Table Of Content

a Pelican Original The Cultural Revolution in China Joan Robinson PELICAN BOOKS THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA Joan Robinson was born in Surrey in 1903 and edu cated at St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, and Girton College, Cambridge. She took the examinations for the Economics Tripos and in 1931 was appointed an assistant lecturer. She became a University Lecturer in 1937, and was Reader in Economics at Cambridge from 1949 until 1965, when she became Professor of Economics at Cambridge. She has also published: Economics of Imperfect Competition (1933), Essays in the Theory of Employment (1937), Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1937), Essay on Marxian Economics (1942), Collected Economic Papers Vol. I (1951), Vol. II (i960), and Vol. Ill (1965), The Rate of Interest and Other Essays (1952), The Accumulation of Capital (1956), Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth (1963), Economic Philosophy (1963 ; a Pelican), and articles in economic journals. Her latest publica tions are Economics: an Awkward Corner (1966) and Freedom and Necessity: An Introduction to the Study of Society (1970). Joan Robinson is married to the Emeritus Professor of Economics at Cambridge and has two daughters. She lives in Cambridge. ■J ‘ Joan Robinson THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA PENGUIN BOOKS Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21207, U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Published in Pelican Books 1969 Reprinted with revised Postscript, 1970 Copyright © Joan Robinson, 1969,1970 Made and printed in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Reading and Fakenham Set in Intertype Plantin This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE I. INTRODUCTION A New Revolution n The Struggle 17 Red Guards and Rebels 24 The Thought of Mao Tse-tung 28 A People’s Army 32 The Economy 34 The Arts 39 External Affairs 40 The Way Ahead 42 2. THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION SEEN FROM SHANGHAI Introduction 45 Skirmishes in the Field of Culture 49 The Struggle Begins 53 Chairman Mao Intervenes 55 The Struggle Goes On 57 Desperation of the Rightists 58 The Seizure of Power 61 Criticism and Repudiation 65 Economic Consequences 67 The Next Phase 68 Tasks Ahead 69 3. DOCUMENTS I. The Circular of 16 May 70 2. Bombard the Headquarters 80 CONTENTS 3. The Sixteen Points 84 4. The January Storm in Shanghai 96 5. The Great Strategic Plan 122 4. REPORTS AND CONVERSATIONS A Machine Tool Factory, Peking 125 A Sweet Factory, Shanghai 130 A Transport Company, Peking 133 A Factory for Blind and Deaf Workers, Shanghai 136 Educational Institutions, Peking and Shanghai 138 5. POSTSCRIPT 147 LIST OF PLATES I. A scene from Taking the Bandits' Stronghold, a contemporary revolutionary opera 2 and 3. Putting up ‘big-character’ posters 4. Mao meets teachers and students 5. Proletarian revolutionaries in a cotton mill in Tsingtao 6. Tachai: houses that escaped the flood 7. Tachai: cutting stone to terrace the fields 8. The new Tachai begins to prosper 9. The threshing-ground of Tachai 10. Marketing and Supply staff set out for hill villages in Tsai Ke Da, Shansi II. Grinding meal PREFACE The centrepiece of this little volume is the report on the Cultural Revolution which I received in Shanghai. The report was evidently carefully prepared. It gives a clear and frank narrative, including some details which I believe have not before been published outside China. It also gives a philosophical analysis of the events which it describes, providing a valuable insight into what those who are making the Cultural Revolution believe it to mean. A number of documents which played a part in the history of the Cultural Revolution are included with brief comments. The translations have been published by the Foreign Languages Press, Peking. The style of Chinese propaganda both at home and abroad (especially when translated into English) is not well attuned to our ears and the very fact that it is propaganda makes it uncon vincing; the documents quoted here are of a different kind. They are appeals or declarations which themselves played a part in the struggle. They are of great historical interest and they give far more insight into what was involved than can any analysis by an external observer. Some reports follow which were prepared from notes of interviews taken by myself and Mr Roland Berger. The Introduction makes use of some paragraphs from an article published in International Affairs (Chatham House) April 1968 and from Now (Calcutta) 22 December 1967. Cambridge, April 1968 JOAN ROBINSON I INTRODUCTION It is difficult even to begin to understand the significance of the Cultural Revolution through the medium of translations from Chinese, for not only the phraseology but the concepts in terms of which it is expressed are strange to us. What is the meaning of a Party person in authority taking the capitalist road? How can class war persist when there are no owners of private property to exploit the workers? How can the leader of an established government proclaim that Rebellion is justi fied? What are a Great Alliance and a Triple Combination? How does the thought of Mao Tse-tung make crops grow on a stony hill? A New Revolution The key to the conception of the Cultural Revolution, as its own spokesmen see it, lies in the Marxist analysis of society, refined and developed by Mao Tse-tung on the basis of his long experience of Communism in China. Marxist analysis distinguishes between the base of a social system and the superstructure. The base is a system’s economic foundation. The base of capitalism is personal property in the means of production, which yields rentier income and gives private enterprise control over economic development. Simi larly, the base of socialism is State ownership and control of industry. A superstructure is the pattern of institutions, organi zations, chains of authority, traditions and habits of thought which grow up in society. Inequality in consumption, the love of rank, status and power, untrammelled individualism and a 12 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA social hierarchy based on wealth, belong to the bourgeois super structure of capitalism; the superstructure of proletarian socialism requires acquisitiveness to be replaced by a spirit of service. Accepting the dichotomy between the base of a social system and the superstructure, Mao Tse-tung shows how the super structure may react upon the base: Ideas may become a material force. Contrariwise, when the base is changed, the superstructure will not automatically transform itself accord ingly. Old-fashioned Marxists might regard this as a heresy, but that is scarcely reasonable. The meaning of a proposition depends on what it denies. Marx, combating the liberal ideal ism with which he was surrounded, denied that independent thought, drawn from the blue air, can control events. Once the view that ideas arise out of material circumstances has been accepted, there is no sense in denying that causation runs both ways. If Marx had believed that ideas can have no effect on events, why should he have taken the trouble to write a book? According to the Chinese view, Russian experience shows that a capitalist-type superstructure can grow up on a socialist base. When there are no capitalists to run industry and direct investment, the State develops organs to take over these func tions, and the individuals put into control of them may suffer deformations of character sometimes even more unpleasant, from the point of view of socialist ideals, than those of the old bourgeoisie. Sometimes a third party might feel that the embittered attacks which Chinese spokesmen make on Soviet ‘revision ism’ are exaggerated and unfair. But they are clearly right in opposing Stalin’s contention that abolishing private property in the means of production automatically creates a classless society. Soviet experience shows that power, privilege, and access to education can form the basis of class distinctions passed on from parents to children. Moreover, in trying to