The central theme in the anti-four campaign is that they:
. . carried out sectarian activities to split the Party, they plotted tirelessly to overthrow large numbers of leading Party, government, and army comrades in the central organs and various localities and usurp Party and state leadership. During the period when Chairman Mao was seriously ill and after he passed away they launched even more frantic attacks on the Party in a hasty attempt to usurp the supreme leadership of the Party and state. (Wu Teh, speech of Oct. 24, PR #44, 1976, p. 13)
The book A Basic Understanding of the Communist Party of China explains:
The Party Constitution states that the comrades must adhere to the principles of: practicing Marxism and not revisionism, uniting and not splitting and being open and aboveboard and not intriguing and conspiring. These three principles constitute the norm which enables us to distinguish the correct line from the incorrect line. . Of these three principles formulated by Chairman Mao on what to do and what not to do, the most fundamental is to practice Marxism and not revisionism,, A person who practices Marxism and not revisionism and serves the interests of the vast majority of the population of China and the world with all fhis heart necessarily works for unity and is open and above board; a person who practices revisionism and serves the minority of elements of the exploiting classes inevitably works for splits and engages in intrigues and conspiracies. For over 50 years, the struggles inside our Party between the Marxist-Leninist line represented by Chairman Mao and the various opportunist lines have always in the final analysis been over the question of whether to practice Marxism or revisionism. (p. 57)
Obviously somebody “carried out sectarian activities to split the Party, plotted to overthrow large numbers of leading comrades and usurp Party and state leadership,” To determine who split and conspired we must first determine the most important question: Who practiced revisionism and who practiced Marxism?
Struggling against anti-Marxist trends in the Party is very clearly not splitting the Party; it is strengthening it. The nature of the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend was described in an article in PR #12. 1976 (p. 13):
The present struggle against the revisionist line in China is a continuation and deepening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is an inevitable reflection within the Party of class struggle and the struggle between two roads going on in society. Representing the interests of the overthrown landlord and capitalist classes and of the new bourgeoisie, the Party persons in power taking the capitalist road are always looking for an opportunity for a trial of strength with the revolutionary people in a vain attempt to restore capitalism in China. This will naturally be counter-attacked by the Party and the people of the whole country.
From the very beginning, the current struggle against the revisionist line has been proceeding in an organized way under the leadership of Party organizations at all levels. It will stimulate the study of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought by the people of the whole country, raise the consciousness of China’s 800 million people in continuing the revolution under socialism, fire their enthusiasm for socialist revolution and construction, promote progress in the political, economic, and cultural fields, enhance stability and unity and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat still further so that China continues to advance triumphantly along Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line.
The struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend and remove capitalist-readers like Teng Hsiao-ping from power was not an attempt to split the Party; it was not an intrigue or a conspiracy. It was an open, aboveboard Marxist-Leninist mass movement led by Mao Tse-tung to rectify the Party, strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat, and continue on the socialist road.
To back up their charges of “splitting, intriguing and conspiring,” the present leaders say that the “gang of four” stirred up the masses against provincial Party leaders, created literary and art works that attack capitalist-roaders, and launched attacks against central Party and government leaders in central planning meetings. They also “launched slanderous attacks in the matter of foreign trade,” “sent their henchmen in to cause problems and attack responsible leaders in many communes,” “tried to throw out work teams,” “plotted to organize a political movement and study campaigns in the army to ’overthrow the bourgeoisie’,” etc. etc. etc. The present leaders try to confuse “intriguing and conspiring” with open and aboveboard mass struggle. Bringing questions out into the open and arousing the masses to criticize, struggle, and transform are the essential elements of class struggle in China. Using the new criteria of the present leaders, the entire Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was the biggest conspiracy in the history of the Chinese Revolution and Chairman Mao was the Number One Conspirator!
The revisionists consistently oppose mass movements, for they themselves come under attack. In the early 1960’s, in reaction to the anti-Rightist campaign launched by Chairman Mao after the Lushan conference of 1959, Liu Shao-chi demanded that all Party organizations guilty of “Leftist” mistakes:
.. . must promptly rectify them and shall not be allowed to carry out such excessive struggle. They should follow a set of normal standards of inner-Party struggle that have been formed long ago in our Party.(Between Two Plenums, E. Joffe, U. of Michigan)
Teng Hsiao-ping said during the same period:
In the past few years we have carried out many large-scale movements. . It is not good to have a movement every day. (Between Two Plenums)
Mass struggle is not the tool of the revisionists, for they are incapable of maintaining the longterm support of the masses. They try to rally backward sectors of the masses around them in defensive maneuvers once they are the subject of the attack of the mass movement, such as they did during the Cultural Revolution, forming student and worker contingents to defend the status quo. This is exactly what they did when they came under attack during the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend in 1976. On April 5th, a handful of supporters of Teng Hsiao-ping attempted to use a massive memorial for Chou En-lai in Tien An Men Square in Peking to whip up support for their revisionist line and turned the event into a violent counter-revolutionary incident. Within hours of the incident, masses of workers came out to denounce the reactionaries who had planned the counter-revolutionary incident and support the correct proletarian line and the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist attempt. They marched all night and into the next day. The next day, Renmin Ribao (Peoples’ Daily) published the editorial “Firmly Keep to the General Orientation of the Struggle”:
We should study conscientiously and be clear about the nature of the current struggle and the guiding principles and policies for it. If we do not study, we are liable to lose our bearings and be taken in. The unrepentant Party capitalist-reader tTeng} is the general representative of the bourgeoisie. His revisionist programme, his revisionist line, and his reactionary words and deeds are a concentrated embodiment of the desire of the bourgeoisie for restoration. By directing the spearhead of the struggle at him and making a penetrating exposure and criticism, we shall be able to distinguish between right and wrong political lines, unite upwards of 95% of the cadres and masses, and win still greater victories in the counter-attack against the Right deviationist wind. If we keep a firm grip on this point, the class enemy’s scheme to switch the general orientation of the struggle will be brought to total bankruptcy.
It is imperative to heighten our revolutionary vigilance. Being a serious class struggle, the counter-attack against the Right deviationist attempt is bound to meet with rabid resistance and disruption from class enemies at home and abroad, particularly the bourgeoisie in the Party. It is necessary to strengthen leadership over the movement. The current anti-Right deviationist struggle is being conducted under the unified leadership of Party committees at various levels. We should not establish inter-unit ties. We should not organize fighting groups or gang up in factions. We should have faith in the masses and rely on them. We should educate the few people who are misled and duped by rumors and do ideological work well among them. Let us unite and advance along the course indicated by Chairman Mao!
Unite and follow Party leadership against the rumors and splitting activities of the Right! . . this was the message of the Peking Reviews and of the Chinese press of the time. Two days after the incident, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee met and declared that “the problem of Teng Hsiao-ping has become one of antagonistic contradiction”, dismissing him from all his posts within and outside the Party. This was a unanimous decision. The decision was not the result of splitting, intriguing and conspiring by the “gang of four.” It was the result of Chairman Mao Tse-tung uniting the many to defeat the few. Obviously, however, there were people present at that Political Bureau meeting of April 1976, who did not consider that they were in antagonistic contradiction with Teng Hsiao-ping, or that he should be removed. But did they raise their voices in dissent? No, they voted unanimously along with the entire Political Bureau.
Hua Kuo-feng said nothing. Neither did Li Hsien-nien nor Yeh Chien-ying, nor any of the others who are now so free and loud in criticizing last year’s struggle to beat back the Right deviationist wind. Until Chairman Mao had died and they had succeeded in arresting in one sweep the “gang of four” and the rest of the most important leaders of the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend, the present leaders kept up the pretense of supporting the struggle.
Obviously, after the backfire of the counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square, the revisionists returned to back rooms to do their “criticizing.”
The revisionists cannot wage principled struggle because the truth and the will of the people are not with them. They must engage in lies, intrigues, and conspiracies, their main goal being to split the Party, suppress the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary forces, and usurp Party and state power. After the death of Mao Tse-tung last year, the current leaders switched the, general orientation of the struggle and directed the spearhead of the attack at the “gang of four” instead of Teng Hsiao-ping. The campaign to deepen the criticism of Teng and the Right deviationist attempt abruptly ended and has been swept aside by a new campaign against the four that in substance criticizes Left tendencies.
The present leaders have not only dramatically ended the campaign to beat back the Right deviationist trend and deepen the criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping, but they make the main point of the criticism of the “gang of four” their role in it. They are not only attacking its manifestations and the way it was handled; they are attacking its very essence, its general orientation. By backhandedly defending Teng Hsiao-ping and by reinstituting his policies, they are saying that the entire anti-Right campaign was basically wrong. The main leaders of that campaign in the universities, the schools, the communes, the factories, the militia, the cultural media, and the Central Committee have been removed, purged, or arrested.
Was the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist trend “fabricated” or wrong in general orientation? Was Teng Hsiao-ping an arch unrepentant capitalist-roader who intended to restore capitalism or was he a responsible revolutionary communist comrade who was victimized by the “gang of four”? Who is following the proletarian revolutionary line of Mao Tse-tung?
The present leaders may cite a few instructions of Chairman Mao to the “gang of four” that in a more or less comradely way criticize some of their tactics, but in no way criticize their general orientation or their basic political line (check them out, comrades!). They can also say that the four “tormented Chairman Mao,” “twisted and opposed his instructions,” and basically opposed him. This is very easy to say now that he is dead, and that his closest associates, including his personal secretary, are under arrest.
The fact is that Chairman Mao could very easily have launched a campaign to criticize the “gang of four.” If they were as dangerous and revisionist as the present leaders say they were, it is very strange that he did not do exactly that. But Chairman Mao did exactly the opposite – he launched a campaign to beat back the Right deviationist trend and criticize Teng Hsiao-ping. This cannot be and isn’t denied by the present leaders. Chairman Mao’s differences with Teng were irreconcilable; they were antagonistic, differences of general orientation and basic political line. Obviously the basic political line of Chairman Mao and that of the present leaders is very different and that is why they had to wait until he died in order to reverse the struggle he had launched.
The political line of the present leaders is essentially the same as that of Teng Hsiao-ping and he has probably been active behind the scenes in the entire struggle. The Right deviationist wind that he stirred up has turned into a hurricane and his plot to seize power and purge his “class enemies” has been realized. The revisionists have seized control of the Communist Party of China and its nature has now changed. It is now dominated by the new bourgeoisie of China.
Revisionists inside communist parties must use Marxist language to cover up their revisionist ideology. The revisionists in the Soviet Union still today use Marxist terminology to cover up their revisionism. Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao, and Teng Hsiao-ping did, too. But . .
The most essential political characteristic of the capitalist-reader in the Party is that they push the revisionist line and cling to the capitalist road. In analyzing them we must first and foremost grasp this characteristic and from the viewpoint of political line get a clear understanding of their essence. (PR #25, 1976, p. 8)
The present leaders in China still use Marxist language to write their articles and repeat the principles of Mao Tse-tung such as “class struggle is the key link,” “continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, “putting politics in command,” etc. and they talk about studying Marxism and praise Mao Tse-tung. This confuses many people who see only words and are not familiar enough with the history and nature of the two-line struggle in China. Similarly, those not informed as to the history of the struggle in the Soviet Union may be fooled by the use of Marxist language by the new tzars, their talk of support for national liberation struggles, and their apparent reverence for Lenin. We must not be fooled by words; they are cheap. We must be particularly careful to find out what the essence of the nature of the campaign against the “gang of four” is and what the actual practice of the new leaders is in the different sectors of Chinese society such as foreign trade, literature and art, education, industry, and agriculture. We must read the articles that the present government writes analytically and not try to comfort ourselves in superficial phrase-mongering. We must understand exactly where the spearhead of attack is aimed.
The revisionists, though they try to cover it up, must expose themselves. Thus, although Khrushchev portrayed himself as a strong Stalinist for two years after Stalin’s death, in order to restore capitalism he had to expose himself and denounce Stalin. And the Soviet revisionists, for all the Marxist words they use, have had to put out openly revisionist theories to defend their practice.
Not only will the present government in China have to expose its revisionist line more and more but it will have to continually resort to intrigue and conspiracy against the people in order to try to maintain control. All bourgeois governments must be governments of intrigue and conspiracy because they represent the interests of the few vs. the many.