Warning to Foes
ROWE, DAVID NELSON
A Warning to Foes By David Nelson Rowe Mao Tse-tung's speech of last February is being widely interpreted as announcing some sort of revolutionary "doctrine of free competition for ideas" under...
...But, in fact, Mao carefully prohibits any independent role for the masses in determining their own fate...
...He lays down the rule that "right" words and acts are, among other things, those which benefit "socialist" transformation and construction...
...Far, far in advance of this, he is saying, such opposition must be decapitated by labelling the vanguards of opposition, no matter how mild, as non-Marxist "counter-revolutionaries and wreckers of the socialist cause," and as standing outside the masses no matter what their social origins or affiliations or the intensity or level of their influence...
...The world Communist conspiracy hopes that such confusion, and support by the West, will help gain some of its immediate aims: admission of Bed China into the UN and full U. S. recognition, followed by wide-open trade and cultural intercourse with the West...
...As a final touch Mao states that "these criteria are put forward in order to foster, and not hinder, the free discussion of various questions among the people," an obvious effort at wilful deception...
...Finally, it is criminally dangerous to interpret Mao's speech as a breach, however small, in the unity of Communist China and the USSR...
...By using this low figure, he only means to say: "I didn't do last time what I will next time, if necessary...
...This preventive action will, he hopes, effectively prevent the masses as a whole from being tainted with anything worse than "incorrect ideas.'' Thus Mao, dominated by the Leninist dogma of the elite, seemingly believes that continuous decapitating of the opposition will keep within harmless limits the vast political impacts of the overwhelming socio-economic problems of China...
...We can thus understand the "rejection" by Moscow of Mao's statements as having been invited in advance by the very politeness and correctness of Mao's own attitude toward the Soviet Union...
...Such unity indeed makes faked-up expressions of disagreement allowable...
...While admitting that in these fields "other pertinent criteria are needed," he coldly states that his political criteria are applicable here, too...
...estimates go as high as 20 million...
...But Mao goes even further and extends his "political criteria," as he frankly calls them, to the whole area of the sciences and the arts...
...Or, is he just whistling to keep up his courage...
...First are the "unmistakable counterrevolutionaries and wreckers of the socialist cause...
...we simply deprive them of their freedom of speech...
...Mao is clearly saying that it is wrong to wait until popular dissatisfactions with the regime become general and break out in disasters such as the revolt in Hungary...
...They are justified as a means of confusing Western opposition to Chinese Communism and of once again giving aid and comfort to Communist China's supporters in the West...
...He claims, accordingly, that his criteria for judging between "fragrant flowers" and "poisonous weeds" originate in the point of view of the "broad masses of the people...
...A Warning to Foes By David Nelson Rowe Mao Tse-tung's speech of last February is being widely interpreted as announcing some sort of revolutionary "doctrine of free competition for ideas" under Chinese Communism...
...Such limitations on free expression would effectively prevent the Chinese people from any open opposition to Communist totalitarianism as a social and political system...
...Note: Ideas to be incorrect do not have to be anti-Marxist, but merely non-Marxist...
...In respect to these "the matter is easy...
...To do so would be to miss the central point of all this oratory, a point which becomes particularly clear where Mao deals with what he terms "non-Marxist ideas...
...Hp tries desperately now, albeit in genteel terms so as to reduce the political costs of his statement, lo warn all Chinese not to align themselves in detectable opposition lest the earlier liquidations...
...For he asks: "In a Socialist country like ours, can there possibly be any useful scientific or artistic activity which runs counter to these political criteria...
...He therefore repeats the usual Communist dogma that words and ideas must be judged on a class basis...
...Of course, the figure of 800,000 he gives for the earlier liquidations is a transparent lie...
...Clearly, the security of the central oligarchy of the Communist party against popular disapproval is Mao's basic concern...
...It actually stated nothing of the kind...
...But, he says, it will not do to ban "incorrect ideas among the people...
...which he now wishes so much to avoid, must be repeated...
...He certainly knows and fears the formidable powers of the Chinese people in the realm of informal and conspiratorial politics, powers he made use of himself in his rise to power...
...His speech contains numerous complimentary references to the Soviet Union...
...It is hoped that Secretary Dulles's speech of June 28 on China policy, which provides a clear answer to this latest Communist tactic in the cold war, will long remain an accurate statement of this country's policy toward Communist China...
...Not by any means...
...Mao Tse-tung himself asserts as a criterion for right words and actions that they must be "beneficial, not harmful, to international socialist solidarity and the solidarity of the peace-loving peoples of the world...
...Quite contrary to any idea of "letting all flowers bloom," Mao merely gives an orthodox Communist prescription for telling "fragrant flowers from poisonous weeds" in both words and actions...
...Once the Government and Party have fixed this label on any opposition, its leaders can be dealt with by measures that Mao himself implies by admitting his earlier policy of liquidations...
...People who hold these ideas are divided sharply into two classes...
...The repeated use in this speech of such political symbols as "the people" or "the broad masses of the people" must not be written down as mere Communist cant...
...Also, they must help consolidate "the people's democratic dictatorship" and "democratic centralism," and strengthen "the leadership of the Communist party...
...If this were really true, we could rejoice in the strengthened prospect that Mao and his cut-throats would not likely survive for long...
...This announces to the Party the general tactics to be used in the face of the growing opposition to Communism in China...
Vol. 40 • August 1957 • No. 32
