FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS
PEKING 1973
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The four articles contained in this booklet may help to acquaint our readers with the major struggles on New China's philosophical front since its founding in 1949. Written by the Revolutionary Mass Criticism Writing Group of the Party School under the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, they first appeared separately in Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), Hongqi (Red Flag) and Guangming Ribao (Kwangming Daily). The present translation is made from an abridged version of the Chinese text.
Three Major Struggles on China's Philosophical Front | |
The Theory of "Synthesized Economic Base" Must Be | |
Momentous Struggle on the Question of the Identity Be- | |
The Theory of "Combine Two into One" Is a Reactionary |
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"The philosophy of the Communist Party is the philosophy of struggle." "Marxism can develop only through struggle, and not only is this true of the past and the present, it is necessarily true of the future as well."
Between 1949 and 1964, three major struggles of principle took place on China's philosophical front, centring around the question of China's economic base and superstructure, the question of whether there is identity between thinking and being, and the question of one divides into two or "combine two into one." These struggles were provoked one after another by Yang Hsien-chen, agent of the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi in philosophical circles, at crucial junctures in the struggle between the two classes (the proletariat and the bourgeoisie), the two roads (socialism and capitalism) and the two lines (Chairman Mao Tsetung's proletarian revolutionary line and Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line). They were fierce struggles between dialectical materialism and historical materialism on the one hand and idealism and metaphysics on the other, and were a reflection on the philosophical front of the acute class struggle at home and abroad.
The founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 marked the basic conclusion of the stage of China's new-democratic revolution and the beginning of the stage of its socialist revolution. In his Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in March 1949, our great leader Chairman Mao pointed out that after the countrywide victory of the Chinese revolution the basic contradiction in Chinese society was "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie"; he urged the people to continue the revolution, strengthen the people's democratic dictatorship, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat, and "build China into a great socialist state." At the end of 1952, Chairman Mao went further to formulate the general line for the period of transition: bringing about, step by step, the socialist industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce.
Running counter to this, Liu Shao-chi openly opposed the spirit of the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Seventh Central Committee. As early as 1949, the year the session was held, he desperately preached the fallacy that "exploitation is a merit" and advocated the development of capitalism. Waving the tattered banner of the "theory of productive forces" after liberation, he dished up a sinister programme for developing capitalism which called for "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy[1] to consolidate the new-democratic system."
This showed that he blatantly opposed the Party's general line for the period of transition.
At that moment of acute struggle between Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line, Yang Hsien-chen, at the bidding of Liu Shao-chi, churned out the so-called theory of "synthesized economic base," thereby provoking the first big struggle on the philosophical front.
Yang Hsien-chen claimed that the economic base during the period of transition was of a "synthesized nature," "including both the socialist sector and the capitalist sector of the economy" which "can develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way." He babbled that the socialist superstructure should, without discrimination, "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist sector of the economy, and "also serve the bourgeoisie." This was the notorious theory of "synthesized economic base."
It is obvious that, in putting forward these reactionary absurdities, Yang Hsien-chen obliterated the diametrical antagonism and struggle between the socialist economy and the capitalist economy, and denied the class nature of the superstructure, his aim being all-round class collaboration and class capitulation in all spheres, from the economic base to the superstructure. This was an attempt to change the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country, oppose the establishment of a socialist economic base and perpetuate capitalism in China.
The theory of "synthesized economic base," which advocated the development of capitalism, was nothing
new. It was just a variant of the "theory of productive forces" which old and new revisionists in China and other countries have held sacred for scores of years. According to this "theory," China must not carry out the socialist transformation of the private ownership of the means of production, it cannot go in for socialism but can only allow capitalism to spread unchecked, because its productive forces are backward and capitalism is not developed.
As soon as Yang Hsien-chen trotted out his reactionary fallacy, he was dealt a head-on blow by the proletariat. Not reconciled to defeat, he concocted in 1955 an article entitled "On the Question of the Base and the Superstructure During the Transition Period in the People's Republic of China," preaching his theory of "synthesized economic base" more systematically than ever. When he sent his sinister article to Liu Shao-chi for examination, the latter openly supported him and said: "You are right," adding that private capitalism "is a component of the base."
Chairman Mao sternly criticized Liu Shao-chi's reactionary programme of "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy to consolidate the new-democratic system," pointing out that its reactionary nature lay in its advocating the development of capitalism. Under the guidance of Mao Tsetung Thought, the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production was basically completed in 1956 and the Party's general line for the period of transition was successfully implemented. Yang Hsien-chen's theory of "synthesized economic base" not only went bankrupt theoretically but was thoroughly smashed by revolutionary practice.
"Revolution means liberating the productive forces." The socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has greatly promoted the growth of productive forces. In 1958, Chairman Mao put forward the general line of going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, once grasped by the masses, becomes a material force capable of changing the world, a force under whose impact the entire old superstructure and ideology crumble. "So inspired, so militant and so daring," the Chinese people brought their conscious dynamic role and revolutionary initiative into full play, creating the new situation of the great leap forward in socialist construction and establishing the people's communes which are of great historic significance.
The swift, forceful development of revolution and construction scared the handful of Right opportunists out of their wits. Liu Shao-chi et al. jumped out and frenziedly attacked the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune and slandered the revolutionary mass movements. They accused the Party of "subjective idealism" which "exaggerated man's conscious dynamic role." Taking his cue from Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen seized the opportunity and provoked a new battle in the field of philosophy by dishing up the theory that "there is no identity between thinking and being."
Yang Hsien-chen arbitrarily declared: "Identity between thinking and being is an idealist proposition." He raved that "identity between thinking and being" and
"dialectical identity" did not mean the same thing, that they belonged to "two different categories." Viciously distorting Marxism-Leninism, he tried to set the identity between thinking and being against the materialist theory of reflection, alleging that, with regard to the question of the relationship between thinking and being, "materialism uses the theory of reflection to solve it, while idealism solves it by means of identity."
Materialist dialectics teaches us that the law of the unity of opposites is universal. The identity of opposites, that is, their mutual dependence for existence and their transformation into each other, is undoubtedly applicable to the relationship between thinking and being. By denying the identity between thinking and being, Yang Hsien-chen was denying that the two opposite aspects of the contradiction, thinking and being, depended on each other for their existence and could transform themselves into each other in given conditions. If Yang Hsien-chen's assertion were true, the law of the unity of opposites as taught by dialectics would not be universal.
Yang Hsien-chen metaphysically negated the interconnection between thinking and being, regarding them as absolute opposites. Thus he sank into dualism and, from there, into subjective idealism. He denied the dynamic role of revolutionary theory and opposed the revolutionary mass movement. He exaggerated the non-essential and secondary aspects of the revolutionary mass movement to the point of absurdity. He concentrated his attack on one point to the complete disregard of the rest, closing his eyes completely to the essence and the main aspects of the revolutionary mass movement. He even had no scruples to palm off his counter-revolutionary subjective perceptions as the objective reality. He did
all this in a vain attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism.
By denying the dialectical identity between thinking and being, Yang Hsien-chen was, in the final analysis, opposed to arming the masses with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and using it to actively transform the world, that is to say, he was trying to hoodwink the masses with counter-revolutionary revisionist ideas and attempting to transform the world with the reactionary world outlook of the bourgeoisie. It was precisely this reactionary theory of Yang Hsien-chen's that provided the "theoretical basis" for Liu Shao-chi's slavish comprador philosophy and his doctrine of trailing behind at a snail's pace.
Backed by Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen started preaching this reactionary theory in 1955. In 1957, he went so far as to flagrantly demand that those opposing his trash and consistently advocating the identity between thinking and being be labelled "Rightists." In 1958, he knocked together his sinister article "A Brief Discussion of Two Categories of 'Identity,' " branding as "subjective idealism" the scientific thesis that there is identity between thinking and being; then he ordered his men to write articles to propagate his reactionary theory. Chairman Mao sharply pointed out the reactionary essence of Yang Hsien-chen's fallacy in October the same year, but the latter resisted for all he was worth. Also, when giving lectures in November 1958, Yang Hsien-chen vilified the theory of the identity between thinking and being as "sheer nonsense and out-and-out reactionary theory." And between 1959 and 1964, in close co-ordination with Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary activities for capitalist restoration, he
repeatedly waged counter-attacks against Mao Tsetung Thought on this particular question. But all these schemes fell apart one after another under the crushing blows from the proletariat.
In 1963, Chairman Mao wrote the well-known article Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? In it he penetratingly expounded the great truth that "matter can be transformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter," creatively developed the Marxist theory of knowledge and thoroughly criticized the bourgeois idealism and metaphysics of Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen and company, and made a scientific summation of the struggle centring around the question of the identity between thinking and being.
Not resigned to their defeat, Liu Shao-chi and company put up a last-ditch struggle. In 1964, Liu Shao-chi directed Yang Hsien-chen to concoct the reactionary theory "combine two into one" in open opposition to Chairman Mao's revolutionary dialectics one divides into two. This gave rise to a struggle on a still wider scale.
That year, class struggle was very acute and complex within the country and on the international scene. In concert with the class enemies abroad in their blatant anti-China activities, Liu Shao-chi and his sort lost no time in trying to effect a capitalist restoration in China. Guided by Chairman Mao's theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Chinese people waged a tit-for-tat struggle against the class enemies both within and outside the country. They
launched a socialist education movement at home and conducted open polemics with modern revisionism. That the reactionary theory "combine two into one" should make its appearance at this juncture completely met the counter-revolutionary needs of the class enemies at home and abroad.
Chairman Mao pointed out: Chairman Mao's brilliant thesis that one divides into two is a penetrating and concise generalization of the law of the unity of opposites; it is a great development of materialist dialectics.
Acknowledging that one divides into two means acknowledging the existence, in socialist society, of classes, class contradictions and class struggle, the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, the danger of capitalist restoration, and the threat of aggression and subversion by imperialism and social-imperialism. To resolve these contradictions, it is essential to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
However, the reactionary theory "combine two into one" advocated that "'combine two into one' applies to everything" and that the identity of opposites showed that the opposites had an "inseparable link," a "common ground" and a "common demand." This reactionary fallacy aimed at reconciling contradictions, liquidating struggle, negating transformation and opposing revolution. It was out-and-out bourgeois metaphysics and idealism. In essence, it wanted "combining" into one the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, revolution and
counter-revolution; it opposed continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and tried to restore capitalism. It was the basis of Liu Shao-chi's theory of "the dying out of class struggle."
To peddle their reactionary wares, Yang Hsien-chen et al. shouted that "too much has been said about 'one divides into two' and too little about 'combine two into one.' "They went out of their way to attack Chairman Mao's one divides into two, slandering it as "the philosophy of attacking people." But the ferociousness on the part of the reaction only hastened its total collapse. As soon as the theory "combine two into one" made its appearance, it met with crushing blows from the proletarian headquarters and the revolutionary masses. Chairman Mao personally led the struggle of criticizing this reactionary theory and pointed out in a clear-cut way that its core was revisionist class conciliation, thus sealing its doom.
The three major struggles on the philosophical front showed that the confrontation of the two opposing sides in this field has always been a reflection of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines, that it serves these struggles, and that we must not take the struggle in philosophy to be merely an "academic controversy." In frenziedly attacking dialectical materialism and historical materialism, spreading reactionary idealism and metaphysics and provoking one struggle after another, Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen and company were motivated by the vile attempt to shake the philo-
sophical basis of Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and create a "theoretical basis" for the counter-revolutionary revisionist line aimed at restoring capitalism.
The three major struggles on the philosophical front also told us that the struggle between the two lines is, in the final analysis, the struggle between the two world outlooks, the proletarian and the bourgeois. One's world outlook decides which line he defends and implements. In terms of world outlook, the root cause of the fact that Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen and their kind peddled the counter-revolutionary revisionist line was their bourgeois idealism and metaphysics. In order consciously to implement the proletarian revolutionary line, we must conscientiously study dialectical materialism and historical materialism in conjunction with the three great revolutionary movements of class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment, overcome the idealism and metaphysics in our minds and earnestly remould our world outlook; we must learn to distinguish genuine Marxism from false Marxism, and tell the correct line from an erroneous line.
The three major struggles in the field of philosophy all ended with resounding victories for Chairman Mao's philosophical thinking. But class struggle has not ended. The struggle between materialism and idealism and between dialectics and metaphysics will always go on. We must carry on deep-going revolutionary mass criticism of the idealism and metaphysics spread by Liu Shao-chi and other political swindlers, and eradicate whatever remains of their poisonous influence.
Shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Liu Shao-chi instigated Yang Hsien-chen, his agent in the philosophical circles, to put out a theory of "synthesized economic base," starting a major struggle on China's philosophical front. It was a struggle of principle concerning the road China was to take, the socialist or the capitalist, whether China was to have a dictatorship of the proletariat or a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The theory of "synthesized economic base" was actually a variant of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" which is, in turn, an idealist conception of history serving as the common "theoretical basis" of the revisionist trend in China and abroad. Such pseudo-Marxist swindlers as Liu Shao-chi and Yang Hsien-chen had all along used such reactionary theory to push their counter-revolutionary revisionist line and shape public opinion for their counter-revolutionary activities of opposing the proletarian revolution, overthrowing the proletarian dictatorship and restoring capitalism.
The founding of the People's Republic heralded a new era in China, that of the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship.
In his Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in March 1949, Chairman Mao Tsetung made a penetrating analysis of the class relations and economic conditions prevailing in China at that time, clearly pointing out that following the countrywide seizure of power by the proletariat the principal internal contradiction was "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie." The focus of the struggle remained the question of state power. Chairman Mao called upon the whole Party to continue the revolution, rely on and strengthen the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, the proletarian dictatorship, develop the socialist state economy and carry out step by step the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce and socialist industrialization so as to "build China into a great socialist state."
At this turning point of the revolution, Liu Shao-chi waved the tattered banner of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" in hysterically opposing the socialist revolution. To counteract the resolution of the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Seventh Central Committee, he flaunted his counter-revolutionary programme calling for "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy to consolidate the new-democratic system." Liu Shao-chi and other such swindlers went about drumming up trade for the development of cap-
italism, babbling, "Our country's production is undeveloped and backward. Today it is not that there are too many factories run by private capital, but too few. Now, not only must private capitalism be allowed to exist, but it needs to be developed, needs to be expanded." "Socialism in China is a matter for two or three decades later." They advocated preserving the rich-peasant economy for a long time and developing it energetically, called for "consolidating the peasants' private property" and attacked agricultural co-operation as "a kind of wrong, dangerous and utopian agrarian socialism."
Chairman Mao waged a sharp, tit-for-tat struggle against Liu Shao-chi and his gang who mulishly plotted to take the capitalist road. In 1953, in a talk on the Party's general line for the period of transition, Chairman Mao thoroughly discredited their counter-revolutionary programme of "consolidating the new-democratic system." He pointed out: "After the success of the democratic revolution, some people stand still. Failing to realize the change in the character of the revolution, they continue with their 'new democracy' instead of undertaking socialist transformation. Hence their Rightist errors." As for the so-called formulation of "consolidating the new-democratic system," Chairman Mao said that it was "harmful" and was "at variance with the realities of the struggle and hinders the development of the socialist cause."
Still these renegades did not give up. At a time when the whole Party was studying and applying the Party's general line for the transition period, Yang Hsien-chen, given his cue by swindler Liu Shao-chi et al., refurbished the sinister programme of "consolidating the new-
democratic system" and came up with the theory of "synthesized economic base." This variety of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" he spread everywhere in his feverish effort to oppose the Party's general line.
However, guided by the Party's general line, the poor and lower-middle peasants' socialist initiative mounted as never before so that the movement for agricultural co-operation flourished; likewise, the socialist transformation of the capitalist industry and commerce accelerated. In their futile attempt to brake the wheel of history, Liu Shao-chi and his like drew up, in 1955, their vicious scheme of "opposing rashness" and set forth their counter-revolutionary policy of "holding up," "contraction" and "checking up" which drastically slashed the number of co-operatives. Yang Hsien-chen stepped in at this point and, racking his brains, penned his reactionary screed "On the Question of the Base and the Superstructure During the Transition Period in the People's Republic of China," systematizing his theory of "synthesized economic base" to conjure up a "theoretical basis" for the plot of Liu Shao-chi et al. to oppose the socialist revolution. He sent his scribble posthaste to Liu Shao-chi with a covering letter in which he said, "I hope you will find time to examine it and give me your instructions." Yang Hsien-chen himself admitted that concerning his theory of "synthesized economic base," he also had "consulted with" the big careerist swindler who referred to himself as a "humble little commoner." All this proves to the hilt that the struggle started by Yang Hsien-chen was a counter-revolutionary political plot which he had worked out hand in glove with Liu Shao-chi and other swindlers.
At a critical point in the grave struggle between the two lines, Chairman Mao made his report On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation, shattering in theory and practice the revisionist "theory of productive forces" and the counter-revolutionary plot of Liu Shao-chi & Co. An immediate upsurge in the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce swept the country, characterized by: Opportunism is falling, socialism is on the rise. China's socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production won a great victory, while the reactionary theory of "synthesized economic base" met with total bankruptcy.
What, after all, was the theory of "synthesized economic base" made of?
Yang Hsien-chen asserted: "In the period of transition the economic base of the state power of the socialist type" was of a "synthesized nature," "embracing both the socialist sector and the capitalist sector, and the sector of individual peasant economy as well"; they "can develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way"; the socialist superstructure should "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy, and "also serve the bourgeoisie." This was an altogether reactionary and fallacious theory for overthrowing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
According to Marxism-Leninism, "state power of the socialist type" can only be the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat. It is the concentrated expression of the fundamental interests of the working class and other labouring people, and its economic base can only be "the socialist economic base, that is, . . . socialist relations of production" (On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People ). The capitalist economy is a paradise where the bourgeois amass fortunes, while for the proletariat and other labouring people it is a hell on earth. It is the economic base of the bourgeois dictatorship. Capitalist economy and proletarian dictatorship are as incompatible with each other as fire with water. How is it conceivable that the proletarian dictatorship can rest on any so-called "synthesized economic base" which includes the capitalist economy?
Yang Hsien-chen's fallacy becomes even more preposterous when viewed against the historical mission of the proletarian dictatorship, which aims at abolishing capitalism and all other systems of exploitation, at ending private ownership. Referring to the economy in the transition period, Lenin pointed out: "As long as private ownership of the means of production. . . and freedom to trade remain, so does the economic basis of capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the only means of successfully fighting for the demolition of that basis, the only way to abolish classes. . . ." (Collected Works, Vol. 31). In China, it is precisely by using this means of proletarian dictatorship that the struggle against capitalism is waged. We took a series of measures to confiscate bureaucrat-monopoly capital, carry out socialist transformation of medium-sized and small capitalist industry and commerce, and set up agricultural and handicraft co-operatives in order gradually to abolish capitalism and private ownership
and establish a socialist economic base. Only thus can the victory of the revolution be consolidated, can we have the proletarian dictatorship. How can our proletarian state power take as its economic base the so-called "synthesized economic base" embracing the capitalist economy?
In fact, any so-called "synthesized economic base" simply doesn't exist, but is a mere fabrication by Yang Hsien-chen and his like. For historical reasons, China's proletariat did face five sectors of the economy after seizing state power, and these boiled down to the socialist and the capitalist sectors. Diametrically opposed to each other, the socialist and the capitalist sectors do not and cannot exist peacefully side by side, as Yang Hsien-chen claimed, or combine to form any so-called "synthesized economic base," still less can they "develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way." Lenin said: "This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism -- or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble" (Collected Works, Vol. 30). And Chairman Mao pointed out: "The period of transition is full of contradiction and struggle. Our present revolutionary struggle is even more profound than the armed revolutionary struggles of the past. It is a revolution that will for ever bury the capitalist system and all other systems of exploitation."
Precisely so. Events in China's transition period testify to an intense, life-and-death struggle between the two sectors of the economy, socialist and capitalist. One swallows up the other. Either progress towards socialism
or retrogress to capitalism: There is absolutely no room for compromise in the struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. Yang Hsien-chen's "synthesization" was a clear case of attempting to "combine two into one," to deny the contradiction and struggle between socialism and capitalism, and allow the latter to swallow up the former. So-called "balanced development" was, in essence, development of capitalism and reversion to semi-feudal, semi-colonial society. Did not Liu Shao-chi & Co., taking as the point of departure their reactionary "theory of productive forces," openly declare that they would work along with the capitalists for several decades and then go in for socialism "when China's industrial production shows a surplus"? The swindler that styled himself a "humble little commoner" but was actually a big careerist also shouted: "In contemporary China the capitalist system of exploitation is progressive," "it has a role to play in industrially backward China," etc., etc. This was what lay at the bottom of Yang Hsien-chen's "synthesization" and "balanced development." His preaching of "synthesized economic base," when stripped of all its fancy wrappings, was nothing but an attempt to build China on a capitalist economic base.
Chairman Mao points out that if we do not build a socialist economy, our proletarian dictatorship will become a bourgeois dictatorship, a reactionary, fascist dictatorship. Clearly, Yang Hsien-chen concocted and advertised his theory of "synthesized economic base" in order to abolish the socialist revolution, to pave the way for Liu Shao-chi & Co. to usurp state power and establish a reactionary, fascist dictatorship.
Yang Hsien-chen said shamelessly that the socialist superstructure should "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy; that it should "also serve the bourgeoisie." What a statement -- "it should also serve the bourgeoisie"!
Marxism tells us that superstructure has class character; that state power which is at the very centre of the superstructure is an instrument of class struggle, an apparatus with which one class oppresses another. Every state power is a dictatorship by a certain class: either a proletarian dictatorship with which the proletariat and other labouring people oppress the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes, or a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes with which these classes oppress the proletariat and other labouring people. Yang Hsien-chen went to the length of trying to make the socialist superstructure "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy, and make our state of proletarian dictatorship "serve the bourgeoisie." What is this if not meeting the counter-revolutionary needs of overthrowing the proletarian dictatorship?
Of course, Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen et al. did not stop just at words. Hell-bent on "serving the bourgeoisie," they enforced nothing less than a reactionary, fascist dictatorship in the departments where they had usurped power. Politically, they plotted to usurp the Party, military and government power in a vain attempt to reduce China to a colony of imperialism and social-imperialism. Economically, they tried to restore capitalism by large-scale practice of the "four freedoms,"[1]
san zi yi bao,[1] profit in command, material incentives, technique first, and exclusive reliance on specialists in running factories. Ideologically and culturally, they did their best to peddle the vicious feudal, capitalist and revisionist wares and glorify feudal emperors and princes, generals and ministers, scholars and beauties so as to mould public opinion in favour of their counter-revolutionary activities. Organizationally, they formed an underground bourgeois headquarters by recruiting deserters and renegades, protecting one another and working hand in glove. So their heinous activities certainly went beyond the formula "also serve the bourgeoisie." They are in fact faithful agents, steeped in crime, of the imperialists, modern revisionists and Kuomintang reactionaries. As for the theory of "synthesized economic base" it was simply a manifestation, in theory, of the counter-revolutionary attempts at the overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship on the part of these anti-Communist Kuomintang elements, renegades and enemy agents.
The principal argument fabricated by Yang Hsien-chen to justify his theory of "synthesized economic base" was that the five kinds of production relations in the transition period "fit the character of China's productive forces." This was a gross exposure of Yang
Hsien-chen and his sort as peddlers of the reactionary "theory of productive forces."
The five kinds of production relations in question covered socialist economy and capitalist economy, and also individual economy. Was it possible that all these "fit the character of China's productive forces"? As early as 1940 Chairman Mao pointed out that the Great October Socialist Revolution changed the whole course of world history, and ushered in a new era. The ideological and social system of capitalism throughout the world resembled "'a dying person who is sinking fast, like the sun setting beyond the western hills,' and will soon be relegated to the museum" (On New Democracy ). In the 1950s, especially when China had established the proletarian dictatorship and entered the stage of socialist revolution, how could it still be said that capitalist relations of production "fit the character of China's productive forces"? After seizing state power, we proceeded at once to confiscate bureaucrat-capital -- the principal part of China's capitalism -- and change it into state owned. Towards the industry and commerce of the national bourgeoisie, we adopted the policy of using, restricting and transforming them, but this never implied that capitalism "fit the character of China's productive forces." On the contrary, it showed that capitalism did not suit the character of the productive forces and that it was necessary to transform it step by step into socialist ownership by the state. In fact, it was inevitable that the bourgeoisie's reactionary profit-seeking nature and the growing contradictions between capitalism and socialism seriously hamstrung the expansion of social productive forces. People still remember the frantic attack the bourgeoisie, aided and abetted by
Liu Shao-chi & Co., made shortly after the founding of the People's Republic against the proletariat by spreading the five evils of bribery of government workers, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing economic information from government sources for private speculation, seriously undermining China's industrial and agricultural production. With all this, how could one say that capitalist relations of production "fit the character of China's productive forces"?
As to the individual economy, it was, as Chairman Mao described, scattered and backward, not much different from that of ancient times. It is true that our land reform had broken the bonds of the feudal system of exploitation and liberated the productive forces in Chinese agriculture, but individual economy afforded very little room for their expansion. In fact, the marketable grain and raw materials supplied by peasants farming individually had, to an ever increasing degree, fallen short of the growing needs of the people and of socialist industrialization. Moreover, individual economy is unstable but engenders capitalism daily and hourly. Such being the case, could individual economy "fit the character of China's productive forces"?
Yang Hsien-chen's argument, "fitting the character of China's productive forces," boiled down to this: Because of its backward productive forces, China was destined to develop only capitalism and build a capitalist economic base; it should not, nor could it, carry out socialist revolution and build a socialist economic base. It must then set up a bourgeois dictatorship to serve a capitalist economic base; it should not, and could not,
institute proletarian dictatorship. This is the thoroughly revisionist "theory of productive forces."
The "theory of productive forces" is an international revisionist trend that makes a fetish of spontaneity. It absurdly exaggerates the decisive role of productive forces, which it reduces to means of production plus techniques. It completely negates the factor of man and denies the effect of revolution on the development of production, of production relations on productive forces and of the superstructure on the economic base. Such a fallacy would make it appear as if social development were merely the natural outcome of the development of productive forces, that when the productive forces are highly developed a new society would naturally appear, that if the productive forces are not yet highly developed it would be futile for the proletariat consciously to carry out socialist revolution. This fallacy, substituting vulgar evolutionism for revolutionary dialectics, and class conciliation for class struggle, opposes the proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship. It is historical idealism unalloyed.
Chairman Mao says: "True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role" (On Contradiction ). This highly important scientific thesis, enriching and developing the basic principles of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, clearly points out that in a period of change in the revolution the relations of production and the superstructure can play the principal and
decisive role with regard to the productive forces and the economic base. Revolution means liberating the productive forces and promoting their growth. History shows that every revolution is brought about by the development of the productive forces to a certain extent, but this does not necessarily imply that the transformation of the backward relations of production must be preceded by the full development of the productive forces. Rather, the first thing is to prepare public opinion, seize state power, and then solve the question of ownership, after which comes the question of greatly developing the productive forces. Such is the general law of revolution. If, according to the fallacies of Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen & Co., instead of the backward relations of production being transformed after the seizure of state power, capitalism had been allowed to spread unchecked in the hope of developing the productive forces, China would have become a colony of imperialism and social-imperialism, and there would be no socialism at all.
The "theory of productive forces" trumpeted by Liu Shao-chi, Yang Hsien-chen et al. is nothing new, but the same revisionist trash of the Second International which Lenin thoroughly discredited long ago.
Lenin refuted the revisionist "theory of productive forces," exposing the renegade features of Bernstein, Kautsky et al. In his article "Our Revolution," he pointed out that all the "heroes" of the Second International kept harping in a thousand different keys that "the development of the productive forces of Russia has not attained the level that makes socialism possible." This nonsense he repudiated by declaring: "You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very good. But why could we not first create such prerequisites of civi-
lization in our country as the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists, and then start moving towards socialism? Where, in what books, have you read that such variations of the customary historical sequence of events are impermissible or impossible?" (Collected Works, Vol. 33). Lenin mercilessly tore off the pseudo-Marxist mask of these "heroes" with these words: "They all call themselves Marxists, but their conception of Marxism is impossibly pedantic"; they "are afraid to deviate from the bourgeoisie, let alone break with it, and at the same time they disguise their cowardice with the wildest rhetoric and braggartry" (ibid. ).
Doesn't every word, every sentence of Lenin's hit such pseudo-Marxist swindlers as Liu Shao-chi and Yang Hsien-chen where it hurts most? To oppose the socialist revolution in the ownership of the means of production, these swindlers had likewise been harping in a thousand different keys on their fallacy, that "due to backward productive forces, China can not go in for socialism."
In May 1956, when China had in the main completed the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production, and the theory of "synthesized economic base" had been exploded, Liu Shao-chi personally consoled and encouraged Yang Hsien-chen, saying, "You're right," private capitalism "is part of the base," "but you needn't talk about this question any more now." Strange!
If Yang was right why shouldn't he talk about it any more?
Before long the cat was let out of the bag: "needn't talk about this question any more" was a dodge; the real thing was to mount a feverish counter-attack. Their theory of "synthesized economic base" having gone up in smoke, Liu Shao-chi and other swindlers changed their tactics, now claiming that China's principal internal contradiction was "the contradiction between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces." This so-called "contradiction" was only another expression of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" in the new circumstances. The fallacy of "synthesized economic base" and the invention of this "contradiction" were like two poison gourds on the same vine. Before socialist transformation, these swindlers tried by every means to protect the capitalist relations of production under the pretext that China's production level was low. After socialist transformation, using the same pretext, they insidiously plotted against the socialist system and against continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
How can there be such a thing as contradiction between an advanced social system and backward productive forces? Marxism tells us that the productive forces, first and foremost the labourers, are the most active and revolutionary factor in any mode of production, that social development invariably begins with the growth of productive forces. When the productive forces have advanced beyond the production relations, a situation will emerge where the production relations no longer correspond with the productive forces, the superstructure no longer corresponds with the production relations, and it becomes
necessary to change the production relations and the superstructure so as to make them correspond. It is only in a relative sense when we say that the superstructure corresponds with the production relations and the production relations correspond with the productive forces, or when we say that there is balance between the two aspects respectively. What is absolute is that the productive forces keep advancing and consequently there is always imbalance, and contradiction will always arise.
Analyzing the basic contradictions in Chinese society, Chairman Mao pointed out: "Socialist relations of production have been established and are in harmony with the growth of the productive forces, but they are still far from perfect, and this imperfection stands in contradiction to the growth of the productive forces. Apart from harmony as well as contradiction between the relations of production and the developing productive forces, there is harmony as well as contradiction between the superstructure and the economic base" (On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People ). China's socialist relations of production are unquestionably advanced; they are better suited to the development of the productive forces than were the old relations of production and permit the productive forces to develop at a rate impossible in the old society, so that production can expand steadily to meet gradually the ever growing needs of the people.
Of course, contradictions still exist between our socialist relations of production and the productive forces, and between the superstructure and the economic base. These contradictions inevitably find expression in the struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. They arise because, on the one hand, the bourgeoisie still
exists and, on the other, the socialist system has to undergo a continuous process of building up and consolidating. This shows precisely that in socialist society, too, the development of the productive forces runs ahead of the relations of production. Therefore, "contradiction between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces" does not exist.
One cannot help asking: Why, then, should Liu Shao-chi and other swindlers make up this so-called "contradiction" which is theoretically groundless and actually non-existent, and declare it as China's principal internal contradiction?
Their fabrication of this "principal contradiction" was to create a "basis" for their fallacy of "the dying out of class struggle" in order to negate Chairman Mao's Marxist-Leninist scientific thesis that the principal internal contradiction in China is "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie," deny the existence of contradictions, classes and class struggle in socialist society, oppose continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, overthrow the proletarian dictatorship, and restore capitalism.
Chairman Mao exposed in good time and exploded thoroughly the reactionary fallacies of these swindlers. In 1957, in his brilliant essay On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People, he scientifically analyzed the class contradictions and class struggle in socialist society, laying a theoretical foundation for continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Again, at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee held in September 1962, Chairman Mao further exposed Liu Shao-chi & Co.'s plot for restoring capitalism.
Still, these renegades did not and would not "lay down their butcher's knives and become Buddas." During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when they reached a dead end and faced their doom, they again waved their ragged banner of the "theory of productive forces" and mouthed such nonsense as "production can promote revolution," etc., trying to make a last-ditch struggle. They desperately opposed Chairman Mao's policy of "grasping revolution and promoting production," in an attempt to suppress revolution in the name of production and thus undermine the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
But, the dialectics of history is inexorable. No matter how hard Liu Shao-chi and other swindlers struggled and resorted to sophism, the storm of this great Cultural Revolution finally swept them, one after another, onto the garbage heap of history.
ON CHINA'S PHILOSOPHICAL FRONT
(1949-64)
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The five sectors of China's national economy were state-owned economy, co-operative economy, the individual economy of the peasants and handicraftsmen, private capitalist economy, and state-capitalist economy.
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III
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IV
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"SYNTHESIZED ECONOMIC BASE"
MUST BE THOROUGHLY
CRITICIZED
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REVISIONIST LINE
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REACTIONARY FALLACY FOR OVERTHROWING
PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP
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Freedom of land sale, of hiring labour, of usury, and of trading.
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"FITTING THE CHARACTER OF CHINA'S
PRODUCTIVE FORCES" REFUTED
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This means the extension of free markets, the extension of plots for private use, the promotion of small enterprises with sole responsibility for their own profits or losses, and the fixing of output quotas on a household basis.
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REFUTING THE FALLACY, "CONTRADICTION
BETWEEN THE ADVANCED SOCIALIST
SYSTEM AND THE BACKWARD
SOCIAL PRODUCTIVE FORCES"
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