Break down foreign conventions and follow our own road in developing industry. Mao Tse-tung
Industry, along with agriculture, is part of the economic base of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and has been a central focus of the two-line struggle in China.
At the time of liberation, China was underdeveloped industrially. What industry existed was dependent on foreign capital and technology. During the national democratic stage of the revolution, 1949-1956, the national bourgeoisie, the technicians and the managers that went along with the revolution were encouraged to continue developing industry. They were severely limited in their control of the factories and their bourgeois freedom was limited in relation to the national economy. The continued development of private industry and the utilization of the former managers was necessary to provide some continuity and to put the Chinese economy back on its feet after the revolution.
With the building of socialism, the state took over industry and the Party mobilized the workers to increasingly criticize and take over its management. This of course was opposed by sectors of the national bourgeoisie and the capitalist-roaders within the Party who wanted to increase bourgeois right and exploitation by one class over another, to crease the division between technicians, managers, and workers, and to consolidate the capitalist relations in industry. China has made many advances in developing socialist industry, especially since the Cultural Revolution, but every advance has been opposed by the capitalist-roaders in the Party.
China was, and still is to a large degree, an underdeveloped, under-industrialized nation. One of the principal debates in China has been over how to industrialize. The capitalist-roaders have consistently pushed the revisionist line of : increasing the authority of the managers over the workers, increasing production by giving the workers material incentives and bonuses, making each industry independent, making profits the central motive for production, depending on specialized technicians, depending on foreign technology, and following foreign examples in building industry, concentrating on big plants and ignoring small and medium-sized plants. These incorrect methods, which would all lead to the restoration of capitalism, have been consistently countered by Chairman Mao, who has put forward: putting the proletariat in command of the factories, increasing the workers’ role in management and the cadres and technicians taking part in productive labor, training workers as technicians and encouraging worker initiative in designing and organizing, increasing production through collective proletarian revolutionary spirit, putting proletarian politics and the needs of the Chinese people and economy in command and, while learning from foreign technology, relying on one’s own strength and indigeneous methods as well as domestic research, and simultaneously developing large, medium, and small industry, with emphasis on the latter two.
The two opposed political lines in industry have been a source of constant struggle and the Great Leap Forward (1958) and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-19 were both great victories for the correct line and made profound changes in industry.
During the Cultural Revolution, the workers, especially in the large industrial cities Shanghai, Wuhan, Tientsin, and Peking, formed mass Rebel organizations to battle revisionist line in their factories and won great victories in transforming industry.
The high point of the workers’ struggle was during the January Storm in Shanghai in 1967. In an effort to break the Rebels’ spirit, the management and technicians who followed the revisionist line, led by the municipal Party leaders, created a management “strike” hoping to shut down the railroads, the port, and many factories, locking out the workers. The Rebel workers instead took over the railroads, the port and the factories and soon had production back on the move and in the workers’ hands. Many great victories were also won in other cities.
Since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, socialist industry has taken great strides forward in terms of production, technological advance, the breaking down of class differences, and increasing worker control. These have been the result of continual struggle against the bourgeois line in industry. At the First Plenum of the Ninth Central Committee in April, 1969, Chairman Mao said:
It seems essential that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution should still be carried out. Our foundation has not been consolidated. According to my own observation I would say that, not in all factories, nor in an overwhelming majority of factories, but in quite a large majority of cases the leadership is not in the hands of true Marxists, nor yet in the hands of the masses of the workers. I have brought up this instance to illustrate that the revolution has not been completed. (Schram, pp. 283-284)
The two-line struggle in industry came to a head during the struggle against the Right deviationist trend (1975-1976). One of its manifestations was around the question of rules and regulations in the workplace.
Since the Cultural Revolution began, workers in factories across China have struggled against irrational industrial rules that only perpetuated and defended class divisions. An article in PR last year (1976) explained this struggle:
Under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s instructions on struggle-criticism-transformation, factories and enterprises have undergone remarkable changes after going through the following stages: establishing three-in-one revolutionary committees, carrying out mass criticism, purifying the class ranks, consolidating Party organizations, simplifying the administrative structure, changing irrational rules and regulations, and sending office workers to the workshops. Rational rules and regulations have been constantly improved in the course of struggle. The workers now take part in leading and managing enterprises and cadres and technicians participate in physical labour. Narrow divisions of labour between workers have been done away with and the spirit of communist cooperation has been brought into full play. (PR #24, 1976, p. 12 – emphasis ours)
This article goes on to explain how Teng Hsiao-ping tried to reverse these great victories:
Teng Hsiao-ping alleged that the restrictive measures drawn up before the Great Cultural Revolution in accordance with Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line in running enterprises were good and could still be used. These words laid bare his motive and revealed that his so-called ’necessary rules and regulations’ were nothing but the same revisionist trash. (PR #24, 1976, p. 12)
Another article explained:
He [Teng Hsiao-ping] showed the utmost hatred for the revolutionary action of the working class during the Great Cultural Revolution in criticizing the capitalist and revisionist managerial principles, rules and regulations; he lost no time in mounting a vengeful counterattack the moment he came into office again. He not only brought out again a set of rules aimed at ’controlling, checking, and repressing’ the worker but clamoured for dealing with them as strictly as possible. (PR #35, 1976, p. 7)
These articles make it clear that the struggle last year against those irrational industrial rules and regulations promoted by Teng Hsiao-ping was not against all rules but only those aimed at maintaining class differences and “controlling, checking, and repressing” the workers. However, the present leaders now misrepresent last year’s struggle as one “against all rules and regulations”. The following article exposes their point of view (PR #14, 1977, pp. 24-26):
The ’gang of four’s’ logic was: ’strict’ means ’kuan, chia, ya’ [control, check and repress], ’kuan, chia, ya’ is bourgeois, and what is bourgeois is irrational. We hold that ’strict’ and ’kuan, chia, ya’ cannot be indiscriminately regarded as bourgeois and also, it is not justified to say everything capitalist is irrational. . . The ’gang of four’, however, regarded all strict rules and regulations as ’bourgeois kuan, chia, ya’ without bothering to make any analysis of them.
Whether the rules and regulations are rational or irrational depends first on whether they are conducive to the development of productive forces and, secondly, on whether they benefit the masses; certainly it does not depend on whether they are ’kuan, cha, ya.’ In opposing ’kuan, chia, ya’ the gang aimed at pushing anarchism. ” (PR #14,1977, pp. 24-26)
This misrepresentation of the workers’ struggle against these bourgeois rules promoted by Teng Hsiao-ping to defend bourgeois right, labeling this struggle “anarchistic” and “causing confusion in the management of enterprises”, shows clearly on which side the present leaders stand. Rules and regulations must be judged first on the basis of whether or not they irrationally maintain bourgeois right and class differences, not “first whether they are conducive to the development of productive forces.”
Another area where two-line struggle has been going on in industry is around the question of ”putting profits in command.” Socialist enterprises should show a profit where possible but their principal tasks are to provide necessary goods for the nation while striving to intensify the proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie and, finally, moving away from the money economy and the capitalist methods of ’material incentives’ and profit orientation. Therefore, constant criticism and struggle must take place against these methods and against the capitalist-roaders who promote them. Last year, Peking Review criticized Teng Hsiao-ping for saying “You say it’s putting profits in command; well, a bit of profit in command doesn’t matter much. Otherwise what is the state to rely on?” (PR #24, p. 10) The article argued against Teng Hsiao-ping’s attitude: ’if every factory puts profits in command and devotes great efforts to turning out products that bring in the most profits while paying scant heed to making products that are less profitable and not producing things which do not bring in any profit, wouldn’t this upset and sabotage the socialist planned economy and bring on anarchy in production? In their pursuit of profits, the various enterprises will seek their own interests at the expense of others, and socialist cooperation will be turned into capitalist competition. Putting profits in command, striving one-sidedly for output value and profits, praying to “Marshal Chao,” the God of Wealth, handing out bonuses and using material incentives to stimulate people’s enthusiasm will inevitably corrupt the thinking of cadres and the masses, undermine unity among porkers, lead people astray to think only of personal gains or losses and scramble for fame and position, and turn the relations among people into mercenary, cash relations. In this way, socialist relations of production will be destroyed and bourgeois right will grow to malignant proportions. If this is allowed to continue, a restoration of capitalist ownership will inevitably result. . .
To meet the needs of revolution and construction, it is necessary for socialist enterprises to calculate production costs, have economic accounting and, according to state requirements, make profits as planned. The profits earned by socialist enterprises constitute the main source of socialist accumulation. We have always attached importance to economic accounting and accumulation and opposed such erroneous ideas as not estimating the cost, neglecting accumulation and being extravagant and wasteful. Teng Hsiao-ping, however, attacked the criticism of putting profits in command and material incentives as ’one-sided opposition to the making of profits’ . . Since the start of the Great Cultural Revolution, the enthusiasm of the broad masses of workers has been aroused precisely because criticism was carried out against these revisionist things. The workers have conscientiously implemented the Party’s line, policies and principles and carried out state plans and accumulated more and more funds for socialist revolution and socialist construction. Chairman Mao has pointed out: ’Ideological work and political work are the guarantee for accomplishing economic work and technical work, and they serve the economic base. Moreover, ideology and politics are the commander, the soul. If our ideological work and political work slacken just a little, economic work and technical work are bound to go astray.’ To develop production, our socialist state does not rely on putting profits in command or material incentives but on Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line on putting proletarian politics in command, on taking class struggle as the key link and on powerful political and ideological work. This is fundamental in running the socialist enterprises well.’
The current articles in the PR take up Teng Hsiao-ping’s point of view and in an attempt to deflect criticism of “putting profits in command” present this criticism as being against economic accounting and against profit (and for losses!):
It is imperative to practice economic accounting, increase socialist accumulation, and continually carry out expanded reproduction so as to ensure a daily growing prosperity in socialist construction and step-by-step improvement of the people’s living standards. We must thoroughly criticize the “gang of four’s” fallacy that economic accounting and increasing accumulation are “putting profit in command” and their advocacy that “losses have merit” and consuming without producing in a vain attempt to undermine socialism.
Workers and staff members must be helped through education to understand the need for carrying forward the communist spirit and making more contributions to the revolution. The socialist principle of distribution, that is, ’he who does not work neither shall he eat’ and ’from each according to his ability to each according to his work’ must be firmly applied. We must thoroughly criticize the ’gang of four’ for deliberately distorting Chairman Mao’s directives in order to hoodwink the masses and attack policies which rationally embody the principle of distribution ’ to each according to his work’ as practicing ’material incentives.’ (PR #18, 1977, p. 23)
Putting “profits in command” and practicing “material incentives” are two dangers that will exist as long as the money economy exists, as long as there are classes and as long as there are bourgeois elements that cling to bourgeois ideology and the capitalist road. They must be criticized and combatted, not once in a while or only in some places, but constantly in all places. Opposing this criticism and twisting its meaning reveals the bourgeois ideological base of Teng Hsiao-ping and of the present leaders of China.
The struggle against the Right deviationist trend (1975-1976) was waged on many different fronts in industry. An article titled “Comments on Teng Hsiao-ping’s economic ideas of the comprador bourgeoisie” in PR #35, 1976 (pp. 6-9) thoroughly exposed and repudiated the bourgeois line in industrial development:
The arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party, Teng Hsiao-ping, made many absurd statements about economic construction. In a nutshell, his economic ideas are essentially those of the comprador bourgeoisie. Domestically speaking, he represented the bourgeoisie and wanted to seize the leadership over the national economy from the proletariat and turn China’s socialist economy into a bureaucrat monopoly capitalist economy. “In foreign affairs, he practised capitulation and national betrayal, and vainly attempted to turn China into a colony or semi-colony of imperialism and social-imperialism.
After Teng Hsiao-ping took up work again, he imposed without the knowledge and approval of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao an economic administration system of ’direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned.’ This means a few top persons in the central ministries concerned could directly issue orders to enterprises in all parts of the country and exercise leadership over them. Enterprises of the same trade thus formed into a separate system operating by themselves, thereby liquidating the controlling power of the Party Central Committee and the local Party committees over the economy and negating the unified leadership of the Party committees at various levels.
As early as 1956, Chairman Mao pointed out that in order to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, strengthen the socialist economic base and build a strong socialist country, it is necessary to handle correctly the relations between the central and local authorities and ’let the localities undertake more work under unified central planning.’ This will bring the initiative of both the central and local authorities into play. However, Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping for a long time refused to implement this correct principle; instead, they lauded the imperialist trusts to the skies. .
After Teng Hsiao-ping resumed work, he lapsed into his old ways. On the pretext of exercising ’centralized and unified’ leadership, he wanted to ’turn over to the higher authorities’ what he called ’key enterprises which serve the whole nation and require organized coordination on a national scale.’ . . The system of ’direct and exclusive control of the enterprises by the ministry concerned’ is diametrically opposed to the Party’s unified leadership. It is splittism and advocates the doctrine of ’many centres’ in opposition to the Party Central Committee; it is despotism and bourgeois dictatorship over the localities and the masses. The purpose of Teng Hsiao-ping’s reimposing ’direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned’ was the liquidation of our socialist economy through ’rectification ’ This kind of ’control’ would inevitably divide up the socialist economy of ownership by the whole people and turn it into the ’private property’ of respective trades. And the various trades and departments would become sharply opposed to each other. The overly distinct division of labour would lead to undermining each other’s work and the relations between them would be turned into capitalist relations of competition. .
Since ’direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned’ disregarded inter-departmental equilibrium in the national economy, it would inevitably undermine the rational distribution of the national economy and the multipurpose utilization of resources and obstruct extensive socialist cooperation. Teng Hsiao-ping’s ’rectification’ of the economy by means of ’direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned’ was intended to bring about a capitalist concentration of production and monopoly and enforce the revisionist practices of running factories by relying on experts, putting profits in command, offering material incentives, giving first place to production and putting technique above everything else. It also aimed at negating Chairman Mao’s line and policies concerning the socialist revolution and construction, at expanding and strengthening bourgeois right, at changing the socialist orientation and road of our enterprises and turning the socialist economy into a bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist economy. . Teng Hsiao-ping always acted in contravention of Chairman Mao’s instruction that we must wholeheartedly rely on the working class, and obstinately tried to push his revisionist line characterized by hostility to the working class. He openly declared that ’reliance on the workers, peasants and soldiers is relative, ’ categorically refused to regard the working class and the poor and lower-middle peasants as masters of the state, and denied that they had the right to control the economy. He showed the utmost hatred for the revolutionary action of the working class during the Great Cultural Revolution in criticizing the capitalist and revisionist managerial principles, rules and regulations, and he lost no time in mounting a vengeful counterattack the moment he came into office again. He not only brought out again the set of rules aimed at ’controlling, checking and repressing’ the workers but clamoured for dealing with them ’as strictly as possible.’ This proves to the hilt that he was indeed the general representative of those bourgeois elements sucking the blood of the workers whom Chairman Mao had scathingly criticized.
Which political line is followed and which class wields the power of leadership in an enterprise are factors determining which class actually owns it. If Teng Hsiao-ping had been allowed to carry on with his revisionist line, the leadership of the enterprises would inevitably be seized by the capitalist-roaders, the bourgeoisie in the Party, who would use the power in their hands to embezzle and squander huge amounts of wealth created by the working class and ride roughshod on the backs of the workers. In that case, the socialist enterprises would exist only in name and would be turned into bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist enterprises. What Teng Hsiao-ping pushed was merely a carbon copy of the so-called ’economic reforms’ introduced by Khrushchev and Brezhnev. To develop bureaucrat monopoly capitalism, the Soviet revisionists energetically pushed what they called a ’new economic system’ with material incentives and putting profits in command as the core. They gave top priority to expertise and relied on specialists to run the enterprises, and the bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist class completely controlled the leadership over the national economy. The rules and regulations of their enterprises stipulate explicitly that the managers are vested with the power to sell, transfer or lease any part of the enterprises’ means of production, to recruit and fire workers at will, and to do whatever they like to the workers, that is to say, exercise bourgeois dictatorship over them. The Soviet revisionists exercise vertical leadership over the enterprises through the two-level organizational system of ’ministry /production combine enterprises’ or the three-level system of minis try/industrial combines/production combine enterprises.’ These combines, which are large in scale, have centralized practically all the managerial functions of the enterprises. By pushing this ’new economic system’ the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has intensified its monopoly and control over the enterprises throughout the country.
Chairman Mao has pointed out that under China’s historical condition, those who stubbornly choose to take the capitalist road are in fact ’ready to capitulate to imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism.’ This was the case with Teng Hsiao-ping. In his eyes, the Chinese people were no good at carrying out economic construction or bringing about the modernizations of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology, nor, for that matter, was the socialist system of any help. The only feasible way to ’speed up the technical transformation of industry and raise labour productivity’ is to ’import foreign techniques and equipment.’ For this purpose he put forward a so-called ’major policy’ under which China would sign ’long-term contracts’ with foreign countries, with the foreign capitalists supplying the ’most up-to-date and best equipment’ to be ’paid for’ by China with its mineral products. This ’major policy’ was purely a policy of out-and-out capitulation and national betrayal. .
Whether or not to adhere to the principle of independence and self-reliance is not only an economic question but, first and foremost, a political one. An important means employed by imperialism and social-imperialism to control and plunder other countries is to monoplize advanced techniques and equipment and use their economic strength to check the other countries’ development and carry out extortion, infiltration and expansion. In the world today, if a country is not independent and self-reliant economically, it cannot become politically independent or cannot consolidate its independence and is liable to fall under the control of one or the other superpower. We hold that; under the guidance of the principle of independence and self-reliance, it is necessary to import some foreign techniques and equipment on the basis of equality and mutual benefit and in accordance with the needs of our country’s socialist revolution and construction. But we absolutely cannot place our hopes for realizing the four modernizations on imports. If we do not rely mainly on our own efforts but, as Teng Hsiao-ping advocated, rely solely on importing foreign techniques, copying foreign designs and technological processes and patterning our equipment on foreign models, we will for ever trail behind foreigners and our country’s development of technology and even its entire national economy will fall under the control of foreign monopoly capital.
Some economists of the monopoly capitalists allege that industrially backward countries can only ’take off’’ by relying on the techniques of imperialism. That Teng Hsiao-ping, with the label of a Communist Party member, should chime in with such nonsense was a big irony indeed! This of course was not a mere coincidence. It showed that Teng Hsiao-ping’s economic concepts fully met the needs of imperialism.
Teng Hsiao-ping shamelessly asserted that his ’major policy’ had three ’advantages,’ namely, the policy made it possible for China to export, to promote technical transformation and to absorb labour power. What kind of ’advantages’ are these ? They mean nothing but this: the foreign monopoly capitalists would contribute money and equipment while China would supply the necessary labour power, thus the doors would be thrown wide open for the imperialists to plunder China’s natural resources and bleed its people. The Chinese people had more than enough of such ’advantages’ before liberation. If this capitulationist ’major policy’ of Teng Hsiao-ping’s were followed, China would be reduced step by step to a raw materials supplying base for imperialism and social-imperialism, a market for their commodities and an outlet for their investments. And not only would the fruits of socialist revolution be forfeited but those of the democratic revolution would also be brought to naught. This fully reveals the ugly features of Teng Hsiao-ping who worked as a comprador for the imperialists and represented the interests of big foreign capitalists. (PR #35, 1976, pp. 6-9)
Speaking about the first years after liberation, when China was practicing New Democratic principles in industry and agriculture, Chairman Mao said on January 30, 1962:
In those days the situation was such that, since we had no experience in economic construction, we had no alternative but to copy the Soviet Union. In the field of heavy industry especially, we copied almost everything from the Soviet Union, and we had very little creativity of our own. At that time it was absolutely necessary to act thus, but at the same time it was also a weakness. . a lack of creativity and a lack of ability to stand on our own feet. Naturally this could not be our long-term strategy. (Chairman Mao’s “Talk at an enlarged Central Work Conference,” Chairman Mao Talks to the People, Schram, Pantheon, 1974, p. 178)
Since the Great Leap Forward in 1958, and particularly since the Great Cultural Revolution, China has made incredible strides in developing her industry through the creative and relentless advances of her worker-technicians. The policy of self-reliance has made it possible for China to build modern industrial plants and improve the old ones through her own efforts, with very little use of foreign technology. The same people who opposed breaking away from dependence on the Soviet Union and advocated tailing behind Khrushchev’s revisionist line in exchange for technical aid, among them Teng Hsiao-ping, later pushed for turning to the Western capitalist industrialized nations for large scale assistance. They acted as if China still could not be self-reliant and ignored the tremendous technological advances made in China which had laid the basis for more complete self-sufficiency than ever.
The crux of Teng’s plan was to export China’s oil at a highly rapid rate in order to be able to build China’s industry around imported factories and plants. The trend of selling oil to buy foreign technology began on a large scale in 1973. In that year, which was also the year Teng Hsiao-ping came back into power, China’s expenditure on imports doubled from $1.8 billion to $3.6 billion, with over $1 billion being spent to implement a new policy of buying complete plants from capitalist industrialized countries. In 1974, buying increased to $5.3 billion, with over $1.5 billion being spent on complete plants. Among the plants bought[1] were steel plants from Japan and West Germany (technicians from Nippon Steel were contracted to help run the Japanese plants for a period of 10 years, while 150 West Germans supervised construction of the Wuhan Steel Rolling Plant and 300 Chinese technicians were trained in West Germany), power plants, petro-chemical and other chemical installations, synthetic fiber and polyester plants, petroleum exploration, extraction and refining plants and chemical fertilizer plants. A hundred thousand ton oil tanker was bought from Japan, 18 vessels were bought from Scandinavia, and oil technology was bought from various companies in Texas and Japan.
At the same time, starting in 1973, China began exporting oil to Japan at the rate of 1 million tons in 1973, 4 million tons in 1974, and 8 million tons in 1975. However, although China was becoming one of the world’s major oil exporters, it could not keep up with increasing debt incurred by the tremendous expenditures on foreign technology. China’s trade deficit was $80 million in 1973 and $1 billion in 1974 and possibly $500 million in 1975. This was the first time China had shown a trade deficit for more than one year since the early 1950’s when it had bought a lot of industrial equipment from the USSR. Therefore, the people in the ministries buying foreign technology, led by Teng Hsiao-ping, began asking for extended 6-7 year periods to pay off the foreign companies, and began taking $300-500 million dollar loans through the hard currency accounts of Japanese and West European banks in the Bank, of China. By 1975 and 1976, China’s foreign deficit had seriously thrown Chinese trade off balance, but Teng and his cohorts continued to push for more and more imports of complete plants, oil technology, and steel, and in late 1975 independently completed a big deal for 50 Rolls Royce aircraft engines, (source: China Trade Report. a magazine for foreign businessmen published by the Far Eastern Economic Review)
Neither exporting oil nor importing technology is necessarily incorrect, nor does it necessarily hamper China’s development as an independent industrialized powerful socialist nation, if it is done within the framework of self-reliance. However, people such as Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping have consistently urged a comprador bourgeois method of industrialization that means tying China’s economy up with the capitalist economy, and making China dependent on foreign technology, which would hurt China’s ability to develop her own industry and leave her trailing behind the industrialized capitalist world at a snail’s pace. Has any country ever built up a strong industrial base through wholesale importation of foreign technology? Did the United States or England or France or Germany? Did Japan? Did the USSR?
In 1921, after the Soviet Red Army emerged victorious from the civil war, Lenin proposed the New Economic Plan in the U9SR, which fostered the restricted development of the National bourgeoisie and of capitalist relations in industry and agriculture, as well as buying of foreign technology from capitalist countries. Similarly, China encouraged the national bourgeoisie and depended on the Soviet Union for technology in the first years after liberation. However, the USSR, with Lenin and Stalin’s leadership, never depended on foreign technology to develop industry once this first critical stage was passed, and Soviet industry was built on self-reliance. (This principle has only been changed by the new revisionist leaders of the USSR, who mis-use Lenin’s teaching at the time of NEP to justify foreign investments and credits.) Neither Lenin or Stalin led the USSR to build a strong industrial base through buying billions of dollars of foreign plants and technology. The USSR is the largest producer of oil in the world, yet even when it had much less industry than it has today, neither Lenin or Stalin led it to sell its natural resources to the West. Had they followed these comprador bourgeois policies and not been self-reliant, the USSR would never have become a modern industrial nation. Countries in the Third World and in Eastern Europe which have tried to do so have only maintained their underdevelopment and have fallen into political and economic dependence on US imperialism or Soviet social-imperialism. This “quick and easy” method advocated by Teng Hsiao-ping can only lead to continued underdevelopment, dependence and capitalist restoration.
One of the central conflicts in the industrial two-line struggle and the debate over self-reliance and depending on foreign technology was a contract to build 8 major chemical fertilizer plants with Pullman-Kellogg, a U.S. corporation. It is described in an October 26, 1976, article in the N.Y. Times:
Officials in Peking and Houston announced tonight the start-up on schedule of three agricultural chemical complexes that are part of the largest contract ever awarded by China to a U.S. company. A dozen officials of Pullman-Kellogg, a division of Pullman, Inc., flew to Peking over the weekend for formalities. One hundred forty U.S. technicians and dependents have worked for two years on the construction of the plants.
Pullman Kellogg contracted in 1973 to design, organize and supervise construction of 8 ammonia plants . . the contract was for a total of $290 million. Pullman-Kellogg contracted with the Chinese National Technological Import Corporation for the 8 plants. About 60 Chinese have studied their construction and operation in Houston and Enid, Oklahoma, for two years. American technicians supervise the construction, which is done by Chinese engineers and laborers.
Five other similar chemical fertilizer plants were contracted with French and Japanese companies.[2] The question of whether these purchases were “relying on one’s own efforts while making external assistance subsidiary” was in debate even while the plants were being constructed, as evidenced by an article in PR #32, 1975, titled “An Effective Way to Speed Chemical Fertilizer Production: the Growth of Small Chemical Fertilizer Plants in Honan.” The article, while it doesn’t mention the foreign-built plants by name, attacks depending on “the big and the foreign” while it strongly supports building small and medium chemical fertilizer plants (which produced 60% of China’s chemical fertilizers) and large plants built and equipped by China’s own efforts. It states:
The Wuching Chemical Works in Shanghai [was] the first big project of its kind (1962) designed, built, and equipped by our own efforts. The successful building of this all-Chinese affair was indicative of China’s capability to rely on her own efforts to make complete sets of equipment for big chemical fertilizer plants. Since then large and medium-sized plants were set up one after another in various provinces. .
With high productivity and relatively advanced technology, the large plants are the backbone force in chemical fertilizer production. But since they entail huge investments and take a long time to build, only a few key projects can be undertaken in a given period . . it is therefore necessary to rely on local resources to build small chemical fertilizer plants. Hence the principle of walking on ’two legs’ . . simultaneous development of national and local industries, simultaneous building of large enterprises and small and medium-sized ones and simultaneous employment of modern and indigenous production methods.
A mass movement was launched in 1958 throughout the countryside to set up by self-reliance small chemical fertilizer plants which have now become an important force in the chemical fertilizer production. Statistics showed that by the end of 1974, there were 2000 small synthetic ammonia and phosphate fertilizer plants and small phosphorous mines dotting the land and they are likened to ’stars in the sky.’ Quick to build, these plants, which employ simple technology and equipment, need little investment, and can make full use of locally available raw and other materials; moreover, their products find a ready market in their own locality. Necessary as it is to solve problems of funds, equipment, and technology in developing small chemical fertilizer plants, the question of political and ideological however, is of paramount and decisive importance . . The course of building a plant is often a struggle between the two ideologies and the two lines. Some people were badly influenced by Liu Shao-chi’s ’servility to foreign things’ and craved for things ’big and foreign’ saw only weaknesses but not the advantages of small faxtories. . Facts have refuted their erroneous view. (PR #32, 1975, pp. 16-19)
This message was delivered time and again, in many different examples glorifying China’s efforts to build her own industry . . on large, small and medium scales. Not once in this article are the foreign-produced chemical fertilizer plants mentioned, nor in any of the Peking Reviews of 1975 and 1976. This was surely not an oversight, but a determined effort to battle the idea of “servility to foreign things.” The idea of self-reliance was further developed in an article, “Small and Medium-sized Industry Play a Big Role” in PR #45, 4975:
Practice has proved that when the policy of simultaneously developing large enterprises and small and medium ones is carried out in earnest, initiative from both central and local authorities can be fully brought out, the general policy of taking agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading factor in developing the national economy can be better implemented, and rapid development of industrial production can be achieved by adherence to the principle of maintaining independence and keeping initiative in our own hands and relying on our own efforts. .
Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao advocated building ’big, modern, all-inclusive’ industries, opposed the policy of ’maintaining independence and keeping initiative in our own hands, and relying on our own efforts’ and pushed a revisionist line. Those who have blind faith in ’big, modern and all-inclusive’ are metaphysical in their way of thinking . . they don’t understand that small things can be transformed into big ones and less advanced indigenous and incomplete things into modern and all-inclusive ones. (PR #45, 1975, pp. 23-25)
The article goes on to provide several examples of this and explains how communes developing small and medium industry is essential to mechanizing agriculture, making communes the basic economic unit of the countryside and lessening the gap between city and country. The article should be studied carefully in its entirety.
In the spring and summer of 1976, the campaign to beat back the Right deviationist trend in industry was in full swing and the magazine China Reconstructs presented article after article showing how the workers in many industries were battling against the idea of “servility to foreign things.” The articles stressed socialist cooperation between all trades and initiative at the local level, as opposed to complete control by the ministry concerned:
Some 10,000 commune members and primary and middle school students have helped with the work, the former during slack periods, the latter after school. They have quarried, smashed, and transported 300,000 cubic meters of stone, gravel, and sand. Transport has been augmented by 150 tractors, nearly 400 junks and 1000 horse carts. This is completely different from before the Cultural Revolution when specialized construction teams from the Ministry of Transport worked alone. It has greatly speeded up construction of the port. (China Reconstructs. Oct., 1976, p. 46)
One article showed the struggle of workers in Shanghai to build a Chinese generator:
The 300 megawatt generator represents a new level in the development of China’s power industry and design and manufacture of big power plant equipment and demonstrates her ability to produce such equipment in complete sets. Before the Cultural Revolution Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping promoted a counter-revolutionary revisionist line, saying it was better to buy machines than to make them. .
Last year, under the influence of Teng Hsiao-ping’s Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, some people used imperfections in the trial operation to attack the generator unit and try to stop production of others. The workers, knowing that these were only part of the normal period of adjustment in getting a big generator unit working, kept it running. With support from the Shanghai Municipal Communist Party Committee they strengthened inspection and tried in every way to improve their work. Within a bit more than a year the performance of the unit had reached its designed standard. ’Teng Hsiao-ping didn’t want us to take the road of developing our own industry,’ the workers said proudly. ’But we’ll make more generator sets and bigger and better ones.’ (China Reconstructs. September, 1976, pp. 20-21)
In another article about a radio factory in Nanking:
During the Cultural Revolution, when mental shackles were being broken, the workers decided to make a semi-automatic assembling and end-cutting machine. Two ways of looking at it came out: design their own or copy foreign ones. Most of the workers were for self-reliance: ’When we do our own cooking,’ they said, ’we have what we like to eat. When we build a road it goes where we want it to go. Copying foreign machines will make us dependent on foreign countries, We’ll blaze our own trail. .’ Conservatives said: ’Look at the fledglings! Just learned to walk and now they want to fly! They’ll break their wings!’ ’Wings grow strong by flying!’ the young workers answered. Tests proved the new machine’s design was more rational and efficient than the foreign machine which some people had wanted to copy. The workers proudly said their machine had ’struck a blow for our country.’ (China Reconstructs, Sept., 1976, pp. 34-35)
The fact that the comprador bourgeois ideas of Teng Hsiao-ping had gained dominance in some of the ministries responsible for developing China’s industries and imports and exports does not mean that these ideas were correct or that the entire CCP was revisonist, any more than the fact that Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping’s revisionist policies were predominant in many areas before the Cultural Revolution meant that the entire CCP was revisionist at that time. However, these policies advocated by Teng Hsiao-ping since 1972-73 represented a serious threat to the overall socialist economic planning for that reason, as early as 1974 there was a serious and resolute struggle against them in the Central Committee of the Party. In late 1975 Chairman Mao initiated and led the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend and the struggle was carried to the masses of Chinese workers in factories and enterprises across the country. The dismissal of Teng Hsiao-ping by the unanimous decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in April, 1976, represented a tremendous victory for Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line of independence and self-reliance.
After Teng Hsiao-ping was dismissed, oil exports to Japan were nearly cut in half, steel imports from Japan were cut by more than half, and negotiations for new plants and capital equipment were suspended (China Trade Report, May, 1976, and June, 1976), a process of re-evaluation of foreign trade policies was begun, and a movement to stress self-reliance was launched. In 1976 China had a trade surplus (exporting $7. 2 billion or $1 billion more than imports) for the first time since 1973, as a result of cutting down of imports (Business Week, 3/14/77).
After the purge of Teng’s critics in October, the situation changed dramatically. In the second week of October, the new leaders signed a 5 month contract for 1. 5 million tons of steel from 6 major Japanese steel firms and in November contracted for another 400 thousand tons, as compared with 650,000 tons contracted in the entire year up ’til that time. The new leaders immediately resumed talks with British and American oil rig and technology suppliers and J.R. Pace, President of Baker Trading Co. of Texas said: “Some time around the middle of next year we expect petroleum equipment activity to pick up levels of pre-turmoil times [referring to the struggle against Teng Hsiao-ping’s Right deviation] . At that time it should begin to grow at a sizeable rate.”
Soon after the purge, China purchased two computer systems from Applied Devices Corporation in the United States and will soon buy three large Hitachi computers from Japan. As part of the sales agreements, Hitachi and Applied Devices personnel will have full access to computer centers and full information of computer use and programming.
After the purge, the Chinese also bought six helicopters from West Germany; it is reported that China is negotiating to buy helicopters, anti-tank weapons, radar equipment, and anti-aircraft missiles from the United States. China is reportedly seeking technological help from the United States in building defense production plants, but it’s not certain that the Pentagon will approve (N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, p. 6). The purchase of the fifty Rolls Royce aircraft engines through the efforts of Teng Hsiao-ping in late 1975 was the first major purchase of military hardware by the Chinese since the USSR pulled out its aid in the late 1950’s.
In late 1976, Chinese trade officials looked at three supersonic British-French Concorde jets worth $70 million each, and made a deposit on them. They are also considering buying a big order of Fletcher FU-24 planes from Aerospace Industries in New Zealand. China Airlines recently took out a $49. 5 million dollar loan with the First National City Bank of New York. (All information except where otherwise noted is from the China Trade Report. Nov., 1976-Feb. 1977)
Already the new leaders have bought several new complete plants from Japan and West Germany and the N.Y. Times Business Section of October 28, 1976 (only three weeks after the arrest of the “gang of four”) reports:
[Minister of Foreign Trade] Li Chiang is said to have told [Western diplomats and businessmen] that China would resume large scale foreign trade, particularly purchases of entire plants, in 1978.
To support this heavily increased spending on foreign technology, the new leaders are following Teng Hsiao-ping’s comprador bourgeois plan to sell off China’s oil at a highly rapid rate. Two major conferences were held in Peking in December to discuss increasing oil production and transportation capacity and then in February the Chinese foreign trade officials opened up discussions with the Japanese to increase oil exports from the present average of 150,000 barrels a day to up to 1,000,000 barrels a day (N.Y. Times, Feb. 13, 1977, p. 12) This dramatic increase apparently will not start this year because of technical and transportation problems, but should reach this level by 1980. China would have to increase its oil production 60-75 per cent (depending on how much domestic oil use increases) and would be exporting as much oil as it now uses. In May, 1977, Chairman Hua Kuo-fang announced the intention to build 10 more oilfields as big as Taching (China’s biggest) within this century. (PR #22, p. 17)
In order to increase oil production and exportation at this rate, China would have to I put a priority emphasis and investment into developing her oil industry, to the neglect of agriculture and other industry. This serves the interests of Japan’s oil needs and the market needs of capitalist oil equipment supply companies, and it fits into the plans of those in China who want to build up foreign exchange to buy foreign technology, but it can only hurt China’s effort to build her own industry based on her own efforts and increase grain production. The investment in oil production and transport will necessarily require funds to be accumulated in other sectors of the economy . . agriculture and other industry . . or borrowed from abroad!
In their rush to build up foreign exchange with which to buy foreign technology, the present leaders are drawing up plans to raise exports of coal to Japan from the present rate of 100,000 tons to 1,000,000 tons by 1980. Since the purge in October, the present leaders have also discussed massive sales of natural gas to Japan and Hong Kong and may build a pipeline to facilitate the transfer to Hong Kong.
Teng’s comprador bourgeois plan for modernization, championed by the present Chinese leaders, subjects China’s economy to the economic recessions, trends and rules of the capitalist world economy, takes all initiative away from the local levels and the workers, neglects small and medium industry and agriculture, and makes a mockery of the principle of self-reliance.
In a period of imminent world war between the superpowers, it is of utmost importance to develop self-reliance and decrease dependence on foreign trade for essential items. But the Ministry of Foreigh Trade and Teng Hsiao-ping were pushing for doubling and tripling foreign trade, making China dependent on the world market and extremely susceptible to and afraid of the chaos that world war creates in international trade. Also, while large, medium, and small-scale industry must be built simultaneously, medium and small local industry, dispersed around the country, are far less susceptible to foreign bombing attacks than centralized large-scale operations.
The importance of the principle of self-reliance applies to all socialist countries, as Comrade Enver Hoxha of Albania states:
No country whatsoever, big or small, can build socialism by taking credits or aid from the bourgeoisie and the revisionists or by integrating its economy into the world system of capitalist economy. Any such linking of the economy of a socialist country with the economy of bourgeois or revisionist countries opens the doors to the action of the economic laws of capitalism and the degeneration of the socialist order. This is the road of betrayal and the restoration of capitalism, which the the revisionist cliques have pursued and are pursuing.
Our country’s experience proves that the safeguarding of the economic and political independence and the defence of national sovereignty are closely linked with the consistent implementation of the principle of self-reliance. (Report to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, Nov., 1976)
Teng Hsiao-ping’s comprador bourgeois plan had gained predominance in many ministries since 1973, but it was carried on behind the scenes and in constant conflict with the correct line of self-reliance put forward by Chairman Mao. However, now that Chairman Mao has died, the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend has been reversed, and many of the Party’s leaders have been purged, the comprador bourgeois elements have been free to openly develop their plans.
The change in the basic line of the Party is clearly evident in the Peking Review. For at least two years before the purge, the Peking Review ignored the foreign-built plants that Teng Hsiao-ping and his cohorts were so proud of, and carried out a determined campaign against servility to foreign things and worship of “the big and the foreign” while resolutely supporting self-reliance. Since the purge, for many months nothing was published about industry; in fact, the section “on the Home Front” disappeared. Then, beginning with PR #4, 1977 (p. 31) and continuing in the next two issues, articles glorifying the long ignored foreign-built chemical plants appeared.
The Taching Chemical Fertilizer plant, a large new enterprise in the Taching Oil Field, was completed ahead of schedule . . and put into operation after a single successful trial run. Built at high speed and with top quality, it has an annual capacity equivalent to that of one million tons of standard chemical fertilizer. .
Some of the plant’s major installations were imported. But the spirit of the general line of ’going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism’ and the principle of ’relying mainly or our own efforts while making external assistance subsidiary’ were fully embodied in the building of the project. The ’gang of four’ came out and deliberately found fault with the project. In a thretening tone, they asked who gave permission to build the 300,000 ton synthetic ammonia unit. Chiang Ching even called for dismantling the imported installations.
In another article in the following issue (PR #5, p. 31) about a foreign-built petro-chemical plant, the slogan “relying mainly on our own efforts while making external assistance subsidiary” was dropped altogether and replaced with the slogan, “making foreign things serve China.” In the article about the foreign-built chemical fertilizer plant in PR #6 (pp. 31-32), even the word “self-reliance” is never used.
An article about a conference on light industry appeared in PR #7, 1977. Amazingly, or perhaps not so amazingly, there is not one mention of class struggle in the entire article. The article discusses the importance of light industry and of raising production but not once even mentions what, in a socialist society, is the key link in building industry – class struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line.
The comprador bourgeois nature of Teng Hsiao-ping and the new leaders comes through crystal clear in the reaction of the western capitalists to the events of the last year. The views of these imperialist bloodsuckers are expressed in the magazine China Trade Report in which they analyze the possibilities of capitalist profit in trade with the People’s Republic of China. The interests of Teng Hsiao-ping and the foreign capitalists were 100% compatible. China Trade Report clearly shows where their greed-oriented sympathies lie, and makes heroes out of comprador bourgeois elements led by Teng Hsiao-ping, acclaiming their plans of national betrayal:
Estimates of the extent of this potential oil wealth ranged very high. Some Japanese buyers, particularly hard hit by the Arab oil boycott following the Yom Kippur War, were predicting that Peking would be producing up to 400 million tons of crude annually by 1980, with fully one-quarter going for export . . But where foreigners – and many Chinese – saw commercial opportunity in accelerated oil exports, elements in the Chinese leadership, weaned on the Maoist canon of self-reliance, saw treachery.
Study and Criticism, the ideological journal of the so-called Shanghai leftists, published a detailed critique of Teng Hsiao-ping’s foreign trade programme shortly after the Tien An Men incident last April. In it, the connection between oil exports and capital imports was forcefully portrayed.
’To beg ’advanced technology’ and equipment from foreign capitalists,’ said the magazine, ’the unrepentant capitalist-roader Teng Hsiao-ping did not even scruple to pledge our country’s precious natural resources as security . . If this state of affairs were allowed to continue, wouldn’t our country turn into a market for the imperialists to dump their goods, into a raw material base, a repair and assembly workshop and an investment ground?’. .
With the century of national humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists still a powerful memory for many Chinese, this was compelling rhetoric. (China Trade Reports November, 1976)
Last spring, when Teng Hsiao-ping was dismissed, the new Western imperialists became very upset, as shown in an article called “After Tien An Men: Anxiety in the Air”:
Even before the violent demonstrations in Peking on April 5, some foreigners were gradually beginning to express anxiety about the prospects for trade with China. Among the mounting attacks on the former Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping ’the capitalist-reader within the Party’, significant criticisms were made of his pragmatic approach to foreign trade. He was reviled for reliance on ’things big and foreign’, almost certainly a reference to the major deals arranged last year, when Teng was trying rapidly to consolidate his position. . for example, the big Rolls Royce [aircraft) engine purchases (significantly, for the army, which is still considered to be pro-Teng), the Japanese oil tanker, and the U.S. offshore oil equipment. Soon after the dramatic outburst in Tien An Men Square, discouraging signs started to increase. The day after Teng was formally stripped of all his positions, the Hong Kong stockmarket dropped sharply by 13 points. . The about-turn, from China’s original desire to sell more oil to Japan, bullying them to expand imports to 10 million tons this year, then suddenly changing their minds to a figure of 6.1 million and, in fact, undershipping so far this year, can be related to conflicting ideas between radicals and moderates about trade policies. Japanese government circles were reportedly very concerned about a Red Flag article in April accusing the capitalist-roaders of adopting a foreign policy which, if continued, ’would eventually lead China to yielding its mineral resources to other countries,’ an old, if not justified, post-revolutionary Chinese fear. (China Trade Report, May, 1976)
Throughout the spring and summer of 1976, the magazine of the foreign capitalists displayed their anxiety in articles such as: “Taking China’s Rhetoric Seriously,” “The Nervous Men in Tokyo,” “The Oil Enigma,” “Tokyo: Trade Troubles,” etc. They were following the two-line struggle in China intensively, and encouraged businessmen to sit tight until Chairman Mao’s inevitable death:
[The] stalemate will not last forever. The most probable scenario is for the relatively low key maneauvering. . and its attendant contradictions . . to continue until the post-Mao era becomes a reality instead of an inevitability. Until that time, and for some period after, it would be unwise for China traders to chart a definitive course for their commercial involvement with Peking. If the rhetoric of the past several months has shown anything, it is that the stakes in the current struggle are very high. The winner, after all, will be able to define China’s political, developmental, and commercial course for quite some time to come. (China Trade Report. August, 1976)
After Chairman Mao died, in September, 1976, the hopes of the imperialist bloodsuckers jumped:
Mao Tse-tung is dead, but the basic questions about the future of China’s revolution survive him. For businessmen concerned with the China market, the most important is the direction of Peking’s foreign trade policy. Since the ouster of Teng Hsiao-ping, that policy has been floundering inconclusively. Neither Teng’s opponents, whose vision of economic autarky reflects Chairman Mao’s own call for national self-reliance, nor his supporters, whose programme of modernization through moderation provides for selected infusion of capital equipment and technology from the industrial world, have gained the upper hand. The resulting stalemate has effectively curtailed continued purchasing while leaving the door open for its early resumption.
It would be foolish to predict who will win. The foreign trade apparatus encompasses a considerable bureaucracy determined to expand Peking’s commercial links with the outside world. For the moment, though, they lack a leader with sufficient strength to press their case conclusively. Their future, and indeed the future of the China market, depends on the emergence of just such a forceful figure. China Trade Report. Oct. 1976)
Soon the foreign capitalists had found their new hero:
With stunning suddenness, China’s 20 year two-line political struggle appears to have been settled. Hua Kuo-feng, only a year ago a virtual unknown outside of China, has now been officially confirmed as Chairman of the Communist Party. . China’s new Chairman has shown himself to be a man of consummate political skill, and not a small measure of daring. Dismembering the Chiang Ching group required an almost Machiavellian sense of political intrigue, superb timing, and that special kind of fearlessness without which decisive action is impossible. (China Trade Report, December, 1976)
Capitalist restoration and national betrayal in China fits in perfectly with the imperialist needs of the foreign capitalists. They could not hold back their enthusiasm for the new leaders and the economic plans they hoped China would institute:
Now that the political climate has changed, the way would seem clearer for stepping up imports in the short term, only if the Chinese are willing to finance purchases on a medium-term deferred payment basis, at least, or alternatively step up their level of borrowing from foreign banks. . It is not inconceivable that after a surge of investment in agricultural mechanization, the regime will slowly reduce investment in the agricultural sector, in favour of heavy industry. China is now only just able to feed itself, so any de-emphasis on agriculture would probably mean expanded grain imports. In a more general commercial context, Teng Hsiao-ping’s bitterly criticised prescription of selling oil to finance acquisition of plant, technology and capital, equipment will probably come back into vogue now. .
More prominence will be given to qualified managers and technicians in Chinese industrial enterprises who in the past were often passed over in favour of more ideologically reliable officials. In line with this new emphasis on expertise, wage differentials could increase, and a system of material incentives, theoretically abolished during the Cultural Revolution, but allowed to re-emerge in selected factories during Teng Hsiao-ping’s brief return to power might be reinstituted. (China Trade Report, December, 1976)
Further speculating on post-purge policies, the foreign capitalists declare:
Now that the struggle over the course of China’s development appears to have been resolved, many China traders are interested in the economic priorities of the new leadership. .
Past emphasis on agriculture has largely been motivated by a desire to ensure self-sufficiency and at the same time reduce grain imports to a negligible and In fact, imports last year fell to their lowest level since 1960.
With Mao dead and his political surrogates removed from power, it may well be that the new agricultural conference intends to examine the entire agricultural question in a way that was impossible before. A reduction in the level of state investment in the agricultural sector might lead to increased grain imports, I the new administration has given no indication that they would have ideological qualms about taking such a step.
Another more important consequence of a reduction in agricultural emphasis would be the availability of more funds for investment in industrial sectors. . However, even if industry as an overall category does receive new emphasis, there remain important policy decisions to be made on the relative priorities given individual areas. For example, should more state investment go to coal or oil?. .
For foreign businessmen interested in selling to China, the decisions taken are of vital importance. Now that the new leadership has given clear signs that they wish to accelerate imports of technology, plant and capital equipment, the only factors affecting Chinese purchasing policy will be need, product competitiveness, money, and where the U.S. is concerned, diplomatic climate. For the prospective vendor this may sound like a considerable array of obstacles. . particularly if he is American . . but compared to the situation before the purge of the gang of four, it is a vast improvement. .
Whatever one says about the difficulties of doing business with the Chinese. . and they are formidable. . China is the largest untapped market for capital equipment in the world today. And because that market has finally decided to open itself up to the outside. . albeit slowly and tentatively. . foreign businessmen will finally have a chance to see exactly how big it is.” (China Trade Report. January, 1977)
So far we have seen that the present Chinese leaders have fulfilled many of the wishes of the imperialist traders, buying unprecedented amounts of grain, steel, plants and technology, and contracting to sell record amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal. This is one aspect of a capitalist restoration which inevitably involves every sector of Chinese society – agriculture, industry, education, health, literature and art, the army, commerce, the Party and the state.
We can see the dramatic change in the sector of foreign trade because it is external and very visible. Although we can report on the changes we see in the line presented in the Peking Review, we cannot otherwise document the changes being made in the other sectors, which will surely be just as profound.
In contrast to the serious criticisms laid out in the Peking Review in 1976 against the foreign capitulation of the comprador bourgeois line of Teng Hsiao-ping, the charges that the “gang of four” “worshiped things foreign, fawned on foreigners, and maintained ilicit foreign relations, engaging in flagrant activities of capitulationism and national betrayal” refer to privately watching foreign movies and to Chiang Ching giving an “un-authorized” interview to an American historian, Roxanne Witke, whose biography of Chiang Ching has now been published. Their accusers haven’t come up with any other concrete’ evidence to prove their charges!
[1] More than 120 complete foreign plants were bought between 1973 and 1975, as compared with almost none between 1959 and 1973.
[2] Nineteen other smaller chemical fertilizer plants were purchased abroad during the same period.