Part Two: The Chinese Communist Party in Power 1949 - 1969

This is a four part history of modern China, written for Socialist Party branch meetings in the South East. As well as reading the following, please watch this video which contains many interviews with participants and lots of historical footage of the events described below (click image to go to video).

Part Two: The Chinese Communist Party in Power 1949 - 1969

Mao's policies were a Chinese version of Stalin’s socialism in one country, even though it had brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power it did not mean the new government would, without pressure, proceed toward socialist tasks. The victory of the CCP brought repression against the Kuomintang (KMT) who fled to the island of Taiwan, but Mao's policy was for a collaboration between the workers, peasants and those bourgeoisie not considered tainted by the KMT. As a result, land reform was not advanced immediately, with Mao seeking instead to consolidate the rule of the CCP and not upset the capitalists and landlords. 

Expropriation of private property to be run according to a national plan was not on the agenda, and Mao, consistent with his Stalinist roots, called for another 100 years of capitalism. For instance in 1950, 75% of Shanghai industrial workers were still in private enterprises. These were the policies used to strangle revolutions in the inter and post-war periods by the Stalinist Comintern, because it denied the workers and peasants the potential to realise their power through seizing the property of the possessing classes and putting that property to productive use in bolstering their rule. It wasn't that Mao was unwilling to expropriate, but instead his was a top-down dictatorship, which did not rely on the self-organisation of the working-class, democratically constructed through the organisations of ordinary people themselves, as later Chinese history will show, the fear of this so-called “anarchy” hung heavy on the minds of Mao and the CCP.

Prior to the communist victory China was unable to embark on an independent economic development. The bourgeoisie as a social force couldn't be relied upon to conduct economic develiopment, but if the CCP did not remove their control over the economy by taking hold of the means of production and massively expanding them, how could economic development led by the communists be anything more spectacular than under the KMT? It was the lack of a progressive social base besides the working-class which the CCP feared losing power to which explains the twists and turns of the government after 1949.

The first period of government aimed at cleansing the army and state of the old government and to impose high taxation and low wages to clear the deficit while land reform was initially suspended. Overtures were made to the bourgeoisie in an effort to attract leading figures, while workers and peasants struggles were suppressed. This led to inflation and anger from the workers and peasants. Workers had no way to express themselves, with only the legal right to raise objections, but not to strike or organise independently. Low interest loans were provided to the bourgeoisie who were suffering the affects of inflation, and private property was protected while land reform was started in a very limited way from 1950.

The balancing act after 1949 were revealed as insufficient and they succumbed to the pressures of the period. The new Chinese regime was militarily insecure and faced a hostile power in the form of the US as British, Japanese and later French imperialism had retreated from the Asia-Pacific area. Japan withdrew from Korea in 1945, leaving the North held by the Communist Kim il Sung, and the South by the Right wing Syngman Rhee. The communists had military supremacy and wanted to consolidate the entire peninsula. America sent aid and Mao was confronted with the prospect of losing the Korean buffer while Taiwan remained hostile conducting air assaults in the South. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) joined the attack (despite fears of the exhaustion of the army) and retook Seoul but supply lines were overstretched and the Americans hit back. A stalemate formed at the 38^th parallel, china sent 3m men, 400k died, and china received soviet military assistance, weapons, aircraft and aircraft factories. The war in Korea, which under the UN flag was an anti-communist crusade led by the US, pressured Mao to expropriate US and other foreign owned enterprises, and to initiate and then accelerate the land reform programme in the countryside to bolster national support.

The world had divided into two camps after WWII, the US defended capitalism and Russia under a strengthened Stalinist system which held out a model for development to the rest of the world on the basis of a planned economy. However that planned economy was anti-democratic and relied on fear and repression to maintain its power. The Korean war was a real dividing line for the CCP.

Then under pressure of the mass mobilisation of the Korean war there was a shift towards developing heavy industry while the private sector stagnated. The influence of Russia was key in shifting the PRC towards a bureaucratically planned economy emphasising heavy industry. A new treaty was signed, where Moscow would come to China's aid in the event of war, and extending a $300m loan over 5 years. Industrial aid amounted to 50 large-scale projects (less than expected) and the Soviet Union would receive surplus stocks of tin, tungsten and antimony for 14 years, preventing their sale elsewhere, while Russian advisers were not subject to Chinese law. While of benefit these unequal terms caused anger which would explode in the split between Russia and China in the early 1960's. Concessions were granted to the workers and a privileged elite was encouraged amongst the working-class, dividing their interests. Trade unions were permitted in private enterprises so long as they didn't harm overall production. Repressive campaigns against reactionary elements were directed as much at Trotskyists and other worker-militants.

Although this was a Chinese version of Stalinism, Mao was not a carbon copy of Stalin. He had waged his own struggle to seize power and remain in the leadership of the CCP against the interests of the leadership of the soviet union. Mao was nervous about the development of the bureaucracy in the CCP. While Stalin played different elements of the state against each other, Mao attempted to rely on mass forces to challenge the bureaucracy, however he would not permit the democratic control of society by those mass forces, he would merely invoke them to encourage his ends. While Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and those acting in the Marxist tradition relied on the force of the working-class and emphasised how socialism would be a development from that conducted by capitalism, Mao regarded backwardness as a virtue. He viewed the Chinese as 'poor and blank' in the sense that their subjective attitudes could be shaped for socialist purposes.

Burning official documents during land reform

Land reform remained an unfinished ingredient in the country's development. In 1946 there was limited reform to mobilise for civil war which was then extended in 1948 to all liberated areas. Reform was halted when the KMT was overthrown, and restarted as part of the Korean offensive on a nationwide basis. It was then completed by 1952, and 200m peasants received land as a result. Land reform was the first step in the liberation of the productive forces as it broke up the large estates, but nevertheless the reforms were limited by the protection of private property of industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, and provisions allowing for free sale of land after the reform. This resulted in growing polarisation as the rich still retained significant wealth and capital and the more advanced technology.

Land reform was a task that should have been completed by the bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie was too meek and tied up with the landlord system to do it. Agriculture would be the main source of wealth used to develop the nation, but agriculture was condemned to a very low economic level. In deciding whether to apply their profits to the massive task of the industrial development of the countryside the landlords/bourgeoisie were put off by the scale of the task. It made more sense to exploit the mass of the population at a very low economic level than to take on the huge tasks of national development. Once land reform had been completed it spread land ownership far more widely, but inequalities of wealth and inequality of access to technology remained, especially while the property of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie was protected by the CCP state.

The small scale of owner-cultivator agriculture limited the scale of agricultural development. In an effort to overcome this mutual aid societies were developed in the countryside, with technology pooled together and a share withdrawn on the basis of the technology put in. This evolved into co-operatives with greater sharing of technology and capital, but agriculture remained unable to support the kind of mass industrial drive required. The logical end-point would be the nationalisation of the land. Ownership in the hands of landlord/capitalists would not result in industrial development, but state ownership of the land held out the prospect of capital being directed towards agricultural industrialisation, utilising economies of scale and so on. Similar issues existed with he land in the hands of smallholders, and it threatened the emergence of class relations. Expanding agriculture however required heavy industry to develop agricultural infrastructure and equipment, which could not be developed without an expansion of wealth which relied on agriculture! Collective farming of the land would also meet with the resistance of peasants who had only just had their age-old desire for land satisfied in the land reform.

Eliminating the landlord class was a significant achievement in China and was one of the main steps which laid the foundation for future economic development. However it was still a capitalist system, the poor and the rich would re-emerge if the rural economy was left to its own devices. There was an inequality of agricultural technology which particularly encouraged this differentiation. The government feared the richer peasants forming a base of power against the regime. In addition, because there was no wealth to rely upon other than that of the countryside and the exploitation of the peasantry so a stagnant rural economy threatened to hold back the prospects of industrialisation.

So the three problems standing in the way of raising agricultural production was the state's unwillingness to touch industrial and commercial wealth leaving the wealth of the rich intact in the countryside and giving them power within the villages. The second problem was the low level of industry in the urban areas and its inability to provide the necessary infrastructure for developing the countryside. The third problem was convincing the peasants that sharing the land through nationalisation would be better than working it individually. The first period of the rule of the CCP in the 1950's is marked by these problems and the efforts to overcome them. These then morphed into the power struggles of the 1960's which rocked Chinese society and threatened the continued rule of the CCP itself.

Famine in Russia

In Russia agricultural collectivisation in the 1930's was a response to similar fears. It dramatically struck a merciless blow against not only the rich peasant class but against the peasantry as a whole, forcing them to bear the brunt of the costs of industrial development. It was preceded by mass purges of any individual providing a potential pole of revolutionary attraction, and it was effectively a civil war within the countryside, with troops surrounding the villages to enforce collectivisation. It sparked resistance and sabotage and provoked a terrible famine. The CCP leadership were aware of this and attempted, unsuccessfully, to chart a course to avoid this calamity. Recognising the threat which the growth of capitalist relations could pose in the countryside they aimed to have the land owned by the state and run according to a national plan of agricultural production, linked to an industrial plan of development. However this would mean not only challenging the richer peasants but in effect removing the recently acquired property rights of the entire peasantry, which would not be accepted. Mao pushed for this policy while other sections of the CCP leadership suggested caution.

The impulse towards industrial development was assisted by the soviet union, with the first 5 year plan taking place after the Korean war ended in the North/South Korean stalemate. The plan developed industrial production, but accompanying it was a bureaucratised and politically conservative layer which made Mao in particular nervous. In the countryside peasants were encouraged into the co-operatives and into agricultural collectives. It was at this stage of development that advances in agriculture took place, with important irrigation projects being conducted. But the next large step in agricultural development was yet to occur. This was to take place in the next 5 year plan. Up to this point some of the basic tasks of national development have been performed but at the cost of a developing soviet-style bureaucracy on the one hand and growing polarisation of wealth in the countryside. Significant industrial development was necessary to advance China beyond its low economic level.

Hungary 1956

Prior to the second 5 year plan Mao launched the hundred flowers campaign, aiming to counter the bureaucratic forces that had developed after the first plan. In addition the campaign aimed to give a freedom to the intelligentsia who were sorely needed to develop the country, but had largely fled or were cowed by the CCP. At this time however Khrushchev in Russia had given his 1956 speech criticising Stalin and the 'cult of personality'. This sparked discontent in Eastern Europe and was a challenge to Mao's own personality cult which had been forming. The strongest movement in 1956 was in Hungary which initially developed around an intellectual discussion circle, but later spread throughout the working-class with genuine soviets being formed and proceeding to overthrow the CCP state machine in favour of workers democracy. It was crushed by Soviet tanks and troops who were told they were putting down a fascist uprising. Against this background the Hundred Flowers campaign began to criticise areas of art and literature, until it developed onto more clearly political issues and criticisms of corruption. Once it began to criticise the CCP regime itself the Hundred Flowers movement was ended with a purge known as the anti-Rightist campaign.

The second five year plan was being prepared when Mao intervened calling for higher targets in heavy industrial development, as well as the industrial development of the countryside alongside collectivisation of agriculture. This would be known as the Great Leap Forward (GLF). In his view the construction of socialism could proceed by first seizing state power, transforming social consciousness and then proceeding rapidly through the stages of socialist development towards communism. This meant a speedy transition through stages starting from an extremely low level without much regard for the material obstacles. The Great Leap would aim to address the balance between town and countryside. The aim was to develop industry in the rural areas to alleviate urban unemployment, and collectivise agriculture to raise the productive level and encourage a greater accumulation of capital from the agricultural sector. The result would be a more balanced and consistently industrialised China, breaking its reliance on Russia.

As part of the nationalisation drive rural people's communes were established involving at least 3,000 households or 30-100,000 people. These were intended as embryos of communism, with power decentralised to the communes and away from the central state apparatus, aiming toward the withering away of the state. Once again these were not based on the working-class but Mao's faith lay in the less organised, less united and less politically engaged peasantry whose main aim in following the CCP revolution was to achieve land reform, which had already been completed. In reality the purpose of the communes was to mobilise peasants for massive labour duties, with militarised work units and very long work days. Women were drawn into the labour force in order to meet the ridiculously high targets of the GLF. Social provision like childcare and communal kitchens were provided to encourage women to enter the workplace, but they would then become exploited in the same way as the men. These social resources were very poorly equipped and were enforced on peasants by removing individual cookers obliging them to take part in communal meals.

Backyard furnaces

These policies were resisted by the peasants who waged campaigns of sabotage and protested against the backbreaking level of work, and against the removal of their own land. Attempts at rural industrial development were epitomised in the backyard iron furnaces set up in every household. The aim was to raise iron production by encouraging furnaces in every household but in order to meet the targets peasants would melt down iron products and strip the forests bare to power the furnaces. Other industrial projects weren't such a failure, but nevertheless the policies of the GLF were marked by the top-down approach that missed the reality on the ground, and aimed at milking as much as possible from the peasantry leading to a breakdown of rural society and growing peasant resistance.

Liu Shaoqi

Deng Xiaoping

The dislocation of the Great Leap Forward resulted in famine and the death of around 15-30m people. Mao was eventually sidelined in favour of those layers aiming at bolstering the technocratic bureaucracy, headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. While the communes were not fully disbanded the grain quotas were relaxed and central state control was re-established over them. Mao was sidelined while the party centre re-established itself. There was a sullen and apathetic mood in the population after the GLF, agricultural industrialisation was reduced and private plots restored. Wages were linked to productivity, industrial employment was reduced in order to increase its efficiency and unemployed workers were sent to the countryside. While the large scale industrialisation in agriculture was abandoned, the aim of an electric infrastructure across the countryside was established. While Mao was sidelined in the party he was still a figurehead and retained influence in the PLA, where his loyalist Lin Piao became Minister of Defence. Grain output and industrial output increased in the early 1960's. As a result of these policies which not only retreated from the policies of the GLF but saw elements of capitalist methods the incomes within the working-class began to diverge and peasant-worker wages diverged even more. Education was geared more towards developing a technical elite and poorer schools were shut down. These were all sources of social discontent and the China that was being built after Mao had been side-lined bottled up a lot of anger and polarisation.

It is worth pausing before we look at the cultural revolution to look at the processes that were taking place. China required industrial development, something which was largely prevented under the KMT-bourgeois regime. The revolution brought the CCP to power which prevents the mass democratic participation of the working-class in the running of society. Under pressure they move towards a planned economy but they do so following a Soviet model. The CCP have cleared the path to economic development in the countryside but have only set the scene. Their attempt in the GLF to proceed towards industrial development was on the basis of super-exploitation of the peasantry who react. A lid has been kept on the working-class who have been prevented from organising and are now subject to rising unemployment and falling wages. The youth are full of expectations but too often find themselves stuck in the countryside or prevented from accessing professional employment. If their background was from the old privileged classes they were prevented from rising due to political reasons. Mao retains significant moral prestige and is pointed to as a national figurehead despite being sidelined after the failures of the GLF. He has developed a base in the army and aims to attack the bureaucracy that has formed and is ossifying into a Soviet-type government.

The Cultural Revolution (CR) perhaps more than many other events, is popularly seen as a collective madness and an example of the power of manipulation by mass political mobilisation. Hopefully this talk will show how the events known as the CR were rooted in the different elements listed above playing their way into the open. Trotsky characterised the Soviet union as run by an anti-revolutionary bureaucracy which nevertheless rested on a planned economy, not capitalist private ownership of the means of production. The working-class was prevented from any kind of participation in the running of society and a further political revolution was necessary in Russia to re-assert the rule of the working-class. The same can be said of China at this point in time, and the mistakes and bottlenecks inherent in this model of society are revealed more and more starkly, especially as the country industrialises and the economy becomes more sophisticated. In the CR aspects of a political revolution can be seen, and it was the fear of this that marked its endpoint. After this event part three of these lead-offs will show how China moved towards the market and capitalism, having exhausted the opportunities provided by a bureaucratically planned economy.

Mao had turned to the PLA as a base for his return to active political life. His aim was not simply to win back control over the party but to address the bureaucracy which he could see growing in China, and to prevent the slow shifts towards capitalism which were taking place under Liu Shaoqi. Lin Biao established a personality cult of Mao inside the PLA. On this base Mao began to return to politics, attacking the bureaucratic elite which had grown stronger under Liu Shaoqi. Post-GLF cultural attacks on Maoist policies had ceased between 1962-65 but in November 1965 a play which implied criticism of Mao was attacked by Maoists. This campaign is encouraged by the PLA and Mao amongst students at Beijing University. The education system was full of discontent due to the polarisation taking place, the frustrated and youthful layers respond with struggles between pro Mao and pro government forces in Beijing University. Mao encourages further rebellion and orders the withdrawal of government forces from the universities. Although attacks on intellectuals is the most widely known aspect of the CR, it was not driven at first by the Maoists but by the pro-government groups, the sons and daughters of party leaders, who attacked intellectuals as easy targets to try and deflect the Maoist's focus away from the party bureaucracy. It was later taken up in attacking everything that was 'old'.

Lin Biao

Struggle session

Burning Buddha statues

Red Guards reading from Mao's Red Book

Mao cult

With Mao's support the movement spirals into a massive force by July 1966 when Mao dubs the students 'red guards' and calls for a national mobilisation. The Red Guards attack cultural and foreign targets as well as examples of corruption. 16 articles were adopted by the 'Cultural Revolution Group' which replaced the leadership of the party based on Mao's prestige and the PLA. These 16 articles call to replace all old ideas with Mao Zedong Thought, and in a vague way they call for the party to be replaced by a government like the Paris commune. The Paris Commune in 1871 was seen by Marx as an example of the working-class taking power. In it he saw a model of a workers government based on widespread election to committees of representatives taking the average wage and being subject to recall at any time. This model was proposed by Lenin as the way a socialist society could be run to avoid a bureaucracy forming. But Mao wouldn't follow this model and encourage power to be taken by the mass of the population.

Schools and universities were closed to encourage these movements and the army helps transport youth around the country to develop the movement. Mass struggle sessions take place against party officials charged with corruption or lagging behind revolutionary thought. In this many of the frustrations of the youth are vented and Mao encourages their development as a weapon against the party machine.

Mao's call also contained a caution to the red guards not to disrupt production or produce divisions within the 'people'. His call for rebellion was made through the army to youthful layers recognising it would not be taken up in the exhausted and disillusioned rural areas Mao would not address his appeal to the working-class. Debates raged at this time over the character of Chinese society and whether class divisions continued to exist and therefore the need for class struggle and towards what end? While Mao wanted to emphasise the conflict that remained he did not want to reject the communist system itself so he argued that individual attitudes still contained bourgeois elements and class struggle was necessary to change those attitudes mainly of the party leadership. The leadership of the CCP argued instead that class heritage from the old society only lingered, so attacks on everything 'old' was fine but class struggle within the party was not necessary. The more radical interpretation which the entire leadership and Mao wanted to avoid, took the view that class struggle was necessary to be rid of the bureaucracy and instead put in place genuine democratic socialism. This was not proposed in such a clear way, and contained many confused variations. If a force calling for this had existed the battle could have proceeded even further down the road to political revolution in China. The working-class had not intervened decisively in Chinese politics since the defeat in 1927, however that was about to change.

The Cultural Revolution Group

In many places the workers and peasants resisted the red guards and factions form within the red guards themselves reflecting the variety of interests within the young generation. Many workers and peasants resist the red guards entering their areas. Nevertheless in some areas workers form their own red guard groups and in traditionally radical and industrial Shanghai a movement developed to destroy the secret files the local party held on the population. Mao supported this call as the files are seen as inhibiting revolt in Shanghai, but the local party continued to refuse. Local party leaders frequently resisted these attacks and broadly two factions developed within the workers movement; the Workers Headquarters which proposed a transfer of power from the party to the popular democracy of the working-class and a conservative faction called the scarlet guards based on the privileged layers of the workforce which backed up the local government. Production was disrupted hugely as armed battles took place across Shanghai, using sticks, spears and knives. On January 5^th 1967 a meeting of 1m people eventually toppled the local government under the threat of insurrection but power went to Zhang Chungqiao, a member of the leading Cultural Revolution Group in government, who made a deal with the workers leader. While it was expected that a leading member of the CRG would support the workers demands Zhang instead used the PLA and secret police to reject the workers demands and force them back to work.

Weapons used in fighting

This betrayal left many disillusioned and into a new camp calling for a New commune to be set up. At this point Mao swings away from the radical calls and recognises the threat that exists. The PLA seizes power in 4 provinces across China including Shanghai calling themselves a revolutionary committee. This military control then puts an end to the radical movements in these areas, with Mao arguing it was necessary as the commune 'cannot deal effectively with counter-revolutionaries'. The role and power of the PLA was enhanced as it was relied on to restore order, but in many areas the stalemate between the left forces and the party apparatus remained undecided without a final showdown. The government attempted to narrow the focus of leftist attacks onto Liu Shaoqi personally, arguing that he was attempting to restore capitalism in China and attempting to deflect attention away from the party itself. Liu was arrested and died in prison in 1969. New offences were introduced against attacking party offices and the schools were reopened to try and dampen the red guard spirits.

Establishing 'Revolutionary Committee' government

In Wuhan where the stalemate between the left and the local government had developed into a siege on the city by general Chen Zaidoo supporting the local government and conservative factions. Chen ignores orders from the party to end the siege and the party sends its own troops to Wuhan to disarm Chen's forces. Chen backed down but the prospect of splits in the PLA, the most stable and final basis of party support for the CCP, brought China to the brink of civil war. At this point Mao decided to end the entire movement and parades with the PLA generals as they were relied on to restore order across China. A purge and massacres of leftists took place and the CR was blamed on so-called ultra-leftists who 'took it too far', in collusion with Liu Shaoqi, with the party arguing that this coalition was aimed at restoring capitalism to China. Into 1968 the suppression of leftists carried on with massacres taking place and students sent to the countryside in huge numbers in a thinly veiled act of discipline.

Crackdown on leftists

The outcome by the end of this crackdown was a massively strengthened PLA and Lin Biao was named Mao's successor while the authority and power of the party rested decidedly on the military. The CR had not failed to touch the life of a single person and it had barely benefited anyone, not least the leftists whose destruction was seen as necessary to restore the authority of the party.

Throughout his revolutionary life Mao was willing to use the peasantry, the army and the youth but never the working-class. His focus on revolutionary consciousness almost in the abstract instead of looking at the economic relations which underpin them, and his rejection of the working-class playing any role besides production epitomised his Stalinist approach. He and the government he founded straddled the classes balancing one off against the other but ultimately it was most fearful of the working-class coming to power, referring to that prospect as chaos. That united Mao, the government and the army in fear for the continuation of their regime, but the experience of Mao's attempts to wriggle out of a straitjacket me made and ultimately relied upon is a very important example of the failures of the kind of Communism established in the image of the Soviet Union. Ultimately, having rejected every other model China turned its face over the next 40 years towards capitalism.