Published: Challenge, Vol. 13, No. 29, December 16, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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China’s new leaders are rushing ahead with plans to make China into a Soviet-style society. The workers and peasants are being systematically excluded from any say in running society; technocratic “experts” are asserting control over the factories, the schools, the communes, and the government. These “experts” don’t want to be bothered with “politics” (meaning: the struggle for socialism); they just want to increase production (meaning: accumulate capital). Teng Hsiao-ping summarized the attitude of the revisionist “experts” towards politics: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; if it can catch mice (i.e., increase production), then it is a good cat.”
It looks as if Teng has as many lives as a cat. He was first exposed as a revisionist during the Cultural Revolution, when he was denounced as the number two capitalist-roader in China. After the Cultural Revolution was smashed, Teng started to make a come-back. Teng was a real hard-line revisionist. He said that the new policies adopted during the Cultural Revolution were sacrificing “quality” and hurting production (as if production were more important than workers’ control). The leftist workers, students, and peasants opposed Teng’s rise through many local actions.
The so-called “radicals” in high government and party circles also opposed Teng, because Teng favored his old friends from the bureaucracy over the more liheral “radicials.” When the “radicals” were riding high last spring, they kicked Teng out of his high positions. Teng went to Canton to plot, along with Li Hsien-lien, another old revisionist. After Mao died, Teng and Li helped Hua Kuo-feng kick out the “radicals.” Li is now the number two man in China, and Teng is rumored to be back in Peking exercising power from behind the scenes. The Far Eastern Economic Review, Dec. 3, reports that Teng may already be a vice-premier.
The “moderates” (the hard-liners) are waging a major attack on both the so-called “radicals” and on the revolutionary communist left. The leftists were active over the summer; under the cover of the campaign against Teng, the left had launched struggles against revisionist leaders and policies. Now the left is being viciously smashed. Thousands of troops were recently sent into Fukien Province, and there are reports of armed fighting in other provinces. Local revisionist leaders throughout China seem determined to use this opportunity to physically eliminate their opponents. It is not clear how much Hua and the central leadership approve of these attacks (they would rather go slower), but then Hua is not powerful enough to stop them.
The U.S. ruling class is pleased by the recent events in China. The revolutionary left is being smashed, and the most right-wing bureaucrats are in power. Hua and company think that socialism means increased production and that the way to increase production is to import advanced technology from the Western capitalists. China is therefore likely to increase its trade with the U.S., and the prospects of more profits off the backs of the Chinese workers and peasants has U.S. bosses drooling in anticipation. The only dark cloud in the sky for the U.S. ruling class is the rumor that Hua may become less antagonistic towards the Soviets; the “radicals” were always the ones pushing for an alliance with U.S. imperialism. So far, there are no signs that China is warming towards the Soviets, but the U.S. will have to watch out in the future.