INTELLIGENCE REPORT FACTIONISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE: MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1949 (REFERENCE TITLE: POLO XXVIII)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 3, 2009
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: September 19, 1968
• Content Type: IR

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CONFIDENTIAL
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Report
FACTIONALISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:
MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1941.
(Reference Title: POLO XXVIII;
CONFIDENTIAL
RSS No. 0031/68
19 September 1968
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MEMORANDUM TO RECIPIENTS
FACTIONALISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:
MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1949
As the drama of Mao's Cultural Revolution has un-
folded, Communist China's leaders have made available a
vast amount of new information concerning earlier factional
struggles within the Chinese Communist Party. Making use
of bred Guard materials and other new information that has
been disclosed in the course of the Cultural Revolution,
this Intelligence Report re-examines these earlier factional
struggles and concludes that Mao's Cultural Revolution
is a direct descendent of party conflicts and policy dif-
ferences of nearly 20 years duration.
This is one of a series of SRS staff studies based
on contin1,ing surveillance of the China scene. It was
produced solely by the Special Research Staff;
Chief, DD/I Special Research Staff
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FACTIONALISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:
MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1949
Contents
Page
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Kao Kang - Jao Shu-Shih Anti-Party Alliance. . .3
The Peng Te-huai Affair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. . . . . 18
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
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FACTIONALISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:
MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1949
Summary
A fascinating by-product of the "great proletarian
cultural revolution" has been the disclosure of new in-
formation on factional struggles within the Chinese Com-
munist Party since its rise to power in 1949. The recur-
ring nature of these struggles suggests that factionalism,
carried on beneath a facade of unity, has been a continu-
ing feature of party life in Communist China. The purpose
of this paper is to reappraise the nature and extent of
this phenomenon of factionalism in order to better under-
stand the latest and most momentous of these factional
struggles--Mao Tse-tung's "great proletarian cultural
revolution."
Red Guard disclosures have added a new dimension
to our understanding of the first big struggle against
factionalism in the Chinese Communist Party since it came
to power--that waged against the Kao Kang-Jao Shu-shih
"anti-Party alliance" in the years 1953-1955. One aspect
of the Kao-?Jao affair, it has now been revealed, was an
effort to persuade Mao Tse-tung to give up one of his
leadership positions, to resign either as Chairman of the
Party or the State (almost certainly the latter.) More-
over, two of the main ingredients of the more recent
phenomenon of "revisionism"--the stress on expertise and
professionalism at the expense of political control, and
reliance on the Soviet model and Soviet support to promote
China's economic development--appear to have been present
in the Kao-Jao affair.
It is ironic that the net effect of this first strug-
gle against incipient "revisionism" was to strengthen the
position of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping who are now
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denounced as the two leading "revisionist" villains within
the Central Committee. In the reorganization of the party
structure at the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956,
Mao Tse-tung delegated a substantial amount of political
power to Liu (as the senior 'Vice-Chairman of the newly
established Standing Committee of the Politburo) and to
Teng (as head of the Secretariat charged with "attending
to the daily work of the Central Committee").
A decade hence at an important Central Committee
work conference in October 1966 Mao Tse-tung would refer
to this delegation of power as a "mistake," the consequ-
ences of which had necessitated the "great proletarian
cultural revolution.'" As Mao explained it, he had dele-
gated this power in order to provide for a smooth succes-
sion in the leadership--"to foster these people's authority
so that no great changes would arise in the country when
the time came for me to meet my Heavenly King (God)." Mao's
confidence in his principal party lieutenants, however,
had been misplaced, They had abused his confidence, had
committed a number of "mistakes," and (like Kao and Jao
before them) had constructed "independent kingdoms."
Policy issues were at the heart of the second big
factional struggle--that waged at Lushan in July and August
1959 against a "right opportunist, or revisionist, anti-
party clique" headed by the then Minister of National
Defense Peng Te-huai, For the first time since 1935,-Mao
Tse-tung's personal leadership and programs were openly
subjected to attack by a long-time "comrade in arms" who,
moreover, had managed to muster considerable support within
the Central Committee. Although Mao would triumph at
Lushan, the opposition to his radical domestic and foreign
policies would persist and finally precipitate the "great
proletarian cultural revolution."
In retrospect, it appears that Peng Te-huai was
the prototype of all those who would be attacked during
the "cultural revolution" as "Kh-ushchev-type revisionists"
within the Chinese Communist party. In criticizing Mao's
radical "great leap forward" and commune programs, Peng
represented a large group of the more pragmatic and tech-
nically minded administrators and professionals within
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the party, government and army who had come to see the
folly of these programs. In their stead, Peng may be
said to have advanced an alternative model of economic
and military development, one patterned more closely on
Soviet experience and featuring Soviet military, economic
and technical assistance. As the symbol both of Soviet
"revisionist" influence and of opposition to Mao, the
Peng Te-huai affair would cast a long shadow over the
years that followed.
Developments in the three year period following
the Lushan plenum (1959-1962) demonstrated that in im-
portant respects, in the great debate over domestic and
foreign policy staged at this historic meeting, Peng Te-
huai had been right and Mao Tse-tung had been wrong, The
combined effect of irrational economic policy, successive
bad harvests and the Soviet withdrawal of technicians in
the summer of 1960 dealt Mao's "great leap forward" program
of economic development a shattering blow. As a result,
by the winter of 1961-1962 opposition to Mao's policies
and programs extended into the ranks of the Politburo to
include a number of those who were charged with the
responsibility for coping with this domestic crisis. As
Mao Tse-tung would subsequently point out, this opposi-
tion was of two kinds--that carried on "secretly" by "the
Peng Chen group" and that carried on "openly"" by "the
Liu Shao-chi - Teng Hsiao-ping group." The progressive
awareness by Mao (and a small coterie of trusted advisers)
of the extent of this opposition would culminate in the
fall of 1965 in the decision to initiate what would prove
to be the most thoroughgoing and one of the most violent
party purges in Communist history.
It appears to be true, as Red Guard publications
have charged, that Liu Shao-chi at an enlarged Central
Committee work conference in January 1962 not-only defended
Mao's earlier critics but repeated some of the same critic-
isms of Mao's radical domestic programs which Peng Te-huai
had first raised at Lushan. Although he could cite the
party constitution as Justifying his "open opposition" on
this occasion, Liu must have suspected that Mao would treat
this criticism as a direct personal attack. It appears
in retrospect that Mao Tse-tung did in fact interpret
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Liu's criticism at the January 1962 party work conference
as a direct attack against both his policies and himself
and determined not long thereafter to make new arrange-
ments for a "revolutionary successor."
The consequences of this decision would be momentous.
It would mean, instead of the smooth succession which Mao
had hoped to achieve by conferring power and prestige on
Liu Shao-chi as head of the party apparatus, the start of
a succession struggle. It would necessitate a thorough
purging of all those in the party apparatus who had staked
their careers on the eventual succession to power of Liu
Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and, as a result, had espoused
the views and policies of these party machine leaders.
It would require enlisting the support of other leaders
whose bases of power lay outside the party apparatus,
principally Lin Piao (indispensable as Commander in Chief
of the People's Liberation Army) and Chou En-lai (also
important as an able administrator and representative of
the government bureaucracy). It would require the con-
struction of an elaborate trap with which to ensnare Liu
Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and their supporters in the
party apparatus, and the creation of such extra-party mass
organizations as the Red Guards to supply the element of
force needed to spring this trap, In short, this decision
to select a new "revolutionary successor" would lead, after
the necessary preparations had been made, to the launching
of Mao Tse-tung's "great proletarian cultural revolution."
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FACTIONALISM IN THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:
MAO'S OPPOSITION SINCE 1949
"In the 16 years since the founding of
our people's republic, the Marxist-Leninist
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party
Central Committee headed by Comrade Mao Tse-
tung has waged three big struggles against
anti-Party revisionist cliques." -- Jen-min
Jih-pao (People's Daily) Editorial, "Long
Live Mao Tse-?tung's Thought," July 1, 1966.
A fascinating by-product of the "great proletarian
cultural revolution" has been the disclosure of new in-
formation nn factional. struggles within the Chinese Com-
munist Party since its rise to power in 1949. One purpose
of these disclosures has been to demonstrate the validity
of Mao Tse-tung's most recent "creative development" of
Marxism-Leninism--''that classes and class struggle exist
in society throughout the historical period of the dictator-
ship of the proletariat." A second purpose has been to
discredit and incriminate Mao's high-ranking opponents with-
in the party by charging them with varying degrees of
complicity in these earlier "anti-party" struggles.
Because of the questionable nature of this new
evidence, it must of course be used with great care. It
is necessary, for example, to be extremely wary of allega-
tions of misconduct unless supported by statements of the
accused uttered at the time and reproduced in verbatim
form. It is also necessary to attempt to place these state-
ments in the proper context, both of the speech or report
from which they are drawn and of the policy guidelines pre-
vailing at the time. With these caveats in mind, it is
believed that these disclosures do provide new and valu-
able insights into the process of policy formation and
the structure of power in the Chinese Communist Party over
the course of the past 19 years.
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Reduced to the broadest common denominator, the
"three big struggles" that have taken place within the
Chinese Communist Party since 1949 have been, as: Mao's
propagandists assert, "struggles for and against Mao Tse-
tung's thought." At the same time, they have necessarily
involved considerations of power and in all cases have
been regarded by Mao as challenges to his leadership of
the party. The recurring nature of these challenges--the
"anti-party alliance of Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih" in 1953,
the "right opportunist, or revisionist, anti-party clique
headed by Peng Te-huai" in 1959, and the open-ended "count-
er.-.revolutionary clique' (headed initially by Peng Chen
and Lo Jui-chin; and later by Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-
ping) in 1965-1967--suggests, moreover, that factional
strife, carried on beneath a facade of unity, has been a
prominent feature of party life in Communist China since
1949.
The purpose of this paper is to reappraise the nature
and extent of this phenomenon of factionalism within the
Central Committee on the basis of new evidence brought to
light during the course of the past two years. Although
each of these struggles is unique and possesses an intrinsic
interest of its own, an attempt will be made to identify
features common to all.. The ultimate purpose of this paper,
then, is to?.seek to illuminate the origins, nature and pos-
sible future development of the latest and most momentous
of these factional struggles--Mao Tse-tung's "great pro-
letarian cultural revolution."
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The Kao Kang - Jao Shu-shih Anti-Party Alliance
"The criminal aim of the Kao Kang -
Jao Shu-shih anti.-Party alliance was to split
our Party and to overthrow the leading core
--the long tested Central Committee of the
Party headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung--with
the aim of seizing the supreme power of the
Party and the State. Their means to achieve
this aim was conspiracy. This was the prin-
cipal hallmark and program of this anti-Party
alliance." People's Daily Editorial, 'Tre-
mendous Victory of the Party in History,"
April 10, 1955.
Red Guard disclosures have added a new dimension
to our understanding of the first big struggle against
factionalism in the Chinese Communist Party since it came
to power--that waged against the Kao-Jao "anti-Party al-
liance" in the years 1953-1955. The princirals in this
affair were, of course, Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih who,
in running the regional party organizations in the indus-
trial areas of Northeast and East China, had constructed,
it was charged, "independent kingdoms." Although relatively
few and fragmentary in character, these new disclosures
suggest that this first challenge to Mao Tse-tung's lead-
ership was more broadly-based and formidable than in-
dicated at the time.
One aspect of the Kao-Jao affair, it has now been
revealed, was an effort to persuade Mao Tse-tung to give
uv one of his leadership positions, to resign either as
Chairman of the Party or the State (almost certainly the
latter). The leading figure in this effort apr,arently was
the revolutionary war hero Chu Teh, charged subsequently
by Lin Piao (in the fall of 1959) with having "tried to
become the leader himself... advocating the idea at the
time of the Kao Kang incident of becoming Chairman in turn."
Another prominent figure in this effort was Tan Chen-lin
(at the time de facto head of the East China regional
bureau) who (it is now disclosed) "in 1953...took the lead
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in sending a joint letter asking our great leader Chairman
Mao to 'take a rest."' Although presumably a number of
other party officials signed this letter, only one other
signatory has been identified---the recently deposed First
Secretary of the Shanr,nai Municipal Party Committee, Chen
Pei-hsien.
Differentiating this effort from the activities of
Kao and Jao at this time was the fact that it was carried
on openly, utilizing normal channels of communication with-
in the party. It could be justified, moreover, (as Chen
Pei-hsien has asserted in his defense) as a move designed
to protect "Chairman Mao's health" by removing part of the
burden which active leadership of both Party and State
entailed. By contrast, the "principal hallmark" of the
Kao-Jao "anti-Party