The leading Marxist-Leninists were forced to realise by these developments that before effective action could be taken in the direction of ousting the representatives of the capitalist class from the new-democratic state and so opening the way to socialism in China, they were compelled to wage an inner-party struggle against the revisionist faction led by Mao Tse-tung.
At the meeting of the Central Committee held at Wuhan in November/December 1958 they succeeded in winning majority support for a resolution on the question of the communes, a resolution which deplored attempts to distribute supplies according to need:
Any attempt to enter communism by over-reaching ourselves when conditions are not mature is undoubtedly a Utopian concept that cannot succeed. (Resolution on Some Questions Concerning the People’s Communes: in: “Peking Review”, No. 43, 1958; p.13).
This was, of course, a direct vote of no confidence in Mao Tse-tung, who had personally associated himself with the concept which the Central Committee “deplored”. Although Mao’s term of office as President of the People’s Republic of China was not due to expire until the following year, they succeeded in forcing his resignation from that position, although permitting him to remain in the post of Chairman of the Party.
In April 1959 the National People’s Congress elected the leading Marxist-Leninist Liu Shao-chi to the position of President of the People’s Republic, in succession to Mao Tse-tung.
The next few years, with the Marxist-Leninists in the ascendancy, were the years in which the Communist Party of China played an outstanding role in the exposure of modern revisionism. In April 1960 appeared the famous article by the editorial departments of “Hongqi” (Red Flag) – “Long Live Leninism!”, and there followed it out of Peking a series of, on the whole, magnificent exposes of the treacherous role being played by the modem revisionists, led by those in the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
It was during these years that the Chinese Party published its important document “A Proposal concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement”, which appeared in June 1963.
And it was during these years that the revisionist faction, led by Mao Tse-tung prepared its grand strategy to defeat and destroy the Marxist-Leninists.