NOTES AND INTRODUCTION

...If the masses do not voice their views frankly and freely, how can the Communist party and the Government discover and overcome their shortcomings so quickly...

...This passage leaves no doubt that the Rightists were deliberately encouraged to commit themselves in order that the Communist leadership might have pretexts for taking action against them...

...The publication of Mao's speech in full in Pravda—which could hardly have been avoided without offense to Mao—was, nevertheless, embarrassing for the Soviet leadership...

...All Communist thinking, it was stated, must start with "the most fundamental fact, that of the antagonism between the imperialist bloc of aggression and the popular forces in the world...

...The dictatorship of the proletariat must be maintained in each Communist country, but in proportion as class opposition is eliminated in domestic politics, the "edge" of the dictatorship should be turned outward against the "aggressive forces of foreign imperialism...

...Such tendencies can only be counteracted fully by the institution of a central authority, whether a representative council or a specially designated individual, with the right to define the faith, provide an authoritative interpretation of sacred texts, and render final decisions in all major ideological controversies...

...On the other hand, taking advantage of the Communist party slogans, a number of bourgeois Rightist elements who are not satisfied with the cause of socialism have tried to broaden their sphere of influence and consolidate their position...

...It is on the disciplined acceptance of Party decisions, in questions of general doctrine as well as of current policy, that the "monolithic" character of the Party-state regime depends...

...Uniformity can only be imposed on all the national parties if there is a higher international organization which can overrule the national parties just as the higher central organs of the national parties can overrule the local branches and individual members...

...International Communism thus needs always a unifying ideological leadership...

...Russia's primacy in industrial and military strength remains beyond challenge, but Khrushchev does not seem to object to China now playing the hand ideologically for the solidarity of a "poly-centric" Communism...

...It was only last year, however, that China began to play a part in European Communist affairs, with the Chou En-lai visit to Moscow, Warsaw and Budapest...

...To some extent, each national party can make its own formulations of doctrine, but Marxism-Leninism claims to be a discovery of truth which is universally valid and to hold the keys to the understanding of past, present and future history...

...In both courses, the Party aims at consolidating its power and destroying all elements of resistance to it...

...If justification of the principle is required, perhaps the best is that which has recently been given by a certain Li Chun-Chin, Chairman of the Taiwan Democratic Self-government League, devoted to organizing fifth-column work in Formosa: "To oppose socialism is the same as opposing construction of new China, and since there would be no socialism in China without the leadership of tire Communist party, to oppose that leadership is the same as opposing socialism...

...The idea that all Mao's talk about freedom of speech and the need for criticism was in fact a cunningly laid trap received substantial confirmation from a People's Daily editorial of July 1 which declared: "From May 8 to June 7 the newspapers of the Chinese Communist party, following the directive of the Party's Central Committee, published few or no affirmative views or counter-criticism...

...It was admitted that for the published version Mao had made "certain additions" to the original verbatim record, and there is nothing in the public text we now have to show which passages have been added...

...A group of journalists in a public statement went one better...

...The situation had changed greatly by 1953 from that which had existed in 1943...

...The fight against America is described as "the class struggle on a world scale...

...The decentralization of the Communist world which is thus being brought about, however, carries with it great dangers of ideological confusion...

...That speech must be read in the context of recently preceding events, and particularly the uprising in Hungary...

...It is not, it seems, for the Communist party but for the masses to identify, correct and refute these false opinions...

...There is nothing in Mao's reformulation of the Communist creed which implies democratization, in the sense of moving toward a political system which will allow the people a free vote between the Communists and opposition parties...

...Whatever versions might be put out for public propaganda, the top leadership was aware that the Hungarian workers and students had been the mainstay of the revolt, and that after more than a decade of Communist rule the regime had suddenly found itself without support from any quarter except its hated security police...

...There followed a flood of criticism (reported in the Chinese press), which not merely voiced grievances and complaints in matters of detail but called in question the supremacy of the Communist party and its policies...

...The regime in Hungary had failed to cope with the intrigues of the enemy because, on the one hand, it had not been sufficiently considerate of the interest of the masses and, on the other, it had not been sufficiently energetic in eliminating counter-revolutionaries...

...This is not being done in competition with Moscow, for Moscow is not trying to do it—and is apparently incapable of doing it...

...Cunning and quick-witted rather than subtle or far-sighted in his approach to politics, relying on his control of the Party machine for power inside Russia and on his globe-trotting salesmanship for influence abroad, Khrushchev has failed to provide the ideological leadership which remains essential for holding international Communism together as a militant revolutionary movement...

...It seems to me simply that the Chinese comrades are of the opinion that revisionist tendencies on a large scale do not exist in China...

...There might be contradictions within the "socialist camp," but these must be distinguished from the greater conflict with imperialism and kept within bounds...

...In other words, was the diversion of the cheng feng campaign into a drive against Rightists a response to an unexpected situation, or was it all along the intention to bring them out into the open and lure them to their political doom...

...the Chinese Communists acknowledge the derivation of their faith from Europe, but they have made their way to power with less Soviet aid than any European Communist party except the Yugoslav, and Mao has never accepted the kind of subordination to Moscow which was imposed on Bierut, Rakosi, Gottwald or Ulbricht...

...And if no opportunity is given to the people who harbor erroneous and even reactionary views to express them, how can the masses clearly identify, correct and refute them...

...There is, in the first place, the sheer size of China...

...Therefore we must resolutely oppose the Rightists...

...Insofar as this involves opposition to any Soviet attempt to put the clock back to 1952 in relations with the European satellites, it means a possibility of conflict with Moscow...

...It was, on the other hand, sufficiently detached from the complications between the Soviet Union and the European satellites to undertake a mediatory and advisory role in the crisis, the more so as the Kremlin appeared to be unable to produce a clear and coherent statement of its ideological position...

...it was also notably deficient in theoretical ability...

...It undoubtedly gave encouragement to the more restless elements among Soviet writers, who had been rebelling against the Party's dragooning of literature, and to those inside and outside the Party who favored relaxing the established Soviet policy of outlawing all strikes...

...Tito's revolt was the only serious break in the ranks, and the solidarity of the international movement was demonstrated by the fact that every other Communist party in the world denounced him...

...This distinction between contradictions "among the people" and contradictions with the imperialist enemy provided the main theme for Mao's speech of February 27...

...he is an interpreter of the Marxist-Leninist creed for the Communist world as a whole...

...Again and again in the speech, the critical reader is bound to ask how the criticism and dissent which Mao proposes to permit in his people's democracy are to be distinguished from the counter-revolutionary activity for which countless numbers of people in China over the last seven years have been executed or sent to "reform through labor...

...if they were not successfully resolved, sections of the people might pass over to the side of the enemy, as had happened in Hungary...

...But it was certainly in accordance with his general theoretical position that the Party's campaigning capacity should be directed against either Left or Right deviation, whichever might seem the greater threat for the time being...

...We can only follow the path of socialism and make China stronger every day under the leadership of the Communist party...

...With all these reservations, however, the speech as published remains a very important historical document, particularly in view of what has happened in China since last February...

...But there is another side to the speech which, if less prominent in it than the instructions to be more considerate toward the people, laid down the line for this summer's purging...

...Some people call this scheming, but we say it was quite open...

...Every Party member is supposed to submit his private judgment and opinion to the Party's ruling in any matter on which a definite Party line has been established...

...It does not follow, however, that preparation for the drive against the Rightists was the only, or even the main, purpose of Mao's speech of February 27...

...then, beginning with an editorial in the Peking People's Daily on June 8, a furious campaign was launched against "Rightists," under which term all the critics of the Party were lumped together...

...It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Khrushchev has underestimated the importance of maintaining a coherent orthodox ideology...

...On May 29, a few days before the anti-Rightist offensive was launched, Polish readers were informed by a correspondent of Polityka writing from China: a difference between Poland and People's China is the fact that the Chinese Communist party is now concentrating its ideological efforts on the struggle against dogmatism, subjectivism and bureaucratism...

...At the same time, well-publicized arrests of alleged counter-revolutionaries were made in various parts of China and the atmosphere of a major purge was created...

...Mao's speech of February 27, on the other hand, was concerned with policy inside China, and its emphasis is rather different...

...Chou En-lai went to Moscow, Warsaw and Budapest to help in arranging matters with Gomulka and Kadar, while in China on December 29 the press published a lengthy manifesto which was stated to have been discussed in the Politburo and was taken to be inspired, if not written, by Mao himself...

...In a world where the echoes of political liberty are never absent and there is no possibility of relying on the kind of merely traditional obedience which formerly sustained absolute monarchies, Communism must be perpetually justifying its claim to power, above all in the minds of its own followers, by effective propaganda for its doctrine...

...And, second, how far did Mao, when he made his speech in February, anticipate the volume and vehemence of the criticism which would burst forth from quarters outside the Communist party...

...Organizations of every kind Held meetings to attack the Rightists and their views...

...and though the Chinese preaching may sometimes be irritating to Russian ears, the burden of its message is such as must meet with their approval...

...The six criteria arc union of the nationalities within China...

...Khrushchev refused to accept this principle as applicable to the Soviet Union, and it was arguable on Marxist-Leninist premises that Soviet society, in its more advanced stage of liquidation of classes, had overcome contradictions which still existed in the transition stage of social and political development through which China was passing...

...The imperialists' alleged instigation of the Hungarian rising had been "the gravest attack launched against the socialist camp since the war of aggression they carried on in Korea...

...It had been so dangerous under Stalin to think with any originality that the serious study and interpretation of Marxist-Leninist ideology had been virtually abandoned in Russia...

...The main theme of the speech is the distinction between "contradictions with the enemy" (i.e., with the imperialists and the proscribed classes of landlords and "bureaucratic" capitalists), which are "antagonistic," and "contradictions within the people," which are "non-antagonistic...

...The safest course for a citizen of Communist China today is indeed to accept the principle that the Communist party has an exclusive and permanent right to power and to relate all words and actions to this principle...

...It was stated that all discussion of what had happened must proceed from "the most fundamental fact, the antagonism between the imperialist bloc of aggressors and the popular forces in the world...

...The reason was to enable the masses to distinguish clearly between those whose criticism was well-intentioned and those who were inspired by ill will...

...Applying the lesson of Hungary, it strives to win popular support and avoid a fatal separation from the masses, while it redoubles its efforts to discover, isolate and crush every factor of independent political activity or opposition...

...For a lime, in order to let the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intellectuals wage this battle, we . . did not counter the frantic attacks made by the reactionary bourgeois Rightists...

...The only answer is that, since there is no strict legal definition of counterrevolution and since the courts are entirely under the control of the Communist party, it is the Party which decides whether its critics are to be regarded as counter-revolutionaries or not...

...It is to avert the threatened chaos that Mao has been trying to recreate the unity of the Communist world on a new theoretical basis...

...The Communist view of the significance of the cheng feng movement may be gathered from the following passage in a People's Daily editorial of June 22: "Because of this speech [Mao's] the political life of our country has become more active during the past period...

...As long as Stalin was alive this did not matter, for his personal prestige and the authority of Moscow as the headquarters of the revolution were so great as to keep national parties in line with whatever the Kremlin decided...

...The speech was made as the preliminary to the cheng feng campaign for "rectification of the style of Party work," which was launched officially throughout China on May 1. This campaign was supposed to be directed against the "three evils" of sectarianism, subjectivism and bureaucratism marring the conduct of Communist cadres in their relations with the people...

...The "people" in China is held to include not only the workers and peasants, but also the "national" bourgeoisie, who are now being transformed into managers of state enterprises, but enjoy compensation for the loss of their properties in the form of securities bearing interest for ten years...

...Tribute was paid to "the righteous action of llie Soviet Union in aiding the socialist forces in Hungary...

...But there is all the difference in the world between treating a slave less harshly and setting him free...

...European Communists were bewildered by the sudden turn, for they had supposed the Chinese comrades to be going in the opposite direction...

...What happened in Budapest was a shock for Communist leaders all over the world, and the lesson was taken to heart not least in Peking...

...As it was, there was a rapid weakening of the system devised by Stalin...

...Anything which goes against them is harmful...

...On the one hand, the masses of the people have offered a large number of criticisms and suggestions concerning the work of the Communist party and the Government and have asked the Communist party and the Government to take positive measures to improve their work and their relationship with the masses...

...In Poland, the speech was hailed as a kind of charter of liberty, and China was claimed as the patron of an intelligentsia which since the October days had largely emancipated itself from the ideological control of the Communist party authorities...

...Not, of course, the sole interpreter, but one of high standing everywhere, because of his personal qualities as a theoretician as well as his position as ruler of China...

...In spite of the distance from the Danube, Communist China was concerned about what was happening in Budapest no less than the Soviet Union and the Communist countries of Eastern Europe...

...For the Chinese, the "thought of Mao" is an important supplement, not contradicting but adapting and amplifying the Marxist-Leninist heritage originally received from Moscow...

...The most important point on which Mao's doctrine now diverged from the orthodoxy of the Soviet Union was his admission of the possibility of contradictions between the government and the people in a Communist-governed country...

...At first there was no response from the Communist side...

...The Party foresaw that a class battle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was inevitable...

...Since Stalin's death, however, there has been neither a formal Communist world organization nor an all-powerful leadership from the Kremlin...

...What has a practical bearing on Communist international, as distinct from Chinese domestic, politics is Mao's support, on behalf of all Communist states, for a degree of sovereign independence and equality with Russia similar to that which Communist China herself has always claimed...

...With obvious reference to Gomulka's Poland, the manifesto went on to argue that Communists must avoid "indiscriminate and mechanical copying of the Soviet Union" and must apply Marxist-Leninist theory to the "special national features" of their own countries, but they must beware of any revisionist and right-wing opportunist agitation tending to weaken the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat...

...the dictatorship of the proletariat and the supremacy of the Communist party are declared to be unalterable principles of Marxism, not to be modified by any variety of "roads to socialism...

...It is much more true of the new Communist countries where the non-Communist past is still recent, and most of all of non-Communist countries where the cause has to make its way and win converts under conditions of free intellectual competition...

...But since its dissolution in 1943 no constitutional machinery has existed for the purpose of formulating dogmas and policies for Communists all over the world...

...It is in this context that we must view the recent growth of Chinese influence in the international Communist movement...

...and Lenin had "pointed out again and again that the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the most essential part of Marxism...

...It would be intolerable if there were to be a variety of opinions among national Communist leaders on the basic articles of the creed...

...The Chinese Communist campaign against the Rightists, however, was soon to put the matter in a different light...

...Two main problems arise in connection with these events...

...A third factor is China's geographical detachment from the affairs of Eastern Europe and their historical complications—• a detachment which fits her for a mediatory role in conflicts between the Soviet Union and other Communist states of that region...

...Mao Tse-tung, however, is not only the ideological pontiff of Communist China...

...Likewise, the unconditional reconciliation with Yugoslavia, by canceling the ban on Titoist ideas, confounded Moscow's loyal supporters and promoted the spread of anti-Muscovite agitation in the European Communist parties...

...Various factors have combined to give China the ideological initiative...

...Communist states are to be mutually equal and independent, but they must always, if they are to be recognized as Communist, be Party-states...

...Secondly, there is China's own self-confidence and independence of outlook...

...It has not been possible, therefore, for Moscow to maintain its old position as a fountainhead of wisdom and guidance for all the world's Communists...

...There are, indeed, observers in the West who consider that this neglect of ideology by the post-Stalin Soviet leadership is a sign of increased realism in Soviet politics, which is to be welcomed as a return to sanity and normality in Russia...

...On the contrary, Mao makes it as clear as can be that in his conception the Communist party's hold on supreme power must be permanent and exclusive, and that other parties, if allowed to exist at all, can only be tolerated as obedient vassals...

...For the individual Communist this function is performed by the Party through its highest elected organs or by its recognized personal leader—though his authority is always in principle derived from the will of the Party...

...This declaration dealt primarily with the international situation...

...According to unofficial reports from China, these criteria were not in the original speech but are among the additions made in revising the text for publication...

...And in the minds of the denouncers and the denounced alike there will be the memory of the accusation rallies and bloody executions of the great revolutionary terror of five years ago, which has now abated but may be renewed whenever the rulers of China so decide...

...It seems likely that, although not regarded as a top-secret communication—and in any case delivered to a fairly large audience—it was not originally intended for publication, but that the decision to publish was taken in order to correct undesirable unofficial versions of it...

...The December 1956 Chinese pronouncement on the Hungarian rising, as we have seen, carefully balanced condemnations of "doctrinairism" and "great-nation chauvinism" with warnings against any weakening of the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat...

...This does not mean that they underrate the danger of revisionism, which, for instance in Poland, is at present very great...

...This was true to a certain extent...

...democratic centralism...

...But this only applies within each national party, which is an organizational unit whether already in control of the state or still only in quest of power...

...INTRODUCTION By G. F. Hudson The speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," made by Mao Tse-tung to an enlarged session of the Supreme State Conference on February 27, was not published until the end of June...

...The speech was, for this reason, less balanced as between "liberalization" and anti-revisionism than the December manifesto, and the impression produced in Europe both by the earlier unofficial reports of it and by the later, edited official version was that Mao had moved a long way toward a revisionist position...

...As already mentioned, the Chinese Communist line has been from the beginning that one factor in the collapse of the Hungarian Communist regime was its failure to deal effectively with counter-revolutionaries, and Mao boasts in his speech that one reason why nothing of the kind has happened in China "was that we had succeeded in suppressing counter-revolution quite thoroughly...

...Finally, there are Mao's personal qualifications for ideological leadership...

...There is an urgent desire among Communists, therefore, for an agreed framework of doctrine which can be held in common and will make it possible to draw a clear line between the believer and the infidel...

...In relations between Communist states, the domination of one nation over another must be avoided, but the small nations must be ready to subordinate their special national interests to the international movement so as to present a united front to the aggressions of imperialism...

...The dictatorship of the proletariat is not over the people, but is to be exercised by the people under the leadership of the Communist party...

...If it can no longer get such leadership from Moscow, it must look elsewhere...

...Instead of a multitude of Communist parties all looking to the Soviet Union as the only country which had achieved the proletarian revolution, there were now a dozen non-Soviet parties in control of their respective countries with developing state-interests of their own...

...This applied, above all, to Khrushchev, who, in spite of his qualities as a demagogic orator or television personality, is far inferior not only to Lenin but even to Stalin as an exponent of Marxist theory...

...The highest Party offices were in the hands of men whose talents were in the field of practical politics and administration rather than of abstract thought and ideological controversy...

...There is no fundamental incompatibility between a policy of relaxing the severity of the regime toward the people at large and intensifying repression against political opponents...

...In this way the forces for an opportune counter-blow amassed strength...

...It is, indeed, quite likely that in February Mao saw the arbitrary and tyrannical behavior of Party cadres as the most formidable problem confronting his regime, and that he was himself surprised by the volume of the anti-Communist feeling which burst out when he invited outsiders to join in criticism of Party practice...

...After all that has happened in recent years, it is today easier for China than for Russia to preach sermons to the smaller members of the Communist family...

...Whatever he may have gained in Soviet internal politics by his attack on the memory of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress, the vituperative denigration of the man who had for a generation been the revered leader of international Communism could not but lower the prestige of Moscow as the source of inspiration for comrades outside the Soviet frontiers...

...These two types of contradiction should be handled quite differently: Dictatorship and coercion are appropriate to the former, but conciliation and persuasion are appropriate to the latter...

...Even without any formal acknowledgment of the principle of "different roads to socialism," the ideological unity of world Communism, as it existed under Stalin, is a thing of the past...

...Mao adds that the two most important of the six are the socialist path and the leadership of the Party...

...The decline of Soviet influence has been further accentuated by Khrushchev's own policies...

...Even if Stalin had lived longer, he might have found his authority insufficient to cope with the new conditions...

...First, what were the reasons for starting the cheng feng campaign...

...Yet, there are fundamental reasons why the totalitarian Party-state system created by Communism cannot, as it were, detach itself from its ideological base and become self-sufficient as an established social and political order...

...We told the enemy in advance that before monsters and serpents can be wiped out, they must first be brought into the open, and only by letting poisonous weeds show themselves above ground can they be uprooted...

...But this is in accord with the reality of Communist international relations as they have developed over the past year and with the general line followed by Khrushchev...

...So we have meetings all over China at which the Rightists will be denounced and a dozen selected individuals will be personally attacked...

...In spite of his success as a practical politician, Mao has remained always an intellectual—the man who, after a series of spiritual adventures in search of a satisfactory Weltanschauung, became a convert to Marxism in the midst of the mental ferment which was going on at the beginning of the 1920s in the University of Peking...

...After this it could not be assumed that any Communist country was immune from such outbreaks, and the Communists were faced with the problem of how to prevent that isolation of their party from the masses which had been so manifest in the Hungarian debacle...

...The speech differed from the December manifesto in that it was not originally intended for publication and was addressed to a group concerned primarily with Chinese domestic policy...

...Why have our reactionary class enemies enmeshed themselves in the net that was spread for them...

...We are all Chinese and hope that China will become stronger and stronger...

...Originally, this was the function of the Communist International...

...it was primarily a movement for self-criticism within the Communist party, but it was announced that in order to help the Party in correcting its shortcomings criticism would be welcomed from the non-Party public, particularly the non-Communist, so-call "democratic" parties included as auxiliaries of the Communist party in the Government coalition, and the critics were exhorted to speak frankly...

...The intellectuals, similarly, must be properly handled and reasoned with, not bullied or coerced, so that they may be helped to transform themselves and shed their "bourgeois world outlook...

...In the meantime, however, its main contents had become known and various rumors about its details, some of them highly sensational, were widely current...

...most of the persons accused made confessions of "political sins" and abject declarations of repentance, and their close political or professional associates—and often their relatives— joined in denouncing them...

...The new leadership was not only collective, with the consequent difficulty of formulating clear-cut doctrinal theses...

...Even so, the text we now have can hardly be identical with the original speech, for if it is true, as was reported, that Mao took four hours to deliver it, a great deal must have been left out in the published version, which, inclusive of the additions, could have been spoken in not much more than half the time...

...in spite of its economic backwardness, China enjoys a great prestige as the most populous nation of the world and an emerging Great Power...

...All this, added to the famous slogan of "Let a hundred flowers bloom together and a hundred schools of thought contend," appeared to imply a great liberalization of the regime, and it is no wonder that some foreign commentators on early reports of the speech supposed that China was going further than any other Communist country in "de-Stalinization...

...Although there are certain contradictions between them and the workers and peasants, these, if handled correctly, will be non-antagonistic and contained within the people...

...In the final analysis, Mao's "democracy" is simply an exhortation to Party cadres not to treat ordinary people as badly as they normally do...

...And the Party can use this power to threaten those whom it regards as dangerous to its supremacy and compel them to discredit themselves and their ideas by groveling recantations...

...the leadership of the Communist party...

...The Russian October Revolution was "not only the road for the proletariat of the Soviet Union, but also the road which the proletariat of all countries must travel in order to gain victory...

...Communism, as a secular religion, is liable to the centrifugal tendencies characteristic of religious movements...

...The problem now facing Communists everywhere is how to adjust differences of view among the national parties so that the international movement can retain a sufficient basis of common faith and present a united front to unbelievers...

...This is true even of the Soviet Union, where overt, organized opposition to the regime was thoroughly suppressed years ago and the great majority of the population has grown up under Soviet rule...

...This declaration was in the main a powerful justification of the Soviet action in Hungary and a warning against revisionist tendencies encouraged by the recent events...

...In contrast to Khrushchev, the climbing bureaucratic careerist of an established political order, who has never wasted any time on ideas above the level of technical or tactical problems, Mao has done his own thinking in a systematic way...

...and international socialist solidarity...

...they declared with appropriate enthusiasm that the six criteria were just what was needed for the guidance of newspapers and that the most important of them was the leadership of the Party...

...socialist transformation and construction: the people's democratic dictatorship...

...The masses may, however, be somewhat confused ideologically, and so to help them distinguish the desirable flowers of thought from the poisonous weeds the published version of Mao's speech lists six criteria by which good thought may be separated from bad...

...A number of leading members of the auxiliary parties, notably the Democratic League and the Revolutionary Kuomintang (the group of Kuomintang dissidents who went over to the Communists during the civil war), became targets for violent denunciation, with hints of "counter-revolutionary conspiracy" and threats of "punishment" if recantations were not forthcoming...