22-09-2014

Notes about concrete historical developments in China proving the “doublespeak” of Deng Xiaoping

I have already made some notes about historical developments in China which will show already some “doublespeak” of Deng Xiaoping, historical falsifications to which WPB-cadre Boudewijn Deckers is totally blind ( read HERE about the blindness of Boudewijn Deckers).
The “expansion of Marxism” about “the first stage of socialism” and “stabilisation/consolidation for decades” in that “stage”; the development of the “backward” productive forces BEFORE any change in production relations is “allowed”, the “leftist exaggerations of collectivisation”; the “proving” with quotes of Marx, Engels, Lenin and even of Stalin and Mao himself..... it was not invented by Deng Xiaoping... it was just a RETURN to the revisionist positions of Liu Shao-chi which he developed since the BEGINNING of the revolution..
I found this in one of the books once strongly promoted in AMADA and in the WPB when I became member.... In fact I would not have KNOWN of those books when I had not became member of the WPB and would not had followed the formation-course for every candidate-member..... But probably Boudewijn Deckers never studied those books himself....: Wind in the Tower of Han Suyin. This book is preceded by The Morning Deluge. This book I used to begin with a “distillation” of the lessons we can learn about “making revolution: “Chronicles of a revolution”.
But here some unmasking of the history-falsifying of Deng Xiaoping.

About “first stage of socialism” and the stage of “new democracy”
“In 1945 the Communist Party had committed itself to a united front to rally for reconstruction all who could be united, and had proposed a coalition government i which it would cooperate with the Kuomingtanng.1 On May 1, 1948, in the midst of the war against Chiang Kaishek, Mao drafted plans for a political consultive conference which would gather «all democratic parties, people's organisations and public personages .... to discuss and carry out the convening of a people's congress and the formations of a democratic coalition government
This shrewd tolerance was vindicated by the wholesale and enthusiastic flocking of many members of the Kuomingtang, intellectuals and even generals of Chiang's armies to Mao's side. Altogether twenty ore more parties or groups would assemble in the summer of 1949 to form a coalition as suggested. Twenty-five years later many non-Communists from such groups would still hold positions in the government of the People's Republic of China.
Mao is a dialectician; he knows that every situation carries it obverse within it. The very success of the move, rallying so many diverse individuals and groups, might well drown revolutionary goals in an indecisive liberalism; just so, too were the well-disciplined forces of the PLA now dangerously swollen with Kuomingtang deserters (almost two million of them).
It was therefore essential to set down a clear line, guiding principles, for the period to come. Within the Party itself, Mao Tsetung had to deal with divaricating groups. A strong right wing had as its chief protagonist the Party vice-chairman Liu Shao-chi, considered Mao' s closest comrade in arms. An extreme left wing, small but raucous, called for the total liquidation of the bourgeoisie and immediate communism. And there was the dangerous euphoria of triumph, warping revolutionary will and vigilance.(...)
The right wing in the Party was influential. Its arguments appeared rational, and it was backed of the intelligentsia newly rallied to the victors. Paradoxically, it could quote Mao to undo Mao; for only a few years back, not thinking victory could be achieved for a decade at least, Mao had spoken of a “new democratic stage” for “decades”. And the formula Liu Shao-chi put up was “consolidation of the new democratic stage.”
The new democratic stage Mao had talked about in 1940, however, was already outpaced by events in 1949. The phenomenon historians know as the acceleration of history has nowhere more evident than in the last thirty years, and in China particularly. Mao had felt it when he noted that “ the march of events in China is faster than people expected.” The outpacing of surmise by events is today an acknowledged fact, but it still catches most men unprepared. Mao had not expected victory in three short years. The situation brought about by the swift and total collapse of the Kuomingtang meant that all programs must be updated.(....)
The new democratic stage was already anachronistic. But Liu Shao-chi stuck to the concept of a “consolidation of new democracy” that would last for twenty or thirty years. Bolstered with arguments from Russia's New Economic Policy in the 1920's, he argued that even Lenin had had to brake and reverse himself. China was not ripe for “socialism”, he said. And he made it sound “ultra-left” even to talk of socialism.
Mao did not see it that way. He refused to be delayed, as he refused to be hurried. In his essay On New Democracy in 1940 (widely circulated in 1949), Mao had explained that the new democratic stage was a crossroads situation, it opened up two possible roads, one towards socialism, one towards capitalism. The decision which road to take depended upon the leadership which prevailed. Hence there could be no “consolidation” of the new democratic stage. The period to come was one of “transition to socialism” said Mao, quoting Lenin, who had made the point that there could not be an intermediate stage between the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. Liu Shao-chi's argument was ideologically incorrect. The time had come to orient China towards socialism, even if gradually. To freeze it into a “new democratic” establishment was to give up the very goal for which the revolution had been fought, to open wide the door to capitalist exploitation.
But, his opponents countered, had not Mao himself, in December 1947, argued that there would be a “prolonged period” of a capitalist small property and middle property class? Liu Shao-chi strongly urged that capitalists, owners of industrial enterprises producing manufactured commodities (such as there were in the pitifully under-industrialised China of 1949), should be “reassured”. There must be a rehabilitation period, in which capitalists should be encouraged to return to production. Mao aggreed, but these enterprises must be regulated and restricted. There must not be in position to control the economy, and hence the destinies of the state.
“Chairman Mao struggled against both the left deviation, who wanted immediate communism, and the right, led by Liu Shao-chi who wanted the return of capitalism.”2 During the nine days of March 5 to 13, Mao Tsetung fought for the vision, the orientation, the leadership which would transform China, bring it to power and prosperity, but also and above all to social justice, independence, and the true liberation of the minds of its people. The struggle between two views, two concepts, of what China should become was initiated then.(...)
The Chinese Communist Party had never been a monolithic entity, not since its birth in 1921. Six times during 1929 to 1949 it was subject to internecine strife representing opposite ideological concepts, which on at least five occasions threatened its very existence. In the next twenty-five years through to 1974, four more major struggles within the Party would occur.(...)
Although little publicised, the two-line struggle at the second plenum3 was intense. It was preceded by abundant discussions on economic problems: restoration of production in the cities, the city-countryside relationship; flow of exchanges between city and countryside.
Liu Shao-chi argued that nationalisation of the major industries, which under Chiang Kai-shek had been in the hands of the bureaucratic capitalists as a monopoly, was enough to create a state industrial sector; apart from that the private sector of small capitalist concerns must be encouraged to expand and be given a “free hand.” “At the present time it is better to allow the forces of capitalism full play to expand production.” This expansion of a private sector would put production in its feet, increase employment of workers (many of them now unemployed because of industrial shutdowns), and supply consumer needs. These two sectors, one nationalised, one private would be kept for two or three decades. This was the meaning of “consolidation of the new democratic stage”. The capitalists were “essential” for the rehabilitation period. They alone had the knowhow necessary to run enterprises, and the very word “socialism” panicked them – hence it must not be used. (....)
The coexistence of a state sector (which would perforce be sabotaged by the private sector, as occurs in India, or else be inefficient through lack of knowhow) with a private sector would immensely favor capitalist development. But capitalist expansion would mean exploitation of the workers and peasants: betrayal of the revolution.
As for the direction of industrial development, some muddleheaded comrades maintain that we should chiefly help the the development of private enterprise and not state enterprise, whereas others hold the opposite view that it suffices to pay attention to state enterprise and that private enterprise is of little importance.”4
It all boiled down, in Marxist terminology, to different class stands. Liu, who argued for maintaining “for decades” this ambiguous system, was actually trying to preserve an even to strengthen the capitalist class. He invoked Lenin's New Economic Policy, but this did not impress Mao, who knew his Lenin far better en knew how Lenin's concepts had been distorted in the USSR.
On whom shall we rely in our struggle in the cities? Some muddleheaded comrades think we should rely not on the working class but on the masses of the poor ... Some comrades who are even more muddleheaded think we should rely on the bourgeoisie.... We must wholeheartedly rely on the working class, unite with the rest of the laboring masses, win over the intellectuals, and win over to our side as many of the national bourgeoisie elements as possible ... or neutralise them .... Our present policy is to regulate capitalism, not to destroy it, but the national bourgeoisie cannot be the leader of the revolution, nor should it have the chief role in state power.”5
Mao Tsetung through reasoned debate and persuasion carried the vote in the Central Committee. The policy of “controlling, regulating and restricting” though not forbidding capitalism was passed. Another problem discussed at the plenum, the city-countryside relationship, was also formulated by some right-wing economists as an “industry versus agriculture” contradiction. Liberal economists joined hands with Liu's “Marxist” formulation to argue that the first priority was heavy industrialisation; whatever funds there were should be invested chiefly in industrial “rehabilitation”. For had this been the “socialist road” taken by the USSR?(....)
The right wing argued that Stalin himself in 1928 had said that the peasantry must make its “tribute” to the buildup of heavy industry as a priority. But Mao replied that it was not possible to build a socialist industry based on feudal countryside, or one where cruel exploitation held sway. If the countryside remained neglected and exploited and backward while industry flourished, that would mean capitalism and not socialism, wether a “nationalised” state sector in industry was created or not. “Only through socialism ..... can our motherland free herself from an semicolonial, semifeudal state and take the road to independence, freedom, peace, unity and prosperity,” said Mao at the plenum.6 And “without socialisation of agriculture there can be no complete, consolidated socialism.” (...)
Liu Shao-chi argued that there should not be land reform, so as not to disturb production, but a return to the rent reduction system operated in Yenan.7 Undue socialisation in the countryside would bring confusion. The peasant was “basically conservative .... slothful, easygoing .... only interested in food and profit,” said Liu. He favored a “rich peasant” line.8
This contemptuous view of the peasant masses was vigorously resisted bu Mao. “Under no circumstances should the villages be ignored and only the cities given attention, such thinking is entirely wrong.” Mao conceded that the minds of the peasantry must be changed by “socialist education ..... this is the most important problem.” However; socialist education must be accompanied by tangible steps: land reform, and collectivisation step by step. This would receive the support of the poor and middle peasantry, 70 percent of China's population. (...)
In the end, it was Mao who would lay down the ideological line in two masterly documents. His report at the second plenum is today held as an example of how to achieve unity and consensus, and therefore leadership authority, in a complex situation: promoting revolutionary goals with principled flexibility, making timely short-term concessions, but leaving the future wide open and invalidation none of the radical shifts to come.
The plenum finally passed resolutions that the state economy and not private economy should be “in the leadership role,” and that agriculture should be led from individual operation to collective development “step by step”. Priority for manufactured goods would go to the rural areas; the supply differences between city and countryside were to disappear.
Then happened the curious incident, raised later during the cultural revolution, of Liu Shao-chi's visit to Tientsin9. “When industry and trade were virtually at a standstill in Tientsin, Mr. Liu Shao-chi ... was sent there to improve the situation. He held a conference with local industrialists and commercial leaders ... Mr. Liu said that China had only four big capitalists, namely the Chiang, Soong, Kung, Chen-families ... aside from these China had no big capitalists to speak of ... He then encouraged the Chinese capitalists to be big capitalists ... He said the Chinese Communist Party will enforce communism in the end .... twenty or thirty years from now.”
Referring to exploitation, Liu had said there were two kinds of exploitation. One was “slavery and feudalistic exploitation” and another “equal value exploitation”. He said while the first must be wiped out, the latter must stay, “for the reason that through this form of exploitation there will develop production, and therefore greater employment.”
He hoped the Chinese capitalists will go on with the latter exploitation, and he assured the audience that 'the Chinese Communist Party will not stop you' “
At a self-criticism session in 196710, eighteen years later, Liu would say he had forgotten this episode. Even if one does allow that Liu was trying to rally support from the capitalists, he was certainly doing this in a strange way, dilating on the benefits of exploitation. He brushed off the workers who had congregated and wanted to see him. The workers were discouraged.” It dampened our revolutionary enthusiasm ... Was this revolution?”11 (...)
The two-line struggle on the ideology and strategy of development continued. It would be 1953 before Mao Tsetng won a clearvictory on the definition of the period.- “consolidation of new democracy” or “transition to socialism.”
In September 1949 Liu Shao-chi was to refer with some asperity to Mao12 “In the course of consultation .... some delegates .... suggested including in the common program the topic of the future of socialism, but we did not think it proper to do so, because the adoption of socialism in China will be a serious step in the fairly distant future.”
During the years 1950-1952, Liu would refer time and again to the “distant future” of socialism. but the acceleration of history was on Mao's side. By october 1953 Mao would win; after a series of meetings the Central Committee would pass a resolution for The General Line on the Transition Period to Socialism. And this was the end of “consolidation of new democracy.”
in September 1954, in his speech presenting the constitution of the People's Republic of China at the first National People's Congress (NPC), Liu Shao-chi castigated those who “wanted to halt at the crossroads.”
Mao had said and would repeat in 1955 in the continuing battle with Liu: “ There are people who after the victory of the new democratic stage have remained at that stage .... they are still attempting to speak of new democracy and linger at the crossroads, refusing to make the step towards socialist transformation.”
Liu now seemed to agree: “The only correct road ... is to pass from the present society ... to a society with a unified socialist economic structure, that means transition from the present new democratic society to a socialist society ... Some people may perhaps think of maintaining the status quo, taking neither a capitalist road nor a socialist road ... We all know that China is now in a transition period, building a socialist society .... this period is also called in our country the new democratic period.”
Thus Liu Shao-chi appeared to surrender to Mao's politics. But as the ensuing years would show, he continued to hold on to his own views.”13

About the collectivisation
“Throughout 1949 and early 1950, policies towards the rural countryside were discussed with great vigor, and opposition to Mao's insistence on land reform continued Mao Tsetung did win the consensus against those who wanted only “reduction of rent in kind” (the system operated in Yenan in 1940-1944) and land reform was officially announced in June 1950. Landlordism would be abolished, but the adoption of the “rich peasant” 14line or “kulak” line which Liu Shao-chi proposed was upheld in the land reform resolution passed that month. In fact the “conservative” trend was so strong that in certain areas where peasants had begun to share the land on their own, they were enjoined to return it to the former owners.
Mao Tsetung bowed to consensus. “There should be a change in our policy towards the rich peasants ... from a policy or requisitioning the surplus land and property ... to one of preserving the rich peasant economy in order to further the early restoration of production in rural areas .... This will also serve to isolate the landlords while protecting the middle peasants.”15
Mao urged that land reform be achieved by arousing the peasantry itself to denounce its own exploitation and to rise against the landlords. It was to be an education in politics as well as the accomplishment of needed change. The peasants must do it themselves; the Party could not do it for them. Agricultural cooperatives were “the only road to liberation for the people, the only road from poverty to prosperity.... Agriculture can and must be led prudently, step by step, and yet actively, to develop towards modernisation and collectivisation; the view that they may be left to take their own course is wrong ... The greatest efforts must be made to organise various mutual assistance cooperatives and for the improvement of agricultural techniques.”
Liu Shao-chi's view that the natural forces of the countryside must have a free hand was reflected in his “four freedoms” suggestion: freedom to buy and sell land, to hire tenants, to select crops to plant, free markets and pricing. This suggestion, though not official, circulated at cadre level, and its effect was to diminish the effectiveness of newly formed peasant associations in carrying out land reform.
Liu insisted that “no requisitioning of surplus land and property of rich peasants will be done ... This is a long-term policy ... Only when conditions are mature for the extensive application of mechanised farming, for the organisation of collective farms and for the socialist reform of the rural areas, will the need for a rich peasant economy ease, and this will take a somewhat long time to achieve” (June 14, 1950).
The land reform swung into action that summer. Represented abroad as a grim purge – although many landlords were spared; only tyrants were tried by people' courts and condemned to death – it started the process of change.16
The land reform teams were made up mostly of army cadres, and intellectuals and students from urban areas who were to be educated by participation. “We must forbid the beating of any individual or destruction of property at will; we must start the struggle ... according to circumstances and to the degree of awakening and organisation of the masses ... To depart from the realities of the situation and and amplify the struggle is dangerous” (Mao, June 6, 1950). In some areas it took weeks, sometimes months, before land reform teams could energise the poor peasants into moving against the landlords; but in other areas the peasants moved spontaneously to smash the landlord system.
Peasant associations based on the 70 percent poor and landless were given the responsibility for proceeding in each locality, and land-reform was officially completed by the summer of 1952. Though the landlords lost out, the rich peasant and the wealthier middle peasant remained. They still had better land, better equipment, draft animals, capital, prestige and influence. Usury was still possible. Trade shops and workshops belonging to landlords went untouched. Big landlords fled to the cities, leaving their landholdings in the keeping of poorer relatives; it would take more years and repeated “struggles” to really change the system.17 (...)
Within a year after land reform had begun, exploitation by rich peasants was producing a new rural polarisation. Nationwide rural surveys in 1951 and 1952 showed that poor and landless peasants, even when given land, could not effectively work it because of scarcity of implements and capital, and were once more falling prey to the wealthier farmers. To resist this retroversion, in Shansi province, in the spring of 1951, the poor peasants banded together to form cooperatives, without any directive from the Communist Party. But within the space of two harvests many poor peasants began to lose their newly acquired land under the “freedom to sell land” circular18. With the Korean War (1950-1953), price manipulation in the cities, under the “free market” theme promoted by Liu Shao-chi, led to a black market and resurgent hoearding. Landlords and rich peasants with connections in the cities (and many were also traders in grain) helped to drain countryside produce towards city speculation.(...)
On May 1951, Liu derisively called the few cooperatives which had sprung up spontaneously “isolated islands in the ocean of the countryside.” In June an article by Po I-po19 called Strengthen the Party's Political Work in the Countryside derided the cooperatives. In July Liu called a Shansi province Party committee report on cooperatives “utopian .... mistaken ... dangerous.” In July at a lecture at the Marx-Lenin Institute for Higher Cadres, Liu expounded: “Such spontaneous forces cannot be checked ... hiring labour and individual farming should be unrestricted ... no collectivisation before mechanisation ... production and financial reconstruction are top priorities.”
Mao was undeterred. “If socialism does not occupy the rural front, capitalism assuredly will” (1951). “our aim is to eliminate the rich peasant evonomy and the smallholder economy in the countryside so that the rural people will become increasingly well of together.” (...)
The poor and landless, 70 percent of the rual population, wanted cooperatives. “A rich is like a snake in one's pocket,” the poor said. By January 1952, 43 percent of the peasantry had forced mutual aid teams “as a way of avoiding poverty and bankruptcy.” Investigation showed that between 1953 an 1954, eight hundred peasant families out of five thousand in one area had been compelled to sell their newly acquired land within a year.
Although mutual aid teams helped with routine planting and harvesting, they were most in demand when everyone was busy on their own fields, including the members of the teams. They could not cope with farm management or climatic disasters, initiate technical improvement of tools, organise water conservancy projects. The tendency for their aid to be monopolised by wealthier farmers was also strong.
Again Mao Tsetung toured, investigated. In October 1953 The General Line for the Period of Transition to Socialism, passed by the Central Committee, affirmed collectivisation and cooperatives. The rich peasant economy formally disappeared. The draft on agricultural production penned by Mao two years previously was passed in December 1953. (...)
Cooperatives were now official, but the pace of their formation was slow at first. Landlords and rich peasants infiltrated them or resisted their formation, asserting their own “leadership”. Lower-level cadres sometimes lacked drive and vision, but more often were impeded by the Liu-controlled party apparatus at a higher level and by conflicting directives. One such obstacle was the sending of “work teams” from higher echelons, which discouraged cooperative formation “dampened enthusiasm” as Mao put it, in the name of “orderly process.” (...)
Mao's view that only rural collectivisation could unshackle and increase the productive forces of China's agriculture (upon whose surplus industrial expansion depended), and that collectivisation must precede mechanization, was not a new concept but one based upon his intensive study of Lenin. (...)
Already in 1939 Mao had expressed an idea basic to Leninism which would guide all the politics he initiated twenty years later:
When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal an decisive role ... While we recognise that in the general development of history the material determines the mental, and social being dertermines social consciousness ... we also, and indeed must ... recognise the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being.”20 And now he argued that: “In agriculture, with conditions as they are in our country, cooperation must precede the use of big machinery ..; socialist industrialisation cannot be carried out in isolation from agricultural cooperation.”21(....)
It was Liu Shao-chi, and the anticollectivist right wing, who proved “Stalinist”, quoting the experience of the USSR, emphasizing the priority of heavy industry, without a sober quest of China's practical needs. Liu would uphold the “theory of productive forces” as the motor of change,22

Deng's accusation of “Mao's leftism” with the “Great Leap Forward” and the Communes, is the same accusation of Liu Shaochi, which is the same of .....Kruschov!
“The first five-year plan was not published until 1955, though it began in 1953. On September 23, 1954, in his report to the first National People' congress, Chou En-lai had said that the blueprint was ”not yet complete and final.” It was completed in February 1955, and passed in June.
The main target was to double industrial output, increasing national income 43 percent. Sixty percent of the basis construction work would be designed by Soviet experts, the remainder by Chinese planners working under Soviet specialists. (...)
The story of the next eighteen years would be marked by Mao's efforts to cleanse the Party, to avoid its degeneration into an exploiting new class, so that the country « will not change colour .... become revisionist ... or a fascist state. »23 In his strenuous efforts to revolutionise the superstructure, Mao came up against not only Liu Shao-chi, but against an embedded political culture – twenty-five centuries of literocratic administration – which is now, in 1975-1976, being vigorously challenged in the great movement against Confucian ideas.
Liu Shao-chi represented a way of thought far more prevalent than it seemed, not only in the Party but in society at large. For him the Party organisation was revolutionary line; the Party was se the vanguard of the proletariat and revolution a by-product of the Party's existence. This automatic view of the Party as superior, infallible almost, because it held the “correct” theory, was itself a new Confucianism.(...)
Confucianism classified men as superior an inferior, the learned and the manual labourers, the litocracy and the “small men”, as determined by Heaven's mandate. The links of superior to inferior – father and son, teacher and pupil, husband and wife – were immutable. No revolt to this order could be allowed: “ Above is the knowledge; below is ignorance.” It followed that a leadership group such as the Party would automatically assume (until pulled by Mao) its own absolute superiority. “It is the masses who are intelligent ... while the intellectuals are often stupid ... childish,” Mao repeated countless times. “A Communist must never set himself above the masses .... he must learn from them humbly .... Learn before you can leas.” It was not the “heroes”, but the masses, “the slaves ... who make history.”
It is Mao who has truly democratised the Chinese revolution, “without democracy .... socialism cannot be established.” he introduced voting in Party meetings, “open door” supervision of Party cadres by the masses, public criticism through “big character” posters24, and the righti to revolt “against reactionaries”, even if these were Party leaders. In his eightieth year he would continue to uproot from the depths of the Chinese soul Confucian authoritarianism, docility and submission. “It is wrong .... blindly to carry out directives without discussing them ... simply because they come from a higher organ.” One can imagine what China would be like, what the CCP would be like, had it been Liu Shao-shi, whose contempt for the “ignorant” masses was flagrant, who prevailed. And how the tidy-souled bureaucrats of the Party, heirs to mandarins of old, must have resented Mao from upsetting their prerogatives of authority! (..)
Party recruitment thus was also a “two-line struggle.” The concepts that Liu Shao-shi promoted – that collectivisation must wait for mechanization, that there must be capitalist exploitation to develop a proletariat before socialism could work – rest upon the fundamental assumption that the working people, the base, are “not ready”, and that it is the “superstructure” which is in advance and is socialist, whereas the productive forces are still backward. Thus class struggle is denied as the motive force of revolutionary change, it is “production” and “the economic forces” which achieve the goal of “socialism”.
Mao fundamentally disagreed with this view, and criticised it when it was practiced in the Soviet Union. For him it was the superstructure, still permeated with past modes of thought and behaviour, traditions, customs and attitudes, which obstructed the surge of the economic base. “When the superstructure obstructs the development of the economic base, political and cultural changes become principal and decisive.”
Party membership, the quality and class standpoint and consciousness of the cadres, their dedication in serving the people was therefore of paramount importance. If the dominant influence within the party was an elitist, feudal-minded intelligentsia selfishly bent on achieving its own supremacy, the revolution would fail. (....)
Mao Tsetung would do his best to stop the Chinese Party from being turned into another Confucian, mandarin-like bureaucracy.(....)
The word “revisionism” was first used by Mao as a hint to the Kremlin leadership in December 1956.25 Again in his March 1957 speech at the National Conference on Propaganda Work, Mao warned against revisionism at home. “ One of our current important tasks of the ideological front is to unfold criticism of revisionism.” However, it appears that until 1963 the Chinese Party in the main did not feel that China could have “revisionists” in its upper echelon.(...)
Mao had always been critical of what he called “blind faith”, unthinking acceptance of everything that Russia did because it was “the fount of socialism.”He hoped that “blind faith” would stop in the Chinese Party. The lessons of historical experience must be learned, he said, and Party members must develop their critical faculties.(...)
But if Mao was both relieved and worried, the worry prevailed. Not so, however with Liu Shao-chi. This does not imply that Liu at any time was in collusion with Krushchev, but simply that he thought along similar lines. This coincidence of opinion was ironically referred to by Mao in his speech in Chengtu (March 1958) when he alluded to Krushchev's main thesis at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU: “peaceful transition to socialism”. “Some people [certain Communist parties] were delighted .... a milestone had dropped from their neck ... now the world was at peace.” “Such people were no longer revolutionaries, but wanted socialism to come peacefully, without their own exertions.”26 (...)
Liu's main speech at the Eighth Congress shows his thinking, and the approval of his report by the Congress bears out the evidence that the right wing was then in preponderant position.. Liu's speech is full of quiet sniping at Mao. He notes that “some comrades want to lower the rate of development of heavy industry ... this is wrong.” He averred that “ the tendency of deviation to the 'left' has manifested itself in demanding that socialism be achieved overnight.” On class struggle, Liu's major theme was directly contrary to Mao. Liu spoke of “the decisive victory of socialism”. “ The national bourgeoisie elements are in the process of changeover from exploiters to working people ... the working class has won ruling power throughout the country.” The resolution of September 27, 1956, passed by the first plenum of the Eight Central Committee spoke of the “decisive victory .... won in socialist transformation ... the contradiction in our country between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has been basically resolved.”
In international relations, Liu praised the theses of Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress and declared that there was definite hope of “an era of peace” and of “relaxation of tension.”
Liu derided Mao's fundamental view that changes in relations of production and the superstructure were essential and primary in China. The basic contradiction in China, Liu declared was “between the productive forces which are backward and the advanced socialist system.” This meant that no criticism from the masses who were “backward” could be acceptable; the Party was “advanced”, and its leadership must be reinforced.
Neither Liu nor Khrushchev was prepared to rectify and educate the Party by plunging it into the masses and practising open-door debate and criticism, so fundamental to Mao's thinking. Both saw the Party organisation as a power base. And both would initiate an ostensible “thaw” to allow certain privileged intellectuals into the Party, thus producing a fusion of high Party cadres and a technocratic elite.
The notion of the “dying out of class struggle”, therefore, far from being ore democratic or “liberal”, was paradoxically the opposite – a means of reinforcing absolutism though a new class. “Criticism of inferiors by superior is all right ... but the other way round, things become chaotic”, said Liu Shao-shi.(...)
In the summer of 1959 Mao was preparing himself for the eighth plenum of the Eighth Central Committee ,where, as everyone knew, matters of great import would have to be trashed out.(...)
At the end of June Mao Tsetung went to Lushan, the cool and beautiful resort where the Central Committee was to assemble for its eighth plenum. (...)
The initial attack on Mao at the plenum came from Peng Teh-huai, minister of Defence. Peng had left China in April, during the session of the National People's Congress, to attend a meeting of ministers of Warsaw Pact powers. For several weeks hè toured the USSR and East European countries in order to learn advanced modern techniques.'(...)
The Politburo, of which Peng was a member, sat in meetings throughout late June. Mao's opposition took heart. The mighty USSR had cancelled the agreements. Did not this prove Mao utterly wrong?
In July, Peng Teh-huai toured China, investigating and collecting data against the Leap. So did Chang Wen-tien. So did others. They were preparing a case against Mao. It is in this context that Wu Han's Hai Jui Upbraids the Emperor becomes meaningful. It showed Peng Teh-huai that he had moral support two months before hè delivered his attack against Mao.
Peng arrived in Lushan and started lobbying the Central Committee members as they assembled in preliminary discussions for the enlarged plenum. He lobbied the numerous generals and marshals invited to attend, as well as regional representatives. A Russian observer team was also in attendance. On July 14 Peng Teh-huai circulated his 'letter of opinion.' On the 17th Mao received a copy of it. On the 18th Khrushchev in Poland attacked the communes and the Great Leap Forward as 'petty bourgeois ... fanatic ... adventurism.' Peng had used the same terms in his 'letter of opinion'. On the first of August, Army Day, articles appeared in the Russian press lauding Peng Teh-huai. Khrushchev's covert attempt to topple Mao was not revealed until 1963, and then obliquely, when the Chinese wrote that Khrushchev had expressed 'undisguised support for anti-Party elements in the Chinese Party' at the Twenty-second Congress of the CPSU in October 1961. The struggle at the Lushan plenum was not only an intra-Party confrontation. It now had implications of collusion with a foreign - even if also socialist — power.
While the plenum was in session, the Chinese Communist Party magazine Red Flag came out with a strange article entitled Peaceful Competition Is an Inevitable Trend (August 16), which indirectly took up the Khrushchev thesis.
Peng Teh-huai's letter of opinion was an attack on all Mao's policies, which had been approved by the Central Committee and therefore were the Party line. The Leap, the communes, the steel drive ... 'Hasty ... waste of resources and man-power ... we have not handled the problems of economic con­struction in so successful a way as we dealt with the problem of shelling Quemoy and Matsu and quelling the revolt in Tibet.' He called the effort petty bourgeois fanaticism. 'In the view of some comrades, putting politics in command is a substitute for everything, but it is no substitute for economie principles.'(...)
A minister of defense who submits a memorandum criticizing the head of his party to a foreign statesman, who states that there might be cause to call upon a foreign army's help, would in any country and under any circumstances be relieved of his post.27 Peng Teh-huai's attack was not an honest criticism of the Leap; it was an attack on the basic principles of socialist construction, upon all of Mao's concepts; it implied also an attack upon Mao's stance against Moscow's military demands, which Mao was preparing to resist even at the cost of losing Soviet aid.
Others rose to speak against Mao. There were two strands of opposition to him: one was the "military club", military commanders in alliance with Peng; the other, officials in civilian departments who disapproved of Mao's policies toward the USSR. Both groups assailed his economic policies. The harvest that year would be only 160 million tons, 25 million less than in 1957. Peng even opined that ther should be "no investigation of personal responsability," thus appearing not to attack Mao personally. But this phrase shoed he wanted to punt the onus of everything on Mao.
The debate occupied almost the whole of the three weeks allotted to the plenum to review problems and fashion policies.(...)
Mao rose to speak again. "After coming up the mountain, I expressed these three sentiments: Achievements are great. Problems are considerable. And the future is bright." Suddenly there had been this frantic attack by rightist opportunists. It was an attack on the Party, the socialist movement, on the 600 million people. "The struggle that has arisen in Lushan is a class struggle ..... the continuation of the life or death struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the process of the socialist revolution during the past decade." This would continue for twenty, fifty years, and there would be many more struggles. The problem of Peng Teh-huai and his supporters resembled the Kao Kang and Jao Shou-shih problem of 1954. Peng Teh-huai was but yesterday a man of great merit, but people were ignorant of the complexities and the deviousness of their own past history. This lapse had its deep roots in their own unreformed ideology.
It was, however, necessary to keep Peng Teh-huai and those with him in the party to give them opportunity to repent and to change. (...)
It is not known when Mao learned of Peng's consultation with Khruschev in Tirana. But he mentioned the matter indirectly on September 11 at an enlarged session of the Military Affairs Committee: "It is absolutely impermissible to go behind the back of our motherland and to collude with a foreign country." In 1967, when full details of the struggle against Peng Teh-huai were published, its world revolutionary context became widely recognised. Peng's attack had come "when the reactionary forces at home and abroad were exploiting certain transient and partial shortcomings ... An attack at such juncture launched from inside the Central Committee of the Party is clearly more dangerous than an attack from outside the Party." The activities of Peng Teh-huai and others had been purposive, prepared, planned, organised, a continuation of the Kao Kang and Jao Shou-shih affair.28 (...)
On August 26 Chou En-lai reported on the "readjusted" 1959 plan. "Facts prove that the simultaneous development of large, small and medium industrial enterprises and the use of both modern and indigenous methods, walking on two legs, have their advantages ... the enterprises are widely distributed; it takes less time to build them .... it forces an extensive survey of resources, and economy in the use of transport .... The steel drive is a magnificent spectacle ... part of the people's understanding how to transform China from a poor and blank country into a industrial state .... unparalleled in Chinese history."
The 1958 grain targets were corrected from 375 million tons to 250 million tons. "Due to lack of experience in assessing harvests under condition of bumper crops, inadequate allocation of labor power... which led to rather hurried reaping, threshing ... the calculations were a bit high." But industry continued to leap; it had doubled output in the first six months of 1959.
Peng Teh-huai dropped out of sight but was named to a fairly high regional post, and remained a member of the Central Committee. he seems to have written to Mao asking to "go down" to labor in the countryside, but Ma said he was too old, he could spend time going around inspecting communes if he wished. He would be arrested by Red Guards in December 1966 and publicly "struggled" against and paraded through the streets in July 1967. He is reported living in retirement in Szechuan province. (....)
The years 1959 to 1962 are murky and confused, a season of divaricating statements and divergent policies. The whole world appeared to be against China and predicted her failure; she was beset at home with climatic and agricultural disasters, as well as sustaining major confrontations with both the United States and the Soviet Union. She was labelled bellicose, aggressive, expansionist, and Mao a megalomaniac and tyrant; it was difficult to discover any accurate, much less sympathetic, portrait of China.
In a by no means impartial western press, the event deemed the utmost "evidence" of China's danger to the world was the border conflict with India. Only now, fifteen years later (the writing of the book ended in 1975 and first edited in 1976, NICO), has the prevalent picture of a peaceful democratic India attacked by a bellicose invasive China given place to a more balanced view.29 But in 1962 the minor border conflict, for such it was, was played up. The episode's interest lies in the close link it reveals between India and the USSR, leading in what amount to joint operation against China.(...)
The year 1960 began badly: an iron-hard winter without snow, followed by two hundred days of drought. The Yellow River shrank until it was a pencil thread lost in sand. Forty million hectares of cultivated land were affected. In Shangtung peasants replanted grain five times. Townspeople came to help, including schoolchildren, forming long chains to carry water to the fields. The South was flooded, immense seas drowning the crops. Summer hail killed off the wheat in Hopei and Honan.30
And then the communes showed their worth. Fifteen million people in Shangtung planted turnips and sweet potatoes to make up for the destroyed wheat crops. Eighteen million in Honan formed an anti-drought army, with four hundred thousand cadres from the cities joining in.
Mao insisted there should be no procurement of grain or other staple food from the alleged regions. As a result, there were shortages in the cities and stringent rationing. Pig cholera took its toll of the depleted pig population, and the staple diet in Peking that winter was cabbages.31
Purchases of wheat from abroad for the cities began: 2,5 million tons in 1960, 5,8 million ton in 1961-1962, and 5,6 million tons in 1962-1063. The foreign exchange required amounted to 33 to 39 percent of China's total foreign exchange earnings, yet the shortfall amounted to only 3 to 4 percent of the total harves, and China continued to export rice, one to two million tons to Albania and to North Vietnam.”32

1On Coalition Government, April 24, 1945. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition Peking 1961-1965), Vol. III.
2Footnote to speech of Mao Tsetung at the second plenum of the Seventh Central Comittee, March 5, 1949. See Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition Peking 1961-1965), vol. IV.
3Report to the Seond Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Comittee of the Communist Party of China, March 5, 1949. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition Peking 1961-1965), vol. IV.
4Report to the Second Plenum of the Seventh Central Comittee of the Communist Party of China, March 30, 1949. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition 1961-1965), vol. IV.
5On the People's Democratic Dictatorship, June 30, 1949. Select Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition, Peking 1961-1965), vol IV.
6Monthly Report, Shanghai, July 1949.
7See The Morning Deluge, page 360.
8“Rich peasant” line or “kulak” line was a term coined to devote a laissez-faire policy of individual farming. In practice it would have retained landlordism, for new landlords would have arisen from the rich peasants, who would have exploited the majority of landless and poor.
9Monthly Report, Shanghai, July 31, 1949, page 20, article entitled Communist Theoretician Speaks.
10See Collected Works of Liu Shao-chi, 1958-1967 (Hong Kong 1968), pages 365-366.
11Author's interviews with workers in Tienstsin in 1969.
12At the Political Consultative Conference, September 9, 1949, when it adopted a common program for the inauguration of the new government. The Political Consultative Conference was called for by Mao Tsetung in 1948. It was to assemble individuals from all political parties, including those members of the Kuomingtang who called to the Communists (see The Morning Deluge, page 498).
13Out of “Wind in the Tower – Mao Tsetung and the Chinese revolution, 1949-1976”, by Han Suyin. Published in 1978 by Triad/Panther Books, ISBN 0 586 04505 8.
14Rich peasant” line or “kulak” line was a term coined to devote a laissez-faire policy of individual farming. In practice it would have retained landlordism, for new landlords would have arisen from the rich peasants, who would have exploited the majority of landless and poor.
15Mao Tsetung Struggle for a Fundamental Turn for the Better in the Financial and Economic Situation in China (Third Plenum, Seventh Central Committee, June 6, 1950. Author's translation.
16The author is constantly surprised by the existence of landlords in all of today's (in 1975, NICO) communes. Though they were deprived of voting rights, their influence would remain strong for a considerable number of years. In clan villages where all have the same name, and kinship is claimed to enforce feudal authority, a patriarchal connection exists between landlord and tenant. See Han Suyin, China in the year 2001 (London 1967)
17An “ultra-left” tendency also occurred at the time, with landlords and rich peasants totally deprived of land and constrained to flee to the cities or become bandits. Mao also spoke against this extremism.
18See higher the intra-Party document expounding Liu Shao-chi's “four freedoms” policy....
19Po I-po, born in 1907, in 1952 a member of the State Planning Commission, alternate member of the Politburo and vice-premies in September 1956, director of the Industry and Communication Ministry in 1961. He is said to have been one of those who abjured in 1936.
20On Contradiction. Select Works of Mao Tsetung (English edition Peking 1961 -1965), vol I.
21On the Question of Agricultural Cooperation, July 31, 1955. Selected Readings of Mao Tsetung (English edition Peking 1971).
22Out of “Wind in the Tower – Mao Tsetung and the Chinese revolution, 1949-1976”, by Han Suyin. Published in 1978 by Triad/Panther Books, ISBN 0 586 04505 8.
23Mao at the Ninth Congress of the CCP, April 1969.
24Wall posters (tatzepao) pasted up by anyone on any street, in factories, universities and schools, villages, etc.
25People's Daily Editorial Department On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, April 5, 1956 and December 29, 1956 (English edition Peking 1957).
26In this general remark, Mao hints at the CCP, but also includes “other” parties, notably that of the USSR – meaning Krushchev.
27 Certainly Peng's letter was not merely an innocent statement of opinion, since Peng had written to the Soviet Communist Party three months earlier, criticizing the great leap forward policies' (Lois Dougan Tretiak, Far Eastern Economie Review, November 30, 1967).
28Resolution of the eight plenum of the Eight Central Committee and Lushan, August 17, 1959; published August 1967.
29See Neville Maxwell "India's China War" (London 1970)
30The Times, London, November 9 and December 30, 1960, China's Long Battle Against Record Drought. The article quotes the areas affected as 230.000 square miles, half the cultivated land in China. See also Far Eastern Economic Review, September 19, 1960
31Author's personal experience while in China in 1959,1960,1961, 1962.

32Out of “Wind in the Tower – Mao Tsetung and the Chinese revolution, 1949-1976”, by Han Suyin. Published in 1978 by Triad/Panther Books, ISBN 0 586 04505 8.

20-09-2014

Will the WPB/PVDA/PTB join the accusation that the KKE is (still) not free of 'Chruchov-Breznjevian “left”-formulated, revisionism'?(6)

Boudewijn Deckers -co-founder of AMADA in 1970 and of the WPB in 1979 - in fact “erased” out of the collective memory of the party (WPB), the original WPB-party-statements and on WPB-congresses voted party-points of view.

Boudewijn Deckers, in his “answers” on questions about China - you will see that he is NOT in ANYWAY really answering - he is just repeating the official actual view of the CCP. So INDIRECTLY he is saying in fact, that, the by him repeated official view of the CCP, is now ALSO the “actual official” point of view of the WPB:
China experienced during the last thirty years serious reforms. Does this not lead to an aberration of socialism?
(...) In the beginning of the eighties, the Chinese Communist Party thought that an accelerated development of the economy, which she considered as absolutely necessary, was impossible to conform with the strict principles of the collectivisation which were ruling until that moment, although they had given China a solid base.(...)
It is impossible for us to judge all aspects of this matter. We do not know why the experience of the industrialisation, the collectivisation and the central planning of the thirties in the Soviet Union could not, one way or another, been applied in China today. We are neither able to make a complete review of the Chinese experience until the seventies, neither that of the years after then, by the way.
But we have to be objective and we have to learn to know the policy of the CPC and the Chinese government very well. We have to recognise as well as the problems for the country, as the undeniable successes, which are brought by the reform.”1 (...)
According to Deng Xiaoping and other important Chinese leaders, the CPC wanted to skip certain stages, with a fast, large-scale collectivisation which did not correspond with the backward situation of the production-forces. The socialist collectivisation demands a material base, and that should be a large industrial production and a mechanised agriculture.
The Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) has taught us, young western revolutionaries, the principles on which is founded our party, like the critic on the main-characteristics of Chruchov-revisionism, the transformation of the conception of the world which stays always necessary for communists, the bond with the masses and so much more. But in China itself, there were made, in that same period, important mistakes. According to the Chinese leaders was that period the climax of voluntarist and leftist policies, which was linked to wrong conceptions of egalitarianism and a negation of the principle of socialism “each according his work”. In that period there was a to extreme attention for class-struggle, while the priority under socialism should normally be, development of the economy. You can not abolish classes within the frame of a backward economy. The objective of socialism is giving the people a better and better level of living..2

Why do I speak about “CONCSIOUSLY, ERASING of the collective memory or knowledge of the party”?
Boudewijn Deckers was the co-founder of AMADA in 1970, and he was (co-)leading the founding-congress of the WPB in 1979, as he was mostly (co-)leading ALL congresses of the WPB. He has always been “the number 2” as well in AMADA as in the WPB. He has always been responsible for the content and the level of political and ideological formation of the members. All I have learned about the October-revolution and the Chinese revolution, it is out of works, documents and books, PROMOTED by him. So as member you were advised to study certain works from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and also from Enver Hodga. The study of those works had to be combined with a study of the CONTEXT in which those works were written. So for example for Lenin, you should also study the book “ History of the CP of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)” and in combination of the works of Mao Zedong advised was to study “The morning deluge” and “The wind in the tower” from Han Suyin (the books, which you can consider as the history of he CCP and the Chinese revolution)
Normally you would also consider that Boudewijn Deckers would have studied for example the most important texts of Deng Xiaoping (AFTER 1978)
Also IN Marxist Studies were published analyses about the “reform and opening” -policy of Deng Xiaoping so for example in Marxist Studies n° 4 , 20 March 1990, “Point de vue critique sur les réformes agricoles en Chine”:, an article of William H. Hinton:
Cet article est une traduction d'une réponse de William H. Hinton3 à un article de Hugh Deane, journaliste américain spécialiste des questions chinoises, critiquant divers aspects de la politique agricole menée en Chine depuis le milieu des années cinquante jusqu'à l'aube des réformes de 1978. Tout en réfutant ou nuançant les analyses de H. Deane, William Hinton jette, à son tour, un regard très critique sur les réformes mises en oeuvre depuis 1978.4
...and in Marxist Studies n° 17, 20 March 1993, a report of a militant/cadre of the WPB (a medicine) about the health-service in China and the concrete effects of the “reform-”policy on it, “Les soins de santé en Chine
The last chapter of this report is called: “The pervert effects of the reform on the healthcare-sector”:
Nous ne nous attarderons pas ici sur les effets pervers de la réforme au niveau de l'agriculture. Ce n'est pas notre sujet. Nous nous pencherons par contre sur les effets pervers de la réforme en matière de santé. Si nous gardons en tête que le progrès dans la santé était le résultat d'une planification rigoureuse et l'application concrète du centralisme démocratique sur base de principes socialistes, le manque de planification et de centralisme démocratique devra nécessairement avoir des effets inverses sur le terrain. 
Remark: In 2004 when in Solidair (weekly of the WPB) appeared an article of Boudewijn Deckers introducing his “analysis” in Marxist Studies I sent a 'readers-mail' to SolidairTo Boudewijn Deckers about his article about socialism in China”.....

About some texts of Deng Xiaoping (which apparently Boudewijn Deckers was unable to study...)

“We are opposed to broadening the scope of class struggle. We do not believe that there is a bourgeoisie within the Party, nor do we believe that under the socialist system a bourgeoisie or any other exploiting class will re-emerge after exploiting classes and the conditions of exploitation have really been eliminated. But we must recognize that in our socialist society there are still counter-revolutionaries, enemy agents, criminals and other bad elements of all kinds who undermine socialist public order, as well as new exploiters who engage in corruption, embezzlement, speculation and profiteering. And we must also recognize that such phenomena cannot be all eliminated for a long time to come. The struggle against these individuals is different from the struggle of one class against another, which occurred in the past (these individuals cannot form a cohesive and overt class). However, it is still a special form of class struggle or a special form of the leftover, under socialist conditions, of the class struggles of past history. It is still necessary to exercise dictatorship over all these anti-socialist elements, and socialist democracy is impossible without it. This dictatorship is an internal struggle and in some cases an international struggle as well; in fact, the two aspects are inseparable. Therefore, so long as class struggle exists and so long as imperialism and hegemonism exist, it is inconceivable that the dictatorial function of the state should wither away, that the standing army, public security organs, courts and prisons should wither away. Their existence is not in contradiction with the democratization of the socialist state, for their correct and effective work ensures, rather than hampers, such democratization. The fact of the matter is that socialism cannot be defended or built up without the dictatorship of the proletariat.5

So while there is no bourgeois class, the special character of the class struggle is that there IS NO CLASS STRUGGLE....

The Eleventh National Congress of the Party and the Fifth National People's Congress have set the great nationwide goal of achieving the four socialist modernizations before the end of this century. Now the Central Committee and the State Council are urging us to quicken the pace of our modernization and have set forth a series of relevant policies and organizational measures. The Central Committee points out that this is a great revolution in which China's economic and technological backwardness will be overcome and the dictatorship of the proletariat further consolidated. Since its goal is to transform the present backward state of our productive forces, it inevitably entails many changes in the relations of production, the superstructure and the forms of management in industrial and agricultural enterprises, as well as changes in the state administration over these enterprises so as to meet the needs of modern large-scale production. To accelerate economic growth it is essential to increase the degree of specialization of enterprises, to raise the technical level of all personnel significantly and train and evaluate them carefully, to greatly improve economic accounting in the enterprises, and to raise labour productivity and rates of profit to much higher levels. Therefore, it is essential to carry out major reforms in the various branches of the economy with respect to their structure and organization as well as to their technology. The long-term interests of the whole nation hinge on these reforms, without which we cannot overcome the present backwardness of our production technology and management. The Central Committee of the Party is confident that, in the interests of socialism and the four modernizations, our whole working class will play a selfless, model, vanguard role in these reforms”6

As the communes were dismantled and the collectivisation turned down “the changes in the relations of production” can only meant an reinforcing of the CAPITALIST production relations (which were step by step transformed just by the collectivisation and the installing of the communes). So “the further consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat” is just a PHRASE while “changes in the superstructure and the forms of management in industrial and agricultural enterprises” which has to lead to “raise labour productivity and the rates of profit to much higher level” meant giving the bourgeoisie more power and increasing the level of exploitation of the working class.
Before analysing the so-called “Marxist” argumentation on one point of the policy “Reform and Opening”: “reform of the relations of production that do not correspond with the rapid development of the productive forces”; let's first give the argumentation of Deng Xiaoping (which Boudewijn Deckers was unable to study):
I. EMANCIPATING THE MIND IS A VITAL POLITICAL TASK
When it comes to emancipating our minds, using our heads, seeking truth from facts and uniting as one in looking to the future, the primary task is to emancipate our minds. Only then can we, guided as we should be by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, find correct solutions to the emerging as well as inherited problems, fruitfully reform those aspects of the relations of production and of the superstructure that do not correspond with the rapid development of our productive forces, and chart the specific course and formulate the specific policies, methods and measures needed to achieve the four modernizations under our actual conditions.(....)
Henceforth, now that the question of political line has been settled, the quality of leadership given by the Party committee in an economic unit should be judged mainly by the unit's adoption of advanced methods of management, by the progress of its technical innovation, and by the margins of increase of its productivity of labour, its profits, the personal income of its workers and the collective benefits it provides. The quality of leadership by Party committees in all fields should be judged by similar criteria. This will be of major political importance in the years to come. Without these criteria as its key elements, our politics would be empty and divorced from the highest interests of both the Party and the people.
So far as the structure of management is concerned, the most important task at present is to strengthen the work responsibility system. (....)
To make the best use of the responsibility system, the following measures are essential.
First, we must extend the authority of the managerial personnel. Whoever is given responsibility should be given authority as well. Whoever it is -- a factory director, engineer, technician, accountant or cashier -- he should have his own area not only of responsibility but of authority, which must not be infringed upon by others. The responsibility system is bound to fail if there is only responsibility without authority.
Second, we must select personnel wisely and assign duties according to ability. We should seek out existing specialists and train new ones, put them in important positions, raise their political status and increase their material benefits. What are the political requirements in selecting someone for a job? The major criterion is whether the person chosen can work for the good of the people and contribute to the development of the productive forces and to the socialist cause as a whole.
Third, we must have a strict system of evaluation and distinguish clearly between a performance that should be rewarded and one that should be penalized. All enterprises, schools, research institutes and government offices should set up systems for evaluating work and conferring academic, technical and honorary titles. Rewards and penalties, promotions and demotions should be based on work performance. And they should be linked to increases or reductions in material benefits.
In short, through strengthening the responsibility system and allotting rewards and penalties fairly, we should create an atmosphere of friendly emulation in which people vie with one another to become advanced elements, working hard and aiming high.
In economic policy, I think we should allow some regions and enterprises and some workers and peasants to earn more and enjoy more benefits sooner than others, in accordance with their hard work and greater contributions to society. If the standard of living of some people is raised first, this will inevitably be an impressive example to their ``neighbours'', and people in other regions and units will want to learn from them. This will help the whole national economy to advance wave upon wave and help the people of all our nationalities to become prosperous in a comparatively short period. (.....)
During the drive to realize the four modernizations, we are bound to encounter many new and unexpected situations and problems with which we are unfamiliar. In particular, the reforms in the relations of production and in the superstructure will not be easy to introduce. They touch on a wide range of issues and concern the immediate interests of large numbers of people, so they are bound to give rise to complications and problems and to meet with numerous obstacles. In the reorganization of enterprises, for example, there will be the problem of deciding who will stay on and who will leave, while in that of government departments, a good many people will be transferred to other jobs, and some may complain. And so on. Since we will have to confront such problems soon, we must be mentally prepared for them. We must teach Party members and the masses to give top priority to the overall situation and the overall interests of the Party and the state. We should be full of confidence. We will be able to solve any problem and surmount any obstacle so long as we have faith in the masses, follow the mass line and explain the situation and problems to them. There can be no doubt that as the economy grows, more and more possibilities will open up and each person will be able to make his contribution to society. 7

Guided .... by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, find correct solutions to the .... reform those aspects of the relations of production and of the superstructure that do not correspond with the rapid development of our productive forces, .... to achieve the four modernizations under our actual conditions.(....) The quality of leadership given by the Party committee in an economic unit should be judged mainly by the unit's adoption of advanced methods of management, by the progress of its technical innovation, and by the margins of increase of its productivity of labour, its profits, the personal income of its workers and the collective benefits it provides.(...)First, we must extend the authority of the managerial personnel. .... -- a factory director, engineer, technician, accountant or cashier -- he should have his own area not only of responsibility but of authority, which must not be infringed upon by others. ....
We must select personnel wisely and assign duties according to ability. ... put them in important positions, raise their political status and increase their material benefits. .... We must have a strict system of evaluation and distinguish clearly between a performance that should be rewarded and one that should be penalized. ... Rewards and penalties, promotions and demotions should be based on work performance. And they should be linked to increases or reductions in material benefits.
It is SUGGESTED - by Deng Xiaoping .... and this “suggestion” is supported by Boudewijn Deckers – that it is apparently defended by Marx, Lenin and Mao to “reform the production-relations” (which can only mean RE-install the by collectivisation and installing of communes torn down, CAPITALIST production-relations) which will be able to “develop the backward productive forces”.

“Modernization does represent a great new revolution. The aim of our revolution is to liberate and expand the productive forces. Without expanding the productive forces, making our country prosperous and powerful, and improving the living standards of the people, our revolution is just empty talk. We oppose the old society and the old system because they oppressed the people and fettered the productive forces. We are clear about this problem now. The Gang of Four said it was better to be poor under socialism than to be rich under capitalism. This is absurd.
Of course, we do not want capitalism, but neither do we want to be poor under socialism. What we want is socialism in which the productive forces are developed and the country is prosperous and powerful. We believe that socialism is superior to capitalism. This superiority should be demonstrated in that socialism provides more favourable conditions for expanding the productive forces than capitalism does. This superiority should have become evident, but owing to our differing understanding of it, the development of the productive forces has been delayed, especially during the past ten-year period up to 1976. In the early 1960s, China was behind the developed countries, but the gap was not as wide as it is now. Over the past 11 or 12 years, from the end of the 1960s through the 1970s, the gap has widened because other countries have been vigorously developing their economies, science and technology, with the rate of development no longer being calculated in terms of years, not even in terms of months, but in terms of days. For a fairly long period of time since the founding of the People's Republic, we have been isolated from the rest of the world. For many years this isolation was not attributable to us; on the contrary, the international anti-Chinese and anti-socialist forces confined us to a state of isolation. However, in the 1960s when opportunities to increase contact and cooperation with other countries presented themselves to us, we isolated ourselves. At last, we have learned to make use of favourable international conditions. “8
“First, it is essential to follow a firm and consistent political line.
We now have such a line. In his speech at the meeting in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, Comrade Ye Jianying formulated the general task -- or, if you will, the general line -- as follows: Unite the people of all our nationalities and bring all positive forces into play so that we can work with one heart and one mind, go all out, aim high and achieve greater, faster, better and more economical results in building a modern, powerful socialist country. That was the first fairly comprehensive statement of our present general line. This general line is of immense political importance today -- how can it be otherwise? It represents our long-term task. If a massive war breaks out and we have to fight, we will have to suspend our efforts to fulfil this task, but otherwise, we must keep at it consistently and devotedly. Having experienced many twists and turns in our work during the past 30 years, we have never really been able to shift its focus to socialist construction. Consequently, the superiority of socialism has not been displayed fully, the productive forces have not developed in a rapid, steady, balanced way, and the people's standard of living has not improved much. The decade of the ``cultural revolution'' brought catastrophe upon us and caused profound suffering. Except in the event of a massive war, we must steel ourselves to carry out this task with constancy and devotion; we must make it our central task and allow nothing to interfere with its fulfilment. Even if there is a large-scale war, afterwards we will either pick up where we left off or start over. The whole Party and people should form this high resolve and keep to it without faltering. Had it not been for the ``Left'' interference, the reversals of 1958 and especially of the ``cultural revolution'', significant progress would certainly have been achieved in our industrial and agricultural production and in science and education, and the people's standard of living would certainly have improved to a fair extent. We could have accomplished these things simply by working conscientiously and methodically, even without applying the experience of the advanced countries and having the high resolve we have today. Take steel for instance. If there had been steady development, by now we could have been producing at least 50 to 60 million tons of usable steel a year. Today we enjoy very favourable international conditions and we can be fully confident that our future will be bright as long as the whole Party and people, with one heart and mind, resolutely follow the political line formulated by the Central Committee.” 9

The aim of our revolution is to liberate and expand the productive forces. Without expanding the productive forces, ... our revolution is just empty talk. We oppose the old society and the old system because they oppressed the people and fettered the productive forces. ... The Gang of Four said it was better to be poor under socialism than to be rich under capitalism. This is absurd. ... What we want is socialism in which the productive forces are developed and the country is prosperous and powerful. We believe that socialism is superior to capitalism. This superiority should be demonstrated in that socialism provides more favourable conditions for expanding the productive forces than capitalism does.
In fact socialist revolution is tearing down capitalist production relations (based on private ownership of means of production which is protected by bourgeois dictatorship) and installing proletarian dictatorship and progressively build communist production-relations..... and this is done and leaded by the most important productive force: the working class (in alliance with other forces...)
The revolution which is (only) “liberating and expanding productive forces” is a bourgeois democratic revolution (against feudality)
A (bourgeois) revisionist can of course not speak of a “revisionist”(and so “bourgeois”) disaster ”of the “reversals of 1958” and the “cultural revolution”. A (bourgeois) revisionist can only negate class-character and so speaks of a “left” (wrong) policy. (but at the same time the revisionist proofs his own BOURGEOIS class-character by making an ANTAGONIST (not to be able to solve by discussion or political struggle) contradiction between his own (as correct, revolutionary, Marxist) line or policy and the so-called “left” line or policy. And of course while the position which Deng Xiaoping is “We do not believe that there is a bourgeoisie within the Party, nor do we believe that under the socialist system a bourgeoisie or any other exploiting class will re-emerge after exploiting classes and the conditions of exploitation have really been eliminated.10”..... he can not speak anymore about a (bourgeois) revisionist line in the CCP, .... so he speaks of a “left” line. (...but attributes antagonist characteristics to “the leftists Lin Biao and the Gang of Four”: “contra-revolutionary” - in some texts he says “fascists”)
And what are for Deng Xiaoping “the (primary) productive forces”? (For Marx, as for Lenin and Mao, it was the working class....):

I The world is changing, and we should change our thinking and actions along with it. In the past we pursued a closed-door policy and isolated ourselves. How did that benefit socialism? The wheels of history were rolling on, but we came to a halt and fell behind others. Marx said that science and technology are part of the productive forces. Facts show that he was right. In my opinion, science and technology are a primary productive force. For us, the basic task is to maintain socialist convictions and principles, expand the productive forces and raise the people's living standards. To accomplish this task, we must open our country to the outside world. Otherwise, we shall not be able to stick to socialism. In the 1950s, for example, the gap in technology between China and Japan was not great. Then we closed our doors for 20 years and made no effort to compete internationally, while during the same period Japan grew into an economic power.
II From a long-term point of view, we should pay attention to education and science and technology. We have already wasted 20 years when we should have been developing. If we paid no attention to education, science and technology, we would waste another twenty years, and the consequences would be dreadful to contemplate. When I met with Husak recently, I mentioned that Marx was quite right to say that science and technology are part of the productive forces, but now it seems his statement was incomplete. The complete statement should be that science and technology constitute a primary productive force. The future of agriculture will eventually lie in bioengineering and other highly advanced technologies.”11

The so-called Marxist argumentation for the policy “Reform and Opening”
2. ECONOMIC LAWS OF SOCIALISM
There are different formulations about the economic laws of socialism. Marx pointed out in his Critique of the Gotha Programme that a socialist society must carry out the principle of "to each according to his work", and that this is an objective law independent of man's will. In his Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin referred to the law that the relations of production must conform with the character of the productive forces, the basic economic law of socialism, the law of balanced, proportionate development of the national economy, the law 'of value, and so on. (He stressed that the law of value still plays a role in socialist society.This is a significant addition to Marxism-Leninism.) These are all important economic laws in a socialist society. They arise from different circumstances and may be classified into the following types:
1. Acommon law thatruns throughallstages ofthe developmentofhumansociety,i.e.,thelawthattherelationsofproductionmustconformwiththelevelofthegrowthofproductiveforces.This law has operated in all stages of human society but is of particular importance to socialist society. All socio-economic formations in human history came into being spontaneously in correspondence with this economic law. The case is different with the socialist relations of production, which emerge and develop gradually through the application of the principles and policies set by the proletariat which has consciously grasped the same objective law. Before liberation, the Chinese Communist Party formulated a political programme for a transition to a socialist revolution via a democratic revolution. After the birth of New China, the Party announced in 1953 the general line for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, which provided for the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production. This led to the belief that the rise and gradual reform of the socialist relations of production may be determined by the subjective will of the Party without following the objective laws of socialist economic development. This view led to serious mistakes. Even today, many of our comrades underestimate the difficulties involved in the building of socialism in our country where the level of productive forces is very low, particularly in agriculture. They arc apt to make a rash advance whenever the economic situation is good. Taking advantage of people's inadequate knowledge of this law, the Lin Biao and Jiang Oing counter-revolutionary cliques dished out many ultra-Left slogans to make trouble, bringing enormous losses to our national economy. We must take warning from this.
When Marx spoke of the contradiction between the relations of production and the productive forces, he often referred to cases where the relations of production lagged behind the requirements of the growing productive forces. That was because he was analysing mainly the capitalist system which had become an obstacle to the development of productive forces. But he also pointed out in clear-cut terms:
A social order never perishes before all the productive forces for which it is broadly sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the womb of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it can solve, since closer examination will always show that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the process of formation.12
Over the past thirty years, people appear to have unanimously acknowledged this objective law the relations of production must conform with the level of the growth of productive forces. In practice, however, they have differed in their understanding of the dialectical relationship between the socialist relations of production and, the developing productive forces. For a time, we overemphasized how backward relations of production would fetter productiye forces and hastened to change the relations of production in the absence of a significant growth in productive forces. We failed to see that a change in the relations] of production that was too radical for the actual growth of prodlictive forces would likewise hamper such a growth . The rise of new relations of production opened broad vistas for the growth of productive forces. But we were not fully aware of the need to stabilize these new relations of production and concentrate on raising the level of productive forces. These misconceptions accounted for the lasting dominance of the idea that a "Left" mistake was more justifiable than a Right one and it was better to be too much to the left than too much to the right. As a result we took rash steps to change the relations of production, a mistake which was repeated over and again in some regions, causing heavy losses to industrial and agricultural production. In view of all this, when we study questions of China's socialist economy, we must grasp this most important economic law of human history by applying the vital principle that practice is the sole criterion of truth, instead of reciting the law as a dogma, we must be clear on its specific content and dialectics by examining the practical experience in China's socialist revolution and construction.13

Summarising the positions taken: “Marx pointed out in his Critique of the Gotha Programme that a socialist society must carry out the principle of "to each according to his work", ... In his Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin referred to the law that the relations of production must conform with the character of the productive forces, the basic economic law of socialism, ...A common law that runs through all stages of the development of human society, i.e., the law that the relations of production must conform with the level of the growth of productive forces. ....“A social order never perishes before all the productive forces for which it is broadly sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the womb of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it can solve, since closer examination will always show that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the process of formation.14”....this objective law the relations of production must conform with the level of the growth of productive forces. In practice, however, they have differed in their understanding of the dialectical relationship between the socialist relations of production and, the developing productive forces. For a time, we overemphasized how backward relations of production would fetter productive forces and hastened to change the relations of production in the absence of a significant growth in productive forces. We failed to see that a change in the relations] of production that was too radical for the actual growth of productive forces would likewise hamper such a growth . The rise of new relations of production opened broad vistas for the growth of productive forces. But we were not fully aware of the need to stabilize these new relations of production and concentrate on raising the level of productive forces.”

What was Marx himself saying, more than only the given limited quotes, about “production-relations” and “productive forces”?
““The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.(...)
The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.15

Marx does not speak about “changes in the relations of production” are “too radical for the actual growth of productive forces” of “the need to stabilize new relations of production”and first “concentrate on raising the level of productive forces”.
Marx (to which the CCP-ideologues are referring) further:

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.
No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.
In broad outlines Asiatic[A], ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonisms, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of society to a close.16

For Marx, the most important and decisive productive force is the working class. And when the working class (as productive force) becomes conscious that the capitalist production relations are not suitable for the further development of the working class and in fact of the majority of th people (that capitalism is not a production system which can fulfil the needs of the working class and the rest of humanity), than they have to break those production relations and build new (communist) production-relations.....and that period of transformation of the “old” production relations inherited from the “old” society into the new ones is the first stage of communism .... or socialism. And the “superstructure” is the proletarian dictatorship.
Not changing the production-relations, just focussing on development of the productive forces to its utmost, and “stabilising” this situation, is maintaining the situation of the (bourgeois) democratic revolution and not allowing the working class to proceed into the socialist revolution. For this, the bourgeoisie IN the CCP developed a Marxist-sounding phraseology AND “deleted” the historical knowledge and memory, creating their “own” history of “left” mistakes against a “correct” line..... the bourgeois cadres in the WPB (as for example Boudewijn Deckers) did the same!
So also the Marxist “proof” of the policy of “reform and opening” consist also in quoting Stalin (or rather paraphrasing Stalin) out of his work “Economic problems of socialism in the USSR”: ” Stalin referred to the law that the relations of production must conform with the character of the productive forces.”....and so making a dogma out of this “quote”, the base-guideline of the policy of “Reform and Opening”.
And Boudewijn Deckers never read Stalin? ...although it was advised to new members to do so! Well, I did...!

“The specific role of Soviet government was due to two circumstances: first, that what Soviet government had to do was not to replace one form of exploitation by another, as was the case in earlier revolutions, but to abolish exploitation altogether; second, that in view of the absence in the country of any ready-made rudiments of a socialist economy, it had to create new, socialist forms of economy, "starting from scratch," so to speak.
That was undoubtedly a difficult, complex and unprecedented task. Nevertheless, the Soviet government accomplished this task with credit. But it accomplished it not because it supposedly destroyed the existing economic laws and "formed" new ones, but only because it relied on the economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces. The productive forces of our country, especially in industry, were social in character, the form of ownership, on the other hand, was private, capitalistic. Relying on the economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces, the Soviet government socialized the means of production, made them the property of the whole people, and thereby abolished the exploiting system and created socialist forms of economy. Had it not been for this law, and had the Soviet government not relied upon it, it could not have accomplished its mission.
The economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces has long been forcing its way to the forefront in the capitalist countries. If it has failed so far to force its way into the open, it is because it is encountering powerful resistance on the part of obsolescent forces of society. Here we have another distinguishing feature of economic laws. Unlike the laws of natural science, where the discovery and application of a new law proceeds more or less smoothly, the discovery and application of a new law in the economic field, affecting as it does the interests of obsolescent forces of society, meets with the most powerful resistance on their part. A force, a social force, capable of overcoming this resistance, is therefore necessary. In our country, such a force was the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, who represented the overwhelming majority of society. There is no such force yet in other, capitalist countries. This explains the secret why the Soviet government was able to smash the old forces of society, and why in our country the economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces received full scope. (....)
The working class utilized the law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces, overthrew the bourgeois relations of production, created new, socialist relations of production and brought them into conformity with the character of the productive forces. It was able to do so not because of any particular abilities it possessed, but because it was vitally interested in doing so. The bourgeoisie, which from an advanced force at the dawn of the bourgeois revolution had already become a counter-revolutionary force, offered every resistance to the implementation of this law - and it did so not because it lacked organization, and not because the elemental nature of economic processes drove it to resist, but chiefly because it was to its vital interest that the law should not become operative. (....)
You assert that complete conformity of the relations of production with the character of the productive forces can be achieved only under socialism and communism, and that under other formations the conformity can only be partial.
This is not true. In the epoch following the bourgeois revolution, when the bourgeoisie had shattered the feudal relations of production and established bourgeois relations of production, there undoubtedly were periods when the bourgeois production relations did fully conform with the character of the productive forces. Otherwise, capitalism could not have developed as swiftly as it did after the bourgeois revolution.
Further, the words "full conformity" must not be understood in the absolute sense. They must not be understood as meaning that there is altogether no lagging of the relations of production behind the growth of the productive forces under socialism. The productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary forces of production. They undeniably move in advance of the relations of production even under socialism. Only after a certain lapse of time do the relations of production change in line with the character of the productive forces.
How, then, are the words "full conformity" to be under-stood? They are to be understood as meaning that under socialism things do not usually go to the length of a conflict between the relations of production and the productive forces, that society is in a position to take timely steps to bring the lagging relations of production into conformity with the character of the productive forces. Socialist society is in a position to do so because it does not include the obsolescent classes that might organize resistance. Of course, even under socialism there will be backward, inert forces that do not realize the necessity for changing the relations of production; but they, of course, will not be difficult to over-come without bringing matters to a conflict. (....)
Next: Concerning the Errors of Comrade L. D. Yaroshenko (....)
Comrade Yaroshenko thinks that it is enough to arrange a "rational organization of the productive forces," and the transition from socialism to communism will take place with-out any particular difficulty. He considers that this is quite sufficient for the transition to communism. He plainly de-dares that "under socialism, the basic struggle for the building of a communist society reduces itself to a struggle for the proper organization of the productive forces and their rational utilization in social production." Comrade Yaroshenko solemnly proclaims that "Communism is the highest scientific organization of the productive forces in social production."
It appears, then, that the essence of the communist system begins and ends with the "rational organization of the productive forces."
From all this, Comrade Yaroshenko concludes that there cannot be a single political economy for all social formations, that there must be two political economies: one for pre-socialist social formations, the subject of investigation of which is men's relations of production, and the other for the socialist system, the subject of investigation of which should be not the production, i.e., the economic, relations, but the rational organization of the productive forces. (...)
It is not true, in the first place, that the role of the relations of production in the history of society has been confined to that of a brake, a fetter on the development of the productive forces. When Marxists speak of the retarding role of the relations of production, it is not all relations of production they have in mind, but only the old relations of production, which no longer conform to the growth of the productive forces and, consequently, retard their development. But, as we know, besides the old, there are also new relations of production, which supersede the old. Can it be said that the role of the new relations of production is that of a brake on the productive forces? No, it cannot. On the contrary, the new relations of production are the chief and decisive force, the one which in fact determines the further,and, moreover, powerful, development of the productive forces, and without which the latter would be doomed to stagnation, as is the case today in the capitalist countries.
Nobody can deny that the development of the productive forces of our Soviet industry has made tremendous strides in the period of the five-year plans. But this development would not have occurred if we had not, in October 1917, re-placed the old, capitalist relations of production by new, socialist relations of production. Without this revolution in the production, the economic, relations of our country, our productive forces would have stagnated, just as they are stagnating today in the capitalist countries.
Nobody can deny that the development of the productive forces of our agriculture has made tremendous strides in the past twenty or twenty-five years. But this development would not have occurred if we had not in the 'thirties re-placed the old, capitalist production relations in the country-side by new, collectivist production relations. Without this revolution in production, the productive forces of our agriculture would have stagnated, just as they are stagnating today in the capitalist countries.
Of course, new relations of production cannot, and do not, remain new forever; they begin to grow old and to run counter to the further development of the productive forces; they begin to lose their role of principal mainspring of the productive forces, and become a brake on them. At this point, in place of these production relations which have become antiquated, new production relations appear whose role it is to be the principal mainspring spurring the further development of the productive forces.
This peculiar development of the relations of production from the role of a brake on the productive forces to that of the principal mainspring impelling them forward, and from the role of principal mainspring to that of a brake on the productive forces, constitutes one of the chief elements of the Marxist materialist dialectics. Every novice in Marxism knows that nowadays. But Comrade Yaroshenko, it appears, does not know it.
It is not true, in the second place, that the production, i.e., the economic, relations lose their independent role under socialism, that they are absorbed by the productive forces, that social production under socialism is reduced to the organization of the productive forces. Marxism regards social production as an integral whole which has two inseparable sides: the productive forces of society (the relation of society to the forces of nature, in contest with which it se-cures the material values it needs), and the relations of production (the relations of men to one another in the process of production). These are two different sides of social production, although they are inseparably connected with one another. And just because they constitute different sides of social production, they are able to influence one another. To assert that one of these sides may be absorbed by the other and be converted into its component part, is to commit a very grave sin against Marxism.
Marx said:
“In production, men not only act on nature but also on one another. They produce only by cooperating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production, take place."17
Consequently, social production consists of two sides, which, although they are inseparably connected, reflect two different categories of relations: the relations of men to nature (productive forces), and the relations of men to one another in the process of production (production relations). Only when both sides of production are present do we have social production, whether it be under the socialist system or under any other social formation.
Comrade Yaroshenko, evidently, is not quite in agreement with Marx. He considers that this postulate of Marx is not applicable to the socialist system. Precisely for this reason he reduces the problem of the Political Economy of Socialism to the rational organization of the productive forces, discarding the production, the economic, relations and severing the productive forces from them.
If we followed Comrade Yaroshenko, therefore, what we would get is, instead of a Marxist political economy, some-thing in the nature of Bogdanov's "Universal Organizing Science."
Hence, starting from the right idea that the productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary forces of production, Comrade Yaroshenko reduces the idea to an absurdity, to the point of denying the role of the production, the economic, relations under socialism; and instead of a full-blooded social production, what he gets is a lopsided and scraggy technology of production - something in the nature of Bukharin's "technique of social organization." (...)
It is not true, lastly, that communism means the rational organization of the productive forces, that the rational organization of the productive forces is the beginning and end of the communist system, that it is only necessary to organize the productive forces rationally, and the transition to communism will take place without particular difficulty. There is in our literature another definition, another formula of communism - Lenin's formula: "Communism is Soviet rule plus the electrification of the whole country."18 Lenin's formula is evidently not to Comrade Yaroshenko's liking, and he replaces it with his own homemade formula: "Communism is the highest scientific organization of the productive forces in social production."
In the first place, nobody knows what this "higher scientific" or "rational" organization of the productive forces which Comrade Yaroshenko advertises represents, what its concrete import is. In his speeches at the Plenum and in the working panels of the discussion, and in his letter to the members of the Political Bureau, Comrade Yaroshenko reiterates this mythical formula dozens of times, but nowhere does he say a single word to explain how the "rational organization" of the productive forces, which supposedly constitutes the beginning and end of the essence of the communist system, should be understood.
In the second place, if a choice must be made between the two formulas, then it is not Lenin's formula, which is the only correct one, that should be discarded, but Comrade Yaroshenko's pseudo formula, which is so obviously chimerical and un-Marxist, and is borrowed from the arsenal of Bogdanov, from his "Universal Organizing Science."
Comrade Yaroshenko thinks that we have only to ensure a rational organization of the productive forces, and we shall be able to obtain an abundance of products and to pass to communism, to pass from the formula, "to each according to his work," to the formula, "to each according to his needs." That is a profound error, and reveals a complete lack of understanding of the laws of economic development of socialism. Comrade Yaroshenko's conception of the conditions for the transition from socialism to communism is far too rudimentary and puerile. He does not understand that neither an abundance of products, capable of covering all the requirements of society, nor the transition to the formula, "to each according to his needs," can be brought about if such economic factors as collective farm, group, property, commodity circulation, etc., remain in force. Comrade Yaroshenko does not understand that before we can pass to the formula, "to each according to his needs," we shall have to pass through a number of stages of economic and cultural re-education of society, in the course of which work will be transformed in the eyes of society from only a means of supporting life into life's prime want, and social property into the sacred and inviolable basis of the existence of society. (....)
Comrade Yaroshenko is mistaken when he asserts that there is no contradiction between the relations of production and the productive forces of society under socialism. Of course, our present relations of production are in a period when they fully conform to the growth of the productive forces and help to advance them at seven-league strides. But it would be wrong to rest easy at that and to think that there are no contradictions between our productive forces and the relations of production. There certainly are, and will be, contradictions, seeing that the development of the relations of production lags, and will lag, behind the development of the productive forces. Given a correct policy on the part of the directing bodies, these contradictions cannot grow into antagonisms, and there is no chance of matters coming to a conflict between the relations of production and the productive forces of society. It would be a different matter if we were to conduct a wrong policy, such as that which Comrade Yaroshenko recommends. In that case conflict would be inevitable, and our relations of production might become a serious brake on the further development of the productive forces.
The task of the directing bodies is therefore promptly to discern incipient contradictions, and to take timely measures to resolve them by adapting the relations of production to the growth of the productive forces. This, above all, concerns such economic factors as group, or collective-farm, property and commodity circulation. At present, of course, these factors are being successfully utilized by us for the promotion of the socialist economy, and they are of undeniable benefit to our society. It is undeniable, too, that they will be of benefit also in the near future. But it would be unpardonable blindness not to see at the same time that these factors are already beginning to hamper the powerful development of our productive forces, since they create obstacles to the full extension of government planning to the whole of the national economy, especially agriculture. There is no doubt that these factors will hamper the continued growth of the productive forces of our country more and more as time goes on. The task, therefore, is to eliminate these contradictions by gradually converting collective-farm property into public property, and by introducing - also gradually - products-exchange in place of commodity circulation. (....)
It would be wrong to think that such a substantial advance in the cultural standard of the members of society can be brought about without substantial changes in the present status of labour. For this, it is necessary, first of all, to shorten the working day at least to six, and subsequently to five hours. This is needed in order that the members of society might have the necessary free time to receive an all-round education. It is necessary, further, to introduce universal compulsory polytechnical education, which is required in order that the members of society might be able freely to choose their occupations and not be tied to some one occupation all their lives. It is likewise necessary that housing conditions should be radically improved, and that real wages of workers and employees should be at least doubled, if not more, both by means of direct increases of wages and salaries, and, more especially, by further systematic reductions of prices for consumer goods.
These are the basic conditions required to pave the way for the transition to communism. (...)
As we see, the transition from socialism to communism is not such a simple matter as Comrade Yaroshenko imagines.
To attempt to reduce this complex and multiform process, which demands deep-going economic changes, to the "rational organization of the productive forces," as Comrade Yaroshenko does, is to substitute Bogdanovism for Marxism. (....)
Further, Comrade Yaroshenko declares that in his "Political Economy of Socialism," "the categories of political economy - value, commodity, money, credit, etc., - are replaced by a healthy discussion of the rational organization of the productive forces in social production," that, consequently, the subject of investigation of this political economy will not be the production relations of socialism, but "the elaboration and development of a scientific theory of the organization of the productive forces, theory of economic planning, etc.," and that, under socialism, the relations of production lose their independent significance and are absorbed by the productive forces as a component part of them.
It must be said that never before has any retrograde "Marxist" delivered himself of such unholy twaddle. Just imagine a political economy of socialism without economic, production problems! Does such a political economy exist anywhere in creation? What is the effect, in a political economy of socialism, of replacing economic problems by problems of organization of the productive forces? The effect is to abolish the political economy of socialism. And that is just what Comrade Yaroshenko does - he abolishes the political economy of socialism. In this, his position fully gibes with that of Bukharin. (....)
Further, Comrade Yaroshenko reduces the problems of the political economy of socialism to problems of the rational organization of the productive forces, to problems of economic planning, etc. But he is profoundly in error. The rational organization of the productive forces, economic planning, etc., are not problems of political economy, but problems of the economic policy of the directing bodies. They are two different provinces, which must not be confused. Comrade Yaroshenko has confused these two different things, and has made a terrible mess of it. Political economy investigates the laws of development of men's relations of production. Economic policy draws practical conclusions from this, gives them concrete shape, and builds its day-to-day work on them. To foist upon political economy problems of economic policy is to kill it as a science.(...)
Comrade Yaroshenko forgets that men produce not for production's sake, but in order to satisfy their needs. He forgets that production divorced from the satisfaction of the needs of society withers and dies. (....)
Desiring to preserve what he calls the "primacy" of production over consumption, Comrade Yaroshenko claims that the "basic economic law of socialism" consists in "the continuous expansion and perfection of the production of the material and cultural conditions of society." That is absolutely wrong. Comrade Yaroshenko grossly distorts and vitiates the formula given in Comrade Stalin's "Remarks." With him, production is converted from a means into an end, and the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of society is thrown out. What we get is expansion of production for the sake of expansion of production, production as an aim in itself; man and his requirements disappear from Comrade Yaroshenko's field of vision.
It is therefore not surprising that, with the disappearance of man as the aim of socialist production, every vestige of Marxism disappears from Comrade Yaroshenko's "conception."
And so, what Comrade Yaroshenko arrives at is not the "primacy" of production over consumption, but something like the "primacy" of bourgeois ideology over Marxist ideology.”19 20

So reading the whole booklet of Stalin and not only the limited quotes, presented as dogma's, you see (and Boudewijn Deckers could see it too, when he would read Stalin as he advised to members -...as me) that Stalin in fact CRITICISED and OPPOSED a policy as it was presented by Deng Xiaping. For Stalin it is similar to the policy of Bukharin and is replacing “Marxist ideology” by “bourgeois ideology”.
Besides the use of Marxist-sounding phraseology (based on “quoting” Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin an even quoting Mao himself) to “proof” the correctness of his policy, Deng Xiaoping is falsifying the history of the Chinese revolution and the history of the CCP itself. An example:

After the birth of New China, the Party announced in 1953 the general line for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, which provided for the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production. This led to the belief that the rise and gradual reform of the socialist relations of production may be determined by the subjective will of the Party without following the objective laws of socialist economic development. This view led to serious mistakes. Even today, many of our comrades underestimate the difficulties involved in the building of socialism in our country where the level of productive forces is very low, particularly in agriculture. They arc apt to make a rash advance whenever the economic situation is good. Taking advantage of people's inadequate knowledge of this law, the Lin Biao and Jiang Oing counter-revolutionary cliques dished out many ultra-Left slogans to make trouble, bringing enormous losses to our national economy. We must take warning from this.(...)
Over the past thirty years, people appear to have unanimously acknowledged this objective law the relations of production must conform with the level of the growth of productive forces. In practice, however, they have differed in their understanding of the dialectical relationship between the socialist relations of production and, the developing productive forces. For a time, we overemphasized how backward relations of production would fetter productiye forces and hastened to change the relations of production in the absence of a significant growth in productive forces. We failed to see that a change in the relations] of production that was too radical for the actual growth of prodlictive forces would likewise hamper such a growth . The rise of new relations of production opened broad vistas for the growth of productive forces. But we were not fully aware of the need to stabilize these new relations of production and concentrate on raising the level of productive forces.21

This “historical idealism” (producing IDEAS as historical FACTS) of Deng Xiaoping, I will analyse in a next article, while also arguing that Boudewijn Deckers must by CONCSIOUSLY blind for this, because I will prove it with material once promoted by him to all members of the WPB.

1http://marx.be/nl/content/archief?action=get_doc&id=60&doc_id=278, nummer 64, Publicatiedatum: 2003-11-01 Copyright © EPO, IMAST en auteurs. Overname, publicatie en vertaling zijn toegestaan voor strikt niet-winstgevende doeleinden “Vragen over de ontwikkeling van het socialisme in de Chinese Volksrepubliek door Boudewijn Deckers. (“questions about the development of socialism in the Chinese Peoples Republic”, by Boudewijn Deckers)
2 http://marx.be/nl/content/archief?action=get_doc&id=60&doc_id=278, nummer 64, Publicatiedatum: 2003-11-01 Copyright © EPO, IMAST en auteurs. Overname, publicatie en vertaling zijn toegestaan voor strikt niet-winstgevende doeleinden “Vragen over de ontwikkeling van het socialisme in de Chinese Volksrepubliek door Boudewijn Deckers. (“questions about the development of socialism in the Chinese Peoples Republic”, by Boudewijn Deckers)
3 William H.Hinton, célèbre analyste des questions agricoles en Chine où il séjourna à plusieurs reprises. Auteur du best-seller «Fanshen - La révolution communiste dans un village chinois» et de «Shenfan», son second ouvrage sur le village de «La Longue Courbe», durant la période de la collectivisation jusqu'à la Révolution culturelle.
4 Les articles de H.Deane et W. Hinton ont été publiés dans Monthly Review, Volume 40, N°10, mars 1989.
5UPHOLD THE FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES March 30, 1979, (A speech at a forum on the principles for the Party's theoretical work.)
6THE WORKING CLASS SHOULD MAKE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS October 11, 197.
7EMANCIPATE THE MIND, SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS AND UNITE AS ONE IN LOOKING TO THE FUTURE December 13, 1978 (Speech at the closing session of the Central Working Conference which made preparations for the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party that immediately followed. In essence, this speech served as the keynote address for the Third Plenary Session.)
8WE CAN DEVELOP A MARKET ECONOMY UNDER SOCIALISM November 26, 1979 (Excerpt from a talk with Frank B. Gibney, Vice-Chairman of the Compilation Committee of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. of the United States, Paul T. K. Lin, Director of the Institute of East Asia at McGill University of Canada, and others.)
9THE PRESENT SITUATION AND THE TASKS BEFORE US January 16, 1980. (Speech at a meeting of cadres called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.)
10UPHOLD THE FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES March 30, 1979, (A speech at a forum on the principles for the Party's theoretical work.)
11SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CONSTITUTE A PRIMARY PRODUCTIVE FORCE September 5 and September 12, 1988. (Excerpt from a talk with President Gustav Husak of Czechoslovakia and excerpt from remarks made after hearing a report on a tentative programme for the reform of prices and wages.)
12 Karl Marx, Preface and Introduction to "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Kconomy". FLP. Beijing. 1976. p. 4.
13IN “Conclusion - OBJECTIVE LAWS OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENMT” , out “China's socialist economy”. First Edition 1981 Revised Edition 1986 ISBN-083SI-1592.5 (Hard Cover) ISBN-098351.1703.0 (Paperback) Copyright 1986 by Foreign Languages Press Published by the Foreign Languages Press, 24 Baiwanzhuang Road, Bering, China. Printed by the L. Rex Offset Printing Co. Ltd. Man Hing Industrial Godown Bldg., 14/F. No.4, Yip Fat St., Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong. Distributed by China International Book Trading Corporation (Guoji Shudian), P. 0. Box 399. Beijing, China
14 Karl Marx, Preface and Introduction to "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Kconomy". FLP. Beijing. 1976. p. 4.
15 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk, Manifesto of the Communist Party
16https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm, Abstract from the Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
17 Karl Marx, "Wage Labour and Capital", Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1951. Vol. I, p. 83.
18 V.I. Lenin, "Our Foreign and Domestic Position and the Tasks of the Party", Collected Works, Russian ed., Vol. 31.
19http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm, Source: Booklet, Written: 1951, Published: Foreign Languages Press, Peking: 1972 (First Edition) (1) . Online Version: Joseph Stalin Reference Archive, July 2005 . Transcription: Hari Kumar for Alliance-ML. HTML: Mike B. for MIA, 2005. Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
20The present English translation of J. V. Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. is a reprint of the text given in the English pamphlet by the same name, published in Moscow, 1952. Changes have been made according to other English translations of the pamphlet. The notes at the end of the book have been translated from the Chinese edition published by the People's Publishing House, Peking, March 1971
21IN “Conclusion - OBJECTIVE LAWS OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENMT” , out “China's socialist economy”. First Edition 1981 Revised Edition 1986 ISBN-083SI-1592.5 (Hard Cover) ISBN-098351.1703.0 (Paperback) Copyright 1986 by Foreign Languages Press Published by the Foreign Languages Press, 24 Baiwanzhuang Road, Bering, China. Printed by the L. Rex Offset Printing Co. Ltd. Man Hing Industrial Godown Bldg., 14/F. No.4, Yip Fat St., Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong. Distributed by China International Book Trading Corporation (Guoji Shudian), P. 0. Box 399. Beijing, China