The Cultural Revolution in China had great effects in stimulating and informing the anti-revisionist communist movement worldwide, and in the movement we are most familiar with, the New Communist Movement in the United States. For the New Communist Movement, the cultural Revolution was a symbol of the revolutionary character and vitality of anti-revisionist Marxism, and provided a living alternative to the ossified social relations and practices of the Soviet Union. In fact, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was such a force that even its symbols become the symbols of the New Communist Movement; the Red Book, the slogans and other manifestations of this event became the common form in which anti-revisionism in America was expressed and contained. One’s credibility was surely in question without adherence to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse tung Thought (MLMTTT) and all answers could be traceable to this terrain. This, as should be obvious, is the typical manner in which U.S. communism has addressed its tasks, and this week we have the opportunity to behold one of its prime examples, the Revolutionary Communist Party and its Mao Tse-tung Memorial meeting here in Tucson. As RCP’s hope is to uphold the advances of the Cultural Revolution we will learn much from the manner in which they attempt this and in so doing see how a profound historical/political event is understood by a movement theoretically unequipped to do so.
1. Why did the Cultural Revolution occur? To what was it a response and of what was it an affirmation?
2. What was the character of the Cultural Revolution’s execution? What forms of organization and struggle did the Cultural Revolution take? How could these be considered advances in relation to pre-existing forms of organization and struggle? How might they not?
3. Discuss the difference between the international line of China in Lin Piao’s Long Live the Victory of People’s War, with that of the international line to be found in A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, which we recently read. How is world revolution to be conducted? How is the role of the proletariat conceived and what are the nature of class alliances in each? What might this mean for each line as a whole?
4. What role has the Cultural Revolution played in the practices of the New Communist Movement and how has it effected the movement? How does the Revolutionary Communist Party reflect this and other aspects of the practice of the New Communist Movement?
Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of People’s war, The Problem of Mass Democracy, pp. 9-30.
Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China, pp. 91-103.
Charles Bettelheim, The Great Leap Backward, pp.40-41.
Colin Brown, China: 1949-1976, pp.35-51.