Workers World Vol. 18, No. 15
April 7 – Monday’s massive demonstration in Peking’s Tien An Men Square is an ominous development which may have far-reaching consequences, not only for People’s China, but in large measure for the rest of the world.
This is the first time that the right-wing in China has more or less come out in the open. Of course, there have been many demonstrations, particularly during the period of the Cultural Revolution, that were led by the rightists. But they were always of an ambiguous character, and the rightists almost always covered themselves so thoroughly with signs and posters of Mao that their demonstrations could scarcely be identified as right-wing in character.
The demonstration this week, ostensibly held to honor the memory of Chou En-lai, could virtually be called a support demonstration for the rightists and a bourgeois threat to the regime.
The ouster of Foreign Minister Teng Hsiao-ping from all his Party posts, announced today, does not change the fundamental character of this struggle. Actually, he was done for weeks ago after the press campaign which demonstrated that the Mao forces are in control of the media. And, it should be noted, his ouster came only in the shadow of units of the People’s Liberation Army entering the capital.
It is foolish to assert, as did the People’s Daily of Peking (Jenmin Jih Pao) the day after the demonstration, that the thousands in Tien An Men Square represented “a small handful of class enemies,” and then in virtually the same breath to affirm the existence of an “acute and complex class struggle.”
If an “acute and complex class struggle” exists in the country, then surely the demonstration in Peking was a reflection of it and could not merely have been the manipulation of a handful of class enemies. But even if the latter were so, it would demonstrate that the handful were representative of what in fact may be large numbers – not necessarily overwhelming – but nevertheless significant reactionary support of a magnitude which seems to be surprising, not merely to supporters abroad, but perhaps to the Mao leadership itself.
The wreath-laying at the grave of Chou En-lai, which was seen as a challenge to the Mao leadership, smacks somewhat of the wreath-laying ceremonies at the statue of Kossuth in Budapest in 1956 – even though Chou, of course, was not simply a nationalist like Kossuth.
We stated in an earlier issue of Workers World that the struggle against the rightists has been in the nature of a succession struggle, and that it differed from the Cultural Revolution in that it did not involve the masses. Alas, the masses are now involved. Unfortunately, it is the rightists who have invoked the support, and whether consciously or unconsciously, the outpouring of the masses was a show of unexpected support for reaction.
The demonstration in Peking should be seen in the light of the fact that the government found it necessary, not so long ago, to send out People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units into some factories which had become infected with “bourgeois factionalism.”
Too little attention was paid to this event, but whichever way one looks at it, the very need for the presence of the armed forces in any plant is a danger signal for the revolution. (Of course, the PLA also played a decisive role in the Cultural Revolution, particularly in Shanghai right after the formation of the short-lived Shanghai Commune.)
There are those who would say that a demonstration of 30,000 or even 100,000 in a country with a population as huge as China’s is really a drop in the bucket.
That certainly would make a good argument, were it not for the fact that this was a hostile demonstration, unambiguous in its political connotations, and unlike anything that has taken place in China before, even during the Cultural Revolution.
Now that the rightists have succeeded in bringing their mass support into the street, it logically should follow that the Maoist supporters will call out one of those truly giant demonstrations to show support for Mao’s policies and condemnation for the rightists.
But this will not balance out the right-wing show of strength. Even a repeat of the tactic of calling on the Red Guards, which played a revolutionary role in the Cultural Revolution and released genuine, spontaneous enthusiasm, is admittedly artificial under present circumstances. It is even likely to be counter-productive, precisely because no mass mood exists for it, as is recognized in the People’s Daily editorial we referred to earlier in this article.
It is erroneous, of course, to state that an “acute and complex class struggle” is raging in China today. On the contrary, the classes are not yet in motion or there would be reports of it.
There is an acute struggle raging, all right, but it is within the confines of the Party leadership and Party apparatus.
What really characterizes the struggle is the confusion generated by the lack of a clear-cut, well-defined line of political demarcation between open tendencies.
Mao’s supporters will quickly rebut this by saying that the rightists do not want to come out in the open; they have always been hiding behind the banner of Mao.
This is all too true. However, the responsibility for this rests, as least in part, with the Mao leadership for the way it has been conducting the struggle beginning with the 1957 “let a hundred flowers bloom” campaign.
At that time, the Party leaders, under Mao’s chairmanship, opened the floodgates wide to any and all political criticism, almost indiscriminately. The ugly specter of the bourgeois rightists became so prominent in the criticism that the campaign had to be ended abruptly.
It subsequently became clear that the campaign did not really suppress or defeat the bourgeois restorationists. It merely drove them underground. In doing so, however, it closed the door to genuine working class criticism.
From then on, it became standard for any and all opposition to speak in camouflaged language, and the Mao leadership did nothing to discourage this.
The practice of Leninist democracy -- that is, of permitting genuine political opposition of a working-class character with the right to speak freely – has been non-existent. This is one of the fundamental defects which was not corrected by the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution did set the bourgeois restorationists back on their heels, and opened a new chapter which invigorated the proletarian dictatorship. But unfortunately, the Mao leadership itself partially reversed the course of the Cultural Revolution.
It did this in two ways. First, there was the so-called Lin Piao death plot, which was used to explain his own death. This signaled a truly fundamental reorientation of China’s foreign policy in a reactionary direction. This began with the Nixon visit in the midst of the Vietnam war and has reached a crescendo with the support of the imperialist puppets in the Angola situation.
Secondly, the Party leadership brought back into prominent positions of power and authority figures like Teng Hsiao-ping, who was made Senior Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman of the Party, and Acting Chief of Staff of the Army. A figure who had been cast down during the Cultural Revolution, his rehabilitation was carried out without any public explanation or discussion!
And to compound the confusion, the violent press campaign against Teng as a “capitalist roader” was opened up without first bringing out to the masses the discussion in the Central Committee.
By this time, the whole world knows who Teng Hsiao-ping is. What the mass of the working class of China and the rest of the world do not know is why Teng, who was completely discredited during the Cultural Revolution, was reinstated to such a preeminent position – and with the indisputable blessing of Chairman Mao.
We are not fully apprised of who actually comprise the right-wing, but in our view, the right-wing goes far beyond Teng and the official supporters. It is highly likely that stronger rightist elements are biding their time awaiting the final episode in the succession struggle.
Monday’s demonstration could only have come about after a considerable erosion of revolutionary support from the masses at home and abroad, following Lin Piao’s death and Teng’s reinstatement and elevation.
This is something that pro-Mao supporters abroad, particularly in this country, should be able to face up to. It should come as a sobering development to those who have never been able to face up to the real situation behind the struggle in China, but who have been, more often than not, mere sycophants repeating whatever the current line has been.
This article has covered some of the important elements behind the current crisis in the leadership of People’s China. We will have to await further events to give a fuller assessment of the developing crisis.
Editor’s note: This commentary on the events of the past week has been preceded in the pages of Workers World by many articles by Comrade Sam Marcy and others analyzing developments in China. Readers interested in a fuller exposition of the viewpoint of Workers World Party on this question will want to read China: The Struggle Within, which covers the period 1959-1972.
Last updated: 11 May 2026