From Marx to Mao – And After: IV

The ‘Four Modernisations’

Ray Nunes

The Coup d’Etat

Mao’s faith in Hua Kuo-feng turned out to be premature. Less than a month after his death, in conjunction with a group of so-called ‘moderates’, Hua, who had become Party and State Chairman and also Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, organised a coup d’etat and arrested Mao’s lieutenants in the Cultural Revolution (CR): his wife Chiang Ching; Chang Chun-chiao; Wang Hung-wen, and Yao Wen-yuan, declaring them to be a ‘Gang of Four’ who had plotted to overthrow Mao’s policies – even though they were the foremost advocates of them – and to seize power for themselves.

The Big Questions

How and why was such a coup possible? The rebuilding of the Party organisation meant that many cadres at all levels who had been discredited during the CR, including many who had held office under Lui Shao-chi, had been restored to positions of authority. This, plus the death of the ‘old guard’ of Mao supporters, meant that within the Party the balance of forces had changed. When alive, Mao, with his immense prestige and political skill, could win over or tactically neutralise opposition to his policies at both higher and lower levels. Those on the CR ‘left’ who had, under Mao’s leadership, grown in influence and stature within the top echelon of leaders, lacked such prestige and skills. They also lacked experience at administration in the Party and state, nor were they given time to acquire it.

Before Mao’s death Hua had appeared to be a supporter of the revolutionising process in all spheres. Once he had succeeded to the three highest posts of Chairman, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, he had a sufficient concentration of power in his hands to begin a change of course. Within the existing leadership he could not only reckon on a majority, but he could reckon on solid and decisive military backing from Defence Minister Yeh Chien-ying, the sole remaining Vice-Chairman and head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), together with several other top Generals and including Vice-Premier Li Hsien-nien, the country’s top economist. Having control of the main components of state power, i.e., the armed forces and police, it was not difficult for Hua to issue denunciations of the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ and to fabricate all sorts of charges against them, which grew in extent as time went on. Arrests of other radicals who spoke out or put up posters denouncing the rightists’ actions quickly followed.

Consolidating the Coup

All this was done in the name of defending Mao Tse-tung’s policies. Hua delivered the memorial speech on September 18 to a crowd of one million in Tien An Men Square, eulogising Mao’s policies and the themes of the 10th Party Congress, but soon showed that these were empty words. Mass rallies in support of Hua and the post-coup Central Committee were held in most cities. But still, there were reported armed clashes between the radicals and the authorities in a number of cities. One report states that there were 30,000 armed militia in Shanghai prepared two days after the arrests to carry out an uprising against Peking, but the plan was abandoned when it became apparent that Hua and his supporters were firmly in control. There were armed clashes in a number of provinces including Fukien, Hopei, Honan, Shansi and Yunnan. By December 24, 1976 however, Hua was declaring that the central task for 1977 would be a drive against the arrested four and their supporters.

While Hua in his memorial speech in September had called for greater criticism of Deng Xiaoping, by January 1977 Deng’s supporters in the leadership had got him back in Peking and by July he was reinstated as Deputy-Premier and the other posts he held prior to April 1976. Meantime attacks on the four radicals had increased in intensity. Their supporters in Party and state organisations at all levels were ousted – some executed, a large number arrested – from all positions, a movement intensified under the now reinstated Deng, who was now third in line in the leadership after Hua and Yeh Chien-ying.

Discrediting Mao – Basis for Capitalist Restoration

Under Deng’s influence, several connected campaigns began against Mao’s political and ideological views, and against the changes made during the CR. These amounted overall to completing the first stage of the restoration of capitalism in China. According to the Encyclopaedia of Asian History (1988), following his return to a leadership position in the summer of 1977 and his struggle for ascendancy thereafter, Deng’s first and foremost task was to destroy the cult of Mao and to downgrade Mao’s ideological authority. The reasons for de-Maoisation were twofold: (1) to remove ideological constraints on a series of pragmatic (or revisionist) modernisation programmes that Deng sought to institute and (2) to undercut Deng’s chief rival, Hua Guofeng and other leaders who derived their political influence from association with Mao or invocation of the late Chairman.

In pursuing the goal of de-Maoisation, Deng and his associates took several well-concerted steps. First, they worked through the press and publications under their control to discredit Mao’s revolutionary precepts. In 1977 and 1978 numerous articles attacked and repudiated the regime’s excessive emphasis on politics, revolution, class struggle, egalitarianism, subjective human factors, the principle of self-reliance, and ‘mass democracy’ – Maoist values that were closely identified with the CR. Instead, these articles propagated the need for political stability, discipline and economic growth, supported material incentives and expertise, and stressed an ‘open door’ to foreign technology and capital.[20]

One of the first attacks was in the field of ideology. In May 1978, a 30,000-word article appeared in the Peking People’s Daily, deceptively entitled ‘Practice is the Sole Criterion of Truth’. This is a well-known Marxist philosophical viewpoint emphasised and re-emphasised by Mao many times. This article, however, substituted pragmatism for Marxism. The latter holds that practice is the only method of testing the correctness of objective truth, and of bringing one’s ideas (cognition) into conformity with objective truth. Deng’s line of pragmatism, revisionism, however, holds that only that which works is true and good. It holds that what meets the subjective needs of individuals is what is really correct. Thus, capitalism, imperialism, fascism all ‘work’. For the ruling classes, this is a very useful philosophy which suits their subjective interests. It has nothing in common with Marxism, and is directly opposed to it.

Most former ‘capitalist roaders’ in the leadership and out of it were restored to office. This strengthened Deng’s hand vis-a-vis Hua, whom he aimed to replace by himself. This aim was furthered by putting on public trial the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ beginning in Peking on November 20, 1978, for although Hua had ousted them from power, he had previously collaborated with them and as Minister of Public Security he was involved in suppressing the Tien An Men riots of April 1976. Thus, Hua himself would be subject to condemnation. Undermined in this way, Hua agreed to resign, and Deng’s protégé Hu Yao-bang soon replaced him as Chairman. (He too was ousted in the run-up to the Tien An Men massacre of 1989).

Of course, since their arrest, great pressure to recant had been brought on Chiang Ching and the three other defendants at the trial. Chiang Ching and Chun-chiao stood firm, Chiang at the trial defiantly denouncing the new power-holders as revisionists and new bourgeois renegades – which indeed they were and still are. However, Wang Hung-wen and Yao Wen-yuan wilted and recanted.

New Bourgeois Tactics

As in the Soviet Union at the time of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, the new bourgeoisie had managed to seize power. Though Mao had recognised the danger, had warned the nation against it, and had led the CR to prevent such a happening, still, the bourgeoisie had seized control in both the Party and the state, and were poised to carry out the transition back to capitalism. This they proceeded to do much faster and more openly than their counterparts in the USSR.

In most spheres, at the beginning they presented themselves as continuators of Mao’s policies.In the economy, they first of all claimed that the ‘Gang of Four’ had sabotaged and disrupted progress. However, in January 1975, reporting to the Fourth National People’s Congress, Chou En-lai had stated that the country had over-fulfilled the Third Five-Year Plan and would successfully fulfil the Fourth Five-Year Plan in 1975, and gave details both of agricultural advance and industrial advance. He stated that prices had remained stable, the people’s livelihood had steadily improved and socialist construction had flourished. All of this gave the lie to Hua and Co’s claims about the so-called ‘Gang of Four’s’ sabotage of the economy when it held high offices under Mao. In the same Congress, Chou referred to plans for future development. He said: “On Chairman Mao’s instructions, it was suggested…to the Third National People’s Congress that we might envisage the development of our national economy in two stages, beginning from the Third Five-Year Plan: the first stage is to build an independent and relatively comprehensive industrial and economic system in 15 years, that is, before 1990; the second stage is to accomplish the comprehensive modernisation of agriculture, industry, national defence and science and technology before the end of the century, so that our national economy will be advancing in the front ranks of the world.”[21] This ‘second stage’ became known as the ‘Four Modernisations’.

The carrying out of these ‘Four Modernisations’ virtually became the banner of the new bourgeoisie – but their method of carrying them out was totally opposed to that of Mao Tse-tung. This method was quoted by Chou in the Fourth Congress to be as follows: “Rely mainly on our own efforts while making external assistance subsidiary, break down blind faith, go in for industry, agriculture and technical and cultural revolutions independently, do away with slavishness, bury dogmatism, learn from the good experience of other countries conscientiously and be sure to study their bad experience too, so as to draw lessons from it. This is our line.”[22]

The Return of Imperialism

Suddenly China began a policy of opening the doors to foreign capital. Representatives of many of the world’s biggest corporations flocked to China to conclude agreements for setting up enterprises in which they provided the capital and China provided cheap labour. This policy was highlighted by a US cartoon that appeared the world over. It came at a time when the Coca-Cola corporation announced that it was opening a plant in China and had obtained a monopoly agreement to supply the Chinese market. The cartoon pictured two Chinese workmen removing a large banner from a public square carrying the slogan – frequently used up to then: ‘Smash Imperialism!’, while at the same time replacing it with another which said: ‘Things Go Better With Coke’.

For a time the flood of foreign capital did enable certain sectors of the economy and certain areas – the coastal regions – to advance in production and in supply of some consumer goods. There was a price to pay, however. Corporation profits had to be guaranteed repatriation, and the government had to rapidly acquire a large foreign debt to ensure this. Under Mao there had been no foreign debt, no export of profits, no interest payments. Soon it was found that Hua and Deng, who pushed this policy, had totally miscalculated. Capital investment had taken place in an unplanned way without regard to the market and resources. Many foreign firms lost money and withdrew. Others demanded bigger concessions. The whole thing was a typical exercise in free-market capitalism and in complete contrast to Mao’s line of modernisation. Inflation and unemployment, both unknown for decades, now became prominent features of the economy.

Notes:

[20] Encyclopedia of Asian History (Collier, Macmillan, London, 1988, Entry: Deng Xiaoping).

[21] Documents of the First Session of the Fourth National Congress of the People’s Republic of China (Foreign Languages Press, Peking, January 1975, p.55).

[22] Ibid., p. 57.

(To be continued)