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China & World Revolution
From International Socialism (1st series), No.78, May 1975, p.16.
This federation of organisations in Hunan was attacked by the leadership of the Party during the Cultural Revolution. In particular, Minister of Public Security K’ang Sheng (24 January 1968) alleged:
‘They describe the State and the Party leadership led by Chairman Mao as a privileged class similar to Khrushchev’s Party ... They say that the provincial revolutionary committees and preparatory groups for these are all reformists ...’
Sheng-wu-lien argued in one of their few documents to have come out of China, Whither China? that the Cultural Revolution had arisen because of contradictions between the ‘bureaucratic bourgeoisie’ and the people. Lenin said, they argued, that a revolution is a change of classes, but classes had not changed in China:
‘The rule of the new bureaucratic bourgeoisie must be overthrown by force in order to solve the problem of political power. Empty shouting about realising the 7 May directive (Mao’s instruction for the rectification campaign in the army) without any reference to the seizure of power and utter smashing of the old State machinery will of course be a “utopian” dream
‘The class of “Red” capitalists (have) completely become a decaying class that hinders the progress of history ...
‘As a result, the fruit of the revolution was in the final analysis taken by the capitalist class ...
‘The Revolutionary Committees (set up by the Party leadership to unite representatives of the army, the Party and “new mass organisations” and end the Cultural Revolution) amount to a reinstatement of the bureaucrats already toppled in the January revolution. Inevitably, it will be the form of political power to be usurped by the bourgeoisie, at which the local bureaucrats are to play a leading role ...
‘Before the Cultural Revolution, the bureaucrats dared not really hand over arms to the people. The militia is only a facade behind which the bureaucrats control the armed strength of the people. It is certainly not an armed force of the working class, but a docile tool in the hands of the bureaucrats ...
‘The revolution by dismissal of officials is only bourgeois reformism which changes in a zigzagging way the new bureaucratic rule before the Cultural Revolution into another kind of bourgeois rule of bourgeois bureaucrats ...
‘The real revolution, the revolution to negate the past 17 years, has basically not yet begun ...
‘The bourgeoisie always represent the form of political power of their rule as the most perfect, flawless thing, in the world that serves the whole people. The new bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the brutes of the Right-wing of the petty bourgeoisie who depend on them are doing exactly that.’
China & World Revolution
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Last updated: 2.3.2008