MAO SETS LIMITS TO CRITICISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00890A000800080013-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2000
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: June 26, 1957
• Content Type: BRIEF

Approved For Release 20
Several leaders of puppet parties in Communist China are in
trouble for criticizing the Peiping regime too boldly.
A. The best-known of them are three figurehead. cabinet mini-
sters, Lo Lung-chi, Chang Po-chun and Chang Rai-chi, and
the old Yunnan wckrloxd Lung Yun, one of whose sons is
STATOTH
II. In criticizing the regime, these and other so-called "demo-
cratic" leaders had gone beyond the limits now set forth in
the revised version of Mao Tse-tung's February speech.
A. Mao's criteria for distinguishing "flowers" from "weeds"
were probably not contained in his original speech. If
they had been, it is doubtful that the critics would
have been so outspoken.
III. The criticism now under attack went too far by challenging
basic dogmas of both Moscow and Peiping,
A. Last year, during the troubles in Eastern Europe, Moscow
and Peiping reaffirmed these dogmas in order to define
the permissible limits of "liberalization."
IV. Mao Tse-tung again has his eye on Eastern Europe as well as
his Chinese audience in attempting now to define th ermis-
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A. Words and actions are proper, ciao says, if they strengthen
the principle of Communist party leadership of the state,
help to consolidate the centralized dictatorship, advance
socialist transformation and construction, and benefit
relations among Communist states.
V. The puppet party leaders ran head-on into Mao's criteria.
A. The three cabinet ministers all criticized the Communist
party's monopoly of real power and all questioned its
basic policies of socialization.
Lung Yun reportedly criticized the Soviet stripping of
Manchuria after World War II and Soviet policy on loans
to China--which he compared unfavorably with US policy
on war loans to allies.
VI. Liao has said that those who reject his criteria may still
argue their case,
A. Thus we do not expect the critic5to be severely punished,
although some may be expelled from their parties and lose
their government jobs.
3. In attacking these critics, Peiping is interested pri-
niarily in illustrating its policy on criticism rather
than in destroying these particular people.
C. Henceforth, few "democratic" leaders will be brave enough
to attack the regime at its core.
U. However, in refuting offending views, Chinese are giving
them wide publicity--and are probably not sorry to have
Lung Yun's "right deviation" read in Moscow.
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VII. Mao's criteria will not give Warsaw much comfort.
A. Poles had taken earlier,uunofficial accounts of the new
Chinese doctrine as meaning Chinese support for their
independent position.
1. They said Mao's doctrines were "pregnant with signi-
ficance," claiming Chinese experience was as valuable
as Soviet,.
VIII. Orthodox Satellites, however, will find it easier to cope
with stirrings of "liberal" interest in Mao's ideas,
A. They will even be able to find justification for their
current hard line in Mao's speech.
1. The Hungarian regime, for example, praises it for
its "great ideological and practical aid for Hun-
garian communists"--before it was published they
stated flatly that the Chinese doctrines could not
be applied in a wholesale manner in Hungary.
2. The Czechs for their part claim that Mao's analysis
refutes the Western belief that there was a gulf be-
tween the government and the peoples of socialist
countries.
3. The present Chinese position will obviate the need
for them to make a direct attack on the doctrines
of a member of the Bloc--an act which would have
tacitly admitted that there is more than one road to
socialism.
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3. The Chinese, on the other hand, will probably be as unhappy
wsa 0
to see their ideas ?aei to justify terror in Hungary as
v549
they evidently were to see them v =d to justify breaking
up the collectigS.farm system in Poland.
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