The struggle against saboteurs, traitors and trotskyites
From the days following the victory of the October Revolution on 7th November 1917 (new style) the young workers’ state, which was declared the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a few years later, was under attack from the aggrieved and vicious capitalist and imperialist states who couldn’t countenance the workers and peasants of any country taking matters into their own hands.
In many ways the documents below share much in common with those posted on the Foreign Intervention page. Although there’s very much a crossover the documents presented here concentrate on how the Soviet Union sought to deal with this very, existential problem.
Even though the socialist revolution was for the majority of the population that didn’t mean to say all those who were the ‘beneficiaries’ of such a revolution would choose to go with the revolutionary workers and peasants. Some have been, are and will always be sycophants and forelock-tuggers and will follow whatever the ruling class (in whatever historical epoch) decide and will do their bidding even though it goes against their class.
Within pre-revolution Russian society there were many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who would have seen the old Tsarist, feudal society as more to their liking than the new society based upon equality and justice. These included the old aristocracy (of an infinite number of levels on Romanov society), the kulaks (the richer peasants) as well as merchants and the petty bourgeoisie involved in an innumerable number of self employed activities.
In this issue the petty bourgeoisie play a particularly significant part. They will sit on their bitterness and hated and will bide their time to take vengeance upon any who they consider have robbed them of their potential. They are especially dangerous to a socialist society because, as Lenin said, they everyday, in every way, engender capitalism. The socialist state, therefore, by curtailing their activity produces for itself even more enemies.
And then we have the Communist Party itself. It is an unfortunate (and almost integral) aspect of the development of parties of the left (especially those who claim a revolutionary strategy) that there will be splits at some time. The First and Second Internationals are littered with such examples. However, it was the Russian Revolutionaries who were the first to actually attain (and retain) state power and put their theory into practice.
Therefore, there were, within the Party, those who had joined long before the opportunity for the taking of state power was on the cards. In such a situation many of them would have had different attitudes towards what the strategy should have been in the building of this new society. It cannot be stressed enough this was entirely new territory and if there had not been serious disagreements then that would have been a surprise. The problem in a socialist state surrounded by hostile forces is that such dissatisfaction could be – and was – used by the enemies of socialism and hence the eventually arrest and trial of some of those who had been ‘revolutionaries’ for decades. But past achievements don’t guarantee they will continue to follow the same revolutionary road.
When we consider this period of Soviet history we should remember the worlds of Chairman Mao Tse-tung from 1927, ‘a revolution is not a dinner party’.
Wreckers on trial, a record of the trial of the Industrial Party held in Moscow, November/December 1930, edited with a foreword by Andrew Rothstein, Workers’ library, New York, 1931, 214 pages.
The Moscow Trial – April 1933, the trial of British engineers involved in sabotage in the Soviet Union, Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, London, 1933, 165 pages.
Mission to Moscow, Joseph E Davies, United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1936-1938, a record of confidential dispatches to the State Department, official and personal correspondence, current diary and journal entries, including notes and comment up to October 1941, Victor Gollanz, London, 1945, 472 pages.
Against Trotskyism, The Struggle of Lenin and the CPSU against Trotskyism, a collection of documents, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972, 271 pages.
The Murder of Sergei Kirov, History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition November 2013, 435 pages. [too big for blog]
Trotsky’s Amalgams, (Trotsky’s Lies, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, The Dewey Commission), Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume One, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition March 2016, 536 pages.
Yezhov vs. Stalin, the truth about mass repressions and the so-called ‘Great Terror’ in the USSR, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition April 2017, 250 pages.
Leon Trotsky’s collaboration with Germany and Japan, Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume Two, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, 2017, 386 pages. [too bog for blog]
Trotsky’s Lies, Grover Furr, corrected edition, August 2019, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, 2019, 196 pages.
Stalin, waiting for … the truth, exposing the falsehoods in Stephen Kotkins ‘Stalin, waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941’, Grover Furr, Red Star Publishers, New York, corrected edition April 2019, 393 pages.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China was the logical outcome of the many years of the increasingly bitter ideological struggle that had been taking place within the International Communist Movement since Khrushchev’s denunciation of Joseph Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956.
There had been many efforts (some would say too many) to try and bring the errant first Socialist State back to the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism but by 1960 it was becoming obvious that the revisionists had become firmly entrenched in Lenin‘s and Stalin‘s Party. Weaknesses (and the similar entrenchment of revisionism and social democracy) in other Communist and Workers’ Parties worldwide also ensured that those seeking to restore capitalism – in deeds if not in words – in the Soviet Union could claim they were only reflecting the majority trend in the International Communist Movement.
Although the majority of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party was still following the revolutionary road those ‘capitalist-roaders’ (as they were called in China) did exist – and even at the highest levels in the Party.
Those revolutionaries, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, had to act to prevent China from going down the same anti-Socialist road. It would be for the Chinese workers, peasants, soldiers and students to decide the fate of their country. So, on 8th August 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was born – one of the most important and significant events in the history of Communism.
Basic Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Hold High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and Actively Participate in the Great Socialist Cultural Revolution, editorial of the Liberation Army Daily [Jiefangjun Bao], April 18, 1966.
Never Forget the Class Struggle, editorial of the Liberation Army Daily, May 4 1966.
On ‘Three-Family Village’ — The Reactionary Nature of Evening Chats at Yenshan and Notes from Three-Family Village, by Yao Wen-yuan, May 10, 1966.
Open Fire at the Black Anti-Party and Anti-Socialist Line!, by Kao Chu, first published in the Liberation Army Daily, May 8, 1966.
Heighten Our Vigilance and Distinguish the True from the False, by Ho Ming, first published in the Kuangming Daily, May 8, 1966.
Teng To’s Evening Chats at Yenshan is Anti-Party and Anti-Socialist Double-Talk, compiled by Lin Chieh, Ma Tse-min, Yen Chang-huei, Chou Ying, Teng Wen-sheng and Chin Tien-Liang, first published in the Liberation Army Daily and the Kuangming Daily on May 8, 1966.
On the Bourgeois Stand of Frontline and the Peking Daily, by Chi Pen-yu, first published in Red Flag, No. 7, 1966.
Raise High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and Carry the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Through to the End — Essential Points for Propaganda and Education in Connection with the Great Cultural Revolution, editorial of Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily], June 6, 1966.
Message of Greetings to Revolutionary Rebel Organizations in Shanghai from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council, the Military Commission of the Party’s Central Committee and the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Party’s Central Committee, Jan. 11, 1967.
Take Firm Hold of the Revolution, Promote Production and Utterly Smash the New Counterattack Launched by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line – Message to All Shanghai People, Jan. 4, 1967. Urgent Notice – From the Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and 31 Other Revolutionary Mass Organizations, Jan. 9, 1967.
Telegram Saluting Chairman Mao – From the Rally Held by the Revolutionary Rebel Organizations of Shanghai and the Shanghai Liaison Centres of Revolutionary Rebel Organizations of Other Places to Celebrate the Message of Greetings of the Central Authorities and Completely Smash the New Counter-Attack by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line, from a rally held by revolutionary organizations in Shanghai, Jan. 12, 1967.
Oppose Economist and Smash the Latest Counterattack by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line – Editorial of Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] and Hongqi [Red Flag], January 12, 1967.
Proletarian Revolutionaries, Unite, by Commentator, Hongqi, No. 2, 1967.
The May Upheaval in Hongkong, by the Committee of Hongkong-Kowloon Chinese Compatriots of All Circles for the Struggle Against Persecution by the British Authorities in Hongkong, (Hongkong: 1967), 191 pages. About the extension of the Cultural Revolution to Hongkong.
Forward Along the High Road of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought — In Celebration of the 17th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, including editorials and speeches by Lin Piao and Chou En-lai on Oct. 1, 1966, 42 pages. (Peking: FLP, 1967) PDF format [2,031 KB].
Patriotism or National Betrayal? – On the Reactionary Film Inside Story of the Ching Court, by Chi Pen-yu, 44 pages. Original Chinese version in Hongqi #5, 1967. (Peking: FLP, 1967)
Great Victory for Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line – Warmly Hail the Birth of Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, including speeches by Chou En-lai, Chiang Ching, Hsieh Fu-chih, Chang Chun-chiao and editorials from Renmin Ribao and Jifangjun Bao, (Peking: FLP, 1967), 60 pages.
Absorb Proletarian Fresh Blood – An Important Question in Party Consolidation, Hongqi [Red Flag] editorial, #4, Oct. 14, 1968. (Peking: FLP, 1968), 34 pages.
1969:
Put Mao Tse-tung’s Thought in Command of Everything, New Year editorial for 1969 by Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily], Hongqi [Red Flag] and Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily]. (Peking: FLP, 1969), 39 pages.
Outstanding Proletarian Fighters, about outstanding proletarian revolutionaries arising in all walks of life in China. (Peking: FLP, 1971), 101 pages.
To Trumpet Bourgeois Literature and Art is to Restore Capitalism – A Repudiation of Chou Yang’s Reactionary Fallacy Adulating the ‘Renaissance’, the ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Critical Realism’ of the Bourgeoisie, by the Shanghai Writing Group for Revolutionary Mass Criticism, (Peking: FLP, 1971), 53 pages.
1972:
Strive to Build a Socialist University of Science and Engineering, about the Cultural Revolution in education. (Peking: FLP, 1972), 85 pages. In addition to the title article by the Workers’ and PLA Men’s Mao Tsetung Thought Propaganda Team at Tsinghua University, this pamphlet also includes the Summary of the Forum on the Revolution in Education in Shanghai Colleges of Science and Engineering convened by Chang Chun-chiao an Yao Wen-yuan in Shanghai, June 2, 1970.
Strive for New Victories, in Celebration of the 23rd Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, editorial by Renmin Ribao, Hongqi and Jiefangjun Bao, (Peking: FLP, 1972), 18 pages.
1974:
A Vicious Motive, Despicable Tricks – A Criticism of M. Antonioni’s Anti-China Film China, by Renmin Ribao Commentator, Jan. 30, 1974. (Peking: FLP, 1974), 23 pages.
1976:
A Summary of the Opinions of the Inner-Party Bourgeoisie Issues, a Guangzhou area regional CCP document which was reprinted by the Publicity Department of Zhongshan County Committee of the CCP, and which is based on theoretical seminar materials and also the relevant articles of some university journals. It is only to promote further discussion and study by comrades on the inner-party bourgeoisie issue. (July 8, 1976), 14 pages. This document is especially interesting in that it is in part a late period summary of the central aspects of the entire GPCR. It consists of the following six sections:
Chairman Mao’s scientific assertion that the bourgeoisie emerged within the Communist Party is a major development of Marxism-Leninism
On how to understand the problem that the bourgeoisie is just in the Communist Party
On the question of changes in class relations during the socialist period
On the root causes of the bourgeoisie within the party
About the characteristics of the bourgeoisie within the party and the contradictory nature of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie within the party
Recognition and struggle against the bourgeoisie in the party
(An English translation should be available soon.)
Collections of Documents from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution:
Fundamentals of Political Economy, edited and with an introduction by George C Wang, ME Sharpe, New York, 1977, 506 pages. This was an introductory economics text produced in 1974 as part of a Youth Self-education series for individual or group study – primarily designed to raise the cultural level of the young people who were going to the countryside.
Appendix 1: On the General Program of Work for the Whole Party and Whole Nation
Appendix 2: Some Problems in Accelerating Industrial Development
Appendix 3: On Some Problems in the Fields of Science and Technology
Appendix 4: Two Talks by Teng Hsiao-ping
Appendix 5: The Bitter Fruit of Maoism, by Y. Semyonov
Appendix 6: Speech at Special Session of UN General Assembly, by Teng Hsiao-ping
Appendix 7: A Complete Reversal of the Relations Between Ourselves and the Enemy, by Hsiang Chun
Appendix 8: CPC Central Committee Circular on Holding National Science Conference
Appendix 9: To Each According to His Work: Socialist Principle in Distribution, by Li Hung-lin
CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: 1966-67, (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute), 1967 [?], 361 pages. This work included the original Chinese language documents plus the English translations. This version, however, only includes the English translations.
Commentaries on the GPCR
The papers included here might well be anti-GPCR but they contain either documents or information which will help to get a greater understanding of this crucial political movement.
