presented

by reports of Khrushchev’s denunciation of secret police activities in his

secret speech attacking Stalin—Peking probably received some reports of this even before Teng’s return—to elevate himself above the Politburo member most closely associated with secret police activities? (For a discussion of K’ang’s career, see above, p. 148.) If so, then the reversion to the hitherto accepted order could have occurred at the orders of Teng Hsiao-p’ing, recently returned from Moscow and who was possibly not au courant with P’eng Chen’s Kremlinological jugglery. Since Bierut’s death was unexpected and the Politburo lined up at a very late hour, the decision on how to rank its members would have been made at short notice and in haste, without much chance of consultation between Teng and

P’eng Chen.

If this were the case, then presumably P’eng did brief Teng before the listing of 15 March. But the elevation in it of P’eng Teh-huai too, and subsequently of other Politburo members, above K’ang Sheng, significantly altered the implications of the operation. The impression given earlier had been that P’eng Chen (and he alone) had been promoted above K’ang Sheng; observers might have thought P’eng was being rewarded for his activism in the drive to socialize industry and commerce. But when other leaders, too, were promoted above

360 NOTES TO PAGES 145-8 K’ang Sheng, the impression was not that P’eng Chen was rising on his merits, but that K’ang was falling because of his errors. No longer did P’eng reap any special kudos from the operation.

The reversion to the old order after 1 May may have been the result of discussions among top party leaders at the end of April. Possibly it was decided that demotions should properly occur at the 8th Congress, and that

the Chinese should not seem to be making a panic response to the 20th Congress, emulating the Poles by dismissing state security officials. Whatever the true explanation behind this episode, it seems that in the year

before the 8th Congress P’eng Chen may have been making a number of partially successful attempts at elevating his personal status. 45 The only other pre-Congress Politburo members who did not address the 8th Congress were K’ang Sheng and Chang Wen-t’ien, who suffered demotions more serious than P’eng Chen’s, and Lin Piao, whose silence may be explained by what appears to have been perennial bad health. 46 See above, n. 44. 47 Tt was alleged during the cultural revolution that P’eng Chen had clashed with Lin Piao on the north-east in 1945-6 and was ordered to leave the area. It was further stated that he had to present a self-examination on this score to the CC’s 4th plenum in 1954. (See ‘ Dossiers of P’eng Chen—big renegade, big party tyrant, and counter-revolutionary revisionist ’, trans. in SCMM(S) 27, p. 36.) P’eng Chen’s departure from the north-east may also have had something to do with his criticisms of Soviet actions in Manchuria at the time (see the biography of Lin Feng in Klein & Clark, i. 555). 48 « The black relationship between the P’eng Chen counter-revolutionary clique and Liu and Teng’, Hsin Pei-ta, 10 June 1967, p. 4, col. 3. 49 Dislike and fear of Chou Yang came out in many of the criticisms voiced by intellectuals in May 1957; see MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers ..., pp. 175, 177-8. Chou Yang was the only senior official of the CC’s propaganda

department to declare for Mao. His somewhat unexpected conduct may

perhaps be explained by Mao’s support for him in Chou’s behind-the-scenes struggle with Ting Ling and other party writers. In January 1957 Mao had suggested public denigration as the best method of dealing with people like Ting (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 76). For a description of the behind-the-scenes struggle between Chou Yang and Ting Ling, see Merle Goldman, pp. 207-16. § The publication of the Chou Yang interview would not be the last instance of Shanghai leading Peking during this period, as we shall see. It is certainly remarkable that the first attack on the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group by a senior party official should have to appear in a Shanghai paper. It would not be the last time that Shanghai and the Wen Hui Pao would play a decisive role for Chairman Mao; it was that paper which published Yao Wen-yuan’s article

that lit the fuse of the cultural revolution in 1965. For an account of the

importance of the Chou Yang interview, see Merle Goldman, pp. 190-1. ? * Continue to open wide, carry on the policy of “ Let a hundred flowers bloom, ¢ Ibid. let a hundred schools contend ” ’, JAZJP, 10 Apr. 1957. * Ibid. ; earlier in the editorial, its writer had somewhat lamely recalled the JMJP publication of the critical articles by Ch’en Liao and Mao Tun and its own summary (not printed till 4 April) of the nationwide controversy aroused by the Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung group’s article to suggest that the paper, while lagging badly, had always been on the right lines. 1° The editorials were: ‘ What should be our attitude towards contradictions

among the people?’ (13 Apr.); ‘ Criticism based on the wish for unity’

(17 Apr.); ‘ Industrialists and businessmen must continue to reform and work actively ’ (22 Apr.); ‘ The whole party must seriously study how to solve

contradictions within the ranks of the people ’ (23 Apr.); ‘ Discussing “‘ Longterm co-existence and mutual supervision ” on the basis of the conferences of various democratic parties ’ (26 Apr.). 11] am using here the translation of the editorial in SCMP 1512, pp. 1-5, chang-

ing only ‘is’ to ‘ are’,

12 Tbid., p. 5. 13 * Criticism of Ch’en P’ei-hsien’s five sham self-examinations °, Kung-jen Tsao-

Jan Pao (Workers Rebellion Journal), 10 Feb. 1968 (SCMP 4131, p. 12). Ch’en P’ei-hsien was described as being a P’eng Chen-type of man who knew only how to bully people.

14Tn 1966, after the fall of P’eng Chen, Liu Shao-ch’i told a group of noncommunists that the former mayor’s major fault was his ‘ serious sectarian feelings’ (SCMM 651, p. 39). In view of the composition of Liu’s audience, one must conclude that he meant, among other things, that P’eng disliked non-party people. 15* Towering crimes of Ho Lung, anti-party element and army usurper (1)’, T’i-yii Chan-hsien (Sports Front), 28 Jan. 1967 (SCMP 3912, p. 11). 16 See the biography of P’eng in Klein & Clark, 17 Stein, The Challenge of Red China, p. 119.

18 SCMP 4131, p. 12; also ‘Down with P’eng Chen—big party boss of the Kuomintang ’, Wen Hui Pao, 15 May 1968 (SCMP 4203, p. 12). 19 Counter-revolutionary revisionist P’eng Chen’s towering crimes ...(SCMM 639, p. 16). The relevant quotation is translated: ‘ It isn’t true that I am not capable of doing theoretical work. But a great deal of work of the Center has to be done by somebody.’ 20 Tbid., p. 3. 21 The opinion is that of An Tzu-wen, who became head of the party’s Organiza-

tion Department in 1957; see ‘ Down with big renegade An Tzu-wen! Demolish the independent kingdom of the former Organizational Department of the Central Committee! °, Chui Ch’iung K’ou, 20 May 1967 (SCMP 3970, p. 5). 22 Cheng Fa Hung Ch’i, 17 Oct. 1967, p. 5.

378 NOTES TO PAGES 204-8 23 See MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers .. ., pp. 26-7. 241t is not clear why the report on the Shansi conference was printed at this time. Was it a hint by Teng T’o to P’eng Chen that he could not shield him much longer? Or was it printed at the instance of P’eng Chen as part of some elaborate delaying manoeuvre? It is significant that once P’eng had given way, a report was published which finally revealed that the Shansi first secretary had presided over the conference (see JMJP, 25 Apr. 1957). 25 SCMP 1516, p. 2. 26 Thid., p. 3.

27 Shanghai and Tientsin, like Peking, ranked as provinces, being described as municipalities directly under the central government. 28 SCMP 1526, pp. 9-10.

29 SCMP 1523, pp. 21-2. Had K’ang been dispatched by Mao to bring this Tientsin party to heel? Being so close to Peking, the Tientsin party was

probably particularly alert to trends in the capital. 30 This NCNA dispatch can be found in SCMP 1518, pp. 39-40. Interestingly, readers of the Kuang-chou Jih-pao (Canton Daily) did not get their first full report of the Kwangtung conference until 23 April. 31 The publishing policy of the Peking Daily at this time was also interesting, On 14 April, like other provincial papers, it had reproduced the JMJP’s first editorial on contradictions (which had appeared the previous day). With it

appeared the Peking Daily’s own report on how the municipal party had arranged for the transmission of Mao’s speeches to over 10,000 cadres. The report may have been designed to suggest to readers that the municipal party

had already anticipated the editorial. A similar impression was perhaps

intended by the issue of 18 April, in which the report of the first municipal propaganda conference was printed along with the second of the JMJP’s

editorials on contradictions (published on 17 April). On 20 April, the day of the second Peking propaganda conference, the Peking Daily published the NCNA reports on the Shanghai and Tientsin conferences (revealing the roles of the first secretaries there) and an article on the study of Mao’s speech in the organs of the party’s central committee. 32 Teng was back in Peking by 14 April when he accompanied Mao and other

top leaders in receiving various delegations; before that he had not been reported in the capital for over a month. Liu was not present at this occasion

on the afternoon of the 14th and so presumably returned that evening, or possibly even on the morning of the 15th, since Voroshilov did not arrive until 3 p.m. 33 Attendance at the first conference was over 1,400 (SCMP 1521, p. 1); at the second it was 2,800 (SCMP 1517, p. 5). 34 P’eng Chen fan-ko-ming hsiu-cheng-chu-i yen-lun chai-pien (A collection of P’eng Chen’s counter-revolutionary revisionist utterances) (Peking: The New

Men’s Great Commune and the Mao Tse-tung Thought Red Guards of

China People’s University, May 1967), pp. 14-15). 35 It is not clear why P’eng Chen’s speech was not reported in the issue of 21 April. Did it have to be approved by Mao before publication? This is quite possible, if a resentful P’eng Chen had used the occasion of his speech to get in some digs at Mao. One cultural revolution source accused P’eng of saying: ‘Some people have said that ‘‘ for 15 years the world of creative writing has been ruled by dogmatism; there have been no good works nor good writers ”’. The 15 years have been the 15 years since Chairman Mao delivered his “‘ Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art ’’. In this period have there really been no good works or good writers? None. Will there be any in the future? You may discuss it. I do not want to make any prediction, nor will I make any comment ’ (SCMM 6339, p. 1). 36 SCMP 1518, p. 4. 37 Ibid., p. 2. 38 Reports in the JMJP indicate that Kiangsu, Chekiang, and Hopei reacted to the 13 April editorial (see stories on these provinces in the paper on 22 April

(Kiangsu) and 25 April); and that Kiangsi and Szechwan reacted to the 17 April editorial (stories on 23 April (Kiangsi) and 25 April).

NOTES TO PAGES 208-10 379 39 See point. 4 in the report by party secretary Hsia Cheng-nung carried in the Shantung paper Ta-chung Jih-pao (Masses’ Daily), 24 Apr. 1957; and also the speech by Kiangsi’s first secretary, Yang Shang-k’uei, carried in the Kiangsi Jih-pao of 28 Apr. (This latter speech was said to have been delivered on 29 April!) Yang says that the CC had issued a directive on the study and implementation of Mao’s speech on contradictions. It was presumably this

directive that was referred to in part 2 of the rectification directive (see

JMST, 1958, p. 29). 40 Tq-chung Jih-pao, 24 Apr. 1957. 41 Kiangsi Jih-pao, 27 Apr. 1957. The title of this notification was clearly closely modelled on that of the CC directive. 42 JIMJP, 25 Apr. 1957. 43 Anhwei Jih-pao, 28 Apr. 1957. 44 Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang could apparently only draw attention to the fact that their respective People’s Congresses (local equivalents of the NPC)

had discussed contradictions at their recently concluded sessions (JMJP,

27 Apr. 1957). Party leaders in Kiangsi and Shantung were also concerned to prove that they had already effectively been acting as the CC would have wished. The use of the word ‘ continue ’ in the title of the Kiangsi notification is one indicator. In Shantung, party secretary Hsia Cheng-nung was at pains to inform his audience that the provincial leadership had already been considering how to press forward with the study, propagation, and implementation of Mao’s report and that this conference was designed to inform cadres of the provincial party’s standing committee’s conclusions. The fact that the matter had only been considered up till then by so small a group as the standing committee was one damaging admission; another was the example given by Hsia of steps already taken by the committee to propagate Mao’s speech— such as summoning a propaganda conference for party and non-party people to be held at the end of May! (Ta-chung Jih-pao, 24 Apr. 1957). 45 Kiangsi Jih-pao, 27 Apr. & 5 May 1957. The Kiangsi notification was dated 23 April but not published until 27 April. 46 The study directive was dated 26 April and was published in the Nan-fang Jih-pao on 27 April; the rectification directive was dated 15 May and was published in the same paper on 20 May. 47 pp. The4/-6. article is translated in part in MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers. .., 48 See ‘ The true features of Chien Po-tsan, an anti-communist intellectual ’, Red Flag, No. 15, 1966 (SCMM 556, pp. 5-6), where Chien and Fei Hsiao-

tung are accused of fomenting the attacks of the bourgeois rightists; also ‘Chairman Mao’s criticism of the “ authorities ” of bourgeois reactionary scholarship ’, Hung-se P’i-p’an-che, 16 June 1967, p. 2, col. 2, where it is implied that Mao’s ‘ Situation in the summer of 1957’ was in part a reply to

: en.

49 Mao had been assisted in his apparently unsuccessful efforts to dissipate the spring chill by Chou Yang, who had summoned a series of meetings at which he had attempted to promote spring warmth (see Yao Wen-yuan, ‘ Criticise

Chou Yang, two-faced counter-revolutionary element’, Red Flag, No. 1, 1967 (SCMM 559, p. 11)).

50 See MacFarquhar, pp. 29~30. Teng Ch’u-min’s proposal of four criteria is a clear indication that there were no criteria for criticism in the original version of Mao’s contradictions speech. 51 Liu received Voroshilov in Shanghai on 22 April and seems to have been in constant attendance upon him until the Soviet President left on the morning of 25 April. On 27 April, Liu made an important speech to Shanghai cadres and it seems unlikely that he made a lightning trip to Peking in between. If he had been in Peking on 26 April, he would surely have been on hand for the

arrival of a senior Burmese parliamentarian, guest of the NPC whose SC

chairman Liu was; instead he received him on 28 April. P’eng Chen joined Voroshilov’s entourage in Hangchow on 25 April, went

with him to Canton on 28 April, and returned with him to Peking on 29

April. P’eng’s absence from Peking at this juncture was curious. All the other

380 NOTES TO PAGES 210-11 principal officials who were on hand to escort Voroshilov in various parts of the country—Chu Teh (in the north-east), Liu Shao-ch’i (in Shanghai), Chou En-lai (in Hangchow)—were members of the PSC. If Teng Hsiao-p’ing was busy in Peking overseeing the drafting of the rectification directive, there was still Ch’en Yun available to accompany Voroshilov to Canton and maintain the seniority of the Soviet leader’s escort. (Ch’en appears to have had only

one relatively minor protocol function to perform in Peking during the

relevant period.) In addition there were good reasons for P’eng to remain in Peking. With May Day almost upon him and with his principal lieutenant just recovering from a serious illness (revealed in a story about Peking leaders performing

manual Jabour in the JMJP, 10 May 1957), one would have expected the

capital’s mayor and first secretary to be present to supervise preparations for the celebrations, which would be particularly important in view of the presence of the Soviet President. In any case, P’eng Chen was not in the habit of acting as an escort officer, being needed almost daily for protocol functions in the

capital. (As a result of the absence of both Liu and P’eng at this time, the leading Burmese parliamentarian had to be welcomed by a non-communist vice-chairman of the NPC SC; P’eng, as Secretary-General of the NPC SC,

should have been there.) Perhaps even more important, if the party secretariat was about to start work on the rectification directive, would not P’eng, its second secretary, have wished to participate in the drafting in order to ensure that it conformed as closely as possible to the views of Liu Shao-ch’i and himself? Possibly the decision to draw up the directive was taken after P’eng had left for Hangchow; alternatively, P’eng may have wished publicly to dissociate himself from the preparations for the rectification campaign. 52 See SWB/FE No. 661, p. 19. The party committee met again on 30 April to

study the rectification directive. 53 The session of the SSC was revealed in a confession by ‘ rightist ’ Ma Che-min

published in the JMJP, 18 July 1957. In the only extended discussions by Mao about what he said at this session of the SSC, the Chairman seemed rather defensive, emphasizing a passage in his speech in which he was apparently urging on the bourgeoisie the necessity of cleaving to the proletariat (see his speech to the SSC on 13 Oct. 1967 in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui

(1969), pp. 136, 138-40, and his speeches to the SSC in January 1958, ibid., p. 158. See also above, p. 278). 54 The NCNA-English version of the directive is printed in SCMP 1523, pp. 40-2: this quotation is from p. 40. 55 SCMP 1523, p. 40. 56 See Mao’s ‘ Rectify the party’s style of work ’, Mao, SW, iii, 35-6, where the order is subjectivism, sectarianism, and stereotyped party writing (then the

equivalent of bureaucratism). At the 8th Congress and at the propaganda

conference, Mao listed the three evils in the order subjectivism, bureaucratism, sectarianism; in his speech to the CC’s 2nd plenum, he had listed them subjectivism, sectarianism, bureaucratism. Strangely, in the published version of

the contradictions speech there is no reference to the three evils as such, though Mao did cite bureaucratism as the principal cause of popular unrest (see Pol. Docs, p. 291).

°* See Liu, Fourth Collection, pp. 65. In addition to the arguments already adduced regarding the importance of stressing either bureaucratism or subjectivism, it should be pointed out that the order of words has been regarded by Mao himself as a key indicator to political attitudes. In 1959, referring to critics of the great leap forward, Mao said: ‘ For instance they said that ** there

have been Josses and gains’. To place “ gains’ in the latter position is obviously done after much deliberation’ (quoted and discussed in Mac-

Farquhar, ‘ On photographs ’, CQ, Apr.—June 1971, p. 291). 58 Liu, Fourth Collection, pp. 65-9. In his brief discussion of bureaucratism, Liu

said that he too was considerably afflicted by bureaucratism—wo chiu yu pu-shao kuan-liao-chu-i (p. 67). Liu may have intended that this admission

should underline the universality of bureaucratism; in fact it probably

NOTES TO PAGES 211-16 38] diminished the gravity of the problem in the eyes of his audience. They would have assumed it unlikely that Liu would submit himself to rectification. 59 Ibid., p. 67. 60 Thid., p. 65.

61 The few quotations from other sections of Liu’s speech available in cultural revolution sources suggest that after discussing the problem of contradictions in general, he turned to specific contradictions among the people (see above, pp. 196-9), such as that between workers and peasants, between the proletariat and the bourgeois capitalists; see, for instance, ‘A hundred examples of Liu Shao-ch’i’s speeches opposing the thought of Mao Tse-tung’, Ching-kang

Shan 1 & 8 Feb. 1967 (SCMPG) 173, p. 6, no. 29); ‘ Look at Liu Shao-

ch’i’s sinister features! ’, ibid., 1 Jan. 1967, p. 3; ‘ Thoroughly criticize and repudiate the reactionary fallacy of ‘ Dying out of class struggle ’*—in refutation of “‘ Speech at congress of party members and cadres of Shanghai ”’ by China’s Khrushchev in 1957 ’, JM/JP, 20 Aug. 1967 (SCMP 4038, pp. 8-9). 62 MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers ..., p. 31. 63 SCMP 1523, p. 41.

64] iy, Fourth Collection, p. 71. In his address at Tsinghua in January, Teng Hsiao-p’ing had argued against the use of extensive democracy (ta min-chu) both among the people and within the party (see above, p. 178). 657 iu was attacked during the cultural revolution for preaching the dying out of the class struggle in this speech; see for instance the article already cited from SCMP 4038, pp. 5~11. But as in the case of his speech to the 8th Congress,

these criticisms appear unjustified, for Liu did not go as far as his critics

implied and certainly no further than Mao was prepared to go at that time. 66 JM JP, 3 Mar. 1957. 67 SCMP 1523, p. 42. 68 Proof that the directive, though dated 27 April, was not generally circulated in the party until publication on 30 April is provided by provincial reactions. The Shensi provincial party committee only received it on 30 April, and its

secretariat immediately met to study its implementation; the following

morning, at 8 a.m., the provincial committee met to consider its secretariat’s plan (Peking Radio, 1 May 1957 in SWB/FE 661, p. 19). The Kiangsi party committee met to consider the directive only on 2 May (Kiangsi Jih-pao, 5 May 1957). However, the pre-emptive action of the central state organs in deciding on 28 April to launch a rectification campaign (see above, p. 210) indicates that many cadres in the capital must have realized what was in the wind. 69 SCMP 1525, pp. 1-6. 70 An illustration of the 2 May editorial’s emphasis is that the directive stated that ‘ because the party is in a ruling position throughout the nation and has won the support of the masses of the people, many comrades are liable to use purely administrative measures in handling problems ’ (SCMP 1523, p. 40), but the editorial simply referred to ‘ the tendency of many comrades to adopt the simple method of issuing administrative orders in dealing with problems ’ (SCMP 1525, p. 5). Cf. 13 Apr. editorial discussed on p. 202 above. 71 SCMP 1525, p. 2. 72 Tbid.

73 This quotation is from the text of the speech leaked in Warsaw to the NYT, reprinted in MacFarquhar, p. 270. 74SCMP 1525, p. 1. 75 Tbid., p. 3. 76 Ibid. 77 SCMP 1523, p. 40. 78 SCMP 1525, p. 3.

79 Tbid., pp. 1-2. In his Shanghai speech Liu Shao-ch’i had supported the 8th Congress resolution’s pinpointing of the principal contradiction, but he had blurred the divergence between Mao’s views and the resolution by not stating whether it was the production relations or the production forces which were backward (see Liu, Fourth Collection, p. 66). 80 Tbid., p. 3.

382 NOTES TO PAGES 216-19 81 SCMP 1523, p. 40.

82 SCMP, 1525, p. 5.

83 The key role of Hu Ch’iao-mu in press work over the years is brought out in ‘ The confession of Wu Leng-hsi ’, CLG, ii/4, pp. 65-6, 68, 72, 74~5, 79, n. (b). 84 Tbid., pp. 65-70, 72, 76-7. 85 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 106.

Chapter 16. Blooming and Contending 1 Some of the principal criticisms are quoted in MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers . . ., pp. 35-357. “1 have been unable to locate any report of the NPC organs holding rectification forums, whereas there were regular reports of State Council rectification activities during May. 3 These three issues are discussed in separate sections below. 4On 5 May the JMJP reproduced an editorial from the Shanghai Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Liberation Daily) entitled * We can only “‘ open wide ’’, we cannot restrict’ ’ (“Chih neng “fang” pu neng “‘shou”’ ’). This editorial had appeared in the Chieh-fang Jih-pao on 21 April; its republication so much later in the

JMJP indicated the importance attached by pro-rectification elements in putting over the editorial’s message at the national level and in the party

paper. On 12 May the JM/JP republished the Chieh-fang Jih-pao editorial of 9 May entitled ‘ Is it very good or very messy? ’ (‘Hao-ti-hen, hai-shih tsao-tihen?’), which was intended to soothe the nerves of party members appalled by the torrent of criticisms released by the early forums with non-communists. 5 Criticisms made at these forums are translated in SCMP 1543, pp. 2-37, and 1550, pp. 2-28. 6 See Chin Chiin Pao, 6 May 1957, p. 3, col. 2 and A collection of Chou Yang’s counter-revolutionary revisionist speeches (SCMM 646, p. 7). The extended quotation from the speech in the latter source (pp. 7-8) reveals that Chou Yang admitted that only party members had real power and that those who were officials assumed official airs. However, it does not contain any remark to the effect that party members were like ‘ special agents’ and ‘ wooden blocks ’, which Yao Wen-yuan attributed to this speech. (See Yao’s ‘ Criticise Chou Yang, two faced counter-revolutionary element’, Red Flag, No. 1,

1967 (SCMM 559, p. 11)). It seems strange that an extended quotation

designed to exhibit Chou Yang’s iniquity should omit so damaging an attack on party officials; possibly Chou Yang only acknowledged that critics might

be correct in describing some party members that way, which would not have been going any further than the rectification directive’s admission that some party members used a KMT work style. Whatever the correct context in that instance, it is clear that Yao Wenyuan did mislead with another quotation. Yao accused Chou Yang as follows: ‘ He [Chou] said that those who said they wanted to kill millions of Communist party people “‘ are not necessarily counter-revolutionaries ” ’ (SCMM, 559, p. 12; I have slightly adjusted the translation). In fact, as the quotation cited in my text makes clear, Chou Yang made a general statement which did not give carte blanche for all counter-revolutionary remarks and gave no indication that this particular kind of counter-revolutionary remark would have escaped his censure. (Indeed, the remark about killing communists which Yao was probably referring to was almost certainly made after Chou Yang made his speech. See the speech of Ko P’ei-ch’i reported in the JMJP, 31 May 1957; the report does not specify when the speech was made but it seems likely it was after 13 May.) Interestingly, while Chou Yang admitted in general terms that the party had not led well in the cultural field, he seemed to except his own sphere, literature! (see SCMM 646, p. 7). ’ The existence of a CC directive on this point was revealed in the /JMJP editorial of 1 July 1957 which (it was disclosed during the cultural revolution) was written by Mao. (See the joint People’s Daily-Red Flag-Liberation Army News editorial, ° Carry the great revolution on the front of journalism through

NOTES TO PAGES 219-21 383 to the end—repudiate the counter-revolutionary line on journalism of China’s Khrushchev ’, released by the NCNA on 1 Sept. 1968 and printed in SCMP

4253, pp. 17-31. The attribution to Mao of a quotation from the JAZ/P

editorial of 1 July 1957 is on p. 22.) I deduce that Mao was forced to agree to the limit of one month on unchecked criticism from the following pieces of evidence: in early April he told the Shanghai party bureau that the CCP should steel itself for a few months of abuse (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 101); in July, however, reflecting on what had happened in MayJune before another Shanghai audience, he said that it had been ‘ our ’ policy that the party should steel itself for a few weeks (ibid., p. 113). It seems logical to assume that the change of time-scale was forced on Mao by Liu Shao-ch’i

and others, who were worried about the possible deterioration in party

members’ morale if they had to undergo months of criticism in silence. In April 1958 Mao explained that the directive had been kept secret to see how lower-level cadres kept their nerve under fire (ibid., p. 185). 8 JMJP, 26 May 1957. ® Ibid.

10 See the analysis by Yao Wen-yuan of how different newspapers treated this key sentence, ibid., 14 June 1957. 11 [bid., 16 May. 12 René Goldman, in his article ‘ The rectification campaign at Peking Uni-

versity: May-June 1957’, CQ, Oct.-Dec. 1962, pp. 138-53, affirmed the importance of these forums for what developed on the campuses (p. 140). He was studying at Peita at the time. 13 See the story about the ‘Democratic Wall’ in the Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 26 May 1957, trans. in MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers ..., pp. 132-3, and the report in the Wen Hui Pao on 27 May 1957 (ibid., p. 134). 14 René Goldman, p. 141. 15 Yhid., pp. 143-8 (MacFarquhar, p. 133). 16 René Goldman, pp. 148-9. 17 Ibid., p. 141 describes the atmosphere of the ‘ Democratic Plaza ° as reminiscent of (the Speakers’ Corner) in Hyde Park, London. Lin Hsi-ling’s speech of 23 May is trans. in Doolin, Communist China: the politics of student opposition, pp. 23-9. Her later speech made on 30 May at her own university is reproduced ibid., pp. 30-42. The JM/JP also later gave a detailed account of her speeches (see MacFarquhar, pp. 140-1). 18 Doolin, p. 24.

20 Tbid., p. 28. 19 Thid., p. 27.

21 See San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 33. This source cites these remarks as indicating that Liu wished to suppress the anti-rightist struggle which had then begun. In fact the anti-rightist struggle had not begun and

Liu’s objective was clearly to hasten its commencement rather than to

restrict it. 22 Doolin, p. 28. 23 Students at Nanking University demonstrated and stuck posters outside the offices of the local party paper the Hsin Hua Jih-pao on 1 June, demanding to know why it had not reported the news of the * democratic upsurge ’ as the Wen Hui Pao had reported that at Peita (MacFarquhar, p. 154). Despite Miss Lin’s complaint of a news blackout, Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien Pao later stated that her ‘ rightist utterances were for a time all the rage among young people throughout the country, particularly university students ’ (quoted in MacFarquhar, p. 140).

24 MacFarquhar, pp. 141-3. | 25 Miss Lin Hsi-ling said in her 23 May speech: ‘ I am not afraid to speak in this

way. My friends constantly tell me: “ You little devil, all of us are going to find you in jail one day and we’ll have to send your meals in to you’”’. Although this was said in jest, there is such a possibility. If you don’t welcome me, I’ll get out; but since I have come here, I accept the danger. It’s not

important if I’m thrown in jail!’ (Doolin, p. 28). Mao told the SSC in

384 NOTES TO PAGES 221-4 October 1957 that Miss Lin was currently sweeping floors at the People’s University; he characterized her as the type of person who should suffer the deprivation of voting rights. The Chairman also derided Miss Lin for having claimed to be 21 when she was really 28. 26 René Goldman, CQ, Oct.—Dec. 1962, p. 149. 27 The congress ended on the afternoon of 25 May, a week after the opening up

of Peita’s “‘ Democratic Wall’ and a couple of days after Miss Lin Hsi-ling’s |

provocative speech in the ‘ Democratic Plaza ’. 28 According to René Goldman (p. 141), 581 ‘ large character posters ’ or ¢a tzu pao were put up at Peita on 22 May alone. 29 See the report of Reuter’s Peking correspondent, David Chipp, of that date (MacFarquhar, pp. 134-5). 30 René Goldman, p. 149. 31 Thid.

32 See MacFarquhar, p. 193. The Petéfi Circle, named after a 19th-century Hungarian poet, was formed in March 1956 as a debating club within the framework of the Federation of Working Youth. The members of this club strongly criticized the crimes and mistakes of the Rakosi regime and greatly contributed to the ferment that eventually exploded in the Hungarian revolt; see Vali, Rift and Revolt in Hungary, p. 220. 33 Merle Goldman, p. 228. 34 The May Fourth Movement derives its name from a student demonstration

in Peking against the award of Germany’s former possessions in China to Japan (at the Versailles peace conference in 1919). The demonstration was emulated by patriots in many cities throughout China and led to a boycott of Japanese goods. The term ‘ May Fourth Movement ’ was later applied to the intellectual ferment of the second and third decades of this century as pro-

gressive Chinese discarded Confucianism and eagerly examined foreign ideas and doctrines, hoping to find the means to restore China’s greatness and expel the imperialists (see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement). 35 See his conversations with Soviet dignitaries in Hangchow on 25 April 1957 (MacFarquhar, p. 31). 36 Faure, p. 29. 37 Quoted in MacFarquhar, pp. 168-9. 38 Tbid., p. 170. 39 Thid., p. 169. 40 Tbid., p. 170. 41 See SCMP 1597, pp. 21-34. 42 MacFarquhar, p. 170. 43 It is worth noting that Chang Po-ch’tin and other ‘ rightists ’ who attended the 6 June meeting were not members of the NPC SC and were presumably ignorant of Liu’s warning. Two of the conferees, Mme Shih Liang, Minister of Justice, and Hu Yii-chih, secretary-general of the CDL, were members of the NPC SC and may have attended that body’s session on 25 May. But if they did, there is no indication that they revealed what Liu had said on that occasion to the other conferees on 6 June. Neither Hu Yii-chih, who is said

to hats withdrawn from the meeting, nor Shih Liang were later attacked as ‘ rightists °. 44 See Liu Shao-ch’i fan-ko-ming tsui-o shih, p. 31. 45 See Lo’s confession to the NPC, JMJP, 16 July 1957. 46 MacFarquhar, pp. 145-53, 264. 47 SCMP 1641, pp. 10, 11. Among the new vice-presidents sent in to discipline the students was Lu P’ing at Peita, who became president in 1960. In 1966 the wheel turned full circle; as the cultural revolution got under way and the

students began to mobilize as Red Guards, Lu P’ing was one of the first

officials to fall from power. When I visited Peita in the autumn of 1972, I was informed that Lu P’ing worked as a manual Jabourer on the university’s own farm. 48 See SCMP 1610, pp. 28-30. 49 Mao revealed this episode to a provincial secretaries’ conference in February 1959, At the same time he pooh-poohed the threat that Miss Lin Hsi-Ling

NOTES TO PAGES 224-5 385 had represented. The secret NCNA reports were contained in a publication called Nei-pu Ts’an-k’ao (Internal Reference Material). See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 272. 50 Ror Mao’s attitude on this subject before the events of May-June, see above,

p. 369 n. 14; for his attitude after May-June, see his speech to the SSC in October 1957 in which he said that even if one estimated the regime’s hardcore enemies as high as 2 per cent of the population, 12 million people, they posed no threat because they were scattered throughout the country (see ibid., p. 130). Numerous other examples of Mao’s insouciance can be found in his 1957 speeches included in this source. 51 In one of his speeches to the second session of the 8th Congress, Mao rejected the suggestion that the first counter-attacking editorial in JMJP (‘ Jeh shih wei-shemme?’) had been published too soon with the assertion that if it had been delayed, part of the left would have cracked (Mao Tise-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 207). For further discussion of the morale question, see above, p. 249). That Mao felt compromised by the escalation of the rectification campaign can be seen by his attack on rightists in his speech to the SSC

in October 1957 where he pointed out that at no stage had he advocated big blooming and contending—that had been a rightist innovation (Mao

Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 133). 52 SCMP 891, p. 24 (translation slightly altered); see also below, p. 392 n. 1.

53 MJP editorial, 1 July 1957, ‘ The bourgeois direction of the Wen Hui Pao ought to be criticized °’. For the attribution of this editorial to Mao, see above, pp. 289-81. In his article in the JM4/P, 14 June 1957, Yao Wen-yuan singled out in particular the failure of the Wen Hui Pao to give due prominence to

Mao’s warning to YCL delegates to the effect that all words and actions contrary to socialism were wrong. Mao must have been particularly angry at the Wen Hui Pao for it was very popular among students because of its

concentration on uncovering the CCP’s faults. (See e.g. MacFarquhar, pp. 154f.) Mao was probably sensitive to the influence of the press because of its role in his own development; see Snow, Red Star Over China, p. 147. 54 See the self-criticism of the Kuang-ming Jih-pao, trans. in SCMP 1585, pp. 7-24, esp. pp. 7-8. 55 See the confession of the editor, Ch’u An-p’ing, to the NPC (excerpt in MacFarquhar, pp. 285-6). 56 For some details as to Lo Lung-chi’s tie-up with the Wen Hui Pao through Miss P’u, see the report of a forum on journalistic work translated in SCMP 1566, pp. 43-7 and also Lo’s confession to the NPC, JMJP, 16 July 1957. P’u Hsi-hsiu was the older sister of Marshal P’eng Teh-huai’s wife, P’u Anhsiu; see SCMM(S) 27, p. 21.

57 Probably in his contradictions speech; certainly in his summing up on

1 March (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 93). He also used it in his propaganda conference speech (see Mao Tse-tung Chu-tso hsuan-tu: Chia chung pen, p. 372; curiously, the later official translation in Mao, Propaganda Conference Speech, p. 13, renders the phrase somewhat unpoetically as ‘ we must not be rough ’). The Tientsin first secretary, Huang Huo ch’ing, claimed that his party had used ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain ’ methods when reviewing ideological and practical work in January and February 1957, in response to the call of the CC’s 2nd plenum in November 1956 (Huang Huo-ch’ing, “Sincerely combat the bureaucratism of leading work personnel’, JMJP, 28 Apr. 1957). This would seem to suggest that Mao had coined the phrase in his summing up at the plenum. The earliest use of the phrase I have found, however, is by Teng Hsiao-p’ing in January, 1957; see Teng Hsiao-p’ing fan-tang fan-she-hui-chu-i fan-Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang-ti yen-lun chai-pien (A summary edition of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s anti-party, anti-socialist, anti-Mao Tse-tung’s Thought utterances) (Peking: First Detachment of the Three Red Seize Liu/Teng Army of China People’s University, the Capital’s Red Representative Conference, April 1967), p. 19. 58 The rectification directive’s stricture against large-scale struggle sessions

is quoted above, p. 212. For Mao on ‘extensive democracy’ see Mao

Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 92-3. In the same passage he equated

386 NOTES TO PAGES 225-30 ‘gentle breeze, mild rain’ with small democracy, as did Liu Shao-ch’i in his Shanghai speech on 27 April 1957 (Liu, Fourth Collection, p. 68). For Liu on ‘ extensive democracy ’ see above, p. 178. 59 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 195; I judge that Mao was being semi-humorous, but only semi! For Mao’s earlier claim that the bourgeoisie had been treated relatively gently, see ibid., pp. 92-3, Mao Tse-tung Chu-tso hsuan-tu: Chia chung pen, p. 372, and above, p. 185. 680 Richard Solomon has rightly drawn attention to the significance of the quotation from Liu, though it was not the ‘ only personal reference to [Liu] in official documents of this period related to the rectification campaign ’; Liu was also quoted in the JM/JP editorial of 3 May which dealt with the question of manual labour and which is discussed below. But Solomon’s

judgement that the Liu quotation was ‘the only conciliatory note in an

otherwise threatening editorial ’ is hard to credit. The very fact that there was an editorial on the ‘ gentle breeze and mild rain ’ method, and a very long one

at that, was a conciliatory gesture. By incorrectly stating that the editorial concluded with Liu’s words, Solomon fails to remark the subsequent guarantee contained in the assertion quoted above that mistakes had been treated correctly since Mao took over the leadership of the party (see Solomon, Mao’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture, pp. 307-8). 61 JM JP, 10 May 1957.

62 Tt is interesting, too, that the magazine Hsin Kuan-ch’a (New Observer), No. 10, 16 May 1957, p. 11, printed only one picture of Voroshilov in the company of Chinese leaders to accompany its article on his tour round China. This picture showed Voroshilov with P’eng Chen and T’ao Chu, a strange selection when a similar picture from Shanghai would have shown the Soviet President with Liu Shao-ch’i, Marshals Lin Piao and Liu Po-ch’eng, Soong Ch’ing-ling (Mme Sun Yat-sen), the Minister of Public Security, Lo Jui-ch’ing, and the Shanghai first secretary K’o Ch’ing-shih, all of whom greeted him at the airport (JMJP, 23 Apr. 1957). Was the selection of the Canton picture a hint to alert party officials of a political entente between the Peking and Kwangtung parties ? 63 Liu, Fourth Collection, p. 95. This collection appears to include the whole of Liu’s instructions (pp. 94-8) to Yang Hsien-chen under the title ‘ A record of Liu Shao-ch’i’s talk of the problem of rectification of trainees at the Higher Party School ’, though there is an indication of one possible excision (p. 98). The date of Liu’s talk and the identity of his auditors are not indicated in this source. However, these problems are cleared up in SCMM 651, p. 29, where

another passage from the speech is quoted. (Cf. the quotation from Liu in para. D on this page with Liu, Fourth Collection, p. 94, penultimate para. ; the correspondence is not exact, but this I assume to result from telescoping by the editors of the pamphlet translated in SCMM 651.)

64 'T’ao’s speech was made on 17 April; parts 1 and 2 were published in Nan-fang Jih-pao, 4 May 1957. 85 SCMP 1523, p. 42. 66 The editorial is trans. in SCMP 1528, pp. 1-4. 67 Tbid., p. 3. 68 Thid., p. 4. 69 Thid.

70 Could Mao’s supporters have forced the publication of these photographs ?

They certainly served to suggest that P’eng Chen was isolated from top

provincial officials in the vicinity of Peking. 71 JMJP, 10 May 1957. 72 From the translation in SCMP 1538, p. 16. One gets a sense that P’eng, apart

from officially endorsing the policy, was concerned to indicate that his

resistance to it was not due to any effeteness on his part. 73 JMJP, 10 May 1957. No dates were given for the dates on which the first secretaries in Honan and Yunnan performed their manual labour. 74 70,000 Kwangtung cadres had participated in manual labour during the spring harvesting and sowing, but they do not appear to have been leading

NOTES TO PAGES 230-4 387 cadres in the sense intended by the rectification directive (see Nan-fang Jih-pao, 6 May 1957). 78 NCNA, 14 May 1957, in SCMP 1538, pp. 19-20. 76 It is worth remarking that the Kwangtung party came out with its directive on manual labour before it published its rectification programme; the latter was dated 15 May and was published in the Nan-fang Jih-pao on 20 May 1957. °? yu i-ting lao-li-che. 78 The directive is trans. in SWB/FE/665, pp. 13-15. 79 JMJP, 16 May 1957. Liu made the remark in conversation during a break in the proceedings of the opening day of the YCL’s 3rd Congress. Significantly the JMJP report suggested that participation in manual labour was the only

topic discussed by Liu and the group of delegates surrounding him. This might be attributed to the fact that the directive had been published that

day; but the story about Mao’s chat with delegates in similar circumstances gave no indication that the Chairman had also taken the opportunity to drive home the message of the directive. 80 The translation of this editorial in SCMP 1538, pp. 14-16 is misleading on this point. It translates the relevant passage: ‘ Since participation in physical labour by leadership personnel, who are physically fit to do such labour and who can spare a portion of their time, will help shape a new social trend ...’. This suggests that the editorial was making two qualifications. In fact, the passage should read: ‘ But if only all leading personnel who are able to devote themselves to physical labour allot a portion of their time to participating in

physical labour, shaping a new social custom...’ (Erh chih yao fan shih neng-kou tsung-shih t’i-li lao-tung ti ling-tao jen-yuan ch’ou-ch’u i pu-fen ey ts'an-chia t’i-li lao-tung hsing-ch eng i chung hsin-ti she-hui fengchi...). 81 The Nan-fang Jih-pao carried no photograph and no front-page reports on T’ao Chu doing manual labour throughout the month of May. T’ao’s stubborn resistance was underlined by a high-level Albanian delegation which

arrived in Canton on 15 May and was entertained by T’ao on the 16th. Alongside the report of this festivity in the Nan-fang Jih-pao was another report stating that the Albanians had read about the CC’s manual labour directive on the plane from Wuhan to Canton, and that when they arrived they asked to join in some manual labour. This they did on the 16th, but they were accompanied by Mayor Chu Kuang and not by T’ao Chu. T’ao was 51, and so not excused manual labour even under the terms of the Kwangtung directive. He gave no indication at this time or later of being physically incapacitated in any way. 82 SCMP 1523, p. 42. 83 JMJP, 11 May 1957. 84 < Discard the “‘ politics of simpletons ” ’, ibid. Teng used the pseudonym Pu Wu-chi: ‘ foretell no superstitions ’. The identity of the author of what would

otherwise have been a rather obscure little article on the back page of the

paper was not publicly revealed until the cultural revolution (see Ting Wang, ed., Teng T’o Hsuan-chi (Selected Works of Teng T’o), p. 220. 85 The Kwangtung provincial directive on studying the problem of correctly solving contradictions among the people, issued on 26 April (Nan-fang Jihpao, 27 Apr.) prior to the launching of the rectification campaign, contained no order that study should start in June. A news item in this paper on 2 May about the deliberations of the Kwangtung party committee on rectification contained no intimation that a June start was contemplated. In other words, it seems certain that the plan that was being modified on the 17th was the one drawn up on the 15th. 86 JM JIP, 27 May 1957 (SCMP 1547, pp. 18-20). 87 JMJP, 30 May 1957. 88 Thid., 5 June 1957. 89 For an on-the-spot description of the ‘ three-anti, five-anti ’ (san-fan, wu-fan) campaigns, see Lum, Peking, 1950-3, ch. 12. Miss Lum, who spent much of her childhood in China, is the American-born wife of the British diplomat Sir Colin Crowe who was posted in Peking in the early 1950s.

388 NOTES TO PAGES 235-42 90 JMJP, 4 June 1957. 91 Thid.

92 Ibid. 93 Thid. 94 Tbid.

95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Tbid., 7 June 1957.

°8 The editorial may have been reprinted as a result of pressure by pro-rectification leaders; if so, the JM/JP contrived to blunt its effect with its report from Kiangsu. 99 JMJP, 5 June 1957. 100 Thid.

101 hid. 102 Tbid.

103 Thid., 11 June 1957

104 ‘Cheng-feng pu-neng wu-le sheng-ch’an’. The use of the term pu-neng for ‘cannot ’ is interesting; it meant that the editorial writer could claim only to be saying that rectification was a process that could not harm production (as the State Council directive of 3 June had argued.) But the tenor of the editorial clearly indicated that pu-neng was meant to be understood as ‘ cannot be

permitted to’.

105 Thid., 12 June 1957. 106 Thid. 107 Thid.

108 Tiu, Fourth Collection, p. 94. For dating problems, see above, p. 386 n. 63. One source dates this item 1 May (San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 33), but two others date it 7 May (see Liu Shao-ch’i fan-ko-ming tsui-o shih, p. 31 and SCMM 6532, pp. 3-4. Incidentally the last sentence quoted in the latter source is taken completely out of context in order to distort Liu’s

meaning. It reads ‘... When you go to a capitalist country you can buy

everything you want’. According to the fuller version in Fourth Collection, p. 96, Liu actually said: ‘ When Soviet comrades go to capitalist countries or come to China, they find it most interesting that they can buy everything ’. The sentence was part of a criticism of the Soviet economy.) 109 SCMM 651, p. 29. It is noticeable that in the available portions of the texts of three major discourses made by Liu around this time—to Shanghai cadres, to

Yang Hsien-chen, and to the graduating class of the Peking Institute of

Geology—there is hardly a mention of Mao or his speech on contradictions. 110 Liu, Fourth Collection, p. 94. In ‘ More on the historical experience ...’, contradictions among comrades are listed as one among many contradictions among the people (see Pol. Docs, p. 258). Where Liu did envisage criticism by the masses of cadres was in the case of ministers, provincial governors, factory managers, etc. (ibid., p. 97)—.e. officials in their government rather than their party roles. This was of course the distinction he had indicated in his speech to the 8th Congress (see above, p. 115). Moreover he seemed to envisage this criticism arising out of problems in work, not as a result of formal sessions at which the masses were encouraged to criticize their leaders (Fourth Collection, p. 97). 111 Liu, 1945-57, p. 418. There is no precise date available for this speech, but in

an article denouncing it ten years later, the Red Guard organ of the Geological Institute stated that Liu had delivered his Shanghai speech (27 April) ‘one month before’ it, and also that it had been delivered ‘ less than three months after Mao’s contradictions speech’ (27 February) (SCMP 3934, p. 447). These remarks would suggest that the speech to the Geological Institute was made in the week prior to 27 May. To judge by the acerberty of Liu’s remarks quoted in my text, he may have been responding to the growing wave of criticism on the Peking campuses; if so, he was probably speaking between 22 and 24 May. The first wall posters did not go up at Peita until 19 May and it was a day or two before criticism was in full flood, and since there is no hint in the Geological Institute speech of any warning to students, such as

NOTES TO PAGES 242-6 389 was issued by Mao on 25 May, it seems likely that it was delivered before that

date. (There is a possibility that it was delivered even before 19 May. A cultural revolution source quotes a sentence from Liu originally printed in Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien Pao on 19 May 1957 which echoes the sentiments of

the Geological Institute speech, though it does not seem to correspond precisely to any sentence in it; cf. SCMM 653, p. 3 and Liu, 1945—57, p. 423).

112 Tn this speech, unlike in his Shanghai one of 27 April, Liu deals with the problem of bureaucratism in a number of passages; but as in the one quoted, he seemed resentfully defensive. It is even possible that he was forced by the students to address himself to this problem for at one point he said: ‘ Haven’t you just mentioned bureaucracy?’ (Liu, 1945-57, p. 420). 113 JMJP, 8 May 1957. Chu emphasized study and work, which emerged as two of the major injunctions to the youth at the YCL’s 3rd congress later in the month; but it seems strange that he would not mention rectification at all to a group of young men who worked for organs that were currently taking a lead in promoting rectification. Teng Hsiao-p’ing, in his message of greetings to the YCL congress from the CCP’s CC, also stressed study and work (and a

third precept, unity), but he also talked of the need to struggle against bureaucratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism.

114 For a discussion of Lin Piao’s health see above, p. 357 n. 29, Ch’en Yi revealed his illness in his articles in the JMJP on 28 April and 1 August 1957. 115 Thid., 28 Apr. 1957. The timing of this article, so close to the launching of the rectification campaign, was very convenient for Mao; it may not have been coincidental. 116 JMJP, 30 May 1957. hie Chung-kuo id., p. 4. Ch’ ing-nien (Chinese Youth), No. 10, 16 May 1957, pp. 3-4. 119 Tbid., p. 3. 120 TMJP, 23 Apr. 1957. 121 Thid., 21 May 1957.

122 Doolin, p. 40. In this connection, one may note that while Tung did at least give a lead at criticism forums in his unit, the Minister of Public Security, Lo Jui-ch’ing, is not mentioned as participating in the discussions on rectification at his ministry (JMJP, 10 May 1957). 123 See Kuo, ii. 564, where it is stated that Tung Pi-wu played a major role in saving Mao when he was threatened with complete political disgrace in 1934. 124 Marshal Ho Lung had accompanied Premier Chou on his visit to Eastern Europe and may have formed similar opinions on the basis of it. 125 JM JP, 8 June 1957. Li Fu-ch’un’s phrasing was: ‘ Of all the shortcomings and mistakes in our capital construction in the past, some obviously spring from

our lack of experience, some are inseparable from bureaucratism, sec-

tarianism, and subjectivism in our work.’ Li did not repeat the contrast made

by the State Council directive between mistakes being ‘ connected’ with inexperience but ‘ created’ by bad work style, but on the other hand he gave less emphasis to inexperience than the JM/JP editorial (see above, pp. 236-7). Li Fu-ch’un made a major speech on capital construction in Chungking on 16 May during a tour he made with Po I-po to Shensi and Szechwan. According to the JMJP of 18 May, Li focused on the problems of constructing the country with industry and thrift, but did make a brief reference to rectification. 126 Thid., 1 May 1957. 127 Thid., 3 May 1957. 128 CB 464, pp. 22, 24.

129 Chou En-lai, ‘ Report on the work of the government ’, suppl. to People’s China, 16 July 1957, p. 39. 130 For an insight into the problems of mid-1957, see Li Hsien-nien’s speech to the NPC and_also that of Po I-po, Chairman of the State Economic Commission (SWB/FE, suppl.: Fourth Session of the Chinese National People’s Congress, No. 3, 9 July 1957, pp. 1-22). 131 MJP, 11 May 1957.

Pp

390 NOTES TO PAGES 246-51 133 Kuo Jui, ‘ From what point should the rectification [movement’s] checking up [on the handling of contradictions among the people] start? ’ ibid., 9 May 1957. 134 Thid., 18 May 1957. 135 Tbid., 8 June 1957. 136 Jbid., 2 July 1957. 137 See e.g. CB 878, p. 19. 138 JM{JP, 30 Apr. 1957. 189 Thid., 3 May 1957.

140 CB 467, pp. 1-6.

141 The 1956 CCP constitution made no provision for voting in the Politburo; nor is there any such provision in the constitution of the CPSU. However, it

would seem that voting does take place in the CPSU Presidium; in the

summer of 1957 there were references to Khrushchev being opposed by a ‘temporary formal majority’ in that body during his struggle against the ‘ anti-party group ’ (Conquest, p. 311). In mid-1973 Brezhnev told American journalists that the presidium rarely voted, normally reaching its decisions by consensus after long discussions (see the report ‘On the eve of talks, Brezhnev turns garrulous ’ by Henry Shapiro, International Herald Tribune, 16-17 June 1973). 142 Quoted in Solomon, p. 316.

Appendix 7. Where was Liu Shao-ch’‘i on 27 February 1957? 1 As argued in p. 374 n. 58, Liu probably went directly from Peking to Honan, visiting Hopei at the end of his provincial tour. If his 5 March speech in Honan marked the start of his visit to that province, then he was certainly in Peking on 27 February. 2 Miss Lin revealed awareness that Mao Tse-tung had personally played a major

role in the attack on Hu Feng though this was not public knowledge at the time (see Doolin, p. 38). Mao wrote introductions to collections of material used against Hu Feng and his friends, but this was not revealed until the

oD of the collection of Mao articles and speeches (see CB 891, pp. 3 Doolin, pp. 25-6. 4 Quoted by René Goldman in CQ, Oct.-Dec. 1962, pp. 141-2, Mr. Goldman, who was a student at Peita at the time, says Miss Lin alleged that 80% of the party members present at the SSC left the room, but this would seem extremely unlikely and must be accounted a mistake in the light of the text of Miss Lin’s remarks that has become available through the Doolin volume. 5 Compare the photograph of this SSC with that of the SSC of 25 Jan. 1956 (JMJP, 26 Jan. 1956), or with those of the openings of the CCP’s 8th Congress (ibid., 16 Sept. 1956) and the 1957 NPC (ibid., 27 June 1957). In the latter three cases, the rows of people behind the front row of the rostrum are clearly visible. In the case of the SSC of 25 January 1956, it is difficult to make out precisely who is sitting behind the front row, but this was remedied by a much better photo of the same occasion which appeared in Jen-min Hua-pao (People’s

Pictorial), Feb. 1956, p. 5. (Incidentally the photographs of the 1956 SSC

made it clear that Teng Tzu-hui did not attend the meeting, possibly because he was in disagreement with the 12-Year Agricultural Programme, possibly because he was regarded as being in disgrace because of his failure in the collectivization field.) Jen-min Hua-pao published no picture of the SSC at which Mao made his speech on contradictions. 8 i.e. men whose position merited their inclusion in the front row. For instance, Ho Lung is shown in the JMJ/P photograph to be sitting in the seat of the most

junior of the Deputy Prime Ministers for whom there was room in the front row. But there was only room for him because two Deputy Prime Ministers senior to him, Lin Piao and P’eng Teh-huai, were not present. Similarly Lin

NOTES TO PAGES 251-4 391 Po-ch’ii and Lo Jung-huan were both entitled to front-row seats among the Deputy Chairmen of the NPC if present; that they are not in the front row can only indicate they were absent. ’ Lin was rarely seen in public during this period. However, he was present with Liu Shao-ch’i at Shanghai airport to greet President Voroshilov on 22 April (JMJP, 23 Apr.). Chu Teh had not been visible in the capital since the beginning of the year. He was reported to have been in Canton on 6 February (Wen Hui Pao (Hong Kong), 25 Feb. 1957), and he met the Czech Premier Siroky in Chengtu in his native Szechwan in mid-March (JMJP, 16 Mar. 1957). Possibly the 70-year-old marshal was shunning the bitter Peking winter, but that should not have prevented a brief visit to the capital for an important speech by Mao. ® For an extended discussion of the question of assessing this kind of evidence, see MacFarquhar, CQ, Apr.—June 1971 pp. 289-307.

Appendix 8. The Attitudes of Provincial Leaders to Rectification 1 P’an Fu-sheng, the Honan first secretary. See Teiwes, ‘ The purge of provincial

leaders 1957-8’, CQ, July-Sept. 1966. However, Honan was one of the provinces where the first secretary indicated dislike of rectification (see below).

? As explained there, reports are not available for two places—Kwangsi and Tientsin; and a third—Tibet—was not included in the campaign. The Ninghsia Hui Autonomous Region was formed in 1958. 3 Anhwei, Heilungkiang, Hopei, Hupei, Kirin, Kweichow, Liaoning, Shantung,

Shensi, Sinkiang, Tsinghai.

4 The exception was Kweichow, which may have occurred because the report in

that case took the form of an interview with the first secretary instead of a

6 Hunan, Kiangsi. straight news dispatch. 5 Fukien, Yunnan, Shanghai.

? Chekiang, Honan, Inner Mongolia, Kansu, Kiangsu, Kwangtung, Shansi, eevee14. Peking. (The Kiangsu first secretary may have been ill—see p. 257, note

“ihe exceptions were Peking, Honan, and probably Kiangsu (see p. 257 note ° As the table shows, I have found reports for only 14 out of the 27 provinciallevel units on the manual labour question. Since this was an important Issue, the subject of a special CC directive, the failure of almost half the provincial secretaries to ensure national publicity for their obedience to the policy is indicative of the widespread dislike of it. 10 Honan and Kwangtung. 11 Hunan.

p+

PART FOUR: THE ANTI-RIGHTIST CAMPAIGN

Notes to pages 261-7

Chapter 17. The Publication of the Contradictions Speech 1 ‘Shih-ch’ing cheng-tsai ch’i pien-hua’, in Mao Tse-tung ssu hsiang wan sui !, p. 15; trans. under the title ‘ Things are changing ’ in CB 891, p. 24. According to another quotation from the same source this piece dates from the second ten days of May; see Central special unit, Struggle, criticism, transformation office, Fighting department, Red (Guard) Congress, ed., Mao Chu-hsi chiao-yii

yli-lu (The sayings of Chairman Mao on education) (Peking: East is Red Commune, Peking Electrical Inst., July 1967), pp. 25-6. It would be my hypothesis that it probably dates from 19 or 20 May; as discussed above

(p. 224), Mao exhibited considerable concern in the piece about the

attitudes of journalists, This concern may well have been the result of reading

the reports of the journalists’ forums (at which Teng T’o was one of the

speakers) held in the capital from 16 through 18 May; see MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers ..., p. 63. It is not clear whether ‘ Things are just beginning to change ’ was a memorandum or a speech or a few off-the-cuff remarks. The quotation from Mao Chu-hsi chiao-yii yii-lu makes it clear that the text in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! is incomplete. 2 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui !, p. 15. 3 Pol. Docs, pp. 289-90. 4 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui !, p. 15. 5 Mao Chu-hsi chiao-yii yii-lu, pp. 25-6. 6 JMJP, 26 May 1957. See also SCMP 1548, pp. 10-12. 7 SCMP 1553, pp. 13-16.

8 The Kuang-ming Jih-pao had sent its reporters to nine cities to hold special forums for critics; see MacFarquhar, pp. 59-60, 64-8. Ch’u An-p’ing had framed his criticisms in the form of opinions to Mao and Chou En-lai and contended that the key problem was the party’s belief that it should dominate in every sphere (ibid., pp. 51-3).

*See ‘Staff of Kuang-ming Jih-pao expose at conference of Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee and China Democratic League conspiracy of Chang Po-chiin and Chu An-ping to change course of paper ’, Kuang-ming

Jih-pao, 21 June 1957 (SCMP 1566, p. 24). 10 See ‘ Chang Po-chtin admits his alliance with Lo Lung-chi at enlarged meeting convened by central executive bureau of Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party ’, NCNA, 3 July 1957 (SCMP 1571, p. 22). 11 Tt was the Peking bureau of the Wen Hui Pao, of which Miss P’u was the head, which was responsible for filing an important early story about the unrest on the Peita campus (see MacFarquhar, p. 134). 12 Mme Ho was the 80-year-widow of one of Sun Yat-sen’s closest colleagues, Liao Chung-k’ai, who was assassinated in 1925 a few months after Sun’s death.

Her son, Liao Ch’eng-chih, had been re-elected to the CCP’s CC at the 8th

Congress. 13 Entitled ‘ The workers have spoken ’. 14 Thid.

15 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui !, p. 15. 16 * Ts it not a question of stand ?’, JMJP, 14 June 1957. 17 Mao Tse-tung chu-tso hsuan-tu: Chia chung pen, p. 355.

18 The report was filed by the paper’s Warsaw correspondent, Sidney Gruson. There had been earlier reports about the speech in the NYT on 19 and 29 May but these contained little that was not already public knowledge in China.

392

NOTES TO PAGES 267-9 393 19 Extracts from the two texts are juxtaposed in MacFarquhar, pp. 265-77. Alterations in the original version are discussed below. One indication of reliability of the Warsaw version is that it included a statement that it had been

decided to publish the works of Chiang Kai-shek. The Kwangtung party

secretary T’ao Chu, in his speech of 17 Apr. 1957 (printed in Nan-fang Jih-pao on 4 May), had already revealed this decision, and the reason he gave for it had

been the same as the one in the Warsaw version—the need to know one’s

enemy (cf. MacFarquhar, The Hundred Flowers .. ., p. 276). 20 On 15 June the JMJP reproduced an editorial from the Shanghai Chieh-fang th-pao. 21 Loh & Evans, p. 220. 22 Doolin, p. 38. 23 Tbid., p. 62. The two students did not specify that their figures were based on Mao’s speech, but it is a reasonable assumption that they were. 24 Loh & Evans, p. 220. A figure of over 14 million had been cited in Richard L. Walker, China under Communism: the first five years, p. 219.

2°Toh & Evans, p. 221. Persistent reports of fighting between Chinese and

Tibetans in eastern Tibet reached the outside world in the spring and summer of 1956. On 6 August 1956 the Chairman of the Nationalities Affairs Committee of the NPC, Liu Ko-p’ing, told an Italian communist journalist that the reports were grossly exaggerated and represented greatly delayed information about a rebellion which had begun in late February in the Kunze Autono-

mous Chou in western Szechwan, inhabited by Tibetans as well as other nationalities (NCNA, 7 Aug. 1956). So grave was the tension between Tibetans

and Chinese that in January 1957 Mao had speculated that the Dalai Lama, then on a visit to India, might stay there or seek asylum in America (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 87). Mao had reason to be worried; Nehru had to persuade the Dalai Lama that it would be best for him to return home (see Richardson, Tibet and its History, p. 203). 26 That is one argument for believing the criteria were not in the original text. Others have been mentioned above (see pp. 209, 262-6). Robert Loh, whoheard the original tape-recording, states that the six criteria were not included in it (Loh & Evans, p. 251). 27 Pol. Docs, p. 288. 28 Ibid. 29 Tbid., p. 275. 30 Thid., p. 289. 31 Pol. Docs, pp. 289-90.

7).

32 For Siroky, Mao gave only a dinner (pien-yen) (JMJP, 10 Mar. 1957); for Cyrankiewicz he put on a banquet (she-yen) (ibid., 9 Apr. 1957), Mao was only shown with Siroky in a formal group portrait of the Czech delegation and their hosts (ibid., 10 Mar. 1957); but with Cyrankiewicz he was shown not only in the formal group situation (ibid., 9 Apr. 1957), but also in conversation with him at the banquet (with Mme Cyrankiewicz and Chou En-lai—ibid.) and, the following day, at the reception given by the Polish Premier (ibid., 10-Apr.

1957). In the report on the Polish visit, it was stated that Mao talked with

Cyrankiewicz for 90 minutes (ibid., 9 Apr. 1957); there was no record of Mao

ions the same sustained interest in Siroky’s conversation (ibid., 10 Mar. 33 See Zagoria, pp. 64-5. The Sino-Polish communiqué signed at the end of Cyrankiewicz’s visit failed to single out the Soviet Union as bloc leader, as had the communiqué signed during Chou En-lai’s visit to Warsaw in January. It is

important to remember that the sixth of Mao’s criteria was that words and actions should be judged by whether they were beneficial or harmful to international socialist solidarity. By the time he went to Moscow in the autumn of 1957, Mao was clearly convinced that failure to acknowledge Soviet leadership of the bloc was harmful in this way and this led him into controversy with the

Polish and Yugoslav delegations. As a result of Mao’s intervention Soviet leadership was acknowledged in the final Declaration and the Yugoslavs refused to sign (ibid., pp. 146-7). In the first half of 1958 the Chinese began _ their polemics against Yugoslav revisionism. In other words, failure to

394. NOTES TO PAGES 269-73 recognize Soviet bloc leadership became an indication of revisionism during

the summer of 1957. But this was not because the Chinese had only now

realized the importance of stressing the leadership of the Soviet Union. It was because their experience within China during May and early June made them appreciate that they could not afford to be as lenient towards revisionism as

they had been hitherto. Hence their change of attitude towards the Polish

stand on Soviet leadership. It is thus virtually unthinkable that Mao’s original speech contained this estimate of the danger of revisionism. A similar condemnation of revisionism as the more serious danger was inserted into the propaganda conference speech, where it sounded even odder (Mao, Propaganda Conference Speech, pp. 27-8). 34 Cf, Loh & Evans, pp. 251-2. 35 Deutscher, Russia, China and the West, p. 104; the chapter on Mao’s speech dates from June 1957. 36 Benjamin I. Schwartz, p. 115; this comment dates from July-August 1957. 37 Pol. Docs, p. 289. 38 Ibid., pp. 291-2. 39 Ibid., p. 282. 40 Thid., p. 291. 41 Ibid., pp. 288-91.

Chapter 18. Mao Linked with the Rightists 1 According to Teng Hsiao-p’ing at the 8th Congress, the CCP had 10-7 million members (8th National Congress . . .,1. 209). Probably a good proportion had heard some version of Mao’s speech. 2° The towering crimes of P’eng Chen against Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung’s thought ’, Peking Daily, 10 June 1967, p. 8, col. 1. 3 Ibid. The following year P’eng indicated that Liu Shao-ch’i was the originator of 3). a remark (see P’eng Chen fan-ko-ming hsiu-cheng-chu-i yen-lun chai-pien, p. 4* Materials on the case of three-anti element P’eng Chen’, Tung Fang Hung Pao (East is Red News), 8 Aug. 1967, p. 2, col. 2. ® Liu Jen was one of three communist officials who, in 1948, persuaded Wu Han to leave Peking to try and get to the ‘ liberated areas ’; see Wu Han’s biography in URI, Who’s Who, ti. 717.

8 See Stephen Uhalley Jr., ‘The cultural revolution and the attack on the

‘“* Three Family Village ’ ’, CO, July-Sept. 1966, pp. 149-61. 7 It is inconceivable that a non-communist official as senior as Wu Han would have been ignorant of the contents of Mao’s speech. Indeed, Wu Han was quite important enough to have attended the SSC session on 27 Feb., though he might have been prevented by illness. (Wu Han’s article in the JMJP of 19 June 1957 revealed that he had recently been ill.) 8 Pol. Docs, p. 282. ® JMJP, 23 May 1957. 10 Thid.

11 Thid., 11 June 1957. The paper interviewed Wu Han after printing on 10 June

a brief une. report of his remarks at a forum at the China People’s University on 12 Thid., 19 June 1957. 13 Thid., 26 June 1957. 14 Tbid., 22 July 1957. The article was a long synopsis of one that had appeared

two days earlier in the Kung-jen Jih-pao (Workers’ Daily), which had been written by 13 members of Lo Lung-chi’s staff at his Ministry The fact that the article used the term ‘ pointed out ’ rather than ‘ alleged ° shows how thin by this time was the pretence that there were differences between the Mao and Lo proposals.

15 JMJIP, 27 June 1957. 16 See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 144, for an acid remark about

Lo’s proposal being supported in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and America,

NOTES TO PAGES 274-7 395 According to Cohen, there was a response to Mao’s proposal, but it appears

to have been only at the provincial level and prior to the anti-rightist campaign (see The Criminal Process in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-63:

an introduction, p. 41). 17 One NPC delegate explained how he had submitted his speech in advance of the NPC session; presumably this was typical. See speech by T’an Kah-kee,

quoted in SWB/FE suppl.: Fourth Session of the Chinese NPC, No. 6,

18 July 1957, p. 20. 18 JMJP, 19 May 1957.

20 Thid., 20 June 1957. . 19 Thid., 26 May 1957. ;

21 Chou En-lai, ‘ Report on the work of the government ’, suppl. to People’s China, 16 July 1957, p. 39. 22 Ibid., p. 36. 23 See Oksenberg, Policy Formulation in Communist China, ch. 10. 24 Chang made his proposal at the 21 May session of the UFWD forums; see JMJP, 22 May 1957, and (for the NCNA report) SCMP 1550, p. 2. 25 See Editorial Departments Red Flag and People’s Daily, ‘ Along the socialist or the capitalist road?’ suppl. to China Reconstructs, Nov. 1967, p. 8. And

of course Liu had also proposed setting up 8 standing committees of the NPC (see above, p. 115). 26 As already stated above, during the course of 1956 Liu Shao-ch’i indicated that he supported ‘ long-term coexistence’ because he believed that the democratic parties could mobilize some sections of society (presumably for economic development) better than the CCP. (See Shao Pai, ‘ Refuting several ‘“‘ bases of argument’”’ for the theory of “‘ class cooperation ’’ of the No. 1 ambitionist in the party ’, Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 29 Jane 1967 (SCMP 3987, p. 2).) 27 JMJP, 15 July 1957.

28 By describing the CPSU’s 20th Congress as a ‘ major disaster’, I am of course referring to the fact that it was at that congress that Khrushchev made his secret anti-Stalin speech which was responsible for most of the tumult in the communist world thereafter and which was regarded by the Chinese as a gross blunder.

29 IMJIP, 7 July 1957. 80 Tbid., 18 July 1957; ‘impossible to implement ’ is literally ‘impossible to exchange for ready money ’ (tui-pu-liao hsien). 31 See the speech of Yen Hsi-min, a leading member of the CPWDP, JMJP,

3 July 1957. 32 The reference to Chou and Tung Pi-wu was in brackets in the printed version of the speech and could easily have been left out without any damage to the other point being made (ibid.). 33 See the report of a rectification session called by the CDL’s CC on 3 July

entitled ‘ Fei Hsiao-t’ung enumerates Lo Lung-chi’s methods of plotting, Shao Tz’u-yun reveals Lo Lung-chi’s base actions’ (ibid., 4 July 1957). Mao revealed to the SSC in October 1957 how he had spoken to Fei Hsiaot’ung in early June in an effort to persuade him and his large circle of friends throughout the country to return to the fold (Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 136). In the light of Mao’s actions, it is difficult to be sure about Fei’s motivation in making this indirect attack on the Chairman and Chou En-lai; presumably he was given no option by the officials orchestrating the anti-rightist campaign. Whatever the explanation, Mao still argued that Fei

and people like him should not be subjected to labour reform (ibid., pp.

134-5). 34 Thid., 11 July 1957. 35 Chang Po-chiin was chairman of the CPWDP as well as a leading member of

the CDL. Hu Yii-chih was only a member of the CDL; see his biography in URI, Who’s Who, i. 293-5. Hu had been editor of the Kuang-ming Jih-pao until replaced by Ch’u An-p’ing earlier in 1957; conceivably he bore a grudge against Chang Po-chiin, who had apparently played a major role in the changeover of editors.

396 NOTES TO PAGES 277-82 36 The rightists and non-communists who inserted material damaging to Mao in their speeches and articles may have been quite willing to do so if they felt,

as many probably did, that the Chairman had let them down—either by

setting a trap, or, more probably, by encouraging them to speak up and then being unable to defend them against the wrath of the party cadres. 37 JMJP, 4 June 1957. 38 Tbid., 7 July 1957. Wu Han also alleged that Chang and Lo sanctioned the printing of a distorted quotation to this effect in the CDL central committee’s work bulletin. 39 * Chang Po-chiin lit a fire at the Railway Institute ’, ibid., 11 July 1957. 40 See the text of Ma Che-min’s speech, ibid., 18 July 1957. 41 In one later reference to this controversy, Mao alluded to his attempt to instruct the bourgeoisie at the 30 April SSC, but said that Chang and Lo had not listened, only being interested in eliminating the party committee system in the schools; Mao did not suggest that they had misinterpreted him (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 158. For Mao’s remarks on the

subject in early April, see ibid., p. 108.) ;

42 Quoted in ‘ The bourgeois orientation of the Wen Hui Pao ought to be

criticized ’, ibid., editorial, 1 July 1957. 43 Mao was also responsible for a preliminary attack on the Wen Hui Pao and the Kuang-ming Jih-pao in the JMJP on 14 June (as again revealed during the

cultural revolution). This short piece took the form of a comment on an article by Yao Wen-yuan JI, who had criticized the off-hand treatment

accorded by the Wen Hui Pao to Mao’s warning of 25 May that all words and actions that departed from socialism were wrong; Yao pointed out that the Shanghai party paper Chieh-fang Jih-pao had given it great prominence. Was this when the young Yao—who emerged eight years later as the ideological trail-blazer of the cultural revolution—first caught Mao’s eye? 44 JMJP editorial, 1 July 1957. Mao later justified the tough struggle sessions of the anti-rightist campaign by saying the rightists had brought it on them-

selves by launching into ‘big’ blooming and contending in May-June; he had never advocated ‘big’ blooming and contending, not in his hundred

flowers speech nor in his contradictions speech (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 133). 45 K’o Chih-wen & Chang Yin-yan, ‘ Cut Chou Yang black gang’s claws that are stretching to science and technology circles °, Chieh-fang Jih-pao, 4 Aug. 1966 (SCMP(S) 158, p. 5). 46 Po], Docs, p. 280. £7 Tbid., p. 288. 48 SCMP 1572, p. 24. 49 See ‘ Record of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s reactionary utterances ’, in How Vicious They Are! (SCMP(S) 208, pp. 8 & 26). 50 Mao was reported to have received a visiting Indonesian dignitary in Shanghai on 6 July (MJP, 8 July 1957). 51 Tbid., 9 July 1957. Mao would not have wanted completely to neglect the intellectuals of Peking, however. On 14 July three men who had supported him on rectification—Chou En-lai, K’ang Sheng, and Chou Yang—met some 200 Peking writers and artists; but it was impossible to exclude the opposition, and Chou Yang’s chief, Lu Ting-yi, also attended. All four leaders spoke and afterwards had supper with the audience (SCMP 1573, p. 7). One must assume that the meeting had much to do with the struggle against Miss Ting Ling and other veteran writers which had already started and which was shortly to be revealed to the public (see Merle Goldman, pp. 207-42; Fokkema, pp. 151-85). But Chou En-lai, who made the main speech, doubtless attempted to justify the change of direction in the rectification campaign. 52 The text of Mao’s speech is in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 109-22. This source gives the date of the speech as 8 July, but I assume that this is one of the moderately frequent errors in dates in this volume. (There are references to Mao’s contradictions speech being made on 29 Feb. 1957,

put 1957 was not a leap year, this is an obvious mistake; see ibid., pp. 133,wee 137).

NOTES TO PAGES 282-3 397 53 For a totally different interpretation of the significance of the publication of

this photograph see Solomon, pp. 320-2; for a critique of Solomon’s

interpretation see my ‘ On photographs ’, CQ, Apr.—June 1971, n. 38. . 54 See ‘ The inside story of a black conference [held by] Teng Hsiao-p’ing’, Hsin-wen Chan-hsien, 13 May 1967, p. 3, where it is stated that Teng Hsiaop’ing announced the changeover at a meeting on the 3rd or possibly the 4th. 55 See ibid. for an attack on Teng Hsiao-p’ing for not denouncing Teng T’o. In his confession, Wu Leng-hsi revealed that at first he (Wu) only took charge of layout; Teng T’o seems to have remained in charge of most of his previous functions. From Wu’s account it would seem that Teng T’o was displaced because Mao had insisted on it, but it is clear that Mao was unable to ensure

that he be disgraced as well; presumably Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen

prevented that. As a result, the meeting at which Teng T’o gave way to Wu Leng-hsi seems to have been a rather gentlemanly affair, with Teng Hsiaop’ing, having to praise Teng T’o rather than bury him (see ibid.; CLG, II/4, pp. 73-4; and ‘ One hundred examples of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s utterances and deeds which were contrary to the Thought of Mao Tse-tung ’, Chingkangshan, 8 Mar. 1967 (SCMP 3933, pp. 11-12).

56 Chang Po-chiin was Minister of Communications, Lo Lung-chi of the

Timber Industry, and Chang Nai-ch’i of Food. 57 See the revelations of his secretary in HHP YK, No. 19, 1957, p. 24. 58 Ibid. On 10 July Liu Shao-ch’i had apparently said that the rightists had to be trusted until a conclusion was reached on their case (San-fan fen-tzu Liu Shao-ch’i tsui-o shih, p. 33); this was standard CCP procedure for a struggle

campaign and it shows why Liu must have been particularly irritated that no ‘ conclusion’ had been reached. 59 The three men were formally dismissed by Mao on the basis of a decision of the NPC’s SC (at the suggestion of Premier Chou and the State Council) on

31 Jan. 1958, the day before the opening of the next NPC session (see

SWB/FE, suppl.: Chinese National People’s Congress, Fifth Session, No. 1, 6 Feb. 1958). One does not need to suppose that the ministers actually carried

on with their jobs as if nothing had happened; but the failure to take the

formal step of dismissal in mid-July 1957 was a glaring anomaly. 69 See ‘ A record of Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s counter-revolutionary revisionist black words ’, Chin Chiin Pao, 14 June 1967, p. 2, col. 2. This source gives the date of the conference as 1958, but the brief quotation from Teng’s remarks on this occasion make it clear that this must be a mistake. 61 See the report of a rectification session of the CDL branch in the Ministry of Higher Education on 11 July entitled ‘ Tseng Chao-lun begins to explain his relationship with the Chang-Lo alliance ’, JMJP, 14 July 1957, 62 See Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, pp. 59-70. 63 Tt is worth noting that Ch’en Ming-shu perhaps felt he had good reason to attack Mao. Ch’en had been a leader of the abortive Fukien revolt against Chiang Kai-shek in 1933 (see his biography in URI, Who’s Who, i. 92). The

rebels had appealed to the Chinese communists in the Kiangsi Soviet for

help, but though the Soviet government had earlier signed an agreement with

the ‘ People’s Revolutionary Government’ in Fukien, it did not send the desired assistance and Chiang Kai-shek suppressed the rebellion. Mao’s power in the Soviet government at that time was limited, but such influence as he had was used against the dispatch of aid to the Fukien rebels (see Schram, Mao Tse-tung, pp. 172-5). Ch’en Ming-shu might well have nursed a grudge against him for this. According to Chow Ching-wen, Mao had reason to dislike Ch’en Ming-shu as well, as a result of an incident that took place at a meeting in 1953 (see Chow Ching-wen, pp. 254-7). In the light of Ch’en’s criticism of Mao for associating with toadying noncommunists, it is interesting to note that nine years later, Mao was to admit openly that he had ‘ many rightist friends ’ (CB 891, p. 72); the people he referred to as examples, Chou Ku-ch’eng and Chang Chih(?)-chung, were not ‘ rightists ’ in the 1957 sense—they did not come under attack during the antirightist campaign—but in the sense that they were to the right, politically, of the Communist party.

398 NOTES TO PAGES 284-6 That some of Ch’en Ming-shu’s criticisms annoyed Mao is indicated by two references he made to them in January 1958; on both occasions he accepted Ch’en’s accusations as accurate, but justified the behaviour Ch’en was criticizing (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 147, 155-6). 64 Ch’en also cited Mao’s letter to the editor of Poetry to suggest that he dis-

dained classical literature. In publishing this comment, the JMJP was

probably being ironical; from the party’s point of view that letter of Mao’s, along with the publication of his poems, gave classical literature a boost and

dealt Natal to the guardians of orthodox socialist realism (see above, pp. 179-80). 65*T iy Pin-yen is the spokesman within the party for bourgeois rightists ’, JMIJP, 20 July 1957. 66 Liu Pin-yen did not exclude Mao completely from criticism. He quoted the Chairman as saying the YCL conference had gone well and said that he and the masses disagreed with this judgement (ibid.). 67* Tseng Chao-lun begins to explain his relationship with the Chang—Lo alliance ’, ibid., 14 July 1957, p. 5. Chiang Nan-hsiang, who became Minister of Higher Education in January 1965, was denounced during the cultural revolution for his connections with the ‘ three-family village’ group within the Peking party organization (see URI, Who’s Who, i. 137). 68 See Huang Yao-mien’s self-critical speech to the NPC, JM/JP, 19 July 1957.

69*7i Wan-ch’un arouses wind and waves in the world of Peking drama, entertaining the fantastic dream that the period of the Japanese puppet government can be repeated ’, ibid., 24 July 1957. 70 Tbid., 17 July 1957. 71 Clearly there is a certain amount of semantic sleight of hand involved in the correction. If the exploiting class had been eliminated, then only the exploited

class remains, and since the existence of classes depends on the existence of more than one class, this in turn should mean class has been eliminated. (For

a discussion of this issue as it arose in the Soviet Union in the 1930s see

Hunt, pp. 204-8.) But what the Chinese bourgeoisie may have been intended to understand was that the only people who had been eliminated as a class were the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords, groups normally associated directly with Chang Kai-shek. The national bourgeoisie, ordinary landlords, rich peasants still existed as classes, even if dispossessed and thus non-exploiting and within the ranks of the people, and could therefore be subjected to class warfare, albeit in modified form suitable for solving internal contradictions. In fact the correction of the Lu Ting-yi article brought the orthodox theoretical position closer to that of Mao (see above, pp. 11921). But whereas Mao had deviated from Soviet orthodoxy—apart from his belief in the persistence of contradictions—in order to preserve his option for rectifying the party, his opponents would seem to have indicated their agreement with him in this instance in order to be able to threaten the intellectuals. (That this was their objective would seem to be confirmed in that a theoretical modification of their position had already been made in the JM/JP editorial of 2 May 1957; see above, pp. 215-16.) 72* Firmly support the party’s right to lead scientific work’, JMJP, 17 July 1957.

73 The Soviet purge was revealed to the world on the evening of 3 July. The CCP was informed by telegram; Teng Hsiao-p’ing carried the telegram in his hand and made an immediate announcement of its contents when he opened the meeting of journalists summoned to hear of the displacement of Teng T’o by Wu Leng-hsi. As noted above (n. 54), however, this source was not sure whether this meeting was on 3 or 4 July. 74 Michel Oksenberg has pointed out that a number of top central and provincial officials disappeared between those dates (see Oksenberg, Policy

Formulation in Communist China, ch. 11, n.6). 75 According to Teng Hsiao-p’ing in his report on the rectification campaign to the 3rd plenum on 23 September 1957 (JMST 1958, p. 33). The translation in Pol. Docs, p. 343, is slightly misleading. It suggests that it could have been a

NOTES TO PAGES 286-9 399 meeting of top leaders which some provincial leaders attended. The original phrasing suggests that the meeting was more like the meeting which Mao had with provincial leaders on 31 July 1955, to speed up collectivization. 76 Ulanfu summed up on the penultimate day of the conference which took place in Tsingtao from 20 July to 6 August. One can assume he probably attended earlier sessions. Chou addressed the conference on 4 August, and on 5 August he and Mao received the delegates. Chou had also been with Mao

when the latter received a Burmese dignitary on 2 August (see Tsingtao

Jih-pao, 5 Aug. 1957). 77 P’eng Chen was the only other Politburo member at this time who was also a provincial or municipal leader. ?8 In contrast, when Ch’en Po-ta reported on collectivization to the 6th plenum

of the 7th CC in October 1955 he was able to describe Mao’s speech of

31 July as a ‘ directive ’ and claim that the conference of provincial leaders to whom he had made the speech had been called by the CC (JMST 1956, p. 92), though the evidence suggests that the conference and speech were part of an initiative on the part of Mao. For Teng’s report see JM ST 1958, p. 33.

78 See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 125; the word wen-chien occurs on p. 123.

80 Tbid., p. 123. 81 There are three different sets of extracts from this speech available: (a) Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui !, p. 16 (CB 891, p. 25), and also in Ch’en, Mao Papers, p. 56, The second of the three extracts in this source omits the character ‘ yung ° (to use), as one finds by comparing it with the version of the same passage to be found in Red Flag, 14 Oct. 1968, pp. 8-9; (b) SCMP(S) 191, p. 21; (c) Wen Yi Hung Ch’i, No. 5, 30 May 1967, p. 3, col. 2 (SCMP 4000, p. 18). It is in this latter source that the speech is stated to have been made at the Tsingtao meeting; the other two sources simply ascribe it to July 1957. Extracts from the speech can be found elsewhere, but I have been unable to locate any that are not also included in the above three major sources. 82 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui !, p. 16. 83 In his speech to intellectual circles in Shanghai (see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), p. 118). 84 SCMP(S) 191, p. 21. 85 SCMP 4000, p. 18. 86 It is very possible that quotations from other parts of the speech, parts still unavailable in the west, also appeared, but these, of course, cannot be pinned own. 87 Cf. Ist para. extracts in SCMP(S) 191, p. 21. 88 Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui l, p. 16. 89 See Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 206-7. 99 * Definitely do not allow intra-party rightists to sap the party’s strength (lit.: erode the party’s body—fu-shih tang-ti chi-t’i). Publicly opposing the party’s counter-attack on the rightists, Hsu Liang-ying’s soul is thoroughly soaked in rightist thinking’, JMJP, 29 July 1957. Hsu Liang-ying appears to have been a member of the Philosophical Research Section of the Academy of Sciences. 91 * Hsu Liang-ying and Li Teh-ch’i are traitors to the party ’, ibid., 3 Aug. 1957. This report repeated the allegation that the CC was split, but did not refer to Liu Shao-ch’i or P’eng Chen by name. 92 Wang Ching-wei was a leftist member of the KMT who had his own quarrels with Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 but in the end made common cause with him against the CCP. During the anti-Japanese war Wang Ching-wei became the head of a puppet government under the enemy. 938 IMJIP, 7 Aug. 1957, reproduced in HHP YK, No. 17, 1957, p. 144. On 12 April 1927 Chiang Kai-shek suddenly turned on the communists in Shanghai, slaughtering them in large numbers, and so disrupting the uneasy KMT-CCP alliance; this date had particular meaning for Chou En-lai, who had been one of the chief communist organizers in the city (see Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, ch. 11). On 15 July the KMT ordered all CCP members of the KMT to renounce their CCP membership or face extreme penalties (ibid., p. 269). The significance of the 15 April date is not clear to me.

400 NOTES TO PAGES 290-4 94 JMJP, 7 Aug. 1957. Ch’en Tu-hsiu was the first leader of the CCP, serving as its General Secretary from 1921 to 1927. He was blamed for the disastrous 96 Ibid. qutcome of the first period of CCP-K MT co-operation. 96 No full text of P’eng’s speech was released, but the long report of it ibid. presumably included the points he wished to emphasize. 97 See items 3 and 5 in P’eng’s list of shortcomings in Peking work, ibid. P’eng,

unlike the editorial of 28 July, used slightly different terms from Mao to

emphasize the seriousness of the anti-rightist campaign. Where Mao talked of a‘ great socialist revolution on the political and ideological fronts ’ (SCMP(S)

191, p. 21), P’eng talked of a ‘ great political and ideological struggle’. P’eng may have wanted to emphasize struggle or just to dissociate himself from Mao’s phrasing as far as possible. OeIbid., A summary p. 142. of the speech appeared in HHPYK, No. 18, 1957, pp. 137-42. 109 Cf, ibid., with the extract from Maoin Wen Yi Hung Ch’i, 30 May 1967, p. 3,

col. 2; or the same passages in translation in SCMP 1609, p. 20 (K’o) and SCMP 4000, p. 18 (Mao). 101 See above, p. 287 and cf. HHP YK, No. 18, 1957, p. 138. The only change in the K’o version was the unimportant substitution of yao for hsiang as the seventh character of the passage. 102 HHPYK, No. 18, 1957, p. 138. The translation in SCMP 1609 omits the penultimate sentence. 103 HHPYK, No. 18, 1957, p. 138. Neither K’o nor P’eng singled out intraparty rightists; this may have been because their audiences were largely made up of non-party people.

Chapter 19. Compromise 1 These are the official estimates of increases in gross value of agricultural production; some western estimates (e.g. Liu and Yeh) are lower—3% for 1956 and 0-:5% for 1957. See Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, p. 81, n. 64. For a discussion of the erosion of the collective farm system see Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, pp. 72-3. 2 Cotton output had declined 5% in 1956 and cloth output had decreased by 12:5% in 1957 (see Walker, p. 72). 3 Ibid., p. 71.

“From 1952 to 1956 the population had been increasing at over 2% per annum (see John S. Aird, ‘ Population growth and distribution in mainland China ’, in US Congress Joint Economic Committee, An Economic Profile of Mainland China, ti. 353). ° In 1956 grain purchases had gone down by 3,900 million catties while sales on the domestic market had risen by 12,700 million catties. Sales had continued

to increase in 1957, purchases to fall (see ‘ The foodgrain problem and the ideological problem ’, JM/JP editorial, 5 Aug. 1957 (SCMP 1591, pp. 4—6)). , Some id. cadres were also accused of individualism (ibid.).

® For a description of an altercation on the subject between Mao and a prominent non-communist, Liang Su-ming, see Chow Ching-wen, pp. 254-7. ® See ‘ Look at Liu Shao-ch’i’s sinister features! °, Ching-kang Shan, 1 Jan. 1967 (SCMP(S) 162, p. 3).

10° A preliminary study of the income and living standards of the peasants of China ’, JMJP, 5 May 1957 (SCMP 1555, pp. 25-39). According to T’an Chen-lin ‘ since the autumn harvest of 1956 a number of comrades have taken the view that “‘ the peasants still have a good deal of trouble in making a living *’, It seems to them that the party and the government have paid not so much attention to improving peasants’ living conditions as to the officials and workers in the urban areas. Some of our comrades even subscribe to the opinion that, “ upon entering the cities, the Communist Party forgot the

NOTES TO PAGES 294-8 401 villages *?’. The date of publication—before rectification really got going—

. and the reference to ‘ comrades’ make it clear that the article was directed at party members and not at non-communist critics, though some of the

latter may have shared the viewpoint. 11“ Report on the work of the government ’, trans. as a supplement to People’s China, 16 July 1957, p. 23. 12 SWB/FE/ES 280, pp. 5-6. 18 * Bloom, contend and debate extensively in the countryside ’, JMJP editorial, 10 Aug. 1957. The laissez-faire attitude towards the disruption of socialist legality may have been one of the things Mao meant by liberalism in his

Tsingtao speech. There had also been an editorial on 7 August entitled

* Agricultural co-operatives should not go in for speculative trading ’ which had attacked APCs that obtained state grain illegally and then sold it on the black market. Local party officials were said to tolerate this kind of activity i because Ibid. they felt that not to do so would be unfair to the peasants. 15 Thid.

16 * Grain sales can be reduced! ’ on 12 Aug.; ‘ Distinguish the great right and the great wrong in the question of foodgrains ’ on 15 Aug.; ‘ The free markets

must be strictly controlled’ on 18 Aug.; ‘ Grain consumption must be

planned ’ on 28 Aug.; ‘ Sell more grain in bumper harvest areas ’ on 30 Aug.; * Urban use of grain must be sharply curtailed ’ on 2 Sept. 17 See Vogel, Canton under Communism, p. 209. It seems unlikely that Kwangtung would have issued such figures without central guidance. 18 For a discussion of this campaign and how its probable objectives were subverted see Oksenberg, ch. 11, pp. 30-2. 19 Many cadres had been less prescient, worrying that blooming and contending might suit high-level government organs and educational establishments but would not go down in the countryside. The official reply was that this indicated lack of confidence in the strength of party leadership and the wisdom of the masses (JM JP editorial, 10 Aug. 1957). Probably the cadres, knowing that the peasants would be less sensitive to the limits of debate than even the most extreme bourgeois rightist, were concerned that contending would be difficult to control once it got going—and they had enough trouble with disgruntled peasants without benefit of the campaign. (For a description of the situation in the Kwangtung countryside before the socialist education campaign, see Vogel, pp. 204—S.)

20 Trans. in SWB/FE/ES 281, pp. 6-8. 21 See Vogel, pp. 204-5. 22 In the course of deciding on its measures for the cloth ration for the coming year, the Ministry of Commerce opted for greater equality between town and country, reducing somewhat the privileged position of city dwellers, admitting that this had aroused resentment (JMJP, 20 Aug. 1957). 23 The directive was published on 10 August, Po’s speech on 11 August. For a translation of the latter see SWB/FE/ES 280, pp. 1-4. 24 See Oksenberg, ch. 11, pp. 2-3. 25 SWB/FE/ES 280, p. 2. 26 Thid., p. 4.

27 See Marion R. Larsen, ‘ China’s agriculture under communism’, in US

Congress, An Economic Profile of Mainland China, i. 236-7. 28 of SWBITE/ES 280, p. 3. The limited supplies were due to the natural calamities 1956.

31 Ibid. __

29 Oksenberg (ch. 11, p. 2) indicates that an editorial in the JMJP on 24 July |

1957 was the first sign that Mao’s views on this point were to be implemented. 30 Pol. Docs, pp. 285-6. 32 SCMP(S) 191, p. 21.

33 Ibid. The bitterness of Mao’s disillusionment with the intellectuals was pointed up by his assertion that they were ignoramuses and that Lo Lung-chi (and presumably people like him) were less intelligent than illiterates (see * : Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 119, 132).

402 NOTES TO PAGES 298-305 34 SCMP 4000, p. 18. 35 See Leonhard, pp. 251-3; the big offensive against the Soviet writers started in May 1957. 36 NYT, 21 May 1957. 37 Thid., 24 May 1957. 38 Thid., 21 May 1957. 39 Tbid,, 24 May 1957. 40 DT, 25 May 1957. 41 NYT, 27 May 1957. 42 DT, 25 May 1957. 43 NYT, 25 May 1957. 44 New York Herald Tribune (European ed.), 26 May 1957. 45 NYT, 26, 27, & 29 May 1957. 46 Tbid., 30 May 1957. 47 Tbid., 2 June 1957. 48 JM JP, 25 May 1957 (SCMP 1542, pp. 20-1). 49 Tbhid., 28 May 1957 (SCMP 1542, pp. 19-20).

50% Report on the work of the government ’, People’s China, 16 July 1957, suppl. p. 38. 51 Harold Hinton (p. 265) points out, however, that communist overtures to the Nationalists did not cease immediately after the riots. One example was a broadcast in June by one of Chiang Kai-shek’s former ADCs. He appealed to Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, to urge his father to rid himself of US como p. 4). and co-operate for a third time with the Communists (SWB/FE 675, 52 The editorial is trans. in SCMP 1604, pp. 6-9. Compare paras 4 through 6 on p. 7 with para. 1 of the extract from the Tsingtao statement in SCMP(S) 191, p. 21, and with para. 2 of the extract in SCMP 4000, p. 18. 53 Mao, Propaganda Conference Speech, p. 13. 54 SCMP 1604, p. 8. 55 Ibid., p. 9. (It is the penultimate para. in the translation.) 56 Tbid. There was further semantic sniping at Mao’s positions in an editorial on the produce/economize campaign on 23 August. The JMJP accepted that the

rectification movement could help the campaign, but it restored the ‘ three evils ’ to their pre-May order: subjectivism, sectarianism, bureaucratism. 57 SCMP 1598, pp. 1-3. 58 SCMP 1599, pp. 1-4. 59 SCMP 1604, p. 6. 60 SCMP 1599, p. 2.

- FP esolutely trust the majority of the masses ’, JM/JP editorial, 5 Sept. 1957. ‘Ibid. 63 Cf. the second half of para. 6 of the 5 September editorial with the passage from the Tsingtao statement quoted above on p. 287. 64 See Ch. 1, art. 13 of the text released from Taipei and published in the Hsiang Kang Shih-pao (Hong Kong Times), 5 Nov. 1970. (This article departs from the 1957 original in one way—‘ freedom ’ (tzu-yu) is dropped from the list of paired attributes of the desired political climate. However, this may be a mistake made in the Hsiang Kang Shih-pao office, for the word is to be found

in the translation issued by the Chinese Information Service, New York

(Background on China, B. 70-81, 4 Nov. 1970).) 65 « Handle inner-party rightists sternly ’, trans. in SCMP 1616, pp. 1-3.

66°1616, Learn the pp.lesson, . strengthen party character ’, JMJP, 11 Sept. 1957 (SCMP 67 *« Why do we say bourgeois rightists are reactionaries? ’, ibid., 15 Sept. 1957 (SCMP 1615, pp. 1-6). 68 SCMP 1615, p. 6. 69 Another example of the way in which the two opposing sides attempted to meet each other half-way was K’o Ch’ing-shih’s summing up at the Shanghai People’s Congress on 3 September. Here, unlike in his speech in mid-August, but like P’eng Chen at the beginning of August, K’o linked the imperialists, Chiang Kai-shek and the bourgeois rightists (see HHPYK, No. 19, 1957, p. 8).

NOTES TO PAGES 305-8 403 79 Thid.

71SCMM 653, p. 37. 72 * Socialist revolution on the political and ideological fronts’, trans. in SCMP 1616, pp. 10-14. *3 Ibid., p. 14. *4 Thid., p. 10. 75 SCMP(S) 191, p. 21.

76 Pol, Docs, p. 343. Teng, unlike the editorial and Liu, used the term only in quoting from Mao. *7 Liu, 1947-57, p. 449. 78 An Tzu-wen ‘ Refutation of the rightists over the question of cadres policy ’, Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien Pao, 20 Sept. 1957 (SCMP 1623, pp. 1-7). ?8 The article was probably placed in the youth newspaper because it would have

been among educated and ambitious young people that resentment at emphasis on virtue and seniority would mainly be found.

8° Mao was quoted on the importance of cadre policy, Liu was said to have opposed over-emphasis on virtue and seniority, and Chou was quoted defending the party against the charge of sectarianism in general (and by implication against sectarianism in cadre policy). An Tzu-wen’s allusions to Liu Shao-ch’i and Chou En-lai were cleverly chosen. Liu, normally seen as the defender of the party, was shown to care for ability and not just virtue and seniority; Chou, one of the main backers of the liberal line of trusting non-party people because their ability was required for socialist construction, was portrayed as a defender of the party against charges that it did not trust non-communists enough.

$1 The 6th plenum of the 7th CC held in the autumn of 1955, after the top leadership had finally agreed on the correctness of Mao’s call for speedier collectivization, had been attended by 388 outsiders. In contrast, the 4th plenum of the 7th CC in 1954, at which the attack on Kao Kang was launched, was attended by only 52 non-members, while in 1959 at the 8th plenum of the 8th CC, when P’eng Teh-huai attacked Mao and the great leap forward, just 14 outsiders were admitted. 82 For the plenum communiqué, see JMST 1958, p. 182; for the Chinese text of Teng’s report, see ibid., pp. 33-42; for a translation of the report see Pol.

Docs, pp. 343-63. The report was divided into eight sections—the general situation; the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals; the countryside; the working class; minority nationalities; the armed forces; the Communist party and the

YCL; and ‘improving the work and striving for a complete victory’.

Ch’en spoke on the reform of state administration and management systems and on agricultural production, and Chou on wages. Mao’s speech, or at any rate part of it, is in Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969), pp. 122-6. I do not discuss it here because the main points have already been covered above, pp. 119-21 and 285-9.

83 Pol. Docs, p. 345. Later (p. 347) Teng described the anti-rightist struggle as the * task of the moment ’. 84 Tbid., p. 345; the first stage of the campaign was of course the contending and blooming of May—June. 85 Teng listed them ‘ bureaucratism, subjectivism, sectarianism ’ (ibid., p. 355), ‘ sectarianism, bureaucratism, subjectivism ’ (ibid., p. 361), ‘ subjectivism and

bureaucratism ” (ibid.), and, correctly, ‘ bureaucratism, sectarianism, subjectivism ” (ibid., p. 358).

86 Tbid., p. 344. . 87 Tbid., p. 343; see above, p. 286 where I argue that Teng’s careful wording

indicated that Mao’s Tsingtao statement had not gained immediate acceptance as the agreed appraisal of the top leadership. 88 Cf. the first three sentences of Teng’s 3rd para. (ibid., p. 343) with the first four sentences of para. 1 of the extracts from Mao’s speech in SCMP(S) 191, p. 21. For a brief quote from the latter see above, p. 287.

88 The extremely interesting additional texts, quotations, and information now available have on the whole confirmed the general picture one

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 409

could form in 1956-7. For instance, a most important quotation from a speech made by Liu Shao-ch’i on 25 May 1957, was released during the cultural revolution (see above, p. 221), but it only corroborated the theory that it was campus unrest that forced the abrupt

termination of the rectification campaign. The opposition of Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen to Mao Tse-tung on rectification was known in 1957, though the bitterness of the dispute is clearer in

confidence.

retrospect. ® The value of the new material is that it permits one to

thicken the texture of the narrative and to unfold it with greater

Main collections of Mao Tse-tung’s writings, articles and quotations

Mao Chu-hsi chiao-yii yii-lu (Chairman Mao’s sayings on education). Peking: Hung Tai Hui, Pei-ching Tien-chi Hsueh-hsiao, Tung Fang Hung Kung-she, July 1967. Mao Chu-hsi lun wen-yi yii-lu (Chairman Mao’s sayings on literature and the arts). Shanghai: Hsi-chu Hsueh-yuan ‘ Ko-ming Lou’ Pien-chi Pu, no date. Mao Chu-hsi shih-tz’u san-shih-ch’i shou (37 poems by Chairman Mao). Peking: Wen-wu Ch’u-pan She, 2nd edn. Apr. 1964. Trans. in Jerome Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1965. Mao Chu-hsi-ti ko-ming wen-yi lu-hsien sheng-li wan sui (Long live the victory of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line on literature and the arts). Peking: Pei-ching Tien-ying Chih-p’ien Ch’ang Ko-ming Tsao-fan Lienlo Tsung-pu, July 1967. Mao Chu-hsi tui P’eng-Huang-Chang-Chou fan-tang chi-t’uan-ti p’i-p’an

(Chairman Mao’s criticism of the P’eng [Teh-huai]—Huang [K’och’eng}—Chang [Wen-t’ien]—Chou [Hsiao-chou] anti-party clique). (Nei-pu Wen-chien; chu-i pao-ts’un—Internal document; take security precautions). No publisher, no date. This work is translated almost in its entirety in Chinese Law and Government, Winter 1968/9; the one item not translated here, P’eng Teh-huai’s

‘Letter of opinion ’, is translated from another source in SCMP 4032, pp. 1-5. Some of the items in this collection are translated, again from

other sources, in The Case of Peng Teh-huai (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968). Mao Chu-hsi wen-hsuan (Chairman Mao’s selected writings). No publisher, no date. This volume is translated in its entirety in JPRS 49826, 12 Feb. 1970, and JPRS 50792, 23.June 1970.

Mao Chu-hsi yii-lu (The sayings of Chairman Mao). Peking: Chung-kuo Jen-min Chieh-fang Chiin Tsung Cheng-chih Pu, 2nd ed., 1966. The official translation of this volume—the ‘little red book ’—is called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Peking: Foreign Languages

Press, 1966. 0

410 THE ORIGINS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION Mao Tse-tung, Basic Tactics. New York: Praeger, 1966. This is a translation by Stuart Schram of a hitherto unknown work on guerrilla warfare by Mao, dating from 1938. Mao Tse-tung Chu-tso hsuan-tu (Selected readings from Mao Tse-tung’s works). (Chia Chung-pen—Collection A.) Peking: Jen-min ch’u-pan she, Apr. 1965. Mao’s collectivization speech (31 July 1955) and contradictions speech (27 Feb. 1957) included here are translated in Communist China 1955-9: policy documents with analysis (Harvard University Press, 1962). Mao’s propaganda conference speech (12 Mar. 1957) is translated in Mao Tse-tung, Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s Conference on propaganda work, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966.

Mao Tse-tung, ed. Chung-kuo Nung-ts’un-ti She-hui-chu-i Kao Chao (Socialist high tide in China’s countryside). Peking: Jen-min Ch’u-pan She, 3 vols., 1956. This work which contains an important preface and editorial notes by Mao, was issued in a one-volume abridged edition

which was translated into English as Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957). Some of the articles from the book were also translated in CB 388 and the official translation of the preface was reprinted in Pol. Docs, pp. 117-19. Mao Tse-tung, Hsuan Chi (Selected Works). Peking: Jen-min Ch’u-pan She, 4 vols., 1960. These volumes, the main sources for the pre-1949 period, are translated as Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, vols. i, ti, iii, 1965; vol. iv, 1961). Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui! (Long live Mao Tse-tung’s thought!)

No publisher, no date. This important collection is translated in its entirety in CB 891. A number of the items are also translated in Jerome Ch’en, ed., Mao: great lives observed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969, and idem., Mao Papers: anthology and bibliography. Oxford University Press, 1970.

Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (Long live Mao Tse-tung’s thought). No publisher, 1967. See next item.

Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (Long live Mao Tse-tung’s thought). No publisher, 1969. This volume and the previous item became available in the summer of 1973 in photo-offset editions produced by the Institute

of International Relations in Taipei. They were apparently originally produced in China for limited distribution. Both seem authentic and

together they constitute the most important collection of primary material on contemporary events ever to emanate from the People’s Republic. The 1969 volume, over 700 pages in length, is of particular value, containing as it does large numbers of hitherto unavailable speeches and articles, dating from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. It has been extensively used in this book. The 1967 volume contains material from the 1959-61 period; some of it is duplicated elsewhere, but the series of speeches made by Mao at the Chengchow conference in early 1959 is a major addition to our knowledge. In order to distinguish between the above three volumes with precisely the same title, I refer to them as: Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui!; Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1967); and Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan sui (1969).

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL NOTE 411

[Mao Tse-tung: untitled collection]. No publisher, no date. Another important collection translated in its entirety in CB 892; a number of items are also translated in Jerome Ch’en’s two volumes. Stuart Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung. Harmondsworth:

Penguin, rev. ed., 1969. This volume contains translations of (and commentaries on) Mao’s writings from 1917 to the middle-1960s. Tsui-kao chih-shih (Supreme directives). No publisher, no date. This collection is translated in its entirety in CB 897.

Notes to Bibliographical and Methodological Note 1 The cultural revolution started with an attack on the playwright Wu Han for criticizing Mao by means of a play about a 16th-century mandarin. This kind of argument by historical analogy is apparently not confined to China or even the communist bloc. On 2 July 1970 the London Times printed a story entitled ‘Spain convicts editor over a headline * which read in part: ‘ A Spanish court today sentenced a magazine editor to five months in gaol and imposed a £300

fine on him for a “ disrespectful’ headline. ...The March edition of the

magazine Sabado Grafico[’s]...front-page headline, “‘ Sale of Government

jobs by Justice Minister’, referred to an article on a historic scandal in Spain in the nineteenth century. At the trial on Thursday, the prosecuting

attorney argued that the editor published the headline with the intention of damaging the prestige and reputation of the present Minister of Justice. ... At the trial the defence counsel claimed that the editor had committed no offence, and that the headline was merely a commonly used journalistic ploy, a provoca-

tive but not inaccurate phrase designed to draw the reader’s attention to the story inside.’

2 289-307. See Roderick MacFarquhar, ‘On photographs’, CQ, Apr.June 1971, pp. 3 For extended discussions of Kremlinology see Rush, The Rise of Khrushchev, App. 2, ‘ The role of esoteric communication in Soviet Politics ’; Conquest, Power and Policy in the USSR, ch. 3, ‘ Questions of Evidence’; Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, ‘ A note on Methodology ’; and for a latter-day appraisal of the method, Laqueur, The Fate of the Revolution, pp. 180-2. I would not want to suggest, of course, that ‘ Kremlinology ’ is free from pitfalls; quite divergent interpretations of the same material are perfectly possible. For one example of such divergency see Michael Yahuda, ‘ Kremlinology and the Chinese strategic debate, 1965-6’, CQ, Jan.—Mar. 1972, pp. 32-75, the rejoinders to this article by Donald Zagoria and Uri Ra’anan, ibid., Apr.—June 1972, and Yahuda’s further comment, ibid., July-Sept. 1972. 4 Quoted in MacFarquhar, loc. cit., p. 291. 5 There was altogether much greater public official activity during the second half of the 1950s than in the first half of the 1960s. There were nine CC plenums from 1956 to 1959; there were only two between Aug. 1959 and Aug. 1966. 6 If the reader is sufficiently curious to wish to compare the present writer’s precultural revolution opinions on the 1956-7 period with those expressed in the present volume, some of them can be found in ‘ Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese

Communists’ “ rectification movement” ’, The World Today, Aug. 1957: ‘Criticism and counter-criticism in China: effects of the “ rectification ’? move-

ment ’, ibid., Nov. 1957; ‘Communist China’s intra-party dispute’, Pacific Affairs, Dec. 1958; The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals,

in ‘ The end of an illusion ’ and the introductions to the various documentary sections.

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RICHARDSON, H. E. Tibet and its History. London: Oxford University

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BLANK PAGE

INDEX

Note: parentheses indicate notes, which are listed in the order in which they appear on the relevant page.

Academy of Sciences, 133, 399(90) Bandung Conference, 42, 99 ACFIC, 20, 24; see also Bourgeoisie; Belgrade, 367(39)

TU BL ew Big and ‘small -d 178, 212

ACFTU, 31-2; see also Workers Ig and smali cemocracy, 1/9, fle, Advanced Producers: Conference, 60» Bi 22) , 381(0%), 385 s

326(35); movement, 338(14) Blind advance. see T ”

Adventurism, see Impetuosity and Ind advance, see impetuosity

d tur Bolshevik| revolution, 40th anniversary adventurisin of, 306, 317 Afro-Asian Conference, see Bandung _ Bourgeois rightists, 77, 161, 273, 281-4,

Conference | . 288, 290, 298, 309, 314, 384(43),

Agriculture: increased investment in, 396(30), 397(63), 404(96), 405(10); 297, 401(23); Minister of, 19, 36, anti-rightist campaign, 261-310, 329(11), 347(35); problems of, 86, 316, 354(45), 396(44), 397(63), 90-1, 126-31, 293-7, 314, 400-1 400(97), 403(84); definition evol-

(1,2,5,10,13,16,22,28); see also ved, 263-5, 274-5, 280, 304-6,

APCs; Peasants 402(69); high proportion of

Albania, 181, 387(81) primary schoolteachers, 405(10); All-China Federation of Democratic responsible for big blooming and

Women, 37 contending, 385(51), 396(44)

An Tzu-wen, 144f., 331(15), 377(21); Bourgeoisie, 184-5, 216, 225, 268-9,

articles during anti-rightist cam- 281, 303, 308-9, 316, 329(27),

paign, 306, 403(79,80); and soerdty 398(71), 363(15), 403(82), 380(53), 404(96); 381(61), Mao’s 304, Thought, 108: and new 396(41), party constitution, 100; proposes acceptance of transformation, 81; dropping Lin Piao from Politburo, change of attitudes, 80; largest 360(59); renegades issue, 358-9(33, concentrations, 79; possible dis-

41) appearance of, 49, 160-3; slow

rightists aan

Anhwei, 208, 255, 339(31), 391(3) response to thaw, 83-4; target of Anti-rightist campaign, see Bourgeois aries 70¢. y. counter-revolutionAPCs, 17, 296, 324(4); contraction of Boxer uprising, 300 numbers, 19, 28, 326(30); disturb- Brezhnev, L., 390141) ances in, 112; draft regulations Budapest, 170, 365-6(9,13), 370(35) for, 36-7; excessive collectivism, Budget, 135, 354(13); reports: (1955),

90-1; extravagantly run, 59-60; 70f.; (1956), 73-4, 86-7, 340(52); impact of 1956 leap forward, 126- (1957), 245, 313 9; Mao’s target, 15; rich peasants, Building Construction, Minister of, 30

landlords, and counter-revolu- Bulgaria, 181

tionaries admitted, 36-7, 344(43); Bureaucratism, see ‘ Three evils ’ speculative trading, 401(13); time- Burma, 3, 42, 380(51)

tae ieee peagstormation into Businessmen, 20, 24-5, 39, 80, 241, 245,

: , , 267, 281, 285, 327-8(57-8), 344

Art, artists, 52, 53-6, 179-80, 396(51) (40), 345(44), 362 app. 5(10), 370

Asia, 99, 175, 177, 180, 369(25) (35), 404(96); see also ACFIC;

Atomic weapons, see Nuclear weapons Bourgeoisie

419

420 INDEX Cadres, 161, 169, 187-9, 344(43), 219, 334(42,59), 400(94); Inter-

375(76); demoralization of, 84; national Liaison, 356(67); effect of 12-Year Agric. Pro- Military Affairs Committee,

gramme on, 90-1, 126-9; faults of, 140, 148, 322(24), 334(42), 202, 293-5, 382(6), 400(6), 401 350(14); Organization, 100, 108,

(13); —to be combated, 113-16; 178, 331(15), 356-7(13), 358(41), fearful of being dubbed rightist, 377(21); Propaganda, 35, 43, 51,

25, 87; —of ‘ big’ blooming and 53, 75, 105, 155, 217, 337-8 contending, 401(19); policy on, (100), 356(7), 376(4); Rural 306, 403(80); see also CCP Work, 15, 18f., 324(2), 325(26);

Cambodia, 42 Secretariat, 100, 106-7, 153, Canton, 196, 227, 233, 374(58), 379-80 315, 373(41); Sec. Gen., 140f., (51), 386(62), 387(81), 391 app. 143, 356(12); Social Affairs,

198-200 395(24)

7(7); propaganda conference in, 148; UFWD, 20, 83, 219, Capitalists, see Businessmen ~ Plenums: 6th CC’s 7th, 55; 7th CC’s

Carlson, Evans, 142 4th, 360(47), 403(81); —6th, CC, 20, 31, 46, 55, 108, 151f., 184, 17f., 324(2), 399(78), 403(81);

192f., 194, 204, 209, 213, 215, 218, —7th, 28, 59, 91, 101, 350(11); 242, 276, 286, 307f., 314, 326(36), 8th CC’s Ist, 99, 139-48 ; —2nd,

334(59), 351-2(37,46), 361 app. 3 171-2, 177, 366(19); —3rd, (5), 367(23), 378@G1), 389(113), 285-6, 301, 305, 306-10, 312, 392(12); 7th CC, 141; 8th CC, 314-15, 405(2); —6th and 7th,

141, 144, 368(39);—-survivors 154; —8th, 338(8), 403(81);

in 9th CC, 108-9; 157-8, —10th, 156; —11th, 1

165, 351-2(46); expansion, 139; See also. CCP; Politburo joint directives with State CCP, 1, 6, 8, 17, 19, 33, 39, 46, 84, 89, Council on APCs, 59-60, 90f., 102f., 110, 141f., 146, 169, 178,

101; message to 20th CPSU 184f., 187ff., 193, 200, 202, 205,

Congress, 40 212, 216, 218, 220, 222f., 224f.,

conferences: on socialist transforma- 226, 242f., 244f., 262, 263-4, 266,

tion, 20; on intellectuals, 34—5, 268f., 272f., 275f., 278ff., 285,

328(62), 329(11) 287ff., 291-2, 295, 298, 307, 311f.,

decisions, directives, and resolu- 317, 322(22), 328(62), 333(28), tions: on implementation of 344(39), 351(28), 353(19), 366-7 solving internal contradictions, (23,30), 369(14), 372(13,15), 374 208-10, 212, 217, 379(39,41,44); 46), 376(3), 383(7), 385(53), 392

on manual labour, 213, 230-1, tS). 395(26), 397(58), 398(73),

234, 387(81), 391(9); on Mao’s 399-400(93-4), 400-1(10), 403(82);

retirement, 362 app. 3(12); on achievements and history, 16, 18, methods of leadership, 44, 117; 55, 99, 110-11, 331(23); cultural on party history, 55, 103; on revolution, effects of, 1-2; leading peaceful transition, 366-7(21, position sacrosanct, 311; member~ 23); political resolution of 8th ship, recruitment, and expulsions, Congress, failure to correct, 35, 107, 139, 144—5, 296, 331(15),

101; on _ celebrating party 394(1); provincial committees, leaders’ birthdays, 104; on changes in, 143-4; renegades,

rectification, 373(34,35) (see 350(19), 358(33,41); rightists, 287—

also Rectification campaign); 9, 301-2, 304, 400(103); unity of on refraining from counter- leadership, 1-3, 47, 311 criticism, 219, 279, 382-3(7); conferences: National (1937), 321-2

on rural socialist education (20); —(1955), 141, 334(59); of campaign, 295-7, 401(23); on ' provincial secretaries (1956), strengthening party committee 335-6(67); —~(1957), 343(16— system, 104, 351(25); on study 17), 352(5); Peitaiho (1956), of rectification documents, 56, , 346(1); Propaganda work departments and officers: Chairman 373(32,39); Tsingtao (1957),

413 (1957), 183, 186-9,. 372(15),

and hon. chairman, 153, 356(9); 285-9; Nanning (1958), 329(11); General Office, 325(26); Gen. 7,000 cadres (1962), 156, 338(8) Sec., 140-1, 142f., 145f., 217, Congresses: 7th (1945), 99, 102ff.,

INDEX 421

CCP—contd. Chang Wen-t’ien, 46, 165, 358(33), Congresses—contd. 359(44); becomes Gen. Sec., 140, 108, 110, 117, 139, 151, 322(24), 334(42); -——dismissed, 140; de-

356(9), 357(29); 8th (1956), 19, moted at 8th Congress, 148, 360 27, 42, 84, 99-165, 169, 172, (45,59); position on rectification, 177, 201f., 211, 243, 248, 307, 248f.; attacks great leap forward,

: 311, 340(38), 341(78), 342(86), 148

349-50(6-8,24), 351-2(25,43, Chang Yun, 131, 157 46), 353(36), 354(45), 356(6), Changsha, 196, 342(88) 357115), 358(41), 360(59), 364 Chao Wen-pi, 273

(4), 368(39), 390(5), 392(12), Chekiang, 28, 180, 255f., 370(27),

3941); polit. res., 101, 116, 378(38), 391 app. 8(7)

119-21, 215-16, 238, 286, 307, Ch’en Cheng-jen: deputy director of 353-4(36,45), 363(15), 381(79); CC Rural Work Dept, 18, 325(26);

—2nd sess. (1958), 88, 315, member of Mao’s clique, 142-3, 335(66-7), 349(8), 361 app. 3 325(25)

(7); 385(51), 405(14); 9th (1969), Ch’en Ch’i-t’ung, 179-80, 192-3, 200-

165, 326(36) 1, 369(21,23), 377(6,9)

Constitution: (1945), 100, 116-18, Ch’en Liao, 193, 377(9) 151, 349(2), 351(37), 353(31); Ch’en Ming-shu, 283-4, 397—8(63-4) (1956), 100, 104ff., 116-19, 149, Ch’en P’ei-hsien, 377(13)

350(24), 351(37), 390(141), 405 Ch’en Po-ta, 148, 165, 339(22); (14) attitude on rectification campaign, Policies on or towards: cadres, 306, 247f.; attack on Teng Hsiao-p’ing, 403(80); civil war, 366—7(23); 141-2, 155; deputy director of CC

collectivization, 324(4); cult of Rural Work Dept, 18, 325(26); personality, 39-40, 43-8, 99- 8th Congress political res., 121; 109, 149-50, 284, 368(40); member of Mao’s clique, 143, 148, democratic parties, 48-50, 83-4, 247, 325(25); originator of ‘ Let 112-16, 336(69,74), 369(10), 403 a hundred schools contend’, 53;

(80) (see also Long-term co- speech to 7th CC’s 6th plenum, existence and mutual super- 17f., 325(21), 399(78); supports

vision); intellectuals, 33-5, 220, 12-Year Agric. Programme, 29, 331(15); KMT, 84-5; Polish 329(11); visits Peking Univ. during

communists, 169-71; writers rectification, 224

and artists, 51-6 Ch’en Shu-t’ung, 20, 327(57)

Schools: Central Party, 203; Higher Ch’en Tu-hsiu, 290, 400(94)

Party, 227, 241, 247, 386(63) Ch’en Yi, 19, 22, 141, 147, 165, 314,

See also Cadres; CC; Politburo 328(58), 356(3-4), 389(114); attiCDL, 35, 83f., 223, 271f., 276f., 282, tude on rectification campaign, 384(43), 395(35), 396(38) 242, 248, 389(115); becomes For-

Central Committee, see CC eign Minister, 148, 334(55); enCentral People’s Government Council, dorses Mao’s speech to 8th

49 Congress, 109, 157; on excision of

Ceylon, 42, 180 Mao’s Thought from party consti-

Chang Chih-chung, 397(63) tution, 101, 350(11); on Mao, 46; Chang Chung-liang, 157 on nuclear weapons, 68; resigns Chang Kuo-t’ao, 5, 322(20) as Mayor of Shanghai, 334(55);

Chang Nai-ch’i, 282, 284, 397(56,59) speeches to ACFIC conference, Chang Po-chiin, 277, 282f., 395(35), 20; —to judicial work conference, 397(56,59); appraisal of thaw, 79; —to 8th Congress, 135, 137 83-4; and party committee system Ch’en Yun, 20, 22, 145, 165, 328(62),

- in schools, 277-8, 396(38,41); 344(40), 356(5), 359(44), 380(51); _ Political Planning Inst. proposal, attitude on rectification campaign, 273, 274—6, 395(24); posts, 83; and 241, 248; endorses Mao’s speech

- yectification campaign,223-4,225, to 8th Congress, 109, 157; on - 384(43); see also Chang—Lo three balances, 406(17); opposes

alliance impetuosity and adventurism, 88,

Chang [Po-chiin]-Lo [Lung-chi] alli- 406(17); opposes Mao on finance,

ance, 224f., 275, 280 60-1, 123; PSC: member of, 106;

Chang Teh-sheng, 127f., 157, 355(33) —in first front, 153; secretary of

422 INDEX

Ch’en Yun—contd. (70,5), 357(29), 359(44), 364-5(4, 7th CC, 106; socialist transforma- 8), 380(51), 392(8), 393(32), 397 tion, in charge of, 22-3, 24f., 328 (59), 399(76); career and charac(68); speeches: to ACFIC confer- ter, 5, 7-9, 35, 42, 140, 141, 323

ence, 20; —to 8th CC’s 3rd (34), 399(93); in Hangchow, 195-6,

plenum, 307, 315, 403(82); —to 211, 370(27), 374(47,50), 384(35); 1956 NPC on socialist transforma- self-criticism, 88, 315, 346(15), 355

tion, 24; —to UFWD conference (25)

for businessmen, 20 in foreign affairs: E. European tour, Chengtu, 391 app. 7(7) 371-—2(5), 389(124), 393(33); —

Chengchow, 196-7 172, 175-6, 177, 368(43,45), Chesterfield, Earl of, 323(34) report on, 180-3, 184, 187, Ch’i Pen-yii, 363(18), 366-7(23) 369-70(25,31,36), 371(5); inter-

Chia T’o-fu, 157 nat. situation assessed, 71, 73-4; Chiang Ch’ing (Mme Mao Tse-tung), and neutralists, 42; on socialist

143 camp, 73; on USA, 73, 301, 317

Chiang Ching-kuo, 402(51) key issues and events (attitudes,

Ch’iang Hsiao-ch’u, 130 actions, and opinions on): anti-

Chiang Hua, 157 rightist campaign, 262f., 272f., Chiang Kai-shek, 8, 48, 147, 151, 281, 274-5, 277, 281f., 286, 291, 302,

289-90, 292, 302, 305, 397(63), 395(32-3), 396(51); cadre 398(71), 399(92-3), 402(69); col- policy, 306, 403(80); civil war,

lected works, Mao’s proposal to 367(23); coastal v. inland in-

publish, 77, 343(16), 369(14), dustry, 134-5; completion of 392-—3(19); CCP’s olive branch, socialist revolution, 15-16, 79-

offered, 84; —ignores, 299-301, 80; decentralization, 68, 133; 316-17, 402(51); suppresses anti- economic development v.

American riots, 300 defence, 72-4, 135, 341-2(78,

Chiang Nan-hsiang, 157, 284, 398(67) 86); 8th Congress political res., Chiang Wei-ch’ing, 126-7, 157, 257 121; finance, 123-4; FYPs, 73, Chieh-fang Jih-pao, 382(4), 393(20), 125-6; impetuosity and adven-

396(43) turism and 1956 leap forward,

Chien Po-tsan, 209, 379(48) 88-90, 122-6; income differCh’ien Wei-ch’ang, 284 entials, 294; rectification cam-

Ch’ien Ying, 157 paign, 218-19, 232, 235-6, 238f., Ch’in Shih Huang-ti, 225 240f., 248, 374(46); rightist

China, People’s Republic of: 10th conservatism, 27, 29; socialist anniversary amnesty, 314; turning transformation, 23, 24-5, 73; points in history of, 14, 15-16, 317 Taiwan, 85, 299, 301; 12-Year foreign relations, 42f., 135-8, 332 Agric. Programme, 29, 123, (27), 336(69), 341(61), 356(70); 124-6 UN seat, 317; with USA, 72-3, posts: Foreign Minister, resigns as, 135-8, 316~17; with Taiwan, 84, 148, 312, 315; PSC, member of,

299-301, 316-17, 402(51) 106; —in first front, 153;

with USSR and E. Europe: Chou secretary of 7th CC, 106 En-lai’s tour, 175-6, 180-1, relations with: Ch’en Po-ta, 121; 368(43,45), 393(33); CPR govt Kao Kang, 47, 334-5(59); Liu statement (1 Nov. 1956), 170-1, Shao-ch’i, 121, 356(70); Mao 365-—6(11,13); P’eng Chen’s tour, Tse-tung, 2, 7-9, 46, 140, 315, 180-3, 195, 204-5; with Poland, 350(14), 406-7(16-17); Teng 393(32-3); with USSR, 68-9, Hsiao-p’ing, 142, 150, 357(14) 315-17, 368(47), 406(25) speeches to: ACFIC, 20; CC conferstate of (1956), 39, 99, 332(1);(1966), 1 ence on intellectuals, 27, 34—5,

Chinese Communist Party, see CCP 37, 51f., 54, 93, 187, 298, 330(6),

Chinese People’s Volunteers, 69 405(10); CPPCC, 72-3; 8th Chinese Youth, see Chung-kuo Ch’ing- CC’s 3rd plenum, 307, 315,

nien 403(82); 8th Congress, 122-6,

Chou dynasty, 374(51) 133, 341~2(78,86); NPC: (1955),

Chou En-lai, 40, 76, 108, 115, 145, 161, 71; —(1956), 73; —(1957),

191, 196, 204, 218, 222f., 268, 272f., 274-5; 10th Congress

327(51), 349-50(8), 353(18), 356 (Aug. 1973), 121

INDEX 423 Chou Hsiao-chou, 127, 128-9, 157, transformation, 22; need for, 325

ou Ku-ch’eng, y Mao , 104, 283, ;

Chou Ku-ch’eng, 397(63) by Map 15-17, 164, 288, 295027),

Chou Lin, 257 399(75); stages of, 324(4); see also MO SOL: 143, A 273, 3 P2060), Columbia Ast culture; ; report to 280, Writers’ Union, Univ.,3310 : ; Peasants

51 Comintern, interference in China, 3,

key issues and events (attitudes and 56, 140, 169

opinions on): anti-rightist cam- Commandism, 45, 126f. paign, 396(51); hundred flowers Commerce, Ministry of, 401(22) policy, 51-3, 201, 204, 337(88, Common Programme, 162

94), 377(5-6); rectification cam- Communications, Minister of, see paign, 219, 247, 379(49), 382(6) Chang Po-chiin Chow Ching-wen, 369(10), 397(63) Communist bloc, see Socialist camp Ch Magsce ing, 262, 374(46), 392(8), Confucianism, 337(91), 384(34)

cmeAng, 387(81) of CPR, 162, 329 20.Constitution, (10); enacted, 16,72, 49,78,329(27);

Chu Liang-ts’ai, 229 : , .

Chu Mu-chih, 343(8) revised version drafted, 154; postChu Teb, 49” i45, 147, 165, .356(70,2), C cultural revolution 304 ontradictions: among thedraft, people, 359(44), 374(50), 380(51); cultural

48-

revolution 109;—in PSC reer membersurvivor, of, 106; fi ,tay78:; ?ar ;ae’? oO, ,? Se yontificerion camnnesa 231, 241f., 245ff, 275, 305, 308,

: 372-3(30), 376(79,4), 381(61), 388 attitude to, 242, 248, 389(113); (110), 398(71); in China, 119-21

specc use st congress, 5 p26, 363(15,17); in socialist societies,

graph of, 192, 242, 251, 254, 391 Re ey on ee

332(10) eory of, 45, 119-21, ;

app. 7(7); USSR, visit to, 39-41, 367030), 308 Cs SO sie. Ch’un-ch’iu period, 53, 337(91) Stalin’s VIEWS - on, 120; see also Chungking, 35, 246, 277, 389(125) Mao Tse-tung: speeches etc. Chung-kuo Ching-nien, 177, 243, 373 Cotton, see Agriculture

(34) Counter-revolutionaries, 382(6); assess-

Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien Pao, 383(23), ment of situation by: Liu Shao-

389(111) chi 102, 478;—Mao, —Lu; Campaigns Ting-yiv.,73 Civil war, 1, 16, 327(47), 366-7(23) 16,;

Class struggle, 299: art, literature, and 18, 37, 50, 78f., 80, 182, 277, 344 science as weapons in, 54; Mao’s (39), 371(1); executions, no. of,

speech to 8th Congress, un-on268, 6 £2304); committee, Hu ene 7 he= ; mentioned in, 110; sharpens rehaodiitation road to socialism, theory, 80; 275; reinvestigation of cases, 78, state of, 54, 160-4, 285, 398(71) 243; thaw, benefits from, 36-7, 39,

ameliorating according to: Liu 54, 78-83, 94-5, 219f., 268f., 298, Shao hii, Ams, 302 app. 5 (10), Perri jy {Tansformation of, 80,

: ; Lu ing-yi, ;

93; Mao, 93-4, 162, 186, 201; CPPCC, 271-3, 275f., 284; defined, —Mao’s opinion changes, 268, 329(27); 1956 sess., 24, 29, 78f.,

279, 287; P’eng Chen, 80 85, 327(57); 1957 sess., 180-3,

Coal Industry, Ministry of: 1956 plan, 369-70(25,31)

30 CPSU, 174f., 285, 332(5), 364(4), 365

Coastal vy. inland industry, 61, 63-6, (9,11), 366(21); anti-party group,

134—5, 339(31), 340(38) _ 311, 390(141), 398(73); comple-

2 1h D on, 95, , .; literary

nS OFA 114 18, 35024) on 93, 119-20, I 7If.; literary Collectivization, 9, 23, 25, 63, 90-1, policy, 51, 298, 402(35); struggle v. 294, 357(29), 367(28), 371(1), 390 personality cult, 44, 47, 99, 149-50

Tok: drat decisions on 18 335 Sse st. 75.98, Bi, 99, 102, 105, (27); effects: on livestock and 111f., 149, 173, 211, 270, 276, private plots, 90-1; —on socialist 312, 332-3(5,17), 335(64), 359

424 INDEX

CPSU—contd. East Asia, 317 congresses—contd. Eastern Europe, 50, 169-76, 178, 180—

(44), 395(28); 22nd, 351(28) 3, 195, 314, 365(8), 369(11);

See also Khrushchev; Soviet Union intellectuals attracted by hundred

CPWDP, 83, 276f., 395(35) flowers, 316; opposition § to Croft, Michael, 142 Stalinism in, 112; strengthening of Cultural Revolution, Great Proletarian, legal systems, 78; see also China:

53, 89, 102, 107, 143f., 152, 157ff., foreign relations; Poland ,

203, 214, 242, 247, 286, 304f.,306- Economic development, 99; problems

7, 312, 317, 326(30), 328(68), 331 of, 17, 86-91, 122-38, 198f., 235(15), 342(87), 345(71), 347(20), 40, 293-7, 313-15, 389(125,130);

351(28), 370(27), 373(40), 378(35), v. defence, 68-74, 135-8, 147, 340 398(67); cultural revolution group, (52), 341—2(76,78,86), 355(59), 356

351 (46); denunciation of leaders (69); see also Mao Tse-tung: key

during, 1, 3; origins and start of, issues etc.

1, 2-3, 11, 377(6), 384(47); results Education, Ministry of, 352(5); prob-

of, 1-2; Stalin’s purges, distin- lems of, 197, 199, 220, 352(5)

9,165 | Egypt, 42 Culture, Ministry of, 52 , Eighth Congress, see CCP

guished from, 3; survivors of, 108— Egalitarianism, 199, 288, 294f.

‘Curing the sickness [treating the Eisenhower, Pres., 300 illness] to save the patient’, 2, Empiricism, 114

185, 302 Engels, F., 4, 214

Cyrankiewicz, J., 175, 195f., 269, 374 Extensive democracy, see Big and

(47), 393(32-3) small democracy

Czechoslovakia, 181; see also Siroky, Fashions, 37-8 Faure, E., 222, 328(3), 370(31)

Daily Worker, 222 Fei Hsiao-t’ung, 200, 209, 277, 376(2), Dalai Lama, 393(25) 379(48), 395(33) Decentralization, 67-8, 315 Feuerbach, 203 Defence, Ministry of, 143; Minister,69, Films, 52

148-9, 242; see also Peng Teh- Finance, Ministry of: attacked by huai Mao, 87-90; failure to brief Defence spending, see Economic Politburo adequately, 88; Minis-

development ter, 19, 61, 86-8, 244, 338(5), 356

Democratic parties, 33, 48-51, 223, (6); see also Li Hsien-nien

272, 310, 329(27), 369110); 395 Five-anti campaign, 16, 162-3, 271-2,

(26); see also Bourgeoisie; Busi- 363(17)

coexistence ence, 42

nessmen; Intellectuals; Long-term Five Principles of Peaceful Coexist-

Democratic Plaza, see Peking Univ. Floods, 91,131

Dezmocratic Wall, see Peking Univ. Foochow, 132 Democracy, see Big and small Food, Minister of, see Chang Nai-ch’1

- democracy Foreign Ministry, 137; Minister, 68,

Departmentalism, 288, 293-4, 295 135, 312, 334(55), 356(70); see Dialectical materialism, 80, 94-5, 178, also Ch’en Yi; Chou En-lai

213, 345(43) | Formosa, see Taiwan .

Doctrinairism, see Dogmatism | France, 70, 141, 357(18)

Dogmatism, 45, 353-6, 95-6, 149, 173- F suppressed, k sssed. 296-7 4, 261, 269, 43(1 2) ree markets, 4 ; . Fronts, see Mao Tse-tung: key issues— Drama, 52-3, 336(86); National succession to himself | a Drama Festival, 52, 336 Fykien, 255f., 391(5); demands on Dream of the Red Chamber, The, 336 onary ene > sone Rey oft

| (84) | Year Agric. 29; 126, Dudintsev, V.,Programme, 180 129 ’

Dulles, J. F., 300, 316-17 * Fundamental change ’, 14, 15-16, 79

INDEX 425

Futan Univ., 277 Ho Lung, 165, 244, 248, 356(3-4), 389 FYP, 245, 282; Ist, 16f., 29, 30-1, 33, (124), 390(6)

S7f., 61, 63, 64-5, 66, 72, 81,122, Honan, 196-7, 234, 240, 250, 255, 339

125-6, 151, 297, 341-2(78,86), 346 (31), 368(4), 374-5(58-9,75), 386 (17); 2nd, 122-38, 297, 341-2(78, (73), 390(1), 391(1,7-8,10); floods,

86); 3rd, 28 91

Hong Kong, 299, 394(16)

Hopei, 196, 229, 234, 255, 368(2), 374-5(58-9), 378(38), 390(1), 391

Gandhi, Mahatma, 356(70) (3); demands on centre, 130;

Geneva: site of Sino-American talks, floods, 91; and 12-Year Agric. 72-3, 316; summit conference, 70 Programme, 127f. ‘Gentle breeze and mild rain’, 212, Hsi Chung-hsun, 218-19, 276 219, 224, 225-7, 231, 233, 243, Hsia Cheng-nung, 379(39,44) 282, 385~6(58,60); earliest men- Hsiang River, 342(88)

tions, 385(57) Hsieh Chueh-tsai, 157 Georgia, 40~1 Hsieh Fu-chih, 157, 257

Germany, 384(34) Hsinhua Book Store, 335(64) Gerd, E., 370(35) Hsin Hua Jih-pao, 238-9, 257, 383(23) Gershwin, G., 331(29) Hsin Kuan-ch’ a, 386(62) Goldman, R., 390(4) Hsu Liang-ying, 399(90)

Gomulka, W., 170 Hsuch’ang, 196-7

Gosekonomkommisiya, 58 Hu Ch’iao-mu, 217, 343(8), 373(40), Government, machine: in rectification 376(4), 382(83); chief drafter of campaign, 232-40, 380(52), 381 ‘ On the historical experience. ..’, (68); supervision of, 115-16, 353 43; revises draft JMJP editorial

(18), 369(10) opposing impetuosity and adven-

Grain: crisis, 293~7, 301, 313, 400(5), turism, 87; Soviet press, on, 75; 401(13,16); excessive concentra- on Tsunyi Conference, 102 tion on, 127-9; see also Agricul- Hu Feng, 84, 220-1, 336(84)

ture Hu Yii-chih, 277, 384(43), 395(35)

Great leap forward (1958), 9-10, 11, Huai River, 130; Huaihai campaign, 59, 133, 248, 298, 314f., 317, 355 21, 141, 327(47) (33,37), 380(57), 403(81); see also Huang Ching, 157

Leap forward (1956) Huang Huo-ch’ing, 157, 385(57) see Cultural Revolution Hunan, 141, 196, 255f., 343(88), 374

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Huhehot, 247

(54), 391(6,11), 405(3); and 12Year Agric, Programme, 127, 128— 9

Hundred flowers policy, see ‘Let a Hainan, 131 hundred flowers bloom .. .’; Mao

Han, 50, 336(69) . Tse-tung: speeches, etc.

Hangchow, 180, 182, 195f., 200f., 211, Hungary, 177, 181, 314, 365—6(13), 368

329(11), 370(27), 374(47,50), 379- (45), 369(16), 370(31); Chou En-

80(51), 384(35) lai’s visit, 175-6, 180-1; Prime

Hankow, 196, 342(88) Minister of, 369(11); revolt, 10,

Hanyang, 223f., 304, 342(88) 48, 78, 94,112, 121, 169-76, 179,

Heavy Industry, Ministry of: 1956 181-2, 185, 189, 199, 215, 222f., plan, 30; quality problems, 86 276, 352(5), 365-6(9,13), 369(18),

25-6), 340(38) (32)

Heavy v. light industry, 61-3, 339(22, 370(31,35), 372-3(5), 376(80), 384 Heilungkiang, 255f., 368(3), 391(3); Hupei, 196, 223, 255, 391(3)

floods, 91, 130 Hyde Park (Speakers’ Corner), 383(17)

* High tide *: general problems of, 25;

of socialism, 15-25 |

Higher Education, Ministry of, 222; _ Minister see Chiang Nan-hsiang ICBM, 406(25)

Higher Party School, see CCP Idealism, 94-5, 178.

Hitler, 290 Illiteracy, campaign v., 347(26)

Ho Hsiang-ning, 263f., 392(12) Ilyichev, L. F., 351(28)

426 INDEX ‘ Impetuosity and adventurism ’, 405-6 Justice, Ministry of, 83, 345(53), 384

(16); attacked, 86-91, 122-9, 346 (43); see also Legal system (17); examples of, 126-9

India, 42, 393(25); ambassador of,

opinion of Liu Shao-ch’i, 6; communist delegation from, 311;

parliamentary delegation from, Kadar, J., 175f.

364—5(8) Kaganovich, L. M., 285, 364(7)

Individual, cult of the, see CCP; K’ang Sheng, 145, 165, 359-60(44—S);

CPSU; Khrushchev; Stalin demoted at 8th Congress, 148, 360

Individualism, 288, 293-4, 295, 400(6) (45,59); member of Mao’s clique,

Indonesia, 356(70); compared with 148

China, 3; visitor from, received by key issues and events (attitudes,

Mao, 396(50) actions, and opinions on): anti-

Industrialists, see ACFIC; Businessmen rightist campaign, 302-3, 396 Industry, see Heavy Industry and Light (51); rectification campaign,

Industry 241, 247, 249, 378(29)

Industry and commerce, nationaliza- K’ang Yu-wei, 343(16) tion of, see Socialist transforma- Kansu, 255, 391 app. 8(7)

tion — Kao Kang, 47, 141, 147, 312, 334-5

Inevitability of war, question of, 41-2 (59), 358(32), 359(44), 403(81) Inland y. coastal industry, see Coastal Khrushchev, N., Al, 173, 176, 340(60),

v. inland industry | 351(28), 361 app. 3(3), 390(141);

Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, attack on Stalin, 10, 39f., 43ff., 52,

ek 37944), 391 56, 79f., 105, 112, 150, 152, 169, Intellectuals, 33-5, 51-6, 216, 218, 222- 335(34) 34403), 990048), S508):

3, 245, 261, 267, 281, 284f., 293, attack on writers, 298, 402(35); 309-10, 311f., 372(10), 376(3), 377 economic reforms, 314f.; on (5), 396(51), 403(82), 404(96); CC inevitability of war, 40-2; on conference on, 34-5; CCP cadres’ Mao’s theory of internal contraattitudes towards, 33; defined, 330 dictions, 316; on peaceful transi(6); encouraged to join CCP, 35, tion, 41-2, 171-2: policy towards 331(15); high proportion among Poland, 170; —towards USA, 10-

bourgeois rightists, 405(10); ideo- 11: secret speech (see above,

logical attitudes of, 34, 93; attack on Stalin); see also CPSU;

Piatt revolt, impact of Soviet * importance of,on, 33-5, : . Union

(10); improvement of conditions aI ALS , a i 68), 378 oO , of, 35, 39, 51, 331014); Mao demands on centre, 130, 131-2: 401(33); nos. of, 34; slow response 397(63); and 12-Year Apric. Pro.

to thaw, 83—4; trahison des clercs, ; 28 “Tear “Agric, FrO-

314 Kiangsu, 238 9, 255, 257, 378(38), 388 Iron curtain, 52 . Agric. Programme, 126-7 Kirin, 255, 391(3); floods, 91

ne Geophysical Year, 406 (98), 391 app. 8(7-8); and 12-Year

KMT, 35, 48-9, 69, 99, 141, 169, 203, 277, 305, 334-5(59), 346(75), 366-

Jao Shu-shih, 141, 144, 358(32) 723), 399-400(92-4); defence

Japan and Japanese, 35, 141, 290, 384 treaty with USA, 69-70; devas(34); China’s war against, 1, 169, tates Kiangsi (1930s), 131; ignores 187, 277, 334-5(59), 366-7(23), CCP’s olive branch (1956-7), 84—

399(92) 5, 299-300, 316-17; power

Jen-min Hua-pao, 390(5) destroyed in 1940s, 16, 104; style

Jones, Elwyn, 345(52) of work, 210, 216, 382(6); withJournalists, see Press drawal from Tachen Islands, 70; Judicial work, 3rd national conference see also Chiang Kai-shek; Taiwan,

on, 79-81 KMT Revolutionary Committee, 262 Juichin, 131 346(75)

INDEX 427 K’o Ch’ing-shih, 157f., 386(16) Legal system, Chinese, 295, 401(13);

key issues and events (attitudes, impact of campaign v. counteractions, and opinions on): anti- revolutionaries, 79; legal advisory rightist campaign, 281-2, 290-2, offices, 345(53); modelled on 308f., 400(103), 402(69), 403-4(89, Soviet system, 79; strengthened, 94,96); Mao’s_ contradictions 78-83; see also Justice, Ministry

speech, 205; rectification cam- of

paign, 257 Lenin, Leninism, 4, 10, 171, 214, 335 Ko P’ei-ch’i, 382(6) (63), 339(22), 340(56), 356(70);

Korea: armistice, 65; North Korean criticism of Stalin, 40, 332(6); see delegation in Peking, 340(56); also Marxism-Leninism South Korea, 317; war in, 69,99, ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom... .’,

app. 3(5) 51-6, 280, 316f., 337-8(94,100); Ku147, Pai,360(53) 142 361 CCP resistance to, 178-80, 192-3,

Kuang-chou Jih-pao, 378(30) 200-1, 242; impact on press, Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 209, 221, 225, 262, 75-7; Lu Ting-yi’s interpretation

56043 374(46), 392(8), 395(35),appraisal cpd with Mao’s, 92-6; non396(43) communists’ of, 83—4, K’uei Pi, 157 200, 209, 276, 279; origins of Kuo Jui, 246 slogan, 53, 337(89,93); reaffirmed,

Kung-jen Jih-pao, 394(14) 269, 291, 310, 371(1), 373(36-7);

Kunming, 180, 182, 370(27) see also Mao Tse-tung: speeches—

Kunze Autonomous Chou, 393(25) hundred flowers speech Kut’ien hydro-electric station, 132 Li Ching-ch’iian, 254; purged during Kwangsi [—Chuang Autonomous cultural revolution, 109; speech to Region], 255, 257, 339(31), 391(2) 8th Congress, 129, 131, 157 Kwangtung, 196, 312, 336(68), 378(30), Li Hsien-nien, 19; endorses Mao’s

393119); 12-Year Agric. Pro- speech to 8th Congress, 109, 157;

gramme, 29 and impetuosity and adventurism,

key issues and events (attitudes, 61, 86-8, 347(18); and rectification actions, and opinions of local campaign, 244-5, 247ff. party on): anti-rightist campaign, posts: CC Secretariat, joins, 315;

296, 312, 401(17), 405(3); Politburo, member of, 165,

‘gentle breeze, mild rain’, 356(6)

226-7; Mao’s _ contradictions speeches: to 1955 NPC, 7O0ff.; to

speech, 199-200, 202-3, 205, 1956 NPC, 86-8; to 1957 NPC,

209; manual labour, 230-1, 245, 247

386-7(74,76,81); rectification LiFu-ch’un, 57, 61, 141, 147, 158, 248

campaign, 255, 375(74), 379(46), key issues and events (attitudes,

386(62), 391 app. 8(7,10); rectifi- actions, and opinions on): cation v. work, 233-4, 387(85) coastal y. inland industry, 63-6;

Kweichow, 255, 257, 391(3-4) collectivization, 19; economic development v. defence, 72; en-

dorses Mao’s speech to 8th Congress, 109, 157; FYP targets, 30, 330(40), 346(17); heavy v. light industry, 61-3, 339(26);

Labour, Minister of, 67 impetuosity and adventurism, Labour reform, 50, 395(33) 88; leap forward (1956), 30-2;

Lai Jo-yii, 157 rectification campaign, 244-5,

Land reform, 16, 18, 162, 324(4) 247f., 389(125); wages, 67

Landlords, 37, 295, 362 app. 5(10), 369 posts: CC secretariat, joins, 315;

80, 160-1 (6) individual leaders NPC (1955) (on FYP), 61-2, (14), 398(71); transformation of, Politburo, member of, 165, 356

Leadership, Chinese, see Politburo and speeches: 8th Congress, 124, 134-5;

Leap forward (1956), 9-10, 26-32, 39, 63—4, 72; —(1956) 63, 64—6, 67 59-61, 313, 338-9(15); halted, 86—- Li Hsueh-feng, 157

91, 122-6, 313; impact on LiLi-san, 46, 157

provinces, 126-9; see also Great LiShun-ta, 29

leap forward (1958) Li Wei-han, 157

428 INDEX

Liang Su-ming, 400(8) and small democracy, 178, 385-— Liao Ch’eng-chih, 392(12) 6(58); cadre policy, 306, 403 Liao Chung-k’ai, 392(12) (80); civil war, 366—7(23); class Liao Lu-yen, 19, 36, 329(11), 347(35) struggle, 160-4; collective Liaoning, 194, 255, 391(3) leadership, 114-15; collectiviza* Life of Wu Hsun ’, 336(84) tion, 16, 326(30), 350(19); comLight industry: shortages of raw pletion of socialist revolution, materials, 90, 293, 297, 400(2), 401 80, 121, 160-4; contradictions (28); see also Heavy y. light among the people, 367(30), 376

industry (79); decentralization, 68, 133,

Lin Feng, 157 356(70); distribution, 199, 375

Lin Hsi-ling, 220-1, 243-4, 250-1, 268, (75), 376(79-80); economic 383-5(23,25,27,49), 390(2,4) development v. defence, 136-8,

Lin Mo-han, 373(37) 356(69); 8th Congress political Lin Piao, 145, 165, 192, 243, 251, 356 res., 121; excision of Mao’s (2,4), 359-60(44—-5,47,59), 386(62), Thought from party constitu-

390-1(6-7); member of Mao’s tion, 100-5; fashions, 38;

clique, 142-3; rectification cam- ‘gentle breeze, mild rain’, paign, attitude towards, 242, 248; 225-7; great leap forward

rise of, 141, 146-7, 153, 357-8(14, (1958), 88, 315-16; hundred

29), 361 app. 3(7) flowers policy, 51-3, 336-7(86,

Lin Po-ch’ii, 145, 157, 165, 192, 251, 93-4); impetuosity and adven359(44); rectification campaign, turism and 1956 leap forward, attitude to, 242-3, 248, 390-1(6) 57, 87-8, 124—6, 338-9(15), 346

Lin T’ieh,53-6, 127f., 130,382(6), 157 (11), 355(26);and long-term coLiterature, 179-80, 398 existence mutual super-

Ca sian, smote ae LS manual labour, 228-9, 231,

Liu ry 132, 157, 271, 379-80(51), 394 (60), 387(79); Mao’s con tr dic-

Liu Ko-p'ing, 39325) (109); mass line, 117-18; NPC tu Lan-t'ao, 100, supervision of govt, 115-16, 353 Liu Pin-yen, 284, 398(66) (18), 395(25); nuclear weapons, Liu Po-ch’eng, 165, 341(85), 356(3-4), 137-8; press and radio, 38, 75-

386(62); and rectification cam- 7, 342-3(4,8,12); rectification paign, 243, 248; speech to 1955 campaign, 10, 198-9, 210, 218,

NPC, 70f., 141, 341(65,76) 221, 223, 241-2, 248, 373(35), 191, 202, 206, 213ff., 225, 246, 358(33,41); ‘small loss, big 247-8, 302, 312, 327(51), 338(3), gain’, 5-6; socialist trans358(32), 359(43-4), 362 app. 3 formation, 20-3; Soviet econ-

Liu Shao-ch’i, 48, 113, 144f., 165, 186, 382-—3(7), 384(43); ‘ renegades ’,

(10), 370(27), 374(46), 377(14), omic model, 313; strikes, 197-8, 386(62), 391 app. 7(7), 397(55), 375(70); ‘three evils’, 113-16, 398(71); career and character, 5—7, 242, 307, 389(112); 12-Year

9, 217, 321-2(20,22); cultural Agric. Programme, 60, 125-6, revolution attacks on and confes- 347(27); unity of CCP, 311;

sions of, 2, 5, 7, 21, 47, 77, 88, 101, Yugoslavia, 367-8(39) 112, 119, 155, 160-4, 326(30), 331 posts: head of state, 106, 154-5; (15), 337(93), 347(27), 352(5), 353 PSC, member of, 106; —in first (36), 362(10), 363(17-18), 366~7 front, 153; secretary of 7th CC, (23), 374(51), 381(65), 388(108); in 106; to take over from Mao, Moscow, 170, 364—-5(8); provincial 105-6, 405(2) tour, 196-9, 203, 205, 250, 254, relations with: Chou En-lai, 121, 356 294, 374-5(51,54,58-9,74—5), 378 (70); Kao Kang, 47, 334—-5(59);

(32), 379-80(51), 390(1); _ self- Mao Tse-tung, 2, 4-5, 6f., 53,

criticisms, 18-19, 283, 380-1(58) 88, 100, 102-4, 107-8, 114~-15,

key issues and events (attitudes, 140-1, 143, 199, 293-310, 312actions, and opinions on): anti- 16, 321(20,24), 337(93), 350(20), rightist campaign, 267, 270, 357(29), 394(3); P’eng Chen, 274-8, 28Iff., 285-8, 291-310, ' 145-6; Teng Hsiao-p’ing, 146, 312-15, 383(21), 397(58); big 150-1, 155-6

INDEX 429

Liu Shao-ch’i—contd. . 372~-3(30,32,36), 398(71) speéches, directives, articles: on Lu Yu-wen, 262, 269

~ creative work, 51-2; to demo- . cratic parties, 353(19); to 8th CC’s 2nd plenum, 171; to 8th

Congress, 42, 49, 68, 100, 101-2, Ma Che-min, 380(53) 107, 113-16, 124-6, 133, 160-4, Ma Wen-jui, 67 172, 226, 228, 307, 335(64), 349 Ma Yin-ch’u, 251

(6~7), 350(11,12,19), 363(15), Machine Building: Ist Ministry of, 366—7(23), 381(65); to 8th Con- 1956 plan, 30; 2nd Ministry of,

gress, 2nd sess., 88, 335-6(66- 356(71); 3rd Ministry of, 137,

8); on 40th anniversary of 356(72)

Bolshevik revolution, 306; to Malenkov, G. M., 62, 100, 152, 285, Higher Party School, 227, 241, 339(22), 361 app. 3(3) 386(63), 388(108-10); to or- Manchuria, 360(47) ganization depts, 178; to Peking Manual labour (for leading cadres),

Inst. of Geology, 241-2, 388-9 213, 219, 228-31, 253-6, 386-7 (109,111-12), on procuracy (60,70,72-4,76,79-81), 391(9), 405

work, 78-9, 82-3; to 7th (106)

Congress, 117-18; to Shanghai Mao Tse-t’an, 142

party bureau, 196f., 210-12, Mao Tse-tung, 75, 83, 141, 145, 147, 374—5(59,75,76), 376(79), 379- 150, 165, 195-6, 202f., 213f., 218f., 81(51,58,61,79), 385—-6(58), 388 222, 225f., 228, 231ff., 234, 240ff.,

(109-111) 247ff., 254, 314, 327(51), 329(10),

Liu Shao-ch’i, Mme, see Wang 334(59), 346(1), 350(12,24), 356

Kuang-mei (70), 359(44), 365(9), 369(21), 389(22) 378(29), 379(49), 386(70), 387(79),

Lo Jui-ch’ing, 157f., 345(61), 386(62), 370~1(27,36), 374(46-7), 377(6),

Jo Jung-huan, 147, 165, 192, 243, 248, 391 app. 7(7), 392(8), 396(50~1),

251, 356(3), 390-1(6) 397(59), 398(66), 400(8), 403(76)

Lo Lung-chi, 224f., 267f., 282, 394(14, career and character, 3-5, 8f., 46, 334

16), 397(56,59); and party com- (42), 350(14), 356(9); CC Chairmittee system in schools, 277-8, man, power as, 140; CCP, be396(38,41); ‘rehabilitation com- comes leader of, 5; cult of, 1-2, mittee ’ proposal, 271-3, 275; see 47, 284, 335(63—-4); Hangchow,

also Chang—Lo alliance fondness for, 370(27); ideal Lo Ming line, 142, 326(36) polity of, 4; imperialism, basic

Local nationalism, 50 antagonism towards, 174; inLoh, R., 186f., 267f., 328(58), 372(14), dustry, relative ignorance of, 59, 373(38), 393(26) 338(8); leadership, democratic Long March, 1, 8, 141 approach to, 5; prestige suffers:

‘Long-term coexistence and mutual at 8th Congress, 107~9; —after supervision *, 49-50, 56, 112-16, rectification campaign, 311;

276, 299, 353(19); problems of self-image, 106, 321(9); son implementation, 83-4, 111; re- killed in Korean war, 147, 360 affirmed, 269, 291, 310, 371(1) (53); swims of, 74, 342(87-9);

Lu Hsun, 345(71) theory and practice, contrast Lu P’ing, 384(47) between, 4—5 Lu Ting-yi, 165, 217, 241, 356(7); in foreign affairs: Burmese visitor, cultural revolution attack on, receives, 399(76); on China 92-6, 348(15), 373(40) standing up, 99; on CPSU 20th

key issues and events (attitudes, Congress, 112; in Moscow, 317; actions, and opinions on): anti- on US interest in peace, 73 rightist campaign, 262~3, 281, Eastern Europe: events in, influ302-3, 307, 396(51); hundred ence on China, 369(11); hears flowers policy, speech on, 53—6, reports on, 180-4; on Hun92-6, 337-8(100), 348(16); im- garian revolt, 370(35), 371-2 petuosity and adventurism, 87; (5); leaders, treatment of cpd,

‘rectification campaign, 247, 269, 393(32); on Poland, 406 249; —article on, 183, 190-1, (27); supports Poland yy. ... 192, 207, 211, 285, 370-1(36), USSR, 169-71

430 INDEX

Mao Tse-tung—contd, 83-4, 115f., 185, 188, 200-1, key issues and events (attitudes, 269, 336(74), 36910), 386(59)

actions, and opinions on): (see also below, speeches:

agric. production, 17; agric. and Ten Great Relationships); mass

industry, simultaneous develop- line, 116-19; ‘more, faster,

ment of, 297, 401(29); anti- better . . .’, 30-2, 330(42); rightist campaign, 218-25, 227, nuclear weapons, 137; ‘the 249, 283-4, 270-92, 307, 317, people’, definition of, 184;

rhe 396(36,44), 397-8(63—4), andand ideological work, 400(97), 402(56); big and smallpolitical 112; ‘poor blank’, 50-1; democracy, 225, 385-6(58); press, 76-7, 87-8, 193-4, 200f., cadre policy, 306, 403(80); 217, 224, 342-3(4), 376(4), 385 CCP achievements, 18; China (53), 392(1), 396(43); rectificato be greatest country in world, tion campaign, 10, 121, 182, 32; class struggle, 186, 201, 189-91, 207-10, 219-20, 261-2, 398(71); coastal y. inland in- 385(53); “rehabilitation comdustry, 63-6; collectivization, 9, mittee’ proposal, 269, 271-3; 15-19, 25f., 104, 192, 249; revisionism, 96, 261, 269, 393-4 completion of socialist revolu- (33); right conservatism, 26-7, tion, 101, 119-21, 186, 238, 268, 89, 328(70); schools, party 281, 298, 307, 353(36), 354(45), committee system in, 277-8, 381(79); counter-revolution- 396(38,41); —political work in, aries, 18, 50, 83, 268, 331(23) 197, 375(66); socialist trans(see also below, ‘ rehabilitation formation, 19-23, 24f.; Soviet committee ’ proposal); cultural model, study of, 112, 352(5);

revolution, 1-2, 11; decen- Stalin, denunciation of, 10, 43tralization, 67-8, 133; distribu- 8, 104f., 109, 121, 215, 332(16), tion, 199, 375-6(78,80); east 333(34); strikes, 178, 224, 269,

wind y. west wind, 317, 406(26); 369(14), 376(80), 385(50); suc-

economic development, 48, 51, cession to himself (two fronts

57-74, 86, 89-90, 184, 186, 188, plan), 105-7, 152-6, 140-1, 143, 297-8, 310, 312-13, 328(3), 352 312, 351(35), 361 app. 3(5), 362

(5); economic development v. app. 3(12); ‘ three evils’, 211; defence, 68-9, 135-8, 355(59); 12-Year Agric. Programme, 8th Congress, 99-109, 110-12, 27-9; unity of CCP, 1-5, 46-7; 122-6, 134-5; —political res. USA, aim of overtaking, 32; (see above, completion of _ wages, 66-7; word order, 380 socialist revolution); excision of (15) Thought of from party consti- relations with: Ch’en Ming-shu, tution, 105-7, 107-8, 138, 147, 283-4, 397-8(63—4); Ch’en Yun, 149-50; foreign experience, 60-1, 406(17); Chiang Kai-shek, learning from, 50-1, 77; funda- 77, 343(16); Chou En-lai, 2,

mental change in political situa- 7-9, 46, 140, 315, 405-6(16-17); tion, 15-16, 79; Gen. Sec., post clique, 142-3, 148, 325(25), 326

of, 140-1; ‘ gentle breeze, mild (36); Dalai Lama, 393(25);

rain’, 225-6, 385-6(58,60); Faure, E., 222, 370(31); Fei

grain, importance of, 376(80); Hsiao-t’ung, 395(33); Hu Feng, Han and minorities, 50; heavy 390(2); Lin Hsi-ling, 336(84), v. light industry, 61-3; hundred 390(2), 383-5(25,49); Lin Piao, flowers, defence of, 179-80, 142-3, 147, 357-8(14,29); Liu 200-1 (see also below, speeches); Shao-ch’i, 2, 6-7, 53, 87-8, 100,

impetuosity and adventurism, 102-4, 107-8, 140-1, 155-6, 87-90, 396(10); intellectuals, 199, 270-92, 293-310, 315-16,

293, 297-9, 301, 309-10, 372 321—2(20,24), 350(20), 357-8 (10), 401(33) (see also below, (29); Lo Lung-chi, 394(14,16), speeches); labour reform, 50, 401(33); Lu Ting-yi, 348(16), 395(33); leaps forward, 9-10, 373(32); Mikoyan, 48, 364(4); 26-7, 30-2, 33, 89-91; leftism, P’eng Chen, 24f., 145-6, 203-4, 328(70); literary struggles, 52, 270-92, 360(50), 362 app. 3(10), 336(84); long-term coexistence 378(35); T’ao Chu, 312, 405(5); and mutual supervision, 49-50, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, 140-5, 146,

INDEX 431

Mao Tse-tung—contd. 221, 345(71), 378(35) relations with—contd. to CC: 8th CC’s 2nd plenum, 149-51, 154-5, 357(14-15), 358 171-2, 177; —3rd plenum, (41), 368(40); Teng T’o, 200-2, 119, 286, 354(45); to 7th 232~—3, 312, 397(55); Teng Tzu- CC’s 6th plenum, 18f., 25, hui, 19, 326(36); Ting Ling, 324(2), 330(42)

377(5); Tung Pi-wu, 244, 389 contradictions speech (‘On the (123) correct handling of contraspeeches, directives, articles: to CC dictions...’), 57, 77, 106,

conference on intellectuals, 35, 112, 153-4, 160-2, 182-3, 89; CC res. on methods of 184-7, 189, 191-2, 197, 200-1, leadership, 117; to Chinese 209, 212f., 214-15, 241, 245, students in Moscow, 309; on 250-2, 256, 270, 273, 286,

collectivization, 15, 16—17, 18f., 291, 297f., 354(45), 369(18), 20, 326(30), 398-9(75,78—9), 403 370-2(36,1,5,10,14), 373(38, (81); hundred flowers, 48, 51-6, 41-2), 375-6(78,3), 378(31),

178, 184, 301, 396(44); —Lu 379(44), 380(56), 385(57),

Ting-yi’s interpretation, 92-6, 388-9(109,111), 392-3(19,23), 348(16); JMJP editorial (1 July 394(1,7), 396(44,52), 405-6 1957), 267, 279-81, 290, 291-2, (16); cpd with Lu Ting-yi’s

304-5, 382-3(7), 406(26); to hundred flowers speech, 92music workers, 47, 77; to 6; criteria for criticism, 263— Nanning conference, 346(1,11); 6, 268, 310, 379(50), 393-4 on people’s democratic dic- (16,33); displeases Khrushtatorship, 215; poems, 74, 369 chev, 316; published in

(23), 398(64); Poetry magazine, China, 266-9, 271, 274, 281; letter to, 179-80, 398(64); pre- —in NYT, 267-8; theory of

face to Socialist Upsurge in contradictions, 48-51, 176, China’s Countryside, 15, 17, 199, 204

26-7, 81, 89, 121, 186, 329(5); to 8th Congress, 100, 108-9, 121,

propaganda conf. speech, 183, 124, 179, 352(5), 380(56); re-

186-9, 192-3, 195, 202, 209, ception of 110-12, 157-9, 35,39,41-2), 376(3), 378(31), of, 385(51), 405(10) 380(56), 385(57); to provincial to SSC: (Jan. 1956), 35; (Feb. officials: (1957) 343(16-17), 1957—see above, contradic352(5), 370(35), 376(80); — tions speech); (Apr. 1957), 380 (1959), 384-5(49); Selected (53), 396(41); (Oct. 1957), Works, 44;to Shanghai business- 383-—4(25), 385(50-1), 395(33), men, 22, 328(58); to ditto and 405(14)

212f., 268, 279, 372(13), 373(32, 351-2(46,48,2,3); to 2nd sess.

intellectuals, 281~2, 376(4), 396 ‘ Mao Tse-tung University ’ proposal,

Toe Gk Sixty aneart- Tun, 193, 377(9 . » 382-3(7);

app. , > on Sun Yat- Pe nee a sen, 177; on Ten Great Rela- Marx sen 35f_ (Mareist-Leain 4 ‘s) ; icles 313) 4050) ow 3 54, 362 vine i. ; a4 ©)

tionships, 48-51, 57-74, 81, 95, 111, 113f., 118, 144, 150, 173f.,

115, 133, 135, 138, 184, 297, , 3287, , ’297, ;? 190,277, 204, 214, 244, 268,

BSG, CD MOS, Saka, 35103), Sou, 880) (5), 355(59); - rhings’,are just pagmist-Leninist Academy, 322 ginning to change 224, 261— . 2, 392(1); Thought of, 335(64), Mass line, 45, 103, 143, 35331), 357 (29); defined, 116-17, 151; 349-51(2,8,11,24) (see __ also strengthened at 8th Congress

above: key issues—excision of 116-19 BIESS,

Thought .); Tsingtao d ‘ssiles. 316 ment, 4, ..285-9, 290-2,state295f., Matadormissiles,316

298, 301f., 304, 308f., 312, 317, Materialism, see Dialectical materi-

379(48), 399(81,86), 401(13), alism 403-4(87,89,96-7,101); to Matsu, 70

Yenan forum on lit. and art, May Day, 47, 380(51)

432 INDEX May 4th Movement, 222-4, 384(34) Non-communist parties, see Demo-

Medicine, Chinese, 129 cratic parties and individual

Middle East, 42 parties Mikoyan, A., 364(7), 365-6(13); Nobel Prize, 335(63)

attacks personality cult, 40, 332 NPC, 24, 58, 63f., 67, 70, 73f., 136, (5); signs aid agreement in Peking, 154f., 250, 276, 315, 326(35), 329

48; snubbed by Mao, 169-70, (27), 330(40), 341(65,85), 379-80

364(4) (51), 382(2), 390-1(6), 393(25), 395

Military. Affairs Committee, 8, 148, (17), 397(59); delegation to E.

322(24), 334(42) Europe, 180-3; enacts constitu-

Minc, H., 170 tion, 16; Standing Committee, 36, Molotov, V. M., 285, 364(7) 115, 137, 195, 218-19, 221, 271-3, Mongolia, see Inner Mongolian 275, 353(18), 355(26), 369-70(25),

Autonomous Region 379-80(51), 384(43), 397(59);

Mongols, 245 supervisor of govt, 115, 353(18) ‘More, faster, better . . .°, 30-2, 330 sessions: (1956), 83, 86-9, 346(1); (42), 338—-9(15) (1957), 219, 221, 245, 247f.,

* More on the historical experience...’, 273-8, 281f., 284, 288, 294, 313, 172-6, 179, 181, 184, 215, 261, 269, 317, 345(63), 390(5); (1958), 312 333(34), 371-2(5), 388(110) Nuclear weapons, 68-74, 137, 340-1 Moscow, 6, 44, 68, 141, 170, 309, 317, (52,60) 359(44), 364-5(8), 393(33), 406(27) Nu, U, 42

Moscow Declaration (1957), 393(33) NYT, 267

Mukhitdinov, N., 364(4) Music, 77 Mutual Aid Teams, 37, 324(4)

Ochab, E., 169-~70

October Revolution, 171

‘On the historical experience ...’, 43-6, 47f., 55f., 75, 95-6, 102, 104,

Nagy, Imre, 171, 365—6(13) 120f., 149-50, 174, 184, 294, 333 Nan-fang Jih-pao, 230, 233, 379(46), (34), 334(42)

387(76,81) Opera, 52

Nanking, 221; Univ., 383(23) Origins of the Cultural Revolution, The: Nanning conference, 329(11), 346(1,11) aims of study, 3; explanation of

Nanp’ing paper factory, 132 period covered, 9-1]

Nationalization, see Socialist trans- Ouyang Ch’in, 130, 157

formation ‘ Nationalist Daily ’, 200 Nationalists, Chinese, see KMT

Nationalities, minority: Commission, Pakistan, 3, 364(8) 247; conference, 286, 399(76); P’an Fu-sheng, 391(1) question, 336(69), 371(1), 403(82); Paoting, 196

NPC committee on, 393(25) Paotow, 64 NCNA, 30, 195, 205, 213, 230, 233f., Peace and war, question of, see 253, 256-7, 265, 267, 270, 304, Inevitability of war 331(14), 332(15), 340(38,43), 343 Peaceful transition, question of, 41-2, (8,12), 359(44), 365—6(13), 374(43), 171-3, 333(28-9), 366—7(21,23)

378(31); proposal to remove it Peasants, 15, 29, 324(4), 329(27), 331

from state control, 75; receives (15), 344(43); impact of collecdirectives from Liu Shao-ch’i, tivization and 1956 leap, 91, 12675-7; secret reports on rectifica- 9, 283; living standards cpd with

tion campaign, 224, 384—5(49); those of workers, 294, 376(3), 400-

studies techniques of AFP, 1(10,22); situation of in mid-1955, Reuter, Tass, 76 16-17, 21 Nehru, Pandit, 42, 393(25) rich peasants: importance for pro-

Nei-pu Ts’ an-k’ ao, 384—5(49) duction, 33, 36—7; improvement NEP, of conditions of, 36-7, 39; Nepal,79, 42339(22) | transformation of, 80, 160, 362

Ninghsia Hui Autonomous Region, app. 5(10), 398(71)

256, 391(2) Peita, see Peking Univ.

INDEX 433

Peitaiho conference (1956), 86 (47); Liu Shao-ch’i, 145-6;

Peking, 1, 5f., 23, 27, 29, 38, 41f., 44, Mao, 24f., 145-6, 203-4, 270-

48, 67, 69, 75, 79, 81, 84, 141, 177, 92, 360(50), 362 app. 3(10), 378

180, 182, 195f., 203ff., 210, 217, (35); T’ao Chu, 226~7, 379-80

219, 223, 225, 229f., 233, 250, 254f. (51), 386(62); Teng Hsiao-p’ing,

257, 267, 271, 284, 303, 306, 316, 145 327(51,57), 331014), 340(56), 344 speeches, directives: 8th Congress (32), 346(1,15), 359(44), 364-5 political report, sect. of, 100; on (8-9), 367(23), 370(27), 374—-5(47, judicial work, 79-81, 344~-5(4358~9,75), 377(6), 378(27,29,32), 5); to Municipal People’s Con379-80(51), 384(34), 386(70), 388 gress, 289-92, 402(69), 403-4 (111), 390(1), 391 app. 7(7), 392 (89); to propaganda bureaux (11), 394(5), 396(51); municipal (on dropping Mao’s Thought), people’s congress, 289-90 105; to propaganda conference, municipal party, 146, 194, 204, 226, 206; on public security work, 238, 270f., 282, 284, 304, 328 81-2, 345(57); on rectification,

(62), 386(62), 391 app. 8(7-8), 226

398(67); accelerates socialist P’eng Teh-huai, 157, 165, 225, 340(56),

transformation, 23f.; develop- 341(85), 356(2), 357(14), 359-60 ment plans, 132~3; propaganda (44), 385(56) conferences, 194-6, 204, 205-6, career and character: demoted at

302-3, 378(31) 8th Congress, 146-8; in Korean Peking Daily, 205f., 37831) war, 69, 147, 360(53); in Peking Inst. of Geology, 241, 388-9 Military Affairs Committee,

(109,111) 148; purged, 109, 143, 403(81)

Peking military dist., 229 in foreign affairs: relations with Peking Normal Univ., 223 Khrushchev, 361 app. 3(3) Peking Univ., 53, 220-2, 224, 251, 383 key issues and events (attitudes, (17,23), 384(27-8,47), 388 111), actions, and opinions on): econ-

390(4), 392(11) omic development y defence, Penal code, 81 69-74, 135-8, 341(76), 356(69);

P’eng Chen, 113, 143f., 158, 165, 312, excision of Mao’s Thought, 359-60(44), 373(41), 394(3), 397 100-2, 349(6); great leap for(55), 398(71), 399(77); in foreign ward, 147-8; rectification camaffairs, 180-3, 195, 204-5, 369- paign, 242, 248, 369(21); SSC

70(25), 3716) (27 Feb. 1957); absence from

career and character, 5, 203-4, 356~7 photo of, 192, 242, 251, 390(6) (13), 374(44), 377(13-14); atten- relations with: Kao Kang, 147;

ded PSC meetings, 359(43); 8th Mao, 147

Congress setback, 145-6, 360 speeches: to 8th Congress, 135-8, (45,59); fails to be made Gen. 157, 360(59); NPC (1955), 70,

Sec., 141 71-2

key issues and events (attitudes, People’s Daily, 20, 23, 29ff., 33, 41, 43, actions, and opinions on): anti- 59f., 67, 91, 158, 179, 190ff., 194,

rightist campaign, 267, 270-8, 209, 218, 250, 267-8, 270f., 312, 280-1, 282f., 284ff., 288, 289- 333(34), 354(7), 359(44), 368(5-6), 310, 400(97,103), 402(69), 403-4 375(70,76), 406(26); changes line

(89); constitution, drafts revi- (Apr./May 1957), 201, 212~17; sion, 154; and 8th Congress contro] of, 217; forum for intel-

political res., 116, 121, 145, 350 lectuals, 204, 206; Liu Shao-ch’i’s (12); ‘ gentle breeze, mild rain ’, press directives, action on, 77

226-7; manual labour, 228, key issues and events (coverage and ~ 2329-31, 386(70,72); NPC super- comments): anti-American riots vision of govt, 115-16, 353(18); in Taiwan, 300; anti-rightist camrectification campaign, 10, 121, paign, 218, 262-7, 269f., 272-3,

189, 192, 194, 195-6, 197, 203, 274, 278f., 281ff., 287, 289f.,

205-7, 210, 218, 243, 247f., 254, 295, 303, 382~3(7,17), 385(51,

257, 374(49), 375(70), 378(24, 53), 393(20), 394(7), 396(43), 35); socialist transformation, 402(56), 403-4(89); coastal v. 24, 328(62,68), 344(40) inland industry, 65-6, 134; relations with: Lin Piao, 145, 360 contradictions, 194, 200, 201-2,

434 INDEX

People’s Daily—contd. 354(13); to NPC (1956), 58; —

key203ff., issues—contd. (1957), 247 206-8, 211, 214, 251, PoProstu,406(27)

371(1), 373(42), 374(49), 376(3), Poetry, 179, 369(23), 398(64)

377(10), 378(31,38), 390(5-6); Poland, Poles, 112, 172., 177, 267-9,

education, 197; ‘ gentle breeze, 314, 316-17, 359-60(44), 364(6), mild rain’, 225-7, 386(60); 365-6(13), 368(43), 369(16), 393-4 grain crisis, 293-6, 401(29); (33), 406(27); Chou En-lai’s visit

heavy y. light industry, 63; to, 175-6, 180-1, 368(43), 393-4 hundred flowers, 193, 201, 369 (33); ‘October Revolution’ in, (23), 373(37), 377(9); impetu- 170-1, 222; United Workers’ osity and adventurism, 87-9; [Communist] Party of, 170, 222, manual labour, 228-31, 386(60), 364(6); see also Cyrankiewicz 387(79-80); Mao’s contradic- Police, secret, 244; curbed in USSR

tions and propaganda confer- and E. Europe, 78; on Taiwan,

ence speeches, 193-4; Politburo 299; see also Public security compromise, 301-6; rectifica- Politburo (CCP), 8, 19f., 24, 28, 47, 52,

tion campaign, 213-17, 219, 79, 88, 92, 108, 136, 147ff., 157-8, 253, 255-7, 381(70), 382(4); 191, 217, 286, 321-2(20), 350(11,

rectification v. work, 232-40, 14), 357-829); 359-60(44,59); 244, 245-6, 248, 388(98,104), badly informed by Finance Min-

389(125) istry, 88; elections to, 99; method

People’s democratic dictatorship, 263- of operation cpd with CPSU’s, 5,

5, 329(27) 390(141); mistrust of Soviet

People’s Univ., China, 220, 383-4(25), leaders, 10-11; ‘ More on histori-

394(11) cal experience... .’, responsible for,

Personality, cult of, see CCP; CPSU; k 178 ,

Stalin ey spenvabers vohat wpe tt issues position on): i- ofSor-

Pet6fi Circle, 222, 384(32) paign, 263, 266, 285, 289-92, 301, Petroleum Industry, Minister of, 351 304, 307, 311; collectivization, 18:

(46) cultural revolution, 1-3; exci-

Physical labour, see Manual labour sion of Mao’s Thought from

PLA, 1, 69, 71f., 180, 334-5(59), 341 party constitution, 101; Mao’s

(65), 403(82); air force, 68; resignation as head of state,

cultural revolution, after, 1-2; 154; peaceful coexistence, 42; defence strategy, 136; GPD, 73, rectification campaign, 113, 179; in Korean war, 99; 191-2, 210, 223f., 241-9, 285; modernization, 136f., 341(76); Sixty articles on work methods, Politburo, importance reflected 405(2); Stalin, 543-6, 333(34); in, 139; and rectification cam- unity of, 3, 301, 304, 307, 311

paign, 113, 242 meetings: discussions prior to Ten

Ploughs, problems with, 90, 123, 127, Great Relationships speech,

347(7) 57ff.; hears this speech, 48, 61,

Po I-po, 19, 165, 338(4), 339(25), 360 335-6(67)

(59), 389(125) members of: under 7th CC, 139, 145,

career and character,purged 3380); during, cul- 165, 359-60(44—-5); 8th tural revolution, CC, 139, 145, 165; under surviving 109; Finance Minister, replaced cultural revolution, 109 as, 141; Politburo, enters, 356 Standing Committee of, 105-7, (6); State Economic Commis- 145f., 152-6, 165, 195, 241-2,

sion, head of, 58 357-8(29), 359(43), 361 app. 3

key issues and events (attitudes, (5), 379-80(51); see also Mao

actions, and opinions on): Tse-tung: key issues—succes-

agric. investment, 297, 401(23); sion to himself

impetuosity and adventurism, ‘ Political Planning Inst.’, see Chang

88, 347(20); rectification cam- Po-chiin

paign, 245-7, 249 Political resolution, see CCP: 8th

relations with: Liu Shao-ch’i, 58, Congress, political res. 338(3); P’eng Chen, 247 Population, 293, 400(4)

speeches: to 8th Congress, 124, 158, Poznan, 67, 112, 169, 375(70)

INDEX 435 Press, 338-9(15), 382(83), 406(25); Rehabilitation committee, see Lo attacked by Mao, 193-4, 376(4); Lung-chi journalists’ working conditions Reuter, 76 75-7; liberalization of, 75—7 Revisionism, 96, 173-4, 179, 224, 261,

Private plots, see Collectivization 343(12), 393-4(33); more dangerProcuracy: chief procurator, 79, 345 ous than dogmatism, 269 (63); directive on reinvestigation Reynolds, Master-Sgt, 299 of campaign y. counter-revolu- Rightist conservatism, 26~—7, 30, 86-7 tionaries, 78, 83; duties of, 79, Rightists, see Bourgeois rightists 81-2; Liu Shao-ch’i’s instructions Rokossovsky, Marshal, 170, 364(6)

to, 78-9, 82-3 Rumania, 181

Prop76(7 353(42), 375(75), Rural Work Dept, see CC P’u An-hsiu, 385(56)

(11) Saifudin, 157

P’u Hsi-hsiu, 225, 262-3, 385(56), 392

Public security, 244; conference, 82, Science, 53-6 345(57); forces supervised by Secret speech, see Khrushchev, attack

Procuracy, 79; Minister of, 386 on Stalin

(62), 389(122) Sectarianism, see ‘ Three Evils’

Ministry of, 345(61); checks on Seki, Kenzaburo, 346(15) campaign v. counter-revolu- Shanghai, 20, 65, 79, 134, 196-7, 198,

tionaries, 83 201, 205, 207f., 211-12, 223, 243, 255, 277, 281f., 284, 327(51), 328 (58,64), 331(14), 334(55), 375(75), 376(4), 377(6), 378(27,31), 379-80

Quemoy, 70 20) 381(79),58,62), 382-3(4,7), 385-6 391 app. 7(7), 393(20), 396 (43,50), 404(96); party, 200, 210, 219, 257, 278, 373(38), 374(59),

Railway Inst., 278 376(4), 379(51), 382-3(7),388(109), Railways, Minister of,402(69); 30 10De socialist People’s transformation Congress, 290, Rakosi, M., 384(32) Rectification campaign, 10, 46, 56, 115, in, 22-4, 327(51)

169, 173f., 187, 218-49, 256, 278, Shansi, 113, 195, 204, 247, 254ff., 374-5

281f., 284, 286, 296, 304, 311f., (59), 378(24), 391 app. 8(7); and 315f., 364(2), 372—3(30,34—5), 380- 12-Year Agric. Programme, 28 1(58), 382(2,4,6), 389(113,115,122, | Shansi-Chahar—Hopei Border Region,

125), 396(51), 403(84), 405(10); 374(44)

criteria for criticisms, 263-6; Shantung, 113, 208, 255, 257, 286, 379

decision to launch taken, 206, (39,44), 391(3); demands on 207-10; directive, 193, 208f., 210- centre, 130-1; and 12-Year Agric. 17, 218, 225, 228, 231, 235, 237, Programme, 28, 126, 127-8, 129

244, 246, 253, 256, 379-80(51), 381 Shensi, 255, 381(68), 389(125), 391(3);

(68,70), 385-7(58,74); disagree- 12-Year Agric. Programme, 127

ments over form of, 189-91, 193, Shensi Jih-pao, 374(50)

199, 206; —over launching of, Shepilov, D. T., 285

194, 196; earlier campaign (1942—- Shih Liang, 345(53), 384(43)

4), 54ff., 169, 187, 190, 203, Shu T’ung, 126 370(36); importance reaffirmed, Sian, 374(50)

302f., 307ff.; launched, 208, 209— Siberia, 347(27) 10; need for, 120-1; provincial Sinkiang, 234, 255, 379(44), 391(3)

leaders’ attitudes, 249, 253-7, Sino-Soviet dispute, 39, 41-2, 68, 317, 381(68), 3910-11); responsibility 332(10), 343(9,12) of ist secretaries for, 213; studyof Siroky, V., 269, 370(27), 374(47), 391 rectification documents, 113, 177~ app. 7(7), 393(32) 8; timing advanced, 177, 180-3, Sixty articles on work methods, see 370(36); vy. work, 213, 219, 231-40, Mao Tse-tung: speeches, etc 241, 388(98, 104), 402(56) Snow, E., 3, 6, 328(3), 333(34)

Red and expert, 306 Socialism, Inst. of, 368(6)

Red Guards, 1, 160, 164, 384(47) Socialist camp, 73, 77, 170-1

436 INDEX Socialist education campaigns, 304, (8), 332(10), 336(73), 359(44), 366—

308; in higher education institu- 7(23), 395(28); on class struggle, tions, 303; rural, 293, 295-7, 301, 80, 174; on contradictions, 119-

401(23) 20, 215; CPSU, terrorized by, 107,

Socialist realism, 179-80, 398(64) 152; cult of personality of, 2, 47,

Socialist revolution, completion of, 15- 112, 335(63); Georgia, support for

16, 21, 26, 49, 92-3, 119-21, 160-4, in, 40-1; impact on Soviet 186, 281, 305—6, 308, 398(71), 403— political life, 75; intolerant of 4(89); Soviet view, 93, 336(73), debate, 5; Lenin on, 40; and

398(71) Malenkov, 100; Mao, differenti-

Socialist transformation (of industry ated from, 104; Mao on, 2, 4, 215;

and commerce), 19-25, 30, 73, ‘of China’, 7; treatment of 119-21, 160-3, 327(51,57), 328 enemies, 3; see also Stalinism

(62), 344(40), 363(18) Stalin Metallurgical Plant, 332(15)

Socialist Upsurge in China’s Country- Stalinism, 56, 112, 121, 169, 171, 185,

side, 15, 26, 186, 324(1,2), 325(26) 269, 333(34), 334(42); Chinese

Socialist Youth League, 141 assessment of, 43-8, 95-6, 173-4,

Solzhenitsyn, A., 335(63) 294, 332-3(16-17), 364-5(4,8-9);

Soong Ch’ing-ling, 250, 274, 386(62) destalinization, 10, 47, 53, 174; Soviet Union, 43, 47f., 50, 53, 69f., 148, Stalinists, 364(7) 152, 172, 174, 180, 298, 313, 322 State Administrative Council, 49

(24), 336(73), 339(22), 361 app. State Construction Commission, 3(3), 368(43,45), 371-2(5), 393-4 Chairman of, 19, 338(5)

(33); central Asian republics of, State Council, 25, 67f., 88f., 101, 218— 364(4); China, aid for, 48, 313-14; 19, 262, 276, 315, 334(59), 345(53), —relations with, 68-9, 147, 315-— 382(2), 397(59); res. on rectifica-

17, 360(47); Chou En-lai’s visit to, tion and anti-rightist campaigns,

175-6, 180-1; collectivization in, 302; suppresses free markets, 15-17, 99, 324(8); economic re- 296-7 forms in, 314; FYP (6th), 314; directives: on increasing production govt statement (30 Oct. 1956), and practising economy, 235-7, 170-1, 365(11); imperialism of, 244, 246, 388(104), 389(125); on

300; legal system, 78-9; post- leadership and agric. producStalin struggle for power, 10; tion, 239-40

press in, 110; Red Army of, 364 joint directives (with CC): on (6); rocket technology of, 317; production and organization in Socialist camp, leader of, 174f.; APCs, 91; on running APCs Stalin-period politics, 75; see also effectively, 59-60, 90

CPSU; Khrushchev; Sino-Soviet State Economic Commission, 57-8,

dispute; Soviet model 124, 297, 338(5), 339(25), 356(6)

Soviet model, 352(5); for ploughs, 347 State Planning Commission, 30, 58, 67,

(27); fundamental lessons of, 173, 88, 130; Chairman of, 19, 30, 147,

367(28); in military affairs, 341 244, 356(6)

(65); of collectivization, 15-17, Stein, Gunther, 203 99; of education, 220; of indus- Strauss, Johann, 331(29) trialization, 59, 62, 313-14, 315, Strikes, 112-13, 178, 185, 197, 200-1,

317, 388(108) 269, 369(14), 3711)

Sovnarkhozy, 314 Students: 197, 218, 277, 284, 309, 311, Sputniks, 317, 406(25) 384(34); riots/strikes, 112, 185,

SSC, 329(10) 197, 303f.: in rectification camsessions: (25 Jan. 1956), 19, 26, 28f., paign, 220-4, 241, 314, 383(23),

92-3, 329(11), 347(19,35), 390 384(47)

(5); (2 May 1956), 51-6; (27 Su Ch'in, 374(51) Feb.—1 Mar. 1957), 182-3, 184— — suavitur in modo, fortiter in re, 323(34)

6, 191-2, 194, 197, 201, 213, Subjectivism, see ‘ Three Evils’

215, 225, 241ff., 250-2, 254, 273, Suez, 171 343(16,17), 374-5(S9), 390-1(4- Sukarno, Pres., 42, 356(70) 6); (30 Apr. 1957), 210,278; (13 Sun Yat-sen, 177, 343(16), 356(70), 392

_ Oct. 1957), 348(16), 385(50,51) (12); Mme, see Soong Ch’ing-ling

Stalin, J., 10, 40f., 43if., 53, 103, 105, Sun Yat-sen Univ. (Moscow), 140 109, 152, 171f., 176, 222, 270, 324 Sung Jen-ch’iung, 158, 350-1(24)

INDEX 437

Sungari River, 130 relations with: Liu Shao-ch’i, 2, 112-

Supreme Court, 78-81, 243, 277; 19, 146, 150-1, 155-6; Mao Tsechecks on campaign vy. counter- tung, 2, 5, 100, 104-5, 140-5,

revolutionaries, 83; duties of, 82 146, 149-51, 154-5, 342(87), 351 Syria, 42 (25,28), 357(14,15), 358(41); Szechwan, 129, 141, 208, 245, 254, 255, P’eng Chen, 145 378(38), 3891125), 391 app. 7(7), speeches to: 8th CC’s 3rd plenum,

app. 8(7), 393(25); demands on 286, 289, 306-10, 314-15, 398

centre, 131-2 (75), 403-4(76,82-3,85,87,89,94, 97,101), 405(106); 8th Congress,

49, 100, 101-2, 104-5, 113-18,

Tachen Islands, 70 144, 149-51, 202, 211, 288, 307, Tai minority, 335(63) 311, 335(67), 351(25), 394(1);

Taipei, 299-300 Tsinghua Univ., 174-5, 178, Taiwan, 70f., 84-5, 137, 316-17, 341 367~—8(39,43), 369(16), 381(64), (61), 394(16); anti-American riots 385(57) in, 299-301 T’eng Tai-yuan, 157.

T’an Chen-lin, 142-3, 294, 315, 400-1 Teng T’o, 196, 217, 235, 247, 270, 373

(10) (41-2), 378(24), 392(1); attacked

T’an Cheng, 157 by Mao, 193-4, 201, 373(40); T’an Ch’i-lung, 126, 127-9, 130-1, 158 article in JMJP, 232-3, 387(84); T’an Kah-Kee, 31rd) dismissed as JMJP398(73); editor, 282, T’ang Mao-ju, 331(14) 312, 397(54-5), and T’ao Chu, 152, 202, 205, 227f., 230-1, impetuosity and adventurism, 87

233, 312, 336(68), 386(62), 387(81), Teng Tzu-hui, 19, 158, 165, 326(35);

392-3(19), 405(3,5) and dissolution of APCs, 19, 25,

T’ao Lu-chia, 157 326(30); and impetuosity and

Tass, 75f., 317, 343(12) _ : adventurism, 88; and ploughs, 90;

Ten Great Relationships speech, see relations with Mao Tse-tung, 19,

Mao Tse-tung: speeches 142-3, 326(36); and 12-Year Teachers, 197, 220f., F7at50} Agric. Programme, 60, 347(19), Teng Ch’u-min, 209, 379(50) 390(5)

Teng Hsiao-p’ing, 108, 145f., 165,191, | Teng Ying-ch’ao (Mme Chou En-lai),

196, 204, 206, 214, 217, 227, 286, 157

288, 345(57), 357-8(29); 359-60 Thaw in China, 33-8, 39, 75-85 (44), 370(27), 374(50), 378(32), Thought reform campaign, 16

379-80(51), 397(54), 398(73); | Three-anti campaign, 162-4, 271-2, career and character, 5, 140-5, 357 363(15)

(14,18); cultural revolution attacks ‘ Three bitter years’, 10, 317

on and confessions of, 149-51, ‘ Three Evils’:

351(28), 368(40), 39755) bureaucratism, 45-6, 56, 113-16, key issues and events (attitudes, 163, 178, 186f., 191, 198, 202, actions, and opinions on): anti- 211f., 214, 216, 225, 235, 237, rightist campaign, 281, 283, 403 242ff., 255-6, 274, 303f., 307,

(83); big and small democracy, 311, 380(56-7), 389(112-13, 178; CCP constitution, 100, 350 125), 402(5-6), 403(85); defined, (12); CCP recruitment policies, 111; Liu Shao-ch’1 admits to, 144-5; CPSU’s 20th Congress, 380(58); Mao on, 112, 185; pro39-41, 43, 344(32), 359(44); vincial campaigns y., 84, 177; hundred flowers, 178; Hun- Wang Meng on, 84 garian revolt, 365-6(13); mass sectarianism, 54, 56, 84, 113-16, line, 116-18; rectification cam- 187, 211, 216, 220, 235, 243,

paign, 218, 241, 248, 389(113); 245ff., 255-6, 274, 289, 303, 311,

supervision of CCP, 114-16; 377(14), 380(56), 389(113, 125), ‘three evils ’, 113-16, 307, 403 402(56), 403(80,85); defined,

(85); 12-Year Agric. Pro- 111; provincial campaigns y., gramme, 314-15 177 posts: CC Gen. Sec., 107, 140, 357 Subjectivism, 45—6, 56, 113-16, 87, (15); CC Sec.-Gen., 141, 356 191, 202, 211f., 213, 216, 235, (12); PSC member, 106-7, 140; 243, 244-6, 247-8, 255-6, 274,

—in first front, 153 303, 307, 380(56-7), 389(113,

438 INDEX

Three Evils ’—contd. 299, 310, 352(3); see also Bour-

Subjectivism—contd. geoisie; CC: departments ... 125), 402(56), 403(85); defined, UFWD

111; provincial campaigns v., United States, 52, 70, 73, 76, 132, 305,

177 394(16); relations with China, 72-

‘ Three family village ’, 398(67) 3, 135-7, 316-17; —with KMT/

(25) 366-7(23), 402(51)

Tibet, 1, 256, 268, 370(27), 391(2), 393 Taiwan, 69-70, 299-301, 316-17, T’ien An Men, 1, 23, 47, 328(62) * Unity-criticism-unity ’, 185, 198, 265 Tientsin, 27f., 204ff., 229, 247, 255, Univ. of the Toilers of the East, 6 257, 297, 339(31), 378(27,29,31), USIS, 299 385(57), 391(2) Tiflis, 40-1, 332(15) Timber Industry, Ministry of, 273

Ting Ling, 377(5), 396(51) Versailles Peace Conference, 384(34) Tito, Marshal, 171, 172-5, 366(18) Voice of America, 77

Trotskyists, 140. Voroshilov, Marshal, 196, 206, 210, Ts’ai Ch’ang (Mme Li Fu-ch’un), 158 227, 243, 378(32), 379-80(51), 386 Ts’ai Ho-sen, 158 (62), 391 app. 7(7) Ts’ an-k’ ao Hsiao-hsi, 77, 343(17) ‘ Tsar fire ’, 335(63) Tseng Chao-lun, 222~3

Tseng Chih (Mme T’ao Chu), 226-7 Wages, 66-7, 338(7), 340(38,43—4), 375

Tseng Hsi-sheng, 158 (76), 403(82)

Tseng Shan, 157 Wang Ching-wei, 289-90, 292, 302, 399 Tsinghai, 255, 391(3) (92) Tsinghua Univ., 174-5, 223, 284f., 368 Wang En-mao, 157

(43), 381(64) Wang Ho-shou, 158 6,78,81) Wang Kuang-mei (Mme Liu Shao-

Tsingtao conference, 285-9, 398-9(74— Wang Jen-chung, 158

Tsunyi conference, 102~3, 104, 140, ch’i), 43, 101, 121, 155, 366-7023)

148, 226, 334(42), 350(14), 356(9) Wu Hsiu-ch’tian, 367-8(39) Tung Pi-wu, 78f., 109, 145, 158, 165, Wang Meng, 84, 180, 373(37) 277, 359(44), 395(32); and recti- Wang Ming, 44, 46, 148, 321-2(20) fication campaign, 243-4, 248f., Wang Shou-tao, 88-9, 158 389(122); relations with Mao, 244, Warring States period, 53, 337(91), 374

389(123) (51)

Twelve-Year Agric. Programme, 18f., Warsaw, 170, 175, 267ff., 371-2(1,5),

27-9, 57ff., 78, 347(19,26-7,35), 375(78), 392—4(19,33) 354(17), 390(5); and counter- Warsaw Pact, 171, 365-6(13) revolutionaries, 36-7, 78; 8th |Waterconservancy, 130 Congress dispute over, 124-6; Wen-hsueh, 337(94)

impact on economic development, Wen Hui Pao, 201, 221, 224f., 263, 279,

86-91, 123, 126-9, 354(7); origins 377(6), 383(23), 385(53), 392(11), of, 27, 329(11); revived, 314-15; 396(43), 406(26)

shelved, 90-1 White areas, 334—5(59)

Twelve-Year Plan for Science, 35 Women’s Federation, see All-China Two lines, struggle between, 2—3 Federation of Democratic Women Workers, 198, 221, 329(27), 403(82); living standards cpd with those of peasants, 294, 376(3), 400-1(10,

UFWD 219

22); strikes by, 112, 185, 197

UFWD, see CC: departments ... Writers, 54-5, 396(51); Union, 51-2, UK, 70; communist party in, 366(14) Wu Chih-p’u, 158 Ulanfu, 109, 158, 165, 245, 286, 399 Wu Han, 158, 271-2, 276, 277-8, 394

(76); and rectification campaign, (5,7,11), 396(38)

247-8, 249 Wu Leng-hsi, 76-7, 270, 282, 343(8,12),

UN: Chinese seat in, 317; forces in 346(10-11), 397(54—5), 398(73)

Korea, 69 Wu Teh, 158

United front, 49-50, 83-4, 111, 169, Wu Yii-chang, 158

INDEX 439

Wuchang, 342(88) Yeh Tu-yi, 273 Wuhan, 23, 64, 221, 387(81) Yemen, 42

Yenan, 143, 203, 221, 228, 230, 345(71), 378(35) Yin and yang, 9

Yang Ch’eng-wu, 229 Yomiuri Shimbun, 346(15)

Yang Hsien-chen, 227, 241, 386(63), Young Newcomer to the Organization

388(109) Dept, 180, 345(70)

Yang Shang-k’uel, 130, 131-2, 379(39) Youth League, see YCL

Yangtse River, 74, 342(87,89) Yti Ch’iu-li, 351(46) Yao Wen-yuan, 158, 377(6), 382(6), Yudin, 316, 364(4)

383(10), 385(53), 396(43) Yugoslavia, 43, 174, 181, 365-6(13),

Yao Yi-lin, 158 367-8(39), 393-4(33)

YCL (Communist Youth League), 5, Yunnan, 180, 194, 255, 257, 386(73),

37, 220ff., 224, 231, 280, 296, 384 391(5)

(27), 385(53), 387(79), 389(113), 398(66), 403(82) Yeh Chi-chuang, 158 Yeh Chien-ying, 70-1, 72, 341(76,85)

Yeh Fei, 126, 129, 131-2, 158 Zarya Vostoka, 41