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

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CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6
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RIPPUB
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C
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39
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December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
December 3, 2009
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28
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Publication Date: 
September 19, 1968
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IR
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 -i- CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 -iii- CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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." -iv- CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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. -1- CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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." -2- CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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 CONFIDENTIAL Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875RO01000010028-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/03: CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010028-6 CONFIDENTIAL 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