CHALLENGE / December 2, 1976
Last week we saw how the Cultural Revolution in China expanded our understanding of how socialist society actually works in the areas of culture, education and health. We also saw that the gains of the Cultural Revolution are being systematically reversed by the revisionists (capitalists who call themselves socialists) who rule China today. This week, we look at the advances made in the factories, the fields and the government offices, and how these advances are being replaced by policies which restore capitalism.
Before the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, Chinese industry was shot through and through with capitalist practices like piece-rate wage systems, bonuses for hard work and strongly hierarchical management. In great struggles, the workers threw out this system which encouraged individualism, competition among the workers, and striving for material wealth above all else. They got rid of the bonuses and sharply reduced the difference in wages between unskilled and skilled, worker and manager. In place of practices which encouraged each worker to look out for himself alone, they instituted collective co-operation to make work safer, more pleasant, and more efficient.
The workers drastically reduced the management bureaucracy; decisions were made by the people whom the decisions affected, rather than by some far-off bureaucrat. The management was integrated with the production workers. Managers were chosen by the workers, subject to recall anytime the workers wanted; managers worked on the production line several days a week, and the workers met often to discuss management decisions.
Mass meeting during the Cultural Revolution to denounce capitalist-roaders.
In the last five years, every one of these policies has been systematically undermined. The old technocratic, haughty managers have been restored to power in the factories; workers’ committees no longer set policy or choose the managers. The old 30-grade wage scale for party cadres has been restored. The Communist Party, which should be leading the struggle for “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” now pays its top leaders 404 yuan per month, while a grade 30 cadre starts at 20 yuan (and that’s not counting the “expense accounts” the leaders get). China is now importing tens of millions of dollars worth of luxuries (like Cuban cigars and Swiss watches) for sale to the big shots at 100 per cent markup. The new party leadership under Hua Kuo-feng is openly discussing a return to bonuses, to piece-rate wages. Not that the so-called “radicals” (Chiang Ching and friends, or the “four pests,” as they are now referred to) were much better: they pushed for longer work hours at the same pay, which led to major revolts like the one in the city of Hangchow in the summer of 1975.
It is the same story in the countryside: despite opposition, capitalist policies are being restored. The Cultural Revolution emphasized the move away from private plots and individual handicrafts; instead of these petty capitalist ways of increasing income, the Red Guards stressed small-scale industry run by the commune. These small-scale workshops, built by local efforts, spread the benefits of industrialization throughout China instead of concentrating on a few big show-piece projects. Building up industry in the countryside instead of the big cities also helped break down the division between worker and peasant, between city and country. Now, however, private plots are coming back in a big way; the new 1975 constitution even guarantees the “right” to private plots (which is almost as absurd as the “right” to exploit workers!). In place of the Cultural Revolution policy of encouraging local fertilizer plants, the revisionists are importing big plants from abroad—already, there are eight from the U.S. (at $35 million each) with more to come.
Throughout Chinese society, the government bureaucrats are reasserting control and getting rid of anything that would "give the masses decision-making power. Both Marx and Lenin stressed that socialism was a period when the workers would take direct control over society and abolish the state; for example, the police would be replaced by a workers’ militia, the factory management by workers’ committees. The committees set up in Shanghai and other cities during the Cultural Revolution were a big step in this direction, but these communes were smashed. The communes were replaced by “revolutionary three-in-one committees,” where the representatives of the workers and peasants were supposed to share power with the old cadres and the army; now, the cadres pretty much run things by themselves.
When the Chinese Communist Party was a revolutionary party, it used to organize campaigns where the masses of workers and peasants were asked to evaluate the party and its cadres—to say what had been done wrong and what right, to say where things should go next. Differences in the Party or among the masses were openly discussed to some extent (everyone had to pay homage to the infallibility of Mao Tse-Tung). During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards used this method of mass criticism to launch their struggle for seizing state power from the revisionists. Now, political disputes are confined to a few top leaders with the masses brought in only as cheerleaders. The disputes are carried out in incredibly obscure language so that it is almost impossible to figure out what is actually going on.
As China “changes color” from socialist to capitalist, there are many workers and peasants who organise local struggles to oppose the move to the right. These struggles are isolated from each other and they are not likely to succeed unless a new communist party can emerge to co-ordinate and lead the fight for state power. Right now, the revisionists have a strong hold on China and they accelerate the move towards capitalism.
Chilean torturer mourns Mao…
His Excellency Mr. Hua Kuo-feng,
Premier of the State Council,
First Vice-Chairman of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party
of China,
Peking
Please allow me, on behalf of the Chilean people and Government and in my own name, to express to Your Excellency our sincere condolences on the unfortunate passing away of Mao Tsetung, an eminent statesman.
The deceased leader who projected the road to prosperity and development for your country has left an illustrious image in the history of humanity. Your Excellency, please accept the feelings of my highest consideration.
General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
President of the Republic of Chile
Santiago, Chile, September 9, 1976