INTELLIGENCE REPORT THE FAILURE OF MAOIST IDEOLOGY IN FOREIGN IN FOREIGN POLICY (REFERENCE TITLE: POLO XLIII/71)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001000010042-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 46
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 3, 2009
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: November 1, 1971
• Content Type: IR

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Report
Secret
11~ V~
The Failure of Maoist Ideology in Foreign Policy
(Reference Title: POLO XLIII/71)
Secret
RSS No. 0053/71
November 1971
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W
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WARNING
This document contains infonnation affecting the national
defense of the United States, within the meaning of Tit le
18, sections 793 and 794. of the US Code, as amended.
Its transmission or revelation of its contents to or re-
cciht by an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
1 (ROUP1
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THE FAILURE OF MAOIST IDEOLOGY
MEMORANDUM FOR RECIPIENTS
This study examines the causes and course of
the fairly dismal attempt of China;, during the height
of its Cultural Revolution, to export Maoist radicalism
abroad, The study concludes that this advance found
its source in domestic conflict;, its retreat in foreign
affairs concerns -- especially the rising Soviet threat?
The study also finds that radical Maoism has won its
greatest support not, as anticipated by Peking, as a
guide to the practical problems of various underdeveloped
societies, but as simply one article of mystical faith
among certain revolutionary extremists in the world s
advanced industrial states.
The study has met general agreement among China
specialists within the of Intelligence.
The study's author is of this 25X1
Staff.
Hal Ford
Chief, DD/I Special Research Staff
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THE FAILURE OF MAOIST IDEOLOGY
Contents
Page
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
The Turn to the Left: Prelude to the
Cultural Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S
The Left in Command: The Cultural
Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Turn to the Right: Postscript to
the Cultural Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Conclusions. . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . 3S
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THE FAILURE OF MAOIST IDEOLOGY
IN FOREIGN POLICY
Summary
If Maoist ideology is defined loosely as a
body of ideas derived from Marxist-Leninist doctrines
and shaped by half a century's experience of the
Chinese Communist revolution, it is the international
impact of the more extreme version of Maoism which
culminated in the Cultural Revolution with which
this paper is primarily concerned. Although the
international impact of this appeal to continue the
revolution both at home and abroad provides the
central theme, this paper also discusses the
reciprocal impact of developments abroad upon Maoist
ideology.
It is a thesis of this paper that the more
extreme Maoism which began to appear in the fall
of 1962 was intended primarily to justify and
legitimize Mao's rule in the face of domestic
opposition within China. But while this particular
variant of Mao's ideology and the claims made for
it as the acme of Marxism-Leninism in the present
era may have performed a positive function in
enhancing the authority of Mao within China, the
increasingly radical character of this ideology
and its claims resulted externally in (1) affronting
foreign Communist Parties intent upon following
their own "national roads" to socialism; (2) alarming
national bourgeois governments of Asia, Africa and
Latin America; and (3) reducing China's international
prestige to its lowest point in two decades.
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The strategy employed in the first stage of
this swing to the Left (1963-1964) was, in retrospect,
relatively flexible and pragmatic. Mao's revolu-
tionary doctrines appealed, moreover, to the leader-
ship of a number of Communist Parties who, viewing
the Soviet emphasis on "peaceful coexistence" as
harmful to their own revolutionary interests, were
attracted by the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and
anti-American core of Maoist strategy.
Mao's decision in the winter of 1964-1965 to
intensify the struggle against Khrushchev's successors,
however, had profound consequences. It dictated
the adamant refusal to join the Soviet Union in any
form of "united action" in aid of North Vietnam,
a refusal justified by the unconvincing and paradoxical
argument that in order to oppose successfully "United
States imperialism," it was first necessary to oppose
"modern revisionism." Reflecting an unrealistic and
distorted view of the outside world, this was a policy
of opposing simultaneously and with equally acute
antagonism both the United States and the Soviet
Union, a policy so extreme that within a matter of
months China's only ally in what Peking described
as "the broadest possible united front" was mighty
Albania.
If the primary purpose of the Cultural Revo-
lution?(formally initiated in May of 1966) was to
restore Mao"s political and ideological authority
within China, an important means to this end was a
concerted effort to demonstrate that Mao's thought,
as the highe::t form of contemporary Marxism-Leninism,
was held in high esteem throughout the rest of the
world. This undertaking to transform the Cultural
Revolution into "a revolution of an international
order" embroiled China in controversy with nearly
every important government in the world. Within
two years time, the extremism, violence and utopian-
ism of the Cultural Revolution left China almost
completely isolated, dependent for visible signs
of support from the outside world on Albania, an
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ill-assorted group of "Marxist-Leninist" splinter
parties, and student revolutionaries of the New Left.
The issue of the exportability of Mao's thought
lay at the very heart of the struggle between the
"revolutionary Left" and the professional diplomats
within the Foreign Ministry throughout the Cultural
Revolution. With the Left firmly in command, China's
foreign relations in the spring and summer of 1967
were characterized by a series of developments
repeated with little variation in a number of
countries: the transformation of the Embassy and
New China News Agency into centers for the propaga-
tion of Mao's thought, and the distribution of badges
and other symbols of Mao's personality cult; an
ensuing clash when local government authorities
moved to curtail or prohibit these practices; various
forms of retaliation by Peking ranging from sponsor-
ship of Communist armed revolt (as in Burma) to,
more commonly, Red Guard harassment of, and physical
attacks against, the embassies and diplomats of the
offending governments; and, in some cases, suspension
of diplomatic relations. Reflecting the claim of
universal validity for Mao's thought, this missionary
effort encompassed hostile, neutral and friendly
countries alike, the latter exemplified by North
Korea and North Vietnam, both of which protested in
Party publications against this attempt to impose
Maoist ideology on their own national movements.
One of the many ironies of the Cultural
Revolution is that the effort to propagate Mao's
thought and thus promote revolution abroad should
have its greatest impact not in the countries of
the Third World (developing the national liberation
movement), nor in the countries of the socialist
camp (strengthening the "Marxist-Leninist" forces)
as predicted, but rather in many advanced indus-
trialized countries of the world where the Chinese
Communists had seen little or no chance for revolu-
tionary uprisings. Attracted by the elements of
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utopianism, anarchism and student elitism in Mao's
Cultural Revolution, the rebellious students of the
New Left in France and Japan who rose up to seize
control over their university campuses as a first
step toward "revolutionizing" society were protest-
ing what they considered to be serious defects in
the organization and functioning of their highly
complex societies.
It is easy to exaggerate the influence of
Maoist ideology on the student revolutionaries
of the New Left. In searching examinations of the
intellectual roots of the New Left, Richard Lowenthal
and other knowledgeable observers have traced the
principal characteristics of this new type of revolu-
tionary movement (a faith in utopia and a cult of
violent action) as much to the writings of Che Guevara
and Regis Debray (the theorists of "Castroism"),
and of Herbert Marcuse (the American ideological
critic), as to those of Mao Tse-tung.
If the turn to the Left in Maoist ideology
which began in 1962 was basically a response to
domestic political pressures, the turn to the Right
which began hesitantly in the fall of 1967 and has
proceeded through several fairly well-defined
stages up to the present appears to have been
stimulated to a significant extent by external
pressures, specifically the growing military threat
to China posed by the Soviet Union. The realiza-
tion that, as a result of the provocative and self-
defeating foreign policy of the Cultural Revolution,
China stood isolated in the face of a major threat
to its national security has had a particularly
sobering effect on the Chinese leadership.
The emergence in Peking of a "nationalist
model" approach to foreign policy in the past two
years constitutes a sharp turn away from the "re-
volutionary model" which had dominated China's
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foreign relations during the Cultural Revolution.
Instead of a policy proclaiming the need to promote
revolution abroad in imitation of the Chinese
model of armed struggle, Peking now poses as the
champion of national sovereignty. Instead of a
policy directed at a largely fictitious constituency
of "revolutionary Leftists" throughout the world
committed to the Maoist goal of violent revolution,
Peking has now reverted to the pro-Cultural Revolu-
tion Maoist concept of developing a broad inter-
national united front composed of governments and
peoples against what it likes to call the "super-
power hegemony" of the United States and the Soviet
Union. Instead of a policy relying heavily on
ideology (the export of Mao's thought) to promote
China's revolutionary objectives, Peking now relies
on the more conventional weapons of great-power
diplomacy, including such material incentives as
economic aid and trade, to project its influence
abroad.
The shift to the Right in domestic and
foreign policy had become so pronounced by the fall
of 1970 that it was necessary to explain to both
domestic and foreign audiences why this shift had
taken place. In time-honored fashion, it was
decided, apparently at the Second Plenum of the
new Central Committee held in late August and
early September, to explain the excesses and violence
arid attendant policy failures of the Cultural Revolu-
tion as the work of an "ultra-Leftist group" headed
by the leading Chinese Communist ideologue and long-
time confidant of Mao, Chen Po-ta.
It waz symbolic that Chen Po-ta (the
ideologue exemplifying the forces of the "revolu-
tionary Left") was now replaced by Chou En-lai
(regarded as the foremost exponene of pragmatism
and moderation within the top Chinese leadership).
It was also indicative of the extent to which Maoist
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ideology, having veered sharply to the Left during
the Cultural Revolution in an attempt to revolu-
tionize Chinese society -,nd in time the world, has
once again (as it had a decade earlier) been forced
to swing back sharply to the Right in adjusting to
reality.
The basic cause for the failure of the
Leftist ideological offensive which Mao had initiated
in 1962 was the complexity and intractability of
the real world. Although all the returns are not
yet in, the end result of Mao's attempt to revolu-
tionize his own society by intimidation and coercion
appears to be, as one observer has put it, a "utopia...
run by the army." Although again all the returns are
not yet in, the end result of the concurrent attempt
during the Cultural Revolution to revolutionize the
world appears to be that the outside world, by e'ert-
ing a moderating influence on that ideology, has
triumphed over the utopian version cf Maoism.
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THE FAILURE OF MAOIST IDEOLOGY
IN FOREIGN POLICY
Introduction
Actually the situation within the
socialist camp is quite simple. The
enZe question is one of cZaee struggle
-- a question of struggle between the
proletariat anc the bourgeoisie, a
question of struggle between Marxism-
Leninism and a.tti-Marxism--Leninism, a
question of struggle between Marxism-
Leninism and revisionism.
-- Mao Tse-tung, Speech at Central
Committee Plenum, 24 September 1962?
The ueetion of claea struggle
in [China] is [aleoj a question of
struggle between Marxism and revi-
eioniem, It seems that it is better
to rename Right opportunism as revi-
sioniem in China.
-- Mao Tse-tung, Speech at Central
Committee Plenum, 24 September 1962,
If Maoist ideology is defined loosely as a body
of ideas derived from Marxist-Leninist doctrines and
shaped by half a century's experience of the Chinese
Communist revolution, it is the international impact of
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the more extreme version of Maoism which began to emerge
in the fall of 1962 and which would culminate in the
Cultural Revolution with which this paper is primarily
concerned. In common with other ideologies, this more
extreme variant of Maoism consisted of (1) a theory of
the nature of society (which explained human conduct as
largely determined by "class nature"); (2) a program
of social and political change (featuring, as suggested
by the quotations cited above, "class struggle"); and
(3) a call to action (a call addressed, in addition to the
domestic audience, to a foreign audience composed variously
of governments, Communist Parties, revolutionary groups
and other "revolutionary Leftists" presumed receptive
to this more militant version of Maoism). Although the
international impact of this appeal to continue the revo-,
lution both at home and abroad provides the central theme,
this paper will also discuss the reciprocal impact of
developments abroad (the reaction of this diverse foreign
audience) upon Maoist ideology.
It is a thesis of this paper that the m ee extreme
version of Maoism which began to appear in the fall of
1962 was intended primarily to justify and legitimize
Mao's rule in the face of domestic opposition within China.
But while this Leftist variant of Mao's ideology and the
claims made for it as the acme of Marxism-Leninism in the
present era may have performed a positive function in
enhancing the authority of Mao within China, the increas-
ingly overt and extravagant nature of these claims had
the negative effect externally of affronting foreign Com-
munist Parties intent upon following their own "national
roads" to socialism. While the accompanying ideological
and organizational challenge to the Soviet Union for
leadership over the international Communist movement may
have aroused a patriotic response and thus strengthened
Mao's political position at home, the extreme lengths tc
which Mao was prepared to carry this challenge had the
negative effect abroad of alienating friends and neutrals
until China stood virtually alone among her former Com-
munist allies.
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Similarly, while the widely publicized view accompany-
ing this challenge that a revolutionary upsurge featuring
armed struggle and employing Maoist strategy was imminent
in the underdeveloped world of Asia, Africa and Latin
America might again have been functional in the sense of
elevating Mao's prestige in China, the net effect of this
more militant revolutionary posture abroad was to alarm
the national bourgeoisie governments in these areas,
especially in Africa, dissipating the assets and goodwill
built up laboriously over a decade by means of economic
assistance, trade and conventional diplomacy. Finally,
although the utopianism and violence of the Cultural Revolu-
tion could be justified as essential to overthrow Mao's
opposition entrenched within the Party bureaucracy at home,
the overall effect abroad of this spectacle of licensed
anarchism was to reduce China's international prestige to
its lowest point in two decades, with only the student
radicals of the New Left responding favorably to this
anarchic element in Mao Tse-tung's thought.
If Mao's obsession with "class struggle" in the fall
of 1962 (e.g. his statement at the Tenth Plenum: "From now
on, we must discuss classes and class struggle every year,
every month, every day.") reflected also a genuine concern
for continuing the revolution both at hone and abroad, the
opposition engendered by this simplistic and distorted view
of the nature of human society drove him further and further
to the Left in search of allies. By drawing ever more rigid
and restrictive lines of demarcation based upon a meta-
physical concept of class nature, Mao and his supporters
found themselves increasingly isolated within the interna-
tional community, the international Communist movement and
within China itself. To correct this "ultra-Leftist" devia-
tion, it was finally deemed necessary to point out (at
another Central Committee plenum held eight years later in
September 1970) that, in addition to its "class nature," an
equally important characteristic of Mao's thought was its
"practicality."
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The discussion which follows, then, is an attempt
(1) to explain why Maoist ideology has changed (moving
first to the Left, then even further Left during the
Cultural Revolution, and finally back toward the Right)
over the past eight years, (2) to assess the international
impact of the more extreme version of Maoist ideology
which has prevailed throughout most of this period; and
finally (3) to estimate the extent to which recent de-
velopments outside China (principally the Soviet military
threat) have in turn influenced Mao's ideology.
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The Turn to the Left; Prelude to the Cultural Revolution
It is wrong to make peaceful coexistence
the general line of the foreign policy of
the socialist countries. In our view,
the general line...[muot also include]...
proletarian internationalism...and support
and assistance to the revolutionary strug-
gZca of all the oppressed peoples and
nations.
-- "A Proposal Concerning the General Line
of the International Communist Movement,"
Jen-min iih-nao (People's Daily), 17 June
1963.
To deny the existence of class struggle
in the period of the dictatorship of
the proletariat and the necessity of
thoroughly completing the socialist
revolution on the economic, political
and ideological fronts is wrong, does
not correspond to objective reality,
and violates Marxism-Leninism.
-- "A Proposal Concerning the General
Line of the International Communist
Movement," People's Daily, 17 June 1963.
In proclaiming his own "general line" for the Com-
munists of the world in the summer of 1963, Mao Tse-tung
issued an across-the-board indictment of Soviet "revi-
sionism" as manifested in both foreign policy (peaceful
coexistence) and domestic policy (the elimination of
class struggle as a basic motivating force in socialist
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society). In place of the false "revisionist" line of
Khrushchev, Peking offered an authentic "Marxist-Leninist"
general line for the international Communist movement
embodying what Benjamin Schwartz has called Mao's "optimum
global vision" -- a world Communist movement reconstituted
under Chinese leadership and dedicated to promoting revolu.
tion based on China's "revolutionary model" in the under-
developed and oppressed areas of Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Implicit in this polemical attack was Mao's
prescription of the proper way to build socialism after
the seizure of power, a prescription also based in large
part on China's own revolutionary experience in Yenan
featuring class struggle, heroic poverty and collective
enthusiasm. This attempt to recast Marxism-Leninism in the
image of Mao's own revolutionary experience in both revolu-
tion and construction would, by provoking further opposition
at home and abroad, lead in time to the violence, extremism,,
and pariah-like isolation of China during the Cultural
Revolution.
The strategy employed in the first stage of this
swing to the Left encompassing the years 1963-1964 was,
in retrospect, relatively flexible and pragmatic. In its
ideological and organizational challenge to the Soviet
Union for leadership over the international Communist
movdnent, Peking throughout this period championed the
national independence of Communist Parties, offering in
place of Soviet domination a more benign organizational
model for the movement in which China's leading role would
be recognized voluntarily by the other parties. The same,
at least nominal, reliance on persuasion characterized the
Chinese approach to "the great debate on Marxism-Leninism"
with the Soviets throughout this period, viewed by Peking as
an international rectification campaign designed to convince
"the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
to correct its errors and return to the path of Marxism-
Leninism..."
Mao's revolutionary doctrines appealed, moreover,
to the leadership of a number of Communist Parties who,
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viewing the Soviet emphasis on "peaceful coexistence" as
harmful to their own revolutionary interests, were at-
tracted by the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-
American core of Maoist strategy. This was particularly
true in Asia, where by the end of 1964 the great majority
of Communist Parties (including the important Parties in
Indonesia, North Vietnam, North Korea and Japan) had
opted for Peking's more aggressive revolutionary strategy,
in which United States "imperialism" was the main enemy
and in which elimination of American power and influence
from Asia was the common goal. Despite a number of prob-
lems -- logistical (distance), organizational (the pro-
Soviet complexion of existing Parties) and ideological
(the competing revolutionary doctrine of "Castroism"),
some progress in setting up pro-Chinese Communist Parties
(e.g. in Brazil and Peru) was also achieved in Latin America
during this early period.
In Africa, however, even in this early period,
Peking's attempt to project its influence abroad by
advocating revolution based on the Chinese model received
its first setback. As the second most important area
of Chinese foreign policy, the newly independent nations
of Africa had, up to this time, been cultivated by a broad-
gauged program combining political blandishment, economic
and technical assistance and cultural diplomacy. But
Peking's ideological pronouncement in late 1963* that
"socialist countries were duty bound" to serve as "base
areas" in support of "armed struggle" in "the extremely
favorable revol tt'.onary situation [which] now exists in
Asia, Africa and Latin America," followed shortly by
Premier Chou En-lai's observation on completing a tour
41n the artio//~.e by the editorial departments of Peo Ze'e
Daily and Red Fes, "Apologists of Neo-Colonialiem.
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of 10 African countries* that "revolutionary prospects are
excellent throughout the African continent," could only
be regarded with suspicion by Africa's new leaders.**
It was a natural reaction for leaders of national bourgeois
governments (e.g. the leaders of the government of Kenya)
to question whether they themselves were the object of
the "armed struggle" emphasized in China's revolutionary
model, the more so since that model called for "proletarian"
leadership of the revolution at some point. In addition
to this perceived threat of subversion, the new leaders
of Africa were increasingly suspicious of Peking's efforts
at this time to form a Chinese-led international "united
front" directed at both the United States (imperialism)
and the Soviet Union (revisionism) when their own national
interests dictated non-alignment and the acceptance of
economic aid from both.
Paralleling this undertaking to promote revolution
abroad, the first stage of a "socialist education" campaign
within China -- a campaign designed to persuade the Chinese
Communist Party and the Chinese people once again (after
three years of privation and ignominious retreat from the
original goals of the Great Leap Forward and commune pro-
grams) of the validity of Mao's approach to building
socialism -- was also relatively moderate. As revealed
*At a 3 February 1864 mass rally in Somalia.
it is interesting to note that Foreign Minister Chen
I (in analysing the reasons for a number of international
setbacks encountered by Peking) subsequently characterised
this visit by Chou En-tai to Africa in the winter of 1963-
1964 as a watershed in China's relations with the Third
World. Before Chou's visit, according to Chen, these
nations thought of China as "a comparatively mild Commun-
ist country," but after Chou's visit and the accompanying
shift of the "revolutionary center of Communism" from
Moscow to Peking, these countries now thought of China
as "a comparatively violent Communist nation."
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in Mao's speech at the Tenth Plenum in September 1962,
it was agreed that for a time economic reconstruction
would take priority over political and ideological
reform ("We must not allow the class struggle to inter-
fere with our work.") In this interim period extending
throughout 1964, the "socialist education" campaign was
focused on the countryside in a joint effort to re-instil
a "revolutionary spirit" of self-sacrifice in the Chinese
people and to re-establish control over agriculture as a
prerequisite for new economic development.
Two developments in the winter of 1964-1965 fore-
shadowed an impending shift further to the Left in both
domestic and foreign policy. As Lin Piao would sub-
sequently point out in his political report to the Ninth
Party Congress, the first of these occurred "at the end of
1964 [when] Chairman Mao convened a working conference of
the Central Committee... [at which]...he denounced Liu
Shao-chi's bourgeois reactionary line...[and]...clearly
showed the orientation for the approaching great proletarian
cultural revolution." Convinced that the "socialist
education" campaign had failed, Mao then began to plan a
Cultural Revolution in pursuit of the same goals, but
under new management (Lin Piao?and others) and employing
new methods (coercion and violence).
The second development was the confrontation in
Peking between Chairman Mao and Premier Kosygin on 11
February 1965, during which Mao asserted that if necessary
China would continue the struggle against the Soviet Union
"for 10,000 years." Perhaps based on the assumption that
his previous ideological assault had (as a subsequent
Chinese editorial of 11 November 1965 put it) "hastened
the bankruptcy of Khrushchev's revisionism and... [driven] ...
its founder into the grave," Mao's decision at this time
to intensify the struggle against Khrushchev's successors
would have profound consequences. It dictated the adamant
refusal (announced the following month in the joint People's
Daily and Red Flag editorial article, "A Comment on the
arch Moscow 1Neeting") to join the Soviet Union in any
form of "united action" in aid of North Vietnam, a refusal
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justified by the unconvincing and paradoxical argument
that in order to oppose successfully "United States
imperialism" it was first necessary to oppose "modern
revisionism."
What is more, since in Chinese eyes Mao was now
the fountainhead of authentic Marxism-Leninism, it was
incumbent upon "all Marxist-Leninist parties," as
emphasized in the major editorial of 11 November 1965,
to accept this position "to draw a clear line of
demarcation both politically and organizationally between
themselves and the revisionists, who are serving United
States imperialism, and to liquidate Khrushchev revision-
ism in order to welcome the high tide of revolutionary
struggle against United States imperialism and its lackeys."
Reflecting an unrealistic and distorted view of the out-
side world, this was a policy of opposing simultaneously
and with equally acute antagonism both the United States
and the Soviet Union, a policy so extreme that within a
matter of months China?s only ally in what Peking described
as "the broadest possible united front" was Albania.*
If this constituted a clear-cut example of "Left"
deviationism in "united front" theory, the intensified
effort at this time to promote revolution abroad patterned
after the Chinese revolutionary model constituted a form
of "Left" adventurism -- namely (as defined by the Chinese
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themselves), an attempt to encourage "launching of a
revolution before the objective conditions are ripe."
The assertion in Lin Piao3's famous treatise on people?s
war, published on 3 September 1965 that "today the con-
ditions are more favorable than ever before for the
waging of people?s wars by the revolutionary peoples of
Asia, Africa and Latin America" was followed within a
month by the disastrous coup attempt by the Indonesian
Communists (in which Peking apparently was not directly
involved). resulting in the virtual liquidation of the
largest non-bloc Communist Party in the world. It was
just at this time, moreover, that the Chinese Communists
began to insist that their revolutionary model be fol-
lowed not only in underdeveloped areas,, but also in such
advanced industrial nations as,Japan. As the Secretary-
General of the Japanese Communist Party has recently
charged (at the 11th Party Congress in July 1970), the
Chinese Communist Party was guilty of "ultraTLeft oppor-
tunism" when it attempted in 196S-1966 to impose a strategy
of "armed struggle" on the Japanese Communist movement.
The final instance of a turn to the Left in
foreign policy in 1965 was the Chinese resort to arm.-
twisting and threats against Asian and African heads of
state in an effort, first to hold a Second Bandung Con-
ference from which the Soviet Union would be excluded,,
and then to cancel this conference when it was discovered
that the Soviet Union could not be excluded. In this
attempt to coerce foreign governments in the summer and
fall of 1965,, there was a hint of the violence and
extremism of Red Guard diplomacy soon to appear as the
hallmark of the Cultural Revolution in China's foreign
relations.
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The Left in Command: The Cultural Revolution
Chairman Mao has... developed Marxism-
Leninism to a brand new etage...Chairman
Mao commands the highest prestige in the
nation and the whole world... If we don't see
this, we won't know that we should elect
such a great genius of the proletarian
class as our leader.
- Lin Piao, Speech at Enlarged Plenum
of the Politburo:, 18 May :966.
Let us have a revolutionization,..
of foreign affairs offices abroad; other-
wise, it would be dangerous.
..,. Mao Ts.:;-tung, Comment on a Red Guard
Letter, 9 September 1966.
In the past ...you never carried
out the Cultural Revolution. Things
to which you had never given any thought
have now happened to your Ministry of
Foreign A ffairs,.,Let these things
happen, for they will do us good.
-- Mao Tse.?tung, Speech at a Work Cone
ference of the Central Committee, 25
October 1966.
If the primary purpose of the Cultural Revolution
was to restore Mao's political and ideological authority
within China, an important means to this end was a con-
certed effort to demonstrate that Mao's thought, as the
highest form of contemporary Marxism-Leninism, was held
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in high esteem throughout the rest of the world. This
undertaking to transform the Cultural Revolution (a dis-
tinctively Chinese phenomenon reflecting a domestic power
and policy conflict) into "a revolution of an interna-
tional order" would embroil China in controversy with
nearly every important government in the world. Within
two years time, the extremism,. violence and utopianism
of the Cultural Revolution would leave China almost com-
pletely isolated, dependent for visible signs of support
from the outside world on Albania: an ill-assorted group
of "Marxist..-Leninist" splinter parties, and student
revolutionaries of the New Left.
With the unveiling of the Cultural Revolution at
an expanded Politburo session in May 1966, it was revealed
that the main source of Mao''s "revisionist" opposition
within China was located at the highest level of Party
leadership. Addressing a number of these top leaders
in July, Mao disclosed that revolutionary students and
teachers (che precursors of the Red Guards) were going
"to impose revolution on you people because you did not
carry out the revolution yourselves." In this sense, then,
the Cultural Revolution can be understood as Mao's last
desperate attempt to seize by force what he could not
gain through persuasion from his Party and society at
large.
In carrying out this new type of forcibly imposed
rectification campaign, the principal criterion differ-
entiating "genuine" from "sham" revolutionaries and
"Marxist--Lenir,ists from revisionists" was "one's atti-
tude towards Mao's thought." As spelled out by Lin
Piao in his keynote speech at a Central Committee plenum
in August 1966, the Cultural Revolution was conceived
as "a general examination, a general alignment, and a
general reorganization of the ranks of party cadres"
directed at (1) "those who oppose the thought of Mao
Tse-tung"; (2) "those who upset political-ideological
work"; and (3) "those who have no revolutionary zeal."
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In addition to these (Rightists) who were "to be dis-
missed from their posts," there were those in an "inter-
mediate state" (the center) who had made mistakes but
who, "provided they accept education and resolutely
repent," would be retained in their posts. The third
category (the Leftists), those who eagerly studied Mao,
attached great importance to political-ideological work
and were filled with revolutionary zeal, were to be
"promoted." As also indicated by Lin Piao, this under-
taking to "revolutionize" the Party apparatus by promot-
ing Leftist cadres loyal to Mao to positions of leader-
ship would be supervised by a newly formed Cultural
Revolution Group composed of such top-level Leftist Party
leaders as Chen Po-ta, Kang Sheng, and last but not
least, Mao's wife, Chiang Ching.
With this background in mind, it is easier to
understand the momentous consequences which Mao's
decisions (noted above) to "revolutionize" the foreign
affairs apparatus would have for China's foreign rela-
tions during the Cultural Revolution. The decision to
"revolutionize" the foreign affairs apparatus within
China would lead to the establishment of a "revolution-
ary rebel liaison station" within the Foreign Ministry
assigned the dual function of investigating the loyalty
(i.e. their "attitude towards Mao's thought") and
supervising the work performance of veteran cadres and
diplomats, including nearly all of China's ambassadors
recalled at the end of 1966 to take part in the Cultural
Revolution. As the principal spokesman for the career
diplomats (e.g., his complaint in February 1967: "Look
what has happened to the ministry; there is no order,
no organization and foreign affairs secrets have been
taken away."), Foreign Minister Chen I would be sub-
jected to a year-long campaign of Red Guard denunciation
and attack for his courageous but unavailing effort to
limit the authority of the "revolutionary Left" within
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Of far greater import for China's foreign rela-
tions during the Cultural Revolttion, however, was
Mao's second decision to "revolutionize" the foreign
affairs apparatus abroad.-' The effect of this decision,
at least during the more extreme phases of the Cultural
Revolution, was, in somewhat simplified terms, to con-
vert China's embassies into centers for carrying the
Cultural Revolution abroad. This concept of "revolution-
ary diplomacy," in itself a contradiction in terms, is
so extraordinary that it deserves further discussion.
To the extent that there is a reasoned, coherent
explanation for this practice of revolutionary (or
Red Guard) diplomacy, it appears to be integrally related
to the rationale underlying the Cultural Revolution within
China. That rationale, as suggested earlier, was to
explain opposition to Mao's thought and policies within
China in terms of its "revisionist"/"capitalist" class
nature, opposition which was therefore both illegitimate
and, in the nature of things, bound to fail. By analogy
and extension, the opposition to Mao's revolutionary
goals and ideological pretensions outside China (an op-
position which by the fall of 1966 included practically
every major government in the world) was explained in
terms of its class nature as "capitalist," "revisionist"
or "reactionary" and as therefore also illegitimate and
bound to fail. Both contributing to and resulting from
China's position as an outcast in the international
community, Mao's view of the world more as an arena of
ven a ore the Cultural Revolution was formally
initiated, this decision was reflected by Chen I when
he stressed (in a February 1986 speech to an ambassa-
dorial-level conference in Peking) the need to indoctrinate
Foreign Ministry personnel so that they would "remember
that they are sent abroad to bring about world revolu-
tion."
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"international class struggle" than as a community of
nation states would dominate China's foreign relations
during the Cultural Revolution.
The new militancy of China's foreign policy
stance was revealed in the 12 August 1966 communique
adopted by the Central Committee plenum which formally
initiated the Cultural Revol!ll ' ion. In contrast with the
more pragmatic and flexible formula advanced by Peking
in June 1963 as the "general line for the foreign
policy" of all socialist countries (a formula which
in featuring "peaceful coexistence" as one of three
"interrelated and indivisible" principles represented
an adjustment to the realities of the nation-state
system), this communique emphasized that "China's
foreign policy" would be "guided" thereafter by the one
"supreme principle" of "proletarian internationalism"
(defined as "support for the revolutionary struggles
of the people of all countries.") That the new leader-
ship selected at this Central Committee plenum favored
a more active policy of promoting revolution abroad
was also suggested by the central charge brought sub
sequently against Liu Shao-chi in the field of foreign
policy - that prior to the Cultural Revolution he
had advocated a "pacifist line" in foreign policy of
"extinguishing the national liberation movement."
The major premise underlying China's foreign
policy during the Cultural Revolution .,, that it would
be possible by means of the extensive dissemination of
Mao's thought to stimulate and promote revolution
abroad -? reflected a basic idealistic tendency in
Maoism to overemphasize the role of consciousness
and the subjective factor in the unfolding of history.
This emphasis on "the active role of the ideological
factor in the progress of history" was hailed by Chinese
propagandists during the Cultural Revolution (e.g., the
editorial in Red Flag, No. 15, 1967) as one of Mao's
great contribuon.s-To the development of Marxist? Leninist
theory. Lin Piao, in his paean of praise to Mao Tse-tung's
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thought ("Marxism-Leninism at its highest in the present
era") on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the
October Revolution, proclaimed that -?- "once grasped"
Mao's thought would lead to "liberation" of "oppressed
nations and peoples" in Asia, Africa and Latin America,
to delivery of the peoples living in socialist countries
from their "revisionist" rulers, and, in fact, to
revolution in all countries. In this revolutionary
manifesto, Lin did not discuss, however, the practical
problem of how to persuade the peoples of these countries
to "grasp" Mao's thought.
The issue of the exportability of Mao's thought
lay at the very heart of the struggle between the
"revolutionary Left" and the professional diplomats in
the Foreign Ministry throughout the initial stages of
the Cultural Revolution. The record indicates, more-
over, that the outcome of this struggle was clear
victor for the Left.
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With the Left firmly in command in the Foreign
Ministry, China's foreign relations in the spring and
summer of 1967 were characterized by a series of
developments repeated with little variation in a number
of countries -,T the transformation of the Embassy and
New China News Agency into centers for the propagation
of Mao's thought and the distribution of badges and other
symbols of Mao's personality cult, an ensuing clash when
local government authorities moved to curtail or prohibit
these practices; various forms of retaliation by Peking
ranging from sponsorship of Communist armed revolt (as
in Burma) to, more commonly, Red Guard harassment of, and
physical attacks against, the embassies oad diplomats of
the offending governments (e.g., the Soviet Union,
Mongolia, Indonesia, Ceylon, Kenya, and Great Britain),
and, in some cases, suspension of diplomatic relations,*
Reflecting the Leftist view that national sovereignty
must give way to Maoism, People's Daily on 10 July
1967 asserted., "To propagate Mao sT e.tung''s thought
is the sacred and inviolable right of Chinese personnel
working abroad."
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Reflecting the claim of universal validity for
Mao's thought, this missionary effort encompassed
hostile, neutral and friendly countries alike, the
latter exemplified by North Korea and North Vietnam,
both of which protested publicly in Party publications
against this attempt to impose Maoist ideology on their
own national movementso
Expressing
the same inner logic of the Red Guard movement within
China, Peking's resort to Red Guard diplomacy appeared
in essence to be an attempt to secure by intimidation
what could not be gained through persuasion namely,
acknowledgement by the international Communist move-
ment and the revolutionary peoples of the world of
"Comrade Mao Tse-tung" as "the greatest teacher and
most outstanding leader of the proletariat in the present
era" and of "Mao Tse-tung's thought" as "Marxism-
Leninism at its highest in the present era."
The unfolding of Mao's Cultural Revolution had
brought China by the summer of 1967 to the brink of
anarchy. A sharp turn even further to the Left in
foreign policy (blamed subsequently on an "ultra-
Leftist" seizure of power in the Foreign Ministry)
culminated in the ransacking and burning of the British
Chancery and the manhandling of the British Charge on
22 August. In domestic policy, the damaging effects
of the new militancy of the revolutionary Left were
equally if not more serious, threatening the unity and
stability of the People's Liberation Army. There was
no choice in late August but to apply the brakes, pull
back, assess the damage and initiate a trend toward
moderation in the Cultural Revolution.
One of the many ironies of the Cultural Revolu-
tion is that the effort to propagate Mao's thought and
thus promote revolution abroad had its greatest impact
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not in the countries of the Third World (developing the
national liberation movement) nor in the countries of
the socialist camp (strengthening the "Marxist-
Leninist" forces) as predicted, but rather in the
advanced industrialized countries of the world where
the Chinese Communists had seen little or no chance
for revolutionary uprisings,, Still another is that the
period of greatest influence of Maoist ideology on
the student revolutionaries in West Europe and Japan
came at a time (the spring and summer of 1968) when
most of the radical elements in this ideology which
particularly appealed to the forces of the New Left
in the West had already been repudiated as "ultra-
Leftist" and cast aside in China.
Attracted by the elements of utopianism (the
attacks on functional specialization, inequality, and
the pursuit of self-interest), anarchism (symbolized by
the slogan "to rebel is justified"), and student elitism
(the vanguard role assigned to youthful Red Guards) in
Mao's Cultural Revolution, the rebellious students of
the New Left in France and Japan who rose up to seize
control over their university campuses as a first step
toward "revolutionizing" society were protesting what
they considered to be serious defects in the organization
and functioning of their advanced industrial societies,
It was of little consequence to the leaders of the New
Left that Mao's radical prescriptions were addressed
not to the solution of these problems but rather toward
solving a constellation of political, economic and
social problems (in particular, the problem of restoring
his own political and ideological authority) within
China.
Further illustrating the fortuitous nature of the
influence of Maoism on the New Left, the anarchistic
element in the Cultural Revolution which the revolutionary
students found so appealing as an inspiration and
justification for their own rebellion was directed not
against bureaucratism and established authority as such,
but against a specific example of bureaucratism -- namely,
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the unresponsiveness of the Chinese Communist "party
machine" to Mao's revolutionary policies and programs.
Also, the vanguard role which Mao assigned the Red
Guards in the Cultural Revolution was both temporary
and controlled, an example of directed "revolution
from above" rather than of spontaneous "revolution from
below." Once they had performed their assigned function
of exposing, criticizing and intimidating Mao's opponents
within the Party (and had got clearly out of hand), Mao
then ordered the Red Guards to be packed off unceremoniously
to the countryside.
Indeed, it is easy to exaggerate the influence
of Maoist ideology on the student revolutionaries of
the New Left. In searching examinations of the intel-
lectual roots of the New Left in the West, knowledgeable
observers have traced the principal characteristics of
this new type of revolutionary movement (a faith in
utopia and a cult of violent action) as much to the
writings of Che Guevara and Regis Debray (the theorists
of "Castroism") and of Herbert Marcuse (the American
ideological critic) as to those of Mao Tse-tung.*
Analysis of the radical student movement in Japan,
which resembles in many ways that of the New Left in
the West, reveals, moreover, that its ideology has
been influenced by Trotsky as much as or more than by
Mao.**
See in particular the essay by Richard Lowenthal en-
titled "Unreason and Revolution" in Irving Howe ed,,
Bey and the New Left (New York, The McCall Publishing
Company, 1970), pp. 55-84.
*See, for example, the article by Ichiro Sunada,
"The Thought and Behavior of Zengakuren: Trends in the
Japanese Student Movement," Asian Survey, Vol. IX, No. 6
(June 1969), pp. 457-474.
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The most exaggerated estimates of the influence
of Maoism on the New Left have been made by the Chinese
themselves, eager to claim credit for the student
rebellions in France (and elsewhere) as both confirming
Mao's prediction that "a great new era of world revolu.,
tion" was at hand and validating their undertaking during
the Cultural Revolution (according to the People's
Dail editorial, "A Great Storm," 27 May 1 to "spur
t e evelopment...of the contemporary world revolution...
[through]...the extensive dissemination of Mao Tse-tung's
thought..." But these claims, accompanied by a series
of mass demonstrations in which 20 million Chinese
participated, reflected the continuing effort by the
revolutionary Left to use foreign events and the reaction
of peoples abroad to help legitimate and support Mao's
(and their own) claim to power within China, It was at
this low point in the international prestige of China
and of Maoist ideology (its influence confined to
Albania., a congery of "Marxist-Leninist" splinter parties
and a portion of the New Left) that, as subsequently
revealed, the Chinese leadership first gave serious
thought to remedying what had become an intolerable
position of isolation and weakness for China in a hostile
world.
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The Turn to the
Right
Postscript to the Cultural. Revolution
[They eay]...I am also one who 'would
not change direction until he comes to
the end of his wrong course' and 'once
he turns, he turns 180 degrees.'
-- Mao Tse-tung, Comment at the Lushan
Conference, 1S August 1959.
Chairman Mao teaches us: 'The
Marxist philosophy of dialectical
materialism has two outstanding
characteristics. One is its class
nature...The other is its practicality.'
-- People's Daily Editorial, "Conscien-
tious y study ~iairman Mao's Philosophic
Works," 30 October 1970.
The turn to the Left in Maoist ideology which
began in 1962 was basically a response to domestic poli-
tical pressures., The turn to the Right which began
hesitantly in the fall of 1967, and which has proceeded
through several fairly well-defined stages up to the
present, appears to have been stimulated to a significant
extent by external pressures, specifically the growing
military threat to China posed by the Soviet Union. Al-
though mounting pressure to solve a host of domestic
political, economic and social problems no doubt played
a more important part, the realization that, as a result
of the provocative and self-defeating foreign policy of
the Cultural Revolution, China stood isolated in the
face of a major threat to its national security has had
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a particularly sobering effect on the Chinese leadership.
As a result, Peking's propagandists in their interminable
discourses on doctrine no longer emphasize the revolu-
tionary, class-struggle aspect of Maoist ideology but
rather (as noted above) its "practicality."
The first stage in this painful and protracted
process of retreating from Left to Right extended from
the fall of 1967 through the summer of 1968 and was
marked by the return of Premier Chou En-lai to a dominant
role in foreign affairs. Speaking to workers in this
field in December 1967, Chou reminded his listeners that,
like it or not, Peking had no choice but to deal with
other countries primarily as sovereign states and govern-
ments. "In international relations," Chou said, "there
are certain norms which we must respect. A majority of the
countries we deal with are imperialist, revisionist or
reactionary, not Leftist." Chou also quoted Mao as
admitting (in a conversation with the Prime Minister
of the Congo [B]) that China during the preceding summer
had in its foreign relations been guilty of "great-power
chauvinism."
1 Peking Review discontinued publication
of i s weekly column entitled "Mao Tse-tung's
Thought Lights the Whole World." Still another sign of
Peking's growing sensitivity to foreign opinion was the
admission not long thereafter in a National Day editorial
(instead of insisting on the universal validity of China's
revolutionary model) that it was necessary to "learn from
the experience of revolutionary struggles of the peoples
of all countries."
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The second stage in the trend toward moderation
in Maoist ideology lasted from the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to the first Sino-Soviet
border clash in March 1969. Peking's initial response
to the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia was, in fact,
in the extreme ideological and confrontationist tradition
of the Cultural Revoluion,, consisting of an intensified
attack on the Soviet leadership (now excoriated as "social-
imperialist and social-fascist") and a solemn declaration
(subsequently identified as Maoist) of the arrival of
"a new historical stage of opposition to United States
imperialism and Soviet revisionism." At the same time,
betraying apprehension that this Soviet military action
in the name of safeguarding the interests of the "social-
ist commonwealth" set a precedent which might later be
used against China, Premier Chou En-lai asserted (in a
2 September 1968 speech) that "the socialist camp" no
longer existed and that it was therefore no longer pos-
sible to "talk about the defense of 'socialist gains' and
the 'socialist community."' Peking's expression of will-
ingness not long after this (in a 26 November Foreign
Ministry statement) to resume talks with the United States
at Warsaw, though tentative and later withdrawn, also
revealed concern about the possibility of a military
confrontation with the Soviet Union and the desirability
of adopting a more flexible foreign policy stance at a
time of national danger.
The third stage, extending from the spring of
1969 to the spring of 1970, encompassed a series of
border clashes with the Soviet Union which appeared to
confirm Peking's worst fears that a general military
showdown with its powerful "revisionist" neighbor was
at hand. More than a decade earlier, Communist China
had sought to persuade Moscow as leader of the socialist
bloc to adopt a more militant policy against the United
States (the main enemy). This was followed by the
increasingly Left extremist line of the Cultural Revolu-
tion, which had elevated the Soviet Union to a position
rivaling the United States as China's principal enemy.
Now the Soviet Union had replaced the United States as
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Chinas number one enemy, with up to a million men arrayed
menacingly (as the Chinese would publicly protest) along
the Sino-Soviet border.
Reacting to this military threat posed by a vastly
superior technologically modern army, Lin Piao revealed
at the Ninth Party Congress in April 1969 Peking's inten-
tion to return to the more flexible, multi-faceted "general
line" which had characterized China's foreign policy be-
fore the Cultural Revolution. Lin pointed out that, in-
stead of sole reliance on "proletarian internationalism"
(the "supreme principle" which had guided China's foreign
policy during the Cultural Revolution), Peking was now
returning to the more broadly-based foreign policy formula
of the June 1963 "general line" comprised of three "inter-
related and indivisible" principles. In addition to
"proletarian internationalism" and support for the revolu-
tionary struggles of oppressed peoples and nations, the
third principle (the one of most immediate importance)
was that of "peaceful coexistence" with countries having
different social systems. The utility, not to mention
flexibility, of this concept of "peaceful coexistence"
(based on mutual respect for territorial integrity and
sovereignty) at a time of national 'weakness was soon
demonstrated, when in October 1969 the scope of its ap-
plication was extended to apply generally to all countries
and in particular to the Soviet Union.
Thus developments in 1969 support the judgment
that the principal consideration prompting the Chinese
Communist leadership to shift from a "revolutionary model"
(featuring revolutionary armed struggle based on the
Chinese model against bourgeois nationalist governments)
to a "nationalist model" (featuring an international
"united front" with bourgeois nationalist governments
against a presumed common enemy) approach to foreign
policy was a perceived sense of national weakness. This
shift would be completed in the fourth and final stage
of what might be called post-Cultural Revoluion foreign
policy, a stage beginning in May 1970 and extending down
to the present time in which the features of China's
new "nationalist model" of foreign policy making would
be fully revealed.
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The emergence of the "nationalist model" approach
to foreign policy in the past 18 months constitutes in
important respects a "turn of 180 degrees" from the "revo-
lutionary model" which had dominated China's foreign rela-
tions during the Cultural Revolution. Instead of a policy
proclaiming the need to F:crnote revolution abroad in imita.,
tion of the Chinese model of armed struggle, Peking now
poses as the champion of national sovereignty, claiming
(e.g. in the 23 January 1971 People's Dail editorial)
that it has always in its relations wit oer nations
"faithfully abided by" Mao's injunction (delivered 14 years
ago) to "practice the well-known Five Principles of mutual
respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-
aggression, non-interference in each others internal af-
fairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexist-
ence." Instead of a policy directed at a largely fictitious
constituency of "revolutionary Leftists" throughout the
world committed to the Maoist goal of violent revolution,
Peking has now reverted to the pre-Cultural Revolution
Maoist concept of developing a broad international united
front composed of governments and peoples (including, as
witness the recent venture in "ping-pong diplomacy," even
the people of the United States) against what it likes to
call the "big nation hegemony" of the United States and
the Soviet Union. Instead of a policy relying primarily
on ideolo?y (the export of Mao's thought) to promote
China's revolutionary objectives, Peking now relies
heavily on such material incentives as economic aid and
trade to project its influence abroad. Finally, instead
of a policy based on such braod ideological considerations
as promoting revolution abroad, Peking now pursues a policy
defined more narrowly and pragmatically in terms of its
own national interest.
Despite the many parallels, it should be noted
that China's present course in foreign policy has turned
ever further to the Right than in the years immediately
preceding the Cultural Revolution. It is clear, for
example, that Peking has profited from some of the mistakes
it made in the Third World, especially in Africa, during
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this earlier period, and is now concentrating (as indi-
cated by Kang Sheng in a mid-1970 briefing of foreign
Communist Party leaders) more on diplomacy and state
relations and less on insurgency and pro-Peking revolu-
tionary groups in these areas.
There are indications, moreover,that Peking in
its rapprochement with North Korea and North Vietnam
and Romania (not to mention the recent revival of diplo-
matic and economic relations with that arch-revisionist
nation, Yugoslavia) is adjusting to the reality of national
Communism and is no longer exerting a major effort, as
it did in the mid-1960's, to organize a new Internationale
composed of Communist Parties subordinated to the ideological
authority of a single center in Peking. Illustrating this
new appreciation of the realities of the international
Communist movement, Peking no longer characterizes the
Cultural Revolution as "a revolution of an international
order" but as one largely confined in-its application to
China. What is more, authoritative ideological treatises
on the status of the world Communist movement (e.g., the
joint People's DailZ Red Fla and Liberation Arm Daily
editoria'-~"Lng Live tTie ory of the Dicta ors ip of
the Proletariat," 17 March 1971) now stress that for a
revolution to be successful every "proletarian party" must
"make concrete analysis of the present conditions and
the history of its own country, and solve the theoretical
and practical problems of the revolution in epen ent y.
(underlining supplied)
Although further to the Right than in the immediate
pre-Cultural Revolution period, Communist China's current
foreign policy strategy still differs in important respects
from the "nationalist model" in what might be called its
classic form during the period (1955-1956) when the "Bandung
spirit" was at its height. Whereas the original Bandung
strategy called for a "united front from above" at the
national level (with local Communist Parties instructed
to seek a common front with the ruling national bourgeoisie)
and thus implied the possibility of a "peaceful transition"
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to socialise,., Peking continues to insist today (as in the
joint 17 March 1971 editorial noted above) that "violent
revolution is a universal principle of proletarian revolu?,
tion." And despite the professed intention to conduct
relations with all nations on the basis of "the Five Prin-?
ciples of peaceful coexistence" (which exemplified the
Bandung spirit) China still asserts (in the same joint
editorial) that its foreign policy is also based upon the
contradictory principle of "proletarian internationalism"
that is,, "supporting... the revolutionary struggles of
the people of other countries."
The shift to the Right in domestic and foreign
policy had become so pronounced by the fall of 1970 that
it was necessary to explain to both domestic and foreign
audiences why this shift had taken place. In time-honored
fashion it was decided
late August and early September 1970, 25X1
to explain the excesses and violence and attendant policy
failures of the Cultural Revolution as the work of an
"ultra-Leftist group" headed by the leading Chinese Com-
munist ideologue and long-time confidant of Mao, Chen Po-
ta. Resembling the political indoctrination campaign
undertaken in the early 1960's to extricate Mao Tse-tung
from personal responsibility for the Great Leap Forward
debacle, a new campaign was initiated at the Second Plenum
for the whole Party "to study Chairman Mao'-c philosophic
works." It was pointed out during this campaign (as, for
example, in the 1 October 1970 National Day editorial) that
"senior cadres" had been guilty of "idealistic and meta-
physical" errors in their understanding of Mao's works
and as a result had promoted an "ultra-Leftist" line during
the Cultural Revolution. This error of "Left opportunism,"
according to an earlier definition by Chairman Mao, results
generally from failure "to start from real life, to link
oneself closely with the masses, to constantly sum up the
experience of mass struggle and to examine ones work in the
light of practical experience." More succinctly and speci-
fically, as indicated in an authoritative 30 October 1970
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People's DDaiil editorial on the "study Mao" campaign, this
error of "Leff opportunism" during the Cultural Revolution
had resulted from the failure to realize that "the Marxist
philosophy of dialectical materialism" (for which read
Maoism) is characterized not only by "its class nature"
but, of equal importance, by "its practicality."
While the domestic audience could only piece to-
gether what had happened by a close reading of murky
ideological tracts, foreign audiences were treated to
a much more revealing, if tendentious, account of recent
Chinese Communist history in a series of interviews
granted Edgar Snow by Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Premier
Chou En-lai in the fall and winter of 1970. In a fascinate
ing discussion of his "cult of personality;," Mao described
it as functional in origin, created "in order to stimulate
the masses to dismantle the anti-Mao party bureaucracy"
and thus enable him to regain "effective control" (which
he had lost by 1964) over the Party and state administrative
apparatus. The cult had "of course...been overdone;" the
extravagant claims made for Mao had been "a nuisance;"
and he had countenanced some of the more extreme manifesta-
tions of the cult (the slogans, pictures and plaster
statues), it was implied, only because the Red Guards
had "insisted."
In addition to disavowing the excesses of the
personality cult, Mao also emphasized that he had "highly
disapproved" of the violence, the factional armed struggle
and the resulting "great chaos" during the Cultural Revo-
lution, much of it caused by the deceit and "lying" of
those around him. Another thing which had made the Chair-
man "most unhappy" was "the maltreatment" of Party cadres
by Red Guards and others during the Cultural Revolution,
a prrct; ce which among other things "had slowed the re-
building and transformation of the party." Since Chen
Po-ta, as head of the Cultural Revolution Group, had been
entrusted with the task of purging and rebuilding the
Party, the implication was clear that he, not Mao, had
been responsible for much of the violence and extremism of
the Cultural Revolution. This implication was strengthened
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by the disclosure in another Snow article that "the task
of reconstructing the dismantled state and Party adminis-
trative apparatus" had now been entrusted to ("fell heavily
on") Chou En-lai.
Although it is hazardous to attempt to assign indi-
vidual leaders to fixed positions in the Chinese political
spectrum, it was symbolic that Chen Po-ta (the ideologue
exemplifying the forces of the "revolutionary Left")
should now have been replaced by Chou En-lai (regarded as
the foremost exponent of pragmatism and moderation within
the top Chinese leadership). It was also indicative of
the extent to which Maoist ideology, having veered sharply
to the Left during the Cultural Revolution in an attempt
to revolutionize Chinese society and in time the world,
has once again (as it had a decade before) been forced to
swing back sharply to the Right in adjusting to reality.
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Conclusions
I am not more intelligent than
others, but I understand dialectics
and its use in analysing problems.
If the dialectical method is used
to analyse an unclear problem, the
problem soon becomes clear.
-- Mao Tse-tung, "A Talk with
Comrade Mao Yuan-hsin," February,
.966
Lenin often said that Marxism
combines the greatest scientific
strictness with the revolutionary
spirit.
Red Fle~a Editorial Article, "More
on die Differences Between Comrade
Togliatti and Us," 4 March 1963.
As has frequently been pointed out, there is a
basic contradiction between the scientific-analytic
element and the revolutionary-activist element in
Marxist thought. In addition to these two contradictory
functions, there is a third and ever. more important
function of Marxism-Leninism once it becomes the official
doctrine of a Communist Party in power -?-? the function
of legitimizing the regime and its authority in the eyes
not only of the Communist rulers themselves but of the
Party and people as well. Ideology in this sense, then,
becomes a self-justifying dogma, with doctrine manipulated
to fit practical needs.
If one places those parties in power which stress
the scientific-analytic component of Marxism-Leninism on
the Right side of the Communist political spectrum, then
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the increasingly revolutionary and activist version of
this doctrine which culminated in China's Cultural
Revolution constituted a sharp swing to the Left. The
revival and intensification to unprecedented heights
of a "cult of personality" which accompanied this shift
to the Left exemplified, according to Chairman Mao him-
self, the third function of Marxist-Leninist ideology of
legitimizing and authorizing Mao Tse-tung's political
rule in China.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that Mao
in the Cultural Revolution was only manipulating doctrine
in order to outmaneuver and discredit his "revisionist"
opposition. There were genuine policy differences in the
conflict between Mao and his opponents, differences
which resulted from a divergent view of the nature of man
and human society. At issue was a fundamentally differ-
ent assessment of the extent to which the human factor
(man properly motivated) rather than the material factor
(objective conditions) should be relied upon in making
revolution and building socialism. Since it is commonly
recognized that there is a basic idealistic tendency in
Maoism it is fair to conclude that, even though he has
shown tactical realism in the face of necessity, Mao in
this sense has always been a Leftist.
In domestic policy, the dispute centered on the
crucial question of whether it was possible to apply the
same "mass line" approach which had proved so successful
in the political and military struggles of the revolution
to the more complicated task of attempting to modernize the
backward economy and traditional society of China. When
(as Mao pointed out in a talk with foreign visitors dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution) his "revisionist" opponents
within China criticized this approach in the early 1960's
as "anachronistic," Mao responded (in the joint People's Daily and Red Flag editorial article, "On Khrushc eTi s
Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World,"
14 July 1964) by reasserting the necessity of "adhering to
the mass line, [of] boldly arousing the masses and unfolding
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mass movements on a large scale...in both socialist revo-
lution and socialist construction." When carried to an
extreme, this Leftist "mass line" became the "ultra- Leftist"
line, characterized by violence, armed sturggle anO near
anarchy, of the Cultural Revolution at its height.
In foreign policy, the dispute centered on the
feasibility of attempting to promote revolution abroad
by, among other means, exporting Mao's thought. The
abortive attempt to revive China's "revolutionary model"
as a major instrument of foreign policy suggests that
this Maoist model, in its failure to account for the
basic factor of nationalism in the contemporary world,
is also anachronistic.
Although a secondary issue, there also appears to
have been a difference of opinion concerning the proper
tactics for conducting the Sino-Soviet dispute, with Mao
insisting on more extreme measures (e.g. a complete rupture
of relations and the establishment of a new Peking Inter-
nationale) than his domestic "revisionist" opponents. The
failure of this attempt to reestablish a centralized inter-
national Communist organization, the result of not recogniz-
ing the reality and strength of national Communism, suggests
that this Maoist model for organizing the world Communist
movement is also outmoded.
The basic cause for the failure of the Leftist ideo-
logical offensive which Mao initiated nearly a decade ago
was the complexity and intractability of the real world.
Although all the returns are not yet in, the end result of
Mao's attempt to revolutionize his own society by intimida-
tion and coercion appears to be, as one observer has put
it, a "utopia... run by the army." Although again all the
returns are not yet in, the end result of the concurrent
attempt during the Cultural Revolution to revolutionize
the world appears to be that the outside world, by exerting
a moderating influence on that ideology, has triumphed over
the utopian version of Maoism.
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But what are the future prospects in the continuing
interplay between the international impact of Maoist
ideology and the reciprocal impact of developments abroad
upon the substance and political coloration of that ideology?
In the short term, there are still opportunities for
Chinese diplomatic gains which Peking could achieve rather
easily by persisting in its present course in foreign pclicy
characterized by the pragmatism and maneuverability that
have been so apparent since mid-1970. In time, however,
it should become apparent that these diplomatic victories
will not in themselves significantly enhance China's
capacity to project its influence abroad in the manner
of a major power. In view of the limitations (e.g. economic
underdevelopment and domestic political problems) which
will continue to restrict China's influence in the inter-
national community, there may be yet another turn to the
Left (especially if Mao continues to dominate the govern-
ment and people of China) in an attempt to surmount these
limitations and advance once again toward Mao's revolu-
tionary goals.
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