There we should insist on the perspective that the Indian working class lead the peasant masses in the overthrow of the bourgeois power dominated by the Congress Party. But Maos party merely gave orders to the people to quietly wait for their liberation by the Peoples Liberation Army.. From International Information Bulletin, Socialist Workers Party, February, 1952, from Tamiment Library microfilm archives The principal measure taken to maintain industry and commerce was the universal organizing of Labor and Capital Consultative Conferences. Under the governments supervision and arbitration, the outcome of these consultations was always unfavorable to the workers. It is the epoch in which the heritage of the October revolution the Soviet socialist workers statehas been usurped by the bureaucracy of Stalin and has reached the point of extreme degeneration. But this could only be achieved through a most brutal counterrevolutionary bloodbath. Hence the peculiar situation whereby the Liberation Army did not conquer but rather took over the cities. The deficit in the budget was made up by issuing enormous quantities of paper currency. It was very clear, however, that the situation emerging from the Second World War would never permit this headstrong action. We should also point out that this process of assimilation will by no means have a smooth and even course. So I think that an accurate and detailed explanation of the causes of this victory is necessary, not only in order to overcome the differences of opinion among the Chinese comrades, but also in order to correct the deviations of some comrades in the International. During the civil war between the Kuomintang and the CCP, our basic line and our position toward the CCP have also been correct and coincide with the fundamental attitude of the Internationals resolution on the Chinese civil war.[7]. The first period immediately after the war, from September 1945 to the end of 1946, marked a considerable revival and growth of the mass movement in China. To enable our comrades to recognize more concretely and more precisely the nature of this new regime, I will point out several of its important characteristics: a. Marxism is the most effective scientific method of predicting social phenomena. Hence, from November 1947 to the next spring, it initiated a universal struggle to correct the Right deviation in areas where land reform was set into motion. It is altogether reasonable that a political organization, on the morrow of a great event, should examine and discuss its past policy carefully in order to readjust its political line. Peng Shuzi Index|Main Writers' Index | Marxists Internet Archive. No, obviously not. This has forced the CCP to more or less modify its former political line of conciliation. To induce the Communists and other parties to join the new National Assembly, Chiang issued a qualified cease-fire order on November 11 and postponed the opening of the assembly from November 12 to November 15. This is really a very cautious characterization of the nature of the party. It carried out agrarian reform, particularly in some regions of North China. The events of the last two years, and particularly of the last six months, have clearly reflected this tendency.
. On October 10, 1945, the two parties announced that they had reached an agreement in principle to work for a united and democratic China. c. Declare the abolition of all unequal treaties; take back all settlements and concessions (such as Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao, etc. The mass movement had already been brutally trampled by Chiangs regime and was actually at a very low ebb. This situation resulted in the appearance of various kinds of anti-Chiang factions and cliques within the Kuomintang itself, which was thus involved in complete decomposition. For example, Comrade Chiao and Comrade Ma arrive at the conclusion that the CCPs change in policy was the result of mass pressure and represented a mass movement by means of misdating the beginning of the third Chinese revolution from October 1947, when the CCP formally called for the overthrow of Chiangs regime. Therefore, from the revolutionary point of view, it is never possible for two classes to establish an equal weight in a common party. In this period the working masses in all the great cities, with Shanghai in the forefront, first brought forward their demands for a sliding-scale increase in wages, for the right to organize trade unions, against freezing of wages, etc. Such things were rarely mentioned previously and it was prohibited to denounce them openly. After the Korean War, where the YCP participated on the side of imperialism, I immediately started a serious study of the development of the YCP. 1. The workers struggles, the ferment of resentment and rebellion among the peasants, and widespread demonstrations by the students, accompanied by the corruption and insecurity of Chiangs regime and the strengthening of the CCP, plainly created a prerevolutionary situation. (Recent reports on the agrarian reform in Chinese newspapers often reveal these facts.). On December 25, 1946, the National Assembly, without the Communists or the left wing of the centrist Democratic League, adopted a new constitution. Under the slogan of competition to increase production, on the one hand the labor of the already overburdened average worker is further intensified, while on the other hand a group of labor aristocrats (the Stakhanovists) is created and weighs upon the general working masses, dividing the workers ranks. Unfortunately, this traditionally conceived analogy can hardly be justified by the facts of the Chinese events. If the CCP had called upon the workers and the masses in the big cities to rise in rebellion and overthrow the regime, it would have been as easy as knocking down rotten wood. This oppression inflicted much suffering upon the soldiers and deepened their discontent and hatred. These people have nothing in common with Marxists. This is exactly what has happened in China. In other words, we profoundly believe that the victory of the proletarian revolution in the whole world and the reconstruction of human society can be accomplished only under the banner and the program of Trotskyism, the most enriched and deepened Marxism-Leninism of modern times. Even the present turn toward the seizure of power was not a product of its yielding to mass pressure and going against the Kremlins objectives, but, on the contrary, resulted from the mortal pressure of Chiang Kai-shek, and was taken in complete agreement with the Kremlin. It was proposed to begin with the redistribution of land north of the Yangtze, while in the South (not including the Northwest and Southwest) to proceed first of all with the struggle against the vicious autocrats and with the reduction of rents and interest. The regime also revised the Food Appropriation Act. Since the outbreak of the Korean War, the activities of all the reactionary elements have revived. At the same time, he mobilized a big ideological campaign within the party against Li Li-sanism (or sectarianism). There is therefore still time enough for us to prepare before the advent of such a solution.
I was told by one comrade that the CCP regime is a proletarian dictatorship. Find out who really invented movable type, who Winston Churchill called "Mum," and when the first sonic boom was heard. Despite the participation of some worker elements who retreated from the cities, the tiny number of these workers was not enough to determine the partys composition. Accordingly, a so-called two-class worker-peasant party is always a reactionary tool of petty-bourgeois politicians to deceive the working class. Following these steps, the KMT mobilized a great military offensivesuch as the seizure of Chang-chia-kou [in Hopeh] and some small cities and towns in north Kiangsu. Examples of this sort include the estimation made by Marx and Engels on the development of the situation after the failure of the 1848 revolution; Lenin and Trotskys optimistic anticipation of revolutionary possibilities in Europe after the October revolution; and Trotskys appraisal of the prospects for Stalinism during the Second World War. This assertion is based on the argument that the nature of a party is not determined simply by the criterion of composition, but also by the role it plays. (We will return to the characterization of this regime.) Moreover, it dealt obsequiously with the leaders of the yellow trade unions in order to check the excessive demands of the workers. A considerable part of his army (about six to seven hundred thousand soldiers) was armed with the most modern American weapons. (And this was on the condition that the CCP cancel the agrarian reform and dissolve the soviets and the Red Army.). Only in this manner can we avoid falling into the mistake of transforming a principle into a rigid formula, of imposing this formula on every apparently similar event, and thereby producing a series of erroneous conclusions. This would lead the revolution straight to proletarian dictatorship, which would complete the third Chinese revolution and open a future of socialist construction. The great student movement in the cities was handled as a simple instrument for exerting pressure on the Kuomintang government to accept peace talks. This is an indeed unprecedented and great reform. Yet I must also point out that the mistake made on such an important question may not only give rise to a series of other mistakessuch as underestimation of the bureaucratism of the CCP, its Stalinist ideology and methods, and overoptimism on perspectives concerning the CCP, etc.but may also lead to errors in principle. But the time of the Jacobins was a period when capitalism was still in its embryonic stage. So the workers remain helpless if the law does not consent. In addition, the compulsory buying of bonds was stopped. Therefore we have sufficient reason to say that during the war the relations between the CCP and the Kremlin not only were not cut off, but on the contrary became closer than ever. 5. Ultimately, the Marshall mission was a complete failure. This new turn is manifested in the tempestuous drive to suppress the counterrevolutionaries. In this campaign thousands of reactionary landlords and rich peasants (the vicious local autocrats, as they are labeled), labor traitors, and KMT bureaucrats and agents have been imprisoned, exiled, and executed. On August 28, 1945, Mao, accompanied by American ambassador Patrick Hurley, arrived in Chongqing. Marshall and John Leighton Stuart, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador, tried to bring the two sides together in late August to discuss a coalition government, but the effort was fruitless, as neither side wished to give up its military gains. The working class, especially the workers in private enterprises, have not only scarcely benefitted but in many respects have been its victims. Proceeding by abstract deduction according to formal logic, the CCP regime is doubtlessly also a proletarian dictatorship. (There will be further discussion of this question later in this report.). However, as a result, this attitude only stimulated strong protests and criticisms from another group of comrades. The epoch in which the CCP exists is entirely different: it is the period of the utter decline and approaching fall of capitalism. The victory of the movement led by the CCP is a prominent example of this deformation of its revolution. They can only indirectly affect the regime through their economic and social influence. Revolutionary optimists have nothing in common with these two sorts of people. But we should not overlook the important role that can be played by the subjective will of a party already in power, which holds in its hands immense material forcesincluding a powerful peasant armyat least under particular circumstances and for a certain period of time. Kalgan fell to the Nationalists on October 11, and on October 21, Zhou was persuaded to return to the restored Nationalist capital at Nanking (Nanjing) for further negotiations. They could deliver blows to the reactionary influences of the bourgeoisie, and by securing certain prerequisites for revolutionary development, such as certain democratic rights, proceed step by step on the road of revolution. Chou En-lai was the fully empowered representative sent to Sian by the CCP to confer with Chang Shueh-liang about freeing Chiang Kai-shek, and to negotiate directly with Chiang on the terms for collaboration between the Kuomintang and the CCP..
From this we can also derive sufficient reason to justify the conclusion that todays victory of the CCP is entirely the result of the specific conditions created by the Second World War. Maos regime, in fact, has become the government most hated by the American imperialists in Asia. But at least by participating in this movement we can lay down a basis for future work. At the same time there are a few special agents of the enemy, the bandits, who use threats to make people organize revolts, plunder state food, attack revolutionary groups and individuals, create social confusion, and sabotage the orders of production to throw productive relations and the social order into a chaotic and dangerous state.
This was possible because of the CCPs deep involvement in organizing and training the peasants, as well as the economic backwardness and other specific geographic conditions (the vastness of the country and the extreme lack of means of communication). As regards the CCPs relations with the Kremlin, I can only offer as illustrations some important historical turns. But .this does not mean that the peasant character of the party is now fixed and invariable. At the beginning, ultraoptimists might throw themselves into the movement with great zeal. This was the so-called land reform by stages. To approach this from another direction, we could recall the defeat of the CCPs peasant army in the Kiangsi period, 1930-35, when the bourgeois KMTs power was considerably stabilized as a result of continual aid from imperialism, while the CCP was isolated from the Soviet Union. If workers comprise the majority of the party, and the party truthfully represents the fundamental interests of the working class, this party can be called a healthy or revolutionary workers party. 2, April 1950. After the disastrous defeat of the second Chinese revolution, when the Kremlin switched its policy from ultraright opportunism to ultraleft adventurism (the so-called third period in its general international line), the CCP leadership followed at the Kremlins heels without hesitation.
Before the war, the Kremlins agents stayed permanently at Yenan (not openly), and there was regular radio communication between Yenan and Moscow. The naive optimists idealize the movement. Unfortunately, this kind of reasoning leads to only a superficial resemblance to the truth, because the CCP overthrew the Chiang Kai-shek regime not through the revolutionary action of the working class leading the peasant masses, but by relying exclusively on the peasant armed forces. It is derived from the fundamental Marxist theory that under the modern capitalist systemincluding that in the backward countriesit is the urban class that leads the rural masses. This regime was thus thoroughly revolutionary, and only the regime established by the Russian Bolsheviks has been able to match it in significance. It must, therefore, be asked: on what ground can we characterize this regime as a proletarian dictatorship? Contrary to what it should have donemobilize the masses in the struggle for power under the slogans of overthrowing Chiangs government and agrarian reformit kowtowed to Chiang Kai-shek and pleaded for the establishment of a coalition government. (For this purpose Mao flew to Chungking to negotiate directly with Chiang, and even openly expressed his support to the latter in mass meetings.) The article written by Comrade Chiao, Thesis on the Ideological Rearmament, is a notable example. This was a remarkable change in the CCPs policy from the whole period since it declared its support to Chiangs regime and abandoned land reform in 1937. In fact, the social basis of this regime is constituted by the petty bourgeoisie, of which the peasants form the major part. To give an adequate account and criticism of the measures taken by the new regime on all economic, social, and political planes over the past two yearsbeginning with October 1949 when this government was formally announcedwould necessitate the writing of a special document for this purpose. Representatives of the bourgeoisie and the top layers of the petty bourgeoisie occupy honored positions in this regime, but they have no direct decisive function. That is to say, under the ever-increasing menace from bourgeois reactionary forces allied with imperialism and the ever-growing dissatisfaction and pressure of the masses, the CCP would empirically by gradual steps exclude the bourgeois parties and cliques from the political field. On the other hand, it armed the CCPs troops with huge amounts of light and heavy weapons taken from the Japanese soldiers. . We must admit that the traditional conception of revolution held by these comrades is completely correct, and the facts they enumerate are irrefutable. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union had recognized Chiangs regime as the official government, and had handed over to it the majority of the cities and mines in Manchuria, the Soviet bureaucracy had destroyed almost all the most important factories and mining machinery. It aims to submit all kinds of struggle to the procedure of law and appeal to law, this being termed by the regime rational struggles..
It made certain criticisms of the political, economic, and military measures of the latter during the war, and had put forward a number of demands for democratic reform. Plundering of rice took place everywhere. This would have blocked the USSRs armed support to the CCP. Through purges and fusions it would annihilate these factions, and with them, the coalition government. The government attempts to concentrate its energy on the development of the state sector of industry and stresses the building up of a self-sufficient heavy industry. But owing to the extreme lack of capital and equipment, it has made very little progress. The CCP decided to stop the recruitment of peasants into the party and emphasized the need for rapid recruitment of workers. (The Chinese minority is an exception, since it has already asserted that the CCP regime represents state capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism.), In the last analysis, therefore, in view of its fundamental stand on property relations, it is a bourgeois regime.
In these buffer countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, the dispossession of the bourgeoisie from power, the land reform procedures, and the nationalizations of industry, banks, and means of transport and exchange were either not at all or only to a small degree carried out through the revolutionary action of the worker and peasant masses. Of course, this is the worst perspective and it is merely a possibility. When the CCP was obliged to flee from the South to the North, to Yenan, the number of its worker members dropped still further because the conditions there were still more primitive. Inasmuch as a sizable general land reform has been carried out (no matter how incomplete), the feudal remnants that have persisted for thousands of years are for the first time being shoveled away on a wide scale. Finally, when the international and national situation reaches a serious, decisive stage, this party will tend inevitably toward a split. ); confiscate all imperialist properties in China; and cancel all privileges held in China by the Soviet bureaucracyin order to attain complete and genuine national independence. The change in the petty-bourgeois character of poor peasant power is possible only when it is under the leadership of the urban proletariat.
Driven by starvation, the workers rose up in a universal strike wave (there were 200,000 workers on strike in Shanghai alone). Robbed of their means of living, filled with fury, and further provoked by the landlords, rich peasants, and KMT agents, a segment of the peasants were driven to acts of open rebellion. They are quite similar to the treaties signed with the Eastern European countries. The Marshall Mission succeeded in bringing both sides back to the negotiating table, and on January 10, 1946, an armistice was concluded between the government and the Communists. (For example, Lin Piaos well-known and powerful Fourth Division was armed entirely with these weapons.) . (It also took away a part of them.) Only by recognizing and comprehending this worst of perspectives, by our precaution and alertness, and through our subjective revolutionary efforts, can we prevent its appearance and development. However, in appearance, it would still pay certain respects to the independence and sovereignty of the CCP regime and allow it to proceed on its own initiative., In the main, this assimilation depends exclusively on the CCPs own subjective intentions. It was with the premonition of such consequences that I forewarned our comrades not to be too hasty in making a 180-degree turn. This principle and this formula is correct in its basic theoretical premise, and has already been justified by the Yugoslav events (or to be more exact, it is rather derived from them). .
All these dangerous factors combined preclude any overoptimism in regard to the development and perspective of the third Chinese revolution that is now underway. How can we compare this present movement with the revolutionary movement of the second Chinese revolution? These included refusal to contribute, forming groups to plunder public foodstuffs, and even rallying to the anticommunist guerrilla bands. To assume therefore that the CCP has completed the same process of development as the YCP and ceased to be a Stalinist party in the classical sense of the word is to go entirely beyond the facts.[3]. Its land reform and uprooting of feudal influences fulfilled a great historical task for the bourgeoisie, and opened the broad highway for later capitalist development. It is a special kind of dual power created by exceptional circumstances. And since this work is still being carried on, should we still insist that it is not an epoch-making revolutionary movement? It gradually modified its own political line in accord with the development of events until it finally went against the Kremlins objectives. Under such conditions, these parties cease being Stalinist parties in the classical sense of the word. But in the subsequent development of the class struggle, these tendencies toward the right and the left will gradually crystallize and will lead to an organizational differentiation. It was never linked with the workers strikes in a common struggle against Chiang Kai-sheks rule. It also deprived the landlords and kulaks of the posts they held in the local administration, the party, and the army. (It is estimated that these weapons could be used to rearm a million soldiers.) The social base of the Jacobin Party was the then-urban toiling masses in generalthe sansculottes. It carried out a thorough land reform and eliminated feudal influences. In view of the inevitability of Chiang Kai-sheks fall, it anxiously sought an understanding and reconciliation with Mao Tse-tung. Has there been any alteration in the CCPs composition in the direction of the working class since Trotskys death? (I should call the comrades attention to the fact that Trotskys critique of Stalinism was more extensive on the Chinese question than for any other country except the Soviet Union.). Hence we reject all sectarian and passive criticisms. Though he did not offer any reasons, I surmise that he very likely deduced this conclusion from the formula given for the YCP regime in Yugoslavia. It would have joined this slogan to other demands for democratic reforms, especially the demand for agrarian revolution. On the economic plane, following the blockade by American imperialism, the supply of certain industrial raw materials and machines has declined day by day.
. On October 10, 1945, the two parties announced that they had reached an agreement in principle to work for a united and democratic China. c. Declare the abolition of all unequal treaties; take back all settlements and concessions (such as Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao, etc. The mass movement had already been brutally trampled by Chiangs regime and was actually at a very low ebb. This situation resulted in the appearance of various kinds of anti-Chiang factions and cliques within the Kuomintang itself, which was thus involved in complete decomposition. For example, Comrade Chiao and Comrade Ma arrive at the conclusion that the CCPs change in policy was the result of mass pressure and represented a mass movement by means of misdating the beginning of the third Chinese revolution from October 1947, when the CCP formally called for the overthrow of Chiangs regime. Therefore, from the revolutionary point of view, it is never possible for two classes to establish an equal weight in a common party. In this period the working masses in all the great cities, with Shanghai in the forefront, first brought forward their demands for a sliding-scale increase in wages, for the right to organize trade unions, against freezing of wages, etc. Such things were rarely mentioned previously and it was prohibited to denounce them openly. After the Korean War, where the YCP participated on the side of imperialism, I immediately started a serious study of the development of the YCP. 1. The workers struggles, the ferment of resentment and rebellion among the peasants, and widespread demonstrations by the students, accompanied by the corruption and insecurity of Chiangs regime and the strengthening of the CCP, plainly created a prerevolutionary situation. (Recent reports on the agrarian reform in Chinese newspapers often reveal these facts.). On December 25, 1946, the National Assembly, without the Communists or the left wing of the centrist Democratic League, adopted a new constitution. Under the slogan of competition to increase production, on the one hand the labor of the already overburdened average worker is further intensified, while on the other hand a group of labor aristocrats (the Stakhanovists) is created and weighs upon the general working masses, dividing the workers ranks. Unfortunately, this traditionally conceived analogy can hardly be justified by the facts of the Chinese events. If the CCP had called upon the workers and the masses in the big cities to rise in rebellion and overthrow the regime, it would have been as easy as knocking down rotten wood. This oppression inflicted much suffering upon the soldiers and deepened their discontent and hatred. These people have nothing in common with Marxists. This is exactly what has happened in China. In other words, we profoundly believe that the victory of the proletarian revolution in the whole world and the reconstruction of human society can be accomplished only under the banner and the program of Trotskyism, the most enriched and deepened Marxism-Leninism of modern times. Even the present turn toward the seizure of power was not a product of its yielding to mass pressure and going against the Kremlins objectives, but, on the contrary, resulted from the mortal pressure of Chiang Kai-shek, and was taken in complete agreement with the Kremlin. It was proposed to begin with the redistribution of land north of the Yangtze, while in the South (not including the Northwest and Southwest) to proceed first of all with the struggle against the vicious autocrats and with the reduction of rents and interest. The regime also revised the Food Appropriation Act. Since the outbreak of the Korean War, the activities of all the reactionary elements have revived. At the same time, he mobilized a big ideological campaign within the party against Li Li-sanism (or sectarianism). There is therefore still time enough for us to prepare before the advent of such a solution.
I was told by one comrade that the CCP regime is a proletarian dictatorship. Find out who really invented movable type, who Winston Churchill called "Mum," and when the first sonic boom was heard. Despite the participation of some worker elements who retreated from the cities, the tiny number of these workers was not enough to determine the partys composition. Accordingly, a so-called two-class worker-peasant party is always a reactionary tool of petty-bourgeois politicians to deceive the working class. Following these steps, the KMT mobilized a great military offensivesuch as the seizure of Chang-chia-kou [in Hopeh] and some small cities and towns in north Kiangsu. Examples of this sort include the estimation made by Marx and Engels on the development of the situation after the failure of the 1848 revolution; Lenin and Trotskys optimistic anticipation of revolutionary possibilities in Europe after the October revolution; and Trotskys appraisal of the prospects for Stalinism during the Second World War. This assertion is based on the argument that the nature of a party is not determined simply by the criterion of composition, but also by the role it plays. (We will return to the characterization of this regime.) Moreover, it dealt obsequiously with the leaders of the yellow trade unions in order to check the excessive demands of the workers. A considerable part of his army (about six to seven hundred thousand soldiers) was armed with the most modern American weapons. (And this was on the condition that the CCP cancel the agrarian reform and dissolve the soviets and the Red Army.). Only in this manner can we avoid falling into the mistake of transforming a principle into a rigid formula, of imposing this formula on every apparently similar event, and thereby producing a series of erroneous conclusions. This would lead the revolution straight to proletarian dictatorship, which would complete the third Chinese revolution and open a future of socialist construction. The great student movement in the cities was handled as a simple instrument for exerting pressure on the Kuomintang government to accept peace talks. This is an indeed unprecedented and great reform. Yet I must also point out that the mistake made on such an important question may not only give rise to a series of other mistakessuch as underestimation of the bureaucratism of the CCP, its Stalinist ideology and methods, and overoptimism on perspectives concerning the CCP, etc.but may also lead to errors in principle. But the time of the Jacobins was a period when capitalism was still in its embryonic stage. So the workers remain helpless if the law does not consent. In addition, the compulsory buying of bonds was stopped. Therefore we have sufficient reason to say that during the war the relations between the CCP and the Kremlin not only were not cut off, but on the contrary became closer than ever. 5. Ultimately, the Marshall mission was a complete failure. This new turn is manifested in the tempestuous drive to suppress the counterrevolutionaries. In this campaign thousands of reactionary landlords and rich peasants (the vicious local autocrats, as they are labeled), labor traitors, and KMT bureaucrats and agents have been imprisoned, exiled, and executed. On August 28, 1945, Mao, accompanied by American ambassador Patrick Hurley, arrived in Chongqing. Marshall and John Leighton Stuart, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador, tried to bring the two sides together in late August to discuss a coalition government, but the effort was fruitless, as neither side wished to give up its military gains. The working class, especially the workers in private enterprises, have not only scarcely benefitted but in many respects have been its victims. Proceeding by abstract deduction according to formal logic, the CCP regime is doubtlessly also a proletarian dictatorship. (There will be further discussion of this question later in this report.). However, as a result, this attitude only stimulated strong protests and criticisms from another group of comrades. The epoch in which the CCP exists is entirely different: it is the period of the utter decline and approaching fall of capitalism. The victory of the movement led by the CCP is a prominent example of this deformation of its revolution. They can only indirectly affect the regime through their economic and social influence. Revolutionary optimists have nothing in common with these two sorts of people. But we should not overlook the important role that can be played by the subjective will of a party already in power, which holds in its hands immense material forcesincluding a powerful peasant armyat least under particular circumstances and for a certain period of time. Kalgan fell to the Nationalists on October 11, and on October 21, Zhou was persuaded to return to the restored Nationalist capital at Nanking (Nanjing) for further negotiations. They could deliver blows to the reactionary influences of the bourgeoisie, and by securing certain prerequisites for revolutionary development, such as certain democratic rights, proceed step by step on the road of revolution. Chou En-lai was the fully empowered representative sent to Sian by the CCP to confer with Chang Shueh-liang about freeing Chiang Kai-shek, and to negotiate directly with Chiang on the terms for collaboration between the Kuomintang and the CCP..
From this we can also derive sufficient reason to justify the conclusion that todays victory of the CCP is entirely the result of the specific conditions created by the Second World War. Maos regime, in fact, has become the government most hated by the American imperialists in Asia. But at least by participating in this movement we can lay down a basis for future work. At the same time there are a few special agents of the enemy, the bandits, who use threats to make people organize revolts, plunder state food, attack revolutionary groups and individuals, create social confusion, and sabotage the orders of production to throw productive relations and the social order into a chaotic and dangerous state.
This was possible because of the CCPs deep involvement in organizing and training the peasants, as well as the economic backwardness and other specific geographic conditions (the vastness of the country and the extreme lack of means of communication). As regards the CCPs relations with the Kremlin, I can only offer as illustrations some important historical turns. But .this does not mean that the peasant character of the party is now fixed and invariable. At the beginning, ultraoptimists might throw themselves into the movement with great zeal. This was the so-called land reform by stages. To approach this from another direction, we could recall the defeat of the CCPs peasant army in the Kiangsi period, 1930-35, when the bourgeois KMTs power was considerably stabilized as a result of continual aid from imperialism, while the CCP was isolated from the Soviet Union. If workers comprise the majority of the party, and the party truthfully represents the fundamental interests of the working class, this party can be called a healthy or revolutionary workers party. 2, April 1950. After the disastrous defeat of the second Chinese revolution, when the Kremlin switched its policy from ultraright opportunism to ultraleft adventurism (the so-called third period in its general international line), the CCP leadership followed at the Kremlins heels without hesitation.
Before the war, the Kremlins agents stayed permanently at Yenan (not openly), and there was regular radio communication between Yenan and Moscow. The naive optimists idealize the movement. Unfortunately, this kind of reasoning leads to only a superficial resemblance to the truth, because the CCP overthrew the Chiang Kai-shek regime not through the revolutionary action of the working class leading the peasant masses, but by relying exclusively on the peasant armed forces. It is derived from the fundamental Marxist theory that under the modern capitalist systemincluding that in the backward countriesit is the urban class that leads the rural masses. This regime was thus thoroughly revolutionary, and only the regime established by the Russian Bolsheviks has been able to match it in significance. It must, therefore, be asked: on what ground can we characterize this regime as a proletarian dictatorship? Contrary to what it should have donemobilize the masses in the struggle for power under the slogans of overthrowing Chiangs government and agrarian reformit kowtowed to Chiang Kai-shek and pleaded for the establishment of a coalition government. (For this purpose Mao flew to Chungking to negotiate directly with Chiang, and even openly expressed his support to the latter in mass meetings.) The article written by Comrade Chiao, Thesis on the Ideological Rearmament, is a notable example. This was a remarkable change in the CCPs policy from the whole period since it declared its support to Chiangs regime and abandoned land reform in 1937. In fact, the social basis of this regime is constituted by the petty bourgeoisie, of which the peasants form the major part. To give an adequate account and criticism of the measures taken by the new regime on all economic, social, and political planes over the past two yearsbeginning with October 1949 when this government was formally announcedwould necessitate the writing of a special document for this purpose. Representatives of the bourgeoisie and the top layers of the petty bourgeoisie occupy honored positions in this regime, but they have no direct decisive function. That is to say, under the ever-increasing menace from bourgeois reactionary forces allied with imperialism and the ever-growing dissatisfaction and pressure of the masses, the CCP would empirically by gradual steps exclude the bourgeois parties and cliques from the political field. On the other hand, it armed the CCPs troops with huge amounts of light and heavy weapons taken from the Japanese soldiers. . We must admit that the traditional conception of revolution held by these comrades is completely correct, and the facts they enumerate are irrefutable. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union had recognized Chiangs regime as the official government, and had handed over to it the majority of the cities and mines in Manchuria, the Soviet bureaucracy had destroyed almost all the most important factories and mining machinery. It aims to submit all kinds of struggle to the procedure of law and appeal to law, this being termed by the regime rational struggles..
It made certain criticisms of the political, economic, and military measures of the latter during the war, and had put forward a number of demands for democratic reform. Plundering of rice took place everywhere. This would have blocked the USSRs armed support to the CCP. Through purges and fusions it would annihilate these factions, and with them, the coalition government. The government attempts to concentrate its energy on the development of the state sector of industry and stresses the building up of a self-sufficient heavy industry. But owing to the extreme lack of capital and equipment, it has made very little progress. The CCP decided to stop the recruitment of peasants into the party and emphasized the need for rapid recruitment of workers. (The Chinese minority is an exception, since it has already asserted that the CCP regime represents state capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism.), In the last analysis, therefore, in view of its fundamental stand on property relations, it is a bourgeois regime.
In these buffer countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, the dispossession of the bourgeoisie from power, the land reform procedures, and the nationalizations of industry, banks, and means of transport and exchange were either not at all or only to a small degree carried out through the revolutionary action of the worker and peasant masses. Of course, this is the worst perspective and it is merely a possibility. When the CCP was obliged to flee from the South to the North, to Yenan, the number of its worker members dropped still further because the conditions there were still more primitive. Inasmuch as a sizable general land reform has been carried out (no matter how incomplete), the feudal remnants that have persisted for thousands of years are for the first time being shoveled away on a wide scale. Finally, when the international and national situation reaches a serious, decisive stage, this party will tend inevitably toward a split. ); confiscate all imperialist properties in China; and cancel all privileges held in China by the Soviet bureaucracyin order to attain complete and genuine national independence. The change in the petty-bourgeois character of poor peasant power is possible only when it is under the leadership of the urban proletariat.
Driven by starvation, the workers rose up in a universal strike wave (there were 200,000 workers on strike in Shanghai alone). Robbed of their means of living, filled with fury, and further provoked by the landlords, rich peasants, and KMT agents, a segment of the peasants were driven to acts of open rebellion. They are quite similar to the treaties signed with the Eastern European countries. The Marshall Mission succeeded in bringing both sides back to the negotiating table, and on January 10, 1946, an armistice was concluded between the government and the Communists. (For example, Lin Piaos well-known and powerful Fourth Division was armed entirely with these weapons.) . (It also took away a part of them.) Only by recognizing and comprehending this worst of perspectives, by our precaution and alertness, and through our subjective revolutionary efforts, can we prevent its appearance and development. However, in appearance, it would still pay certain respects to the independence and sovereignty of the CCP regime and allow it to proceed on its own initiative., In the main, this assimilation depends exclusively on the CCPs own subjective intentions. It was with the premonition of such consequences that I forewarned our comrades not to be too hasty in making a 180-degree turn. This principle and this formula is correct in its basic theoretical premise, and has already been justified by the Yugoslav events (or to be more exact, it is rather derived from them). .
All these dangerous factors combined preclude any overoptimism in regard to the development and perspective of the third Chinese revolution that is now underway. How can we compare this present movement with the revolutionary movement of the second Chinese revolution? These included refusal to contribute, forming groups to plunder public foodstuffs, and even rallying to the anticommunist guerrilla bands. To assume therefore that the CCP has completed the same process of development as the YCP and ceased to be a Stalinist party in the classical sense of the word is to go entirely beyond the facts.[3]. Its land reform and uprooting of feudal influences fulfilled a great historical task for the bourgeoisie, and opened the broad highway for later capitalist development. It is a special kind of dual power created by exceptional circumstances. And since this work is still being carried on, should we still insist that it is not an epoch-making revolutionary movement? It gradually modified its own political line in accord with the development of events until it finally went against the Kremlins objectives. Under such conditions, these parties cease being Stalinist parties in the classical sense of the word. But in the subsequent development of the class struggle, these tendencies toward the right and the left will gradually crystallize and will lead to an organizational differentiation. It was never linked with the workers strikes in a common struggle against Chiang Kai-sheks rule. It also deprived the landlords and kulaks of the posts they held in the local administration, the party, and the army. (It is estimated that these weapons could be used to rearm a million soldiers.) The social base of the Jacobin Party was the then-urban toiling masses in generalthe sansculottes. It carried out a thorough land reform and eliminated feudal influences. In view of the inevitability of Chiang Kai-sheks fall, it anxiously sought an understanding and reconciliation with Mao Tse-tung. Has there been any alteration in the CCPs composition in the direction of the working class since Trotskys death? (I should call the comrades attention to the fact that Trotskys critique of Stalinism was more extensive on the Chinese question than for any other country except the Soviet Union.). Hence we reject all sectarian and passive criticisms. Though he did not offer any reasons, I surmise that he very likely deduced this conclusion from the formula given for the YCP regime in Yugoslavia. It would have joined this slogan to other demands for democratic reforms, especially the demand for agrarian revolution. On the economic plane, following the blockade by American imperialism, the supply of certain industrial raw materials and machines has declined day by day.