Abstract
The student of the internal affairs of the Chinese Communist Party is immediately impressed by various power struggles which took place within its ranks during its formative period. While internal power struggles were by no means exceptional in other national parties, both the final tactics employed and the theoretical justifications advanced for their use in China deviated from previously accepted Marxist-Leninist doctrines.1 The main difference between the Chinese and the other non-Soviet communist parties lies in the control the U.S.S.R. was able to exercise in internal party affairs. Although Russian influence within the C.P.C. was undoubtedly high, it never reached the control stage. Policy directives could not be implemented through the diktat of the C.P.S.U. When the Soviets endeavored to use the Chinese to further their own policy aims and aspirations,1 the attempts were usually unsuccessful. Even when successful, they were usually carried out in spite of, rather than in conformity to, Soviet political aims and guidance. Moreover — and this can only be indicated at this point2 — Chinese communism developed, to an extent which has not been typical outside Russia, sui generis. It appears that the process which took place in the Soviet Union, where first Lenin and later Stalin superimposed Marxism, a socio-political creed in the Western cultural tradition, upon concrete Russian political, social, and economic realities, is being carried even further in China.
In 1942 we worked out the formula “unity — criticism — unity” to describe this democratic method of resolving contradictions among the people.... In 1942 we used this method to resolve contradictions inside the Communist Party, namely, contradictions between the doctrinaires and the rank-and-file membership, between doctrinairism and Marxism. At one time in waging inner-Party struggle, the “left” doctrinaires used the method of “ruthless struggle and merciless blows.” This method was wrong....
Mao Tse-tung, February 27, 1957
Go thou and like an executioner, Gut off the heads of too fast growing spray That look too lofty in our Commonwealth; All must be even in our government.
King Richard II, Act iii, Scene 4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
These assertions, however, are not meant to imply that the Chinese communists were actually hostile to, or opposed, their soviet “comrades.” Quite the contrary. But the movement they built and led to success was more indigenous to China than any other, not even excepting Yugoslavia, was to its own country. By far the best account of the “early period” will be found in Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao: Cambridge, Mass., H.U.P., (1951)
see also Robert C. North, Moscow and Chinese Communists: Calif., S.U.P. (1963, 2nd ed.), especially the first 200 pages.
For the early period see Brandt, op. cit., pp. 102-03, 172-5; B. Schwartz., op. cit., pp. 187 ff. For a general view see North, Moscow, op. cit., pp. 157 ff., 167; also John King Fairbank, The United States and China: N.Y., The Viking Press (1958, rev. ed.), pp. 228–39, 290, 295-8.
For a very perceptive study see Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and its Modern Fate: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity: Berkeley and Los Angeles, U.C.P. (1958); see also Fairbank, op. cit., chapter iv, and pp. 346-7 (for bibliography)
see also Arthur A. Cohen, The Communism of Mao Tse-tung. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (1964).
See Stuart R. Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung: N.Y., Praeger (1963), especially the Introduction and p. 10; also pp. 111-112. The “genealogy” of Mao’s political thought will be discussed later in the chapter. At this point it should be stated that Mao borrowed quite heavily, and almost literally, from Engels — namely the theory of “contradictions”; see “On Contradiction” (August 1937), Works, op. cit., v. ii, pp. 13 — 53. His later development of the theme — to be discussed in chapter iv — seems to own less to “Marxism-Leninism” than to the exigencies within the international communist movement of the time.
The term “alliance” is employed quite consciously; it is imperative that a “history” consider the strengths as well as the strains, since otherwise a completely one-sided account (of the alliance) will emerge. One study of the historic relationship is Harry Schwartz, Tsars, Mandarins and Commissars: N.Y., Lippincott, 1964. Before a definitive history can be attempted, not only will more time need to elapse, but also more will have to be known about the internal development of communism in China, as well as various as yet unexplained developments of potential conflict between the Chinese communists and the Soviet Union. The best two accounts so far are B. Schwartz, op. cit., slightly revised in 1958, which desperately needs bringing up-to-date; and North, op. cit., whose second edition suffers the fault of the first, in reverse; that stressed the unifying factors, the later the ones making for diversity. For the first really sophisticated discussion re possible future conflict see Max Beloff, Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944–1951: London, N.Y., Toronto, O.U.P. (1953), pp. 10 ff., 257 ff. Articles dealing with the above aspect are also making their appearance, perhaps in greater numbers than the information at hand would seem to warrant; these will be discussed and cited in the next chapter.
E.g.: Allen S. Whiting, Soviet Policies in China, 1917–1924: N.Y., C.U.P. (1953); Brandt, op. cit.
Charles B. McLane, Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931–1946: N.Y., C.U.P. (1958); Beloff, op. cit.; and, on a more limited basis, since the author’s “primary purpose... was to subject the Sino-Soviet conflict to close analysis,” (p. viii), thus ignoring other factors mitigating against conflict.
Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956-1961: N.Y., P.U.P. (1962), and
Richard Loewenthal, World Communism. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, (1964).
E.g.: Kurt London (ed.), Unity and Contradiction — Major Aspects of Sino-Soviet Relations: N.Y., Praeger (1962)
Harriet L. Moore, Soviet Far Eastern Policy, 1931-1945: N.J., P.U.P. (1945); North, op. cit.; and
Henry Wei, China and Soviet Russia: Princeton, N.J., Van Nostrand (1956).
For the Soviet Union see Jesse D. Clarkson, A History of Russia: N.Y., Random House (1961); an opposite view which places Russia among the “great non-western majority” (p. 681) is expressed by A. J. Toynbee, “Russian and the West,” in Goldwin (ed.), op. cit., pp. 680-88. For the People’s Republic of China see Levenson, op. cit., for China’s cultural history, and its effects on and in the present mainland regime; also Fairbank, op. cit., pp. 52-67, and the pertinent bibliography, pp. 346-7. These remarks do not concern present-day differences between the C.P.S.U. and the C.P.C., but rather environmental differences existing in the two countries, and thus having a bearing on the separate value system of each of the two party-states.
See, e.g., R. N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and Practice of Communism: An Introduction: N.Y., The Macmillan Co. (1959, 5th ed.), pp. 3, 57
Henry B. Mayo, Introduction to Marxist Theory: N.Y., O.U.P., (1960), p. 245; Wetter, op. cit., pp. 3 ff., 29; and Ulam, op. cit., pp. 9, 58 ff.
Almost all the Chinese statements of this and later periods dealing with the subject pay tribute to the proletarian leadership of the revolution, even though they might be designated as “rural proletariat” (Fairbank, op. cit., p. 239). Mao deals with the question in a very broad context in “On New Democracy,” Works, op. cit., v. iii, pp. 112, 115, 125, 146 and passim, but especially p. 152. See also Liu Shao-chi, “The Victory of Marxism-Leninism in China,” in Ten Glorious Tears: Peking, F.L.P., (1960), p. 8. Modern examples could be extensively multiplied.
The point is very clearly elucidated by Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power — The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945: Stanford, Calif., S.U.P. (1962), p. viii; Johnson, however, may tend to place too heavy an emphasis on the similarities, since the Russian armies did clear the Yugoslav plains of German armor, a feat well beyond partisan strength. For the Soviet-Yugoslav “dispute” of 1948–1953, as reported in the soviet press, see the following: their claim to have “liberated” Yugoslavia will be found in “Soviet Note to Yugoslavia,” Pravda, August 12, 1949, p. 2, which also charges Tito to have “deserted from the camp of socialism and democracy to the camp of foreign capital and reaction,” and states that “tremendous aid” (of an unspecified nature) had been made available to the Yugoslavs. An earlier “Note of Soviets to Yugoslavs,” Pravda, June 2, 1949, p. 2, reaffirms Soviet friendship for Yugoslav “people,” and hostility to its government. Further attacks will be found in: G. Tikhonov and V. Petrov, “Against Tito’s Fascist Regime,” Trud, April 12, 1953, p. 3; and also the following issues of Pravda: August 5, 1949, p. 4; August 13, 1949, p. 4; and May 19, 1949, p. 3. The list is highly selective, but accurately represents Soviet “reportage” on the Yugoslav question at the time.
See A. Doak Barnett, Communist China and Asia: A Challenge to American Policy: N.Y., Vintage Books (1960), pp. 345 ff.; and Wei, op. cit., pp. 184-95.
Although Barnett (op. cit., p. 345) deems it likely that Stalin and Mao discussed the invasion in February of 1950; but this is pure speculation, and even if correct would tell us almost nothing regarding strains in the alliance brought about by the direct intervention of the G.P.R.; for the intervention itself see Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Talu. The Decision to Enter the Korean War. New York: The Macmillan Company (1960).
The impact of the Korean war on China itself is discussed by Alice Langley Hsieh, Communist China’s Strategy in the Nuclear Age: N.J., Prentice Hall (1962), pp. 13, 21, 133, 139-140. See also Zagoria, Conflict, op. cit., pp. 164-5, 175, and 283.
The Soviet role, and the reasons underlying the conflict in Korea have never been adequately examined by non-communist scholars. One reason, and a tremendous obstacle, lies in the fact that documentation is perforce non-existent, at least as regards Soviet motivation. While such an attempt is well beyond the scope of this monograph, we may here hazard the opinion that Korea was used as a testing ground by the Kremlin to determine both the will and the ability of the West to resist further attempts on the part of the communists to subvert non-communist territory by armed aggression. Several points would seem to give credence to such an interpretation: 1) the soviet absence in the U.N. Security Council at the time of the crucial vote (ironically enough, the delegation had walked out to protest that body’s China policy); 2) the choice of the location of the attack, which took place in an area where U.S. defense commitments were unclear and contradictory; 3) the careful avoidance of official sanction of the struggle waged by North Korea while, however, providing them, as well as later the Chinese communists, with both weapons and advisors, without which the communists could not have remained in the field; and 4) soviet attempts, beginning in 1950, to “arbitrate” the “dispute.” For the latter story see William Henry Vatcher, Panmunjom: The Story of the Korean Military Armistice Negotiations: N.Y., F. A. Praeger (1958).
For a brief general account see F. L. Schuman, Russia Since 1917: N.Y., A. A. Knopf (1957), pp. 389–96, also 431-2. An even greater importance however may be accorded to the Korean conflict when it is viewed from the Chinese perspective. Three major considerations would need to be taken into account here: 1) The conflict brought the C.P.R. into contact with the non-communist world — in the worst possible manner, thus once again stressing her “pariah” position in international relations; 2) her intransigence, never of a low order of magnitude, was thereby raised, while at the same time China gained confidence in her ability to confront the “West” in military combat; 3) the C.P.R.’s dependency upon the U.S.S.R. was crassly underscored, and Chinese attempts to gain economic self-sufficiency cannot be understood unless this factor is given serious attention. Such a policy was, at least potentially, directed in part against the U.S.S.R. The soviet official position on the Korean conflict will be found in The Soviet Union and the Korean Question’. Moscow, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1948); this, and similar soviet publications, whether “official” or not, contain nothing unexpected.
See Mayer, Sino-Soviet Relations, op. cit., pp. 7 — 8, and works cited there. The point of actual soviet aid in the Chinese 1946-49 communist revolution will probably not be settled for a long time to come. North (op. cit., pp. 223-7) is of the opinion (amply documented) that the soviets did everything in their power to aid the C.P.C. An “in-between” position is taken by Beloff, op. cit., pp. 55, 58 — 9. See also Yuan-li Wu, The Economy of Communist China. An Introduction. New York, London: Frederick A. Praeger (1965), especially pp. 114–15, 55, 93, 104, 185-90.
See Brandt, op. cit., who brilliantly links the events in China to the struggle in the Soviet Union between Stalin and Trotsky. For the early history of the Chinese communist movement see B. Schwartz, op. cit., chapters i through vii. For the military history of these times see F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China: 1924-1949: N.J., P.U.P. (1956), chapter iv.
Increase, that is, until 1948-49, when the role of the peasantry could be placed in its “proper” Marxist-Leninist setting. Mao’s early thoughts regarding “class” composition in communist Chinese movements will be found in “Investigation,” Works, op. cit., v. i, pp. 22-3.: For the latest see Mao Tse-tung, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People’. Peking, F.L.P. (1960); the text here is a slightly enlarged version of a speech made to the Supreme State Conference, February 27, 1957; see especially pp. 8-9, where he reviews the “class composition” of elements favorable and opposed to Chinese communism during various stages of that movement’s history.
These aspects are competently and lucidly detailed by Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China: N.Y., Grove Press (1938; all citations from 1961 paperback edition.); see especially p. 234.
Richard L. Walker agrees with the interpretation here offered. See China Under Communism: New Haven, Y.U.P. (1955), pp. 133 ff.
The following are the best works on each of the topics, which have come to our attention, and on which each account is largely based: 1. R. H. Tawney, Land and Labor in China: N.Y., Harcourt Brace and Co. (1952).
George B. Cressey, Asia’s Lands and Peoples: N.Y., McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. (1951, 2nd print.).
B. Schwartz, op. cit., also North; Moscow, op. cit.
Choh-Ming Li, Economic Development of Communist China: An Appraisal of the First Five Tears of Industrialization: Berkeley and Los Angeles, U.C.P. (1959).
Evan Luard, Britain and China: Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins Press (1962); also Fairbank, op. cit.
Edgar Snow, The Other Side of the River — Red China Today: N.Y., Random House (1962).
See Fairbank, op. cit., pp. 220 ff.; and Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder Out of China: N.Y., William Sloane Associates, Inc. (1946), pp. 43, 69-70, 174, 201, 203, 211, and 307. It might be well worth the effort to study the period of 1927, to determine whether perhaps the Chinese revolution was not lost, and won (by the Communists) during this period. Specifically, it was at this time that the “liberal” elements in Chinese society were becoming estranged, through the K.M.T.’s policies, from the reformist group which had backed Chiang.
See W. W. Rostow et. al., The Prospects for Communist China: London, Chapman and Hall, Ltd. (1954), pp. 254 ff.
Khrushchev’s “secret speech” was perhaps already indicated in the negative remarks made by Mikoyan in open session regarding Stalin; see “Speech” at XX C.P.S.U. Congress, in Leo Gruliow (ed.), Current Soviet Policies — II: N.Y., F. A. Praeger (1957); the pertinent remarks will be found on p. 87.
The best account in English of the events leading up to the Congress, and events therein, will be found in Robert Conquest, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. — The Study of Soviet Dynasties: London, Macmillan and Co. Ltd. (1962), especially chapter xi.
See Brzezinski, Bloc, op. cit., chapters x, xi, and xiv; Seton-Watson, op. cit., viii and xi, mainly for conditions which prevailed. A good account of Soviet policies which alienated the satellites (in this particular instance in East Germany) will be found in the closing chapters of Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution: Chicago, Regnery (1958).
See, e.g., Imre Nagy, On Communism: In Defense of the New Course: N.Y., Praeger (1957), especially pp. 205 and 249 ff. While Nagy does not specifically demand free election for all political parties, he did want freedom for his people; this was; however, hardly of the political-democratic genus as known in the West.
See G. F. Hudson, “Russia and China: The Dilemmas of Power,” Foreign Affairs, v. xxxix, no. 1, October 1957, pp. 1–10.
See Mao Tse-tung, “Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite, Fight Against Imperialist Aggression,” in Selected Works, (November 1948) Peking, F.L.P., (1961), v. iv, pp. 283–6; Liu Shao-chi indirectly deals with the same subject in his “Address at the Meeting in Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China,” Peking, F.L.P. (1961), especially pp. 16 ff.
The citations which can be brought to “document” this point are endless; four will be sufficient for present purposes: In Refutation of Modern Revisionism: Peking, F.L.P. (1958), especially the article by Chen Po-ta, beginning on p. 33. The entire book constitutes an attack on the dangers of Titoism. “Workers of All Countries Unite, Oppose our Common Enemy,” Peking, F.L.P., (1962), pp. 24 ff. The Renmin Ribao editorial, 12.31.1962, “The Differences between Comrade Togliatti and Us,” reprinted by F.L.P., Peking, 1963, especially pp. 44 ff.; and Shao Tieh-chen, “Revolutionary Dialectics and How to Appraise Them,” Peking, F.L.P., (1963), pp. 1, 11, and 13 ff. See also n. 2, pp. 41-2.
One of the big differences between the “new” and the “old” China is that the previous policy of looking inward to the Chinese empire has been discarded for one of strident expansionism. See Robert C. North, “The New Expansionism,” P.O.C., v. ix, no. 1, January-February 1960, pp. 23–30.
The concept would fit well with Mao’s injunction regarding strategic despisal of the “imperialists,” while paying great respect to its tactical power. See Mao Tse-tung, “Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong,” August 1946, in Selected Works: Peking, v. iv, pp. 97–101.
See also the perceptive article by Ralph L. Powell, “Great Powers and Atomic Bombs are ‘Taper Tigers’,” The China Quarterly, vi, 23, July-September 1965, pp. 55–63.
We refer to the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1950. See Robert P. Newman, Recognition of Communist China?:. N.Y., Macmillan Co. (1961), pp. 210 ff.
F. Engels (1894), Anti-Dühring — Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science: Moscow, F.L.P.H. (1959); for a discussion see this writer’s “An Analysis of the Marxian Theory of Contradictions as it Affects Sino-Soviet Relations,” unpublished seminar paper for Prof. J. Towster’s soviet seminar, U.C., Berkeley, spring 1961.
Boris N. Ponomarev, Politicheskii Slovar: Moscow, Gosizdat (1958), p. 556.
In spite of an over-abundance of people, the traditional Chinese agriculture is of a nature which does not permit the freeing of a large number for industrial purposes — one of the “bottle-necks” the communes were intended to overcome. See Mayer, op. cit., pp. 3, 122 ff., and a valuable addition to our knowledge of several pertinent related problems: Chu-yuan Cheng, Scientific and Engineering Manpower in Communist China, 1941-1963. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, U.S. Government Printing Office (1965).
See Snow (1962), op. cit., pp. 479-80, who maintains, however, that while there are food shortages in the C.P.R., there is no absolute starvation, a point concurred in by Schurmann, “The Dragon Treads Lightly: Peking’s New Line,” The Reporter, v. xxv, no. 6, October 12, 1961, pp. 34–6.
Perhaps some of the Chinese attacks on the present atom testban treaty, and Soviet reactions thereto, may arise from considerations based on this type of thinking. See for example, Chinese press articles attacking the test ban treaty, July 29, 1963, as translated in S.C.M.P., August 2, 1963, pp. 22-3, and August 6, p. 21. These polemics will be discussed further in the next chapter. The best discussion is Morton H. Halperin, China and the Bomb. New York, London: Frederick A. Praeger (1965), especially pp. 62–70; for Sino-Soviet exchanges, pp. 28-34, 41-7, 55-64, and 69-70.
Antonio Ambroso, “The P.C.I. Without Ideas,” Corrispondente Socialista, v. iii, no. 12, December 1962, pp. 626–31, as translated in T.I.C.D., no. 350, January 30, 1963, p. 22. We would, however, take some exception to the statement that the present soviet leaders are “inspired” by “socialism in one country.” Rather that thought of Stalin’s would seem to represent an idea (or “ideal”) which they are desperately trying to overcome.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mayer, P. (1968). A Consideration of Chinese Contributions to “Marxism,” Including “Prolonged Struggle” and “Revolutionary Fervor”. In: Cohesion and Conflict in International Communism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0495-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0495-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-015-0030-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-0495-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive