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THE Chinese cultural REVOLUTION: UPRISING FOR WORKERS’ POWER
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- 25 May 2023 1163 hits
The following piece has been updated from its original publication in volume 48 no.25 dated December 21, 2016.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) was an historic uprising of the working class led by the most advanced communist ideas at the time. It was the first time the working class attempted to take state power back from a former communist party that had returned to capitalism.
The leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Mao Tse Tung (now Mao Zedong), initially encouraged the Cultural Revolution to get rid of a few people in the leadership of the Party. But some workers in the Cultural Revolution recognized that the official Communist Party was already in the hands of a capitalist ruling class at the time the GPCR began. They argued that the vast majority (90 percent) of the leading cadres were part of that oppressor class, that the People’s Liberation Army (or PLA, the military) was its tool to smash the real Left and maintain power. They said that the new “red” bourgeoisie had emerged during the 17 years from 1949-66 from the ranks of the revolutionaries themselves and, therefore, that the GPCR was not, as Mao said, a struggle to consolidate proletarian rule, but the first revolution in history to attempt to take power back from the fake “communists,” known as revisionists. This analysis led the left workers and students leading the Cultural Revolution to carry out the following political campaigns.
1) They demanded the ouster of the chief representative of China’s “red” capitalists, Chou En-Lai, along with the high-ranking economic and administrative ministers he was sheltering.
2) They demanded that the GPCR be carried into the Army Officer Corps, which they saw as a part of the new ruling class. They engaged in arms seizures from the PLA, raiding depots and arms trains, on the principle that a revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie had to be an armed struggle of the masses.
3) They opposed China’s foreign policies of alliance with capitalist countries. To carry this through they seized foreign ships in the harbors, burned the British consulate in August of 1967, launched a liberation struggle in Hong Kong, seized Soviet arms going to Vietnam over China’s railroad lines and opposed China’s nuclear development program.
4) They began to discuss and implement the formation of a new communist party, given their assumption that the CPC had become the party of the bourgeois apparatus that was restoring capitalism under the ideological cover of a fake brand of communism.
The left forces presented a view of what was going on in the GPCR which was contradictory to the official views of the CPC under Mao, who claimed “95 percent of the cadres are good” vs. the left-wing forces in the GPCR who said “90 percent of the political cadres must step aside.”
Fake “communists” spread capitalist lies
To amplify how completely the Chinese bosses have now moved to capitalism, they now tell the same lies about the Cultural Revolution as the U.S. bosses. The distorted historical narrative told by the capitalists who currently rule China, and retold and amplified by capitalists around the world, is that the Cultural Revolution was “10 lost years” in which the Chinese economy was on the brink of collapse.
However, when one of the participants in a San Francisco conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution went to China with a group of Western economists in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in 1972, the iconic liberal mainstream economist John Kenneth Galbraith was in the delegation and reviewed economic data made available by the Chinese leadership and calculated that the GDP was growing at about 9 percent per year, similar to the rate touted as the “Chinese miracle” after the restoration of capitalism after the late 1970s.
The participation of millions of workers and farmers in political meetings did not cause production to stop, or even to slow down. The criticism of factory or farm managers to a previously unheard of degree, and active involvement in “non-productive” activities that amounted to having a say in the running of society, in fact energized the masses of workers and farmers.
The Communists accomplished feats that would be called miracles under capitalism, starting with spreading literacy across a country of a billion people, introducing health care and ending starvation in what had been one of the poorest countries in the world prior to the communist revolution. Their efforts in the GPCR showed the importance of continuing the struggle for workers’ power even after a revolution. But to ultimately succeed in building a communist society we have to look at the errors of the CPC as well. While the left forces in the GPCR did so many great things they ultimately were defeated and capitalism was firmly established in China. It is important for us to try to understand why the GPCR failed.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Communist movements will inevitably make many mistakes, big and small. The Progressive Labor Party previously believed in fighting for socialism as an intermediary step towards communism. Now, largely from looking at what happened in the former Soviet Union and China, we are fighting for the building of a communist society directly. It is not the only correction we have made or will have to make going forward. For the working class to take and hold power it is essential that the revolutionary communist movement be able to correct ideological errors and bad practice. Criticism and self-criticism of our ideas and activity is the only way we can deal with problems and mistakes that arise. The leadership of the Party especially has to honestly and soberly evaluate their own ideas and practice and be open to criticism from others.
Perhaps the main weakness that led to the defeat of the GPCR was the belief in the cult of the individual surrounding Mao Tse Tung. A big weakness of the old communist movement was that it built up individual leaders as people who could do no wrong. While the Left forces in China recognized that China had moved back to capitalism, they held on to the wrong idea that Mao, the leader of the country, was not a supporter of the backward changes. He was; and ultimately Mao used his influence and his control of the Army to put down the revolution.
Struggle, Fail, Struggle… WIN
The lessons of the GPCR are one of the driving forces in history that has given PLP the confidence that the working class will fight for a communist future. It has also helped us understand the need to continually struggle against the capitalist ideology of individualism in ourselves and in the communist movement. The effort of the working class in the GPCR has been an invaluable contribution to the fight for communism.
Other lessons learned from the GPCR:
Confidence in the working class and the need for a mass communist party: We are building a party that is open to everyone who wants to fight for a communist future for the working class. People can make contributions in many different ways and the more people who participate in building the Party and ultimately running society the better off we will be.
Breakdown of the separation between “experts” and “followers:” In CHALLENGE, we try to explain what is going on in the world as well as have articles on fighting back in the class struggle. We believe that we can only understand the world by trying to change it and knowledge and understanding comes out of putting communist ideas into practice. We call this “better red than expert!”
The struggle for communism will continue for generations. The working class taking state power is only the beginning of the fight to build a communist society.
Commemorating the 57th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is an opportunity to struggle with our coworkers and friends to renew our efforts to smash this racist, sexist, imperialist system of capitalism once and for all. Fighting back also means understanding what previous generations in this fight have done – both right and wrong. As the world lurches toward fascism and inter-imperialist war, we have our work cut out for us. We, heirs to the struggle for a communist world, truly honor the heroic masses who fought in the GPCR by organizing on our jobs and in our mass organizations for armed communist revolution. Dare to struggle, dare to win!
By Langston Hughes (1938)
‘Chant for May Day’
by Langston Hughes (1938)
To be read by a Workman with, for background, the rhythmic waves of rising and re-rising Mass Voices, multiplying like the roar of the sea. WORKER :
The first of May:
When the flowers break through the earth,
When the sap rises in the trees.
When the birds come back from the South.
Workers:
Be like the flowers, 10 VOICES :
Bloom in the strength of your unknown power, 20 VOICES :
Grow out of the passive earth, 40 VOICES :
Grow strong with Union,
All hands together—
To beautify this hour, this spring,
And all the springs to come 50 VOICES :
Forever for the workers! WORKER :
Workers: 10 VOICES :
Be like the sap rising in the trees, 20 VOICES :
Strengthening each branch, 40 VOICES :
No part neglected— 50 VOICES :
Reaching all the world. WORKER :
All workers: 10 VOICES :
White workers, 10 OTHERS :
Black workers, 10 OTHERS :
Yellow workers, 10 OTHERS :
Workers in the islands of the sea— 50 VOICES
Life is everywhere for you, WORKER :
When the sap of your own strength rises 50 VOICES :
Life is everywhere. 10 VOICES :
May Day! 20 VOICES :
May Day! 40 VOICES :
May Day! 50 VOICES :
When the earth is new, WORKER :
Proletarians of all the world: 20 VOICES :
Arise, 40 VOICES :
Grow strong, 60 VOICES :
Take Power, 80 VOICES :
Till the forces of
the earth are yours 100 VOICES :
From this hour
My first May Day: ‘I was in the right place’
This past Saturday I marched in my first May Day parade, arriving to shouts of “rain or shine baby, rain or shine!” It was incredible to move down Flatbush Avenue as a unit in our red ponchos shouting “who are we? PLP!” I joined the Progressive Labor Party this past August, after seven years of working alongside and learning from Party members in countless struggles with the NYC Department of Education. Throughout those struggles we got some wins, but I came to realize, first, that under capitalism our wins could only be temporary, and second, that the working class was fully capable of running things themselves. Listening to the Kingsborough students describe their fight back against their racist administration reinforced my belief that I was in the right place. Today I read a quote from a worker who was protesting the tragic murder of Jordan Neely in the NYC subway–a predictable tragedy under a system that casts people struggling with mental illness to the streets to fend for themselves. When asked why he was protesting the worker responded “I kind of felt hopeless. I just wanted to be in community with other people and not feel so helpless.” For me, the community that can make the change we need is PLP.
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Rutger striker: ‘incredibly powerful’
This was my first May Day celebration! Despite the inclement weather, the spirits were high and I loved getting to meet a legion of new comrades. After a long and tough year, it felt great to celebrate the wins and remember those we have lost. This year was full of firsts for me, my first year working “full-time” as a “part-time” worker, my first strike, and my first full-time union job offer (with real benefits)!
Worker power is stronger than ever, and the number of unions, strikes, and community organizing keeps growing across the United States. Taking a moment to remember that we are all in this fight together is
what May Day is all about.
Even in the rain, the feeling of solidarity was pulsing through the crowd. It was incredibly powerful to hear from fellow workers fighting for justice and equality throughout the country and the world. Our experiences of oppression and injustice in a global capitalist system may be different, but our chains are linked, and we can only lift the hammer of revolution to free ourselves through solidarity.
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Pace of capitalist crises increases as banks collapse
New York Times, 5/5–A cluster of regional banks scrambled on Thursday to convince the public of their financial soundness, even as their stock prices plunged and investors took bets on which might be the next to fall. The tumult brought questions about the future of the lenders to the fore, suggesting a new phase in the crisis that began two months ago with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and was punctuated on Monday by the seizure and sale of First Republic Bank…The trading was a reminder that the crisis may yet continue, belying predictions that the situation would be calmer after JPMorgan Chase came to an agreement with government officials to acquire the ailing First Republic. Regulators agreed to assume billions of dollars of potential losses lurking on First Republic’s books, and JPMorgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, declared immediately after the acquisition that “this part of the crisis is over.”
India’s bosses use old recipe of tribal violence to control workers
Al Jazeera, 5/7–At least 54 people have reportedly been killed and some 23,000 people displaced, most of them sheltering in army camps, in ethnic violence in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, according to military officials. On Sunday, the army said it had “significantly enhanced” its surveillance in violence-affected areas, including the Imphal Valley, through aerial means such as drones and the deployment of military helicopters.
The unrest in Manipur state erupted on Wednesday after a protest march organized by the Kuki tribal group sparked clashes with the Meitei non-tribal group, resulting in widespread damage to vehicles and properties. Authorities on Thursday issued “shoot-at-sight” orders and called military reinforcement to quell the violence that opened a new faultline in the state with a checkered history of ethnic violence. Internet connection was cut off after violence broke out on Wednesday and a curfew was imposed in nine out of the 16 districts.
The Meiteis…Hindu community, which is based in the state’s capital city of Imphal, forms more than 50 percent of the state’s population of 3.5 million, as per India’s last census in 2011. The Naga and Kuki tribes…two mostly Christian tribes form around 40 percent of the state’s population, and enjoy “Scheduled Tribe” status, which gives them land-owning rights in the hills and forests.
U.S. control of Guyana expands as oil profits flow
Reuters, 4/27–Exxon Mobil Corp and its partners have approved a $12.7 billion investment for their fifth and most expensive offshore oil project in Guyana, the U.S. firm said in a statement. The project called Uaru will produce up to 250,000 barrels of oil and gas per day…The decision coincides with Exxon considering whether to expand its holdings in Guyana through an auction of oil blocks set for July. Exxon and partners Hess Corp and CNOOC Ltd control all production in the South American nation, which according to consultancy Rystad Energy is set to leapfrog the United States next decade as one of the world’s largest offshore producers. “Our Guyana investments and unrivaled development success continue to contribute to secure, reliable global energy supplies,” said Liam Mallon, president of Exxon’s oil and gas producing business.
Cuban rulers rule out May Day march - again
BBC, 4/30–Every year hundreds of thousands of people are bussed in from across the island to fill Havana’s Revolution Square on International Workers’ Day. It is the first time since the 1959 revolution that the celebrations have been cancelled for economic reasons. In recent weeks long queues have formed at petrol stations, with drivers often waiting for days. Cuban authorities have traditionally mobilised huge resources to ensure the success of the May Day parade, transporting workers en masse to Havana. Before this year, the event had only ever been cancelled in 2020 and 2021, because of the Covid pandemic.
BAY AREA, May 6—Today, Progressive Labor Party held a BBQ-social to share May Day history, solidarity, and struggle with our comrades and friends. On May 1, PLP members and friends joined an Immigrant Rights’ May Day March in San Francisco with our Red Flags flying high. There were about 400 participants, immigrants, families and supporters from many countries. We marched with the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) contingent demanding a path to permanent residency, adding our class-oriented chants to the march. We continue to focus on the international working class as the power that can challenge capitalism in the U.S. and Imperialism around the world.
NEW YORK CITY--Several comrades attended a May Day rally and march on May 1 sponsored by the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), Teamsters and other unions and community organizations. About 800 workers marched from Washington Square Park to Foley Square in NYC. We distributed 300 CHALLENGE/Desafio newspapers to workers who enthusiastically received it, many of whom already know the paper from PLP’s long term work in community organizations.
