Qian Changming 2021-11-08.
(Translator’s Preface: Qian Changming cannot go so far as
to say that China has reverted to capitalism and is under the dictatorship of a
new bourgeois class with its social base inside the leadership of the Communist
Party. However, his essay on the relationship between the “leaders” and the “masses”,
described as a call for improving “socialist democracy” makes it fairly clear
that the rights of the workers to supervise the state authorities have been
removed and that a “bureaucratic class”, and not the “masses”, rules China
today. I have added several footnotes)
In any organisation (as small as a group or as large as a
country), there are two components: the "leadership" and the
"masses". Without the "masses", there is no organisation;
without the "leaders", there is also no organisation.
The "leaders" come from the "masses" and
are the representative of the interests of the "masses". If the
"leaders" represent the interests of the "masses", they can
play a leading role: they give orders, they respond to all calls - they give
full play to the role of the organisation. If the "leaders" are
detached from the "masses" and turn their backs on their interests, they
will be resisted by the "masses" and will not be able to play their
organisational role well. The normal relationship between the "leaders"
and the "masses" should be: the "leaders" defend the
interests of the masses; the masses support the leadership of the "leaders". Once the "leaders" lose the support
of the "masses", in essence, they deny themselves. In a healthy
organisation, the balance between the "leaders" and the
"masses" is necessarily one of mutual checks and balances. Whenever
this balance is lost, the organisation loses its role, until it eventually
disintegrates.
Marxism espouses the historical view of the masses and the
mass line, believing that history is made by the people. Chairman Mao said:
"Our point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly
and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed in all
cases from the interests of the people and not from the interests of
individuals or groups, and to understand the identity of our responsibility to
the people and our responsibility to the leading organs of the Party "
("On Coalition Government")
However, when some people become "leaders", they
often forget that they also come from the "masses". After taking the
leadership, they become, over time, keen to become officials and lords,
detached from the masses, from their supervision and from their interests,
until they degenerate into a class of bureaucrats. The original
"leadership" was turned into the antithesis of the
"masses", thus destroying the balance between "leadership"
and "masses".
In order to maintain a balanced relationship between the
"leadership" and the "masses" in the long term, all kinds
of organisations of a socialist nature must essentially address the question
raised by Huang Yanpei in his "Cave Pair" discussions[1].
This was the problem of the dynastic cycle, of "the rise and sudden fall” of
new regimes. At that time, Chairman Mao's reply was:
"We have found a new path; we
can break free of the cycle. The path is called democracy. As long as the
people have oversight of the government then government will not slacken in its
efforts. When everyone takes responsibility there will be no danger that things
will return to how they were even if the leader has gone."
Chairman Mao believed that in order to break out of the
cycle of history, socialist democracy must be realised, so that the
"masses" can check the "leaders" and the people can truly
be the masters of their own house.
The establishment of the People's Democratic Dictatorship in
1949 was the cornerstone of socialist democracy. The people's democratic
dictatorship, "Towards the enemy, it uses the method of dictatorship,
...... Towards the people, on the
contrary, it uses the method of democracy and not of compulsion, that is, it
must necessarily let them take part in political activity and does not compel
them to do this or that but uses the method of democracy to educate and persuade.”
("Be a true revolutionary", June 23 1950)
Chairman Mao was highly concerned with the building of
socialist democracy, focusing on curbing the alienation of the
"leadership" function of the cadres and trying to maintain a balanced
relationship between the "leadership" and the "masses".
In November 1951, in response to the corruption of cadres,
the "Three Anti's" were launched to combat corruption, waste and
bureaucracy. The execution of Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan[2]
was a way of promoting socialist democracy, maintaining a balance between the
"leaders" and the "masses", and ensuring the basic
integrity of the cadres in the 1950s and 1960s.
Apart
from punishing corrupt elements, there must be a constant criticism of bureaucracy
in the cadres. In January 1953, Mao launched a struggle within the Party
against bureaucracy, commandism and lawlessness. Huang Yifeng, an old
revolutionary who had joined the Party in 1925, was severely punished by being
expelled from the Party and stripped of all administrative posts for
"suppressing public criticism" and engaging in "retaliation".
He proposed that "Typical cases
of bureaucracy, commandism and violations of the law and of discipline should
be widely exposed in the press. Serious offenders should be punished by law,
and when they are Party members, they should also be dealt with according to
Party discipline. Party committees at all levels should make a determined
effort to punish and clear out of Party and government organizations those
violators of the law and of discipline who are bitterly hated by the masses,
and the worst among them should be executed so as to assuage the people's anger
and help educate the cadres and the masses. " (Mao
Zedong: "Combat Bureaucracy, Commandism and Violations of the Law and
Discipline", January 5, 1953).
However, due to historical limitations, even in socialist
countries, for a long period of time, bourgeois right[3]
still exists, which gives rise to a natural phenomenon of some cadres transforming
from "leaders" into a bureaucratic class.
In February 1960, Chairman Mao studied the Soviet Textbook
of Political Economy and, in response to the loss of balance in the
relationship between the "leadership" and the "masses" in a
socialist country, argued that the socialist state should expand the power of the
"masses" to supervise the leaders. The people should have direct
management power over state organs and superstructure institutions:
"We cannot understand the question of the rights of the
people to mean that the state is run by only a part of the people and that the
people enjoy the rights to labour, education, social security and so on under
the management of these people." And again, "The right of workers to
manage the state, to manage the army, to manage all kinds of enterprises, to
manage culture and education, is in fact the greatest right, the most
fundamental right, of workers under the socialist system. Without this right,
there is no guarantee of the workers' rights to work, to rest, to education,
and so on. ...... In short, the people must manage the superstructure themselves,
and it is not possible to do so without it."
This is an unprecedented change in the field of political
science, which requires the further improvement of socialist democracy in order
to strengthen the checks of the "masses" on the "leaders".
In January 1965, after reading the report on the social and
educational investigation of Chen Zhengren, Minister of Agriculture and
Machinery, Chairman Mao wrote a thought-provoking comment:
"The bureaucratic class is in
sharp opposition to the working class and the poor peasants". "These
people have become or are becoming bourgeois elements who suck the blood of the
workers, how can they know enough (of the necessity of socialist revolution)?
These people are the objects of struggle, the objects of revolution."
The harsh fact that a large number of "leaders" in
the Communist Party cadre had transformed themselves into the antithesis of the
"masses", prompted Chairman Mao to find ways to strengthen the
constraints of the "masses" on the “leaders”. This is what led to the
"Four Clean-ups" and the Cultural Revolution. As he pointed out in a
talk in February 1967:
"In the past we have carried
out struggles in the countryside, struggles in the factories, struggles in the
cultural circles and socialist education campaigns, but we could not solve the
problem because we did not find a form, a way, to mobilise the masses openly,
comprehensively and from the bottom up to expose our dark side."
The "Big Four Freedoms", which were the product of
the mass movement, were enshrined in the 1975 Constitution[4].
Needless to say, the "Big Four Freedoms" are a creation of socialist
democracy, a nemesis of the bureaucratic class and a powerful weapon for the
"masses" to check the "leaders". It was embraced by the
masses and inevitably opposed by the bureaucratic class.
The bureaucratic class strives to vilify the "Big Four Freedoms".
Some people say that the "Big Four" will only lead to political
disorder and anarchy, and that they are the products of populism. It is not
known whether speaking out freely, holding big debates and putting up big character
posters are conducive to restoring things to their original state; big debates
will only make the truth more and more clear. Under the correct leadership and
guidance of the Party, how could this lead to "political disorder"
and "anarchism"? Is it "populism" to allow the public to
express their views openly? Obviously, such fallacies are not worth refuting.
The only way for a socialist country to achieve long-term
stability is to hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought, fully develop and
improve socialist democracy, and maintain a balanced relationship between the
"leadership" and the "masses".
[1] The
“cave pair” refers to a conversation about democratic China between Mao Zedong
and Huang Yanpei in the cave living room of Mao Zedong's residence in Yan'an in
July 1945. Asked by Huang Yanpei how to change the law of the dynastic cycle,
according to which a dynasty existed until it lost the mandate of Heaven and
was replaced by a new dynasty, Mao Zedong replied as above.
[2] The
case of Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan was a case of serious embezzlement and
theft of state assets by leading Party cadres, which was uncovered during the
"Three Anti-corruptions" campaign in the early years of the founding
of the country. In November 1951, the Third Congress of the CPC in Hebei
Province exposed the crimes of Liu and Zhang. On 10 February 1952, the People's
Government of Hebei Province held a public trial and the People's Court of
Hebei Province requested the approval of the Supreme People's Court to sentence
Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan to death.
[3] “Bourgeois right” was an umbrella
term used by Marx for all those systematic inequalities that would necessarily be
inherited by socialist society from the capitalist society from which it
emerges. See: servethepeople:
Break down the ideology of bourgeois right in the field of distribution
(mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com)
[4] The Constitution of the PRC adopted by the Fourth National People’s Congress in January 1975 stipulated that the masses have the right to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates and write big-character posters. In accordance with Chairman Mao’s proposal, the specification that citizens enjoy freedom to strike was added to Article 28. Deng Xiaoping had the “four bigs” removed in February 1980, and took out the right to strike when the Constitution was revised in 1982.
No comments:
Post a Comment