A third relationship between "revisionism" and "imperialism" arises from Peking's view that the USSR, by taking the "revisionist" path, has opted out of the frontline of the struggle against imperialism. This is not the place to probe the complexities of the Moscow-Peking split, but an assumption made in these pages should be revealed. I believe that CCP ideology is akin to "myth": it is neither true nor completely without some roots in the truth. We cannot take these ideological orgasms at face value, but neither can we dismiss them as an autonomous realm of window-dressing that has nothing to do with reality. Moscow and Peking have simply suffered a divergence of national interest. Not an uncommon phenomenon in the world of nations, it is nonetheless one that is very difficult for Communist dictatorships to deal with. For they are states which are based official gospel. It is almost impossible for real "believers" to differ with each other without robing the conflict in the full garb of religious apostasy. The vital function of ideology within each dictatorship demands it.

upon an

It is suggested that there are two fundamental aspects to the divergence of interest between China and the USSR. One is that China is far too poor to offer "goulash communism" to its people. So she finds it necessary to denounce the "revisions" that Moscow has imposed on Marxism-Leninism in the era of "goulash communism" as apostasy. Otherwise, if the Chinese people were to become infected with aspirations to comfort and abundance-testing communism, as Khrushchev said in Budapest, by its ability to provide the people with a good plate of goulash-the CCP might well lose its total control over them.

The second issue is more particular, and one that is still clouded in much uncertainty. It is the readiness, or lack of it, on Moscow's part to come to the aid of China in the event of a war involving China and the United States on opposite sides. The last top-level meeting between Chinese and Soviet leaders took place in January 1965, when Premier Kosygin stopped in Peking on his way home from Hanoi and talked with Mao. Nothing of substance was gleaned by observers at the time of the meeting, but according to a credible account that has recently come to light,10 Mao asked the Soviet Premier to make a public declaration that Moscow would regard an attack on China as an attack on the USSR.

Kosygin reportedly made no reply to this, nor to Mao's further query as to what Moscow's reaction would be if the United States should attack China. Now it is by no means certain that Moscow is as paralyzed on this issue as the above account suggests, but it is clear that Chinese bitterness towards Moscow arises partly from the fact that Peking is not sure that Moscow would resolutely defend China in a future war.

Peking's ideological onslaughts against the Soviets reflect the suspicion that Moscow no longer puts the defeat of "imperialism" at the top of its list of priorities. Following the logic of CCP theology, which now leaves little room for anyone in between the "saved" and the "damned," the Chinese leaders have concluded that Moscow is in "collusion" with the "imperialists." As Kang Sheng recently observed in Tirana, "to oppose imperialism one must oppose revisionism," and "to oppose China, one is bound to ally oneself with the USA." 11 To the siege mentality of the CCP, the slightest wavering of resolution in facing imperialism amounts to a transfer of loyalties and must be depicted in the ideological colors that are integral to Communist life and thought.

Power Struggle or Purge?

11

Now to return to the Cultural Revolution. What has it got to do with the siege mentality, and with "revisionism" and "imperialism?” First, two negative observations. It has often been argued that the Cultural Revolution is basically a struggle over the succession to a seriously-ill Mao. No one is immortal, and Mao is 73, but there is a lack of evidence that Mao is seriously ill, and much evidence that he is not. His absence from the public eye for six months ending last May (which was not his first long absence) was regarded as evidence of serious illness; but what, then, of his unprecedented string of public appearances since August 1966? I recall that in the fall of 1964 certain newspapers abroad pronounced Mao seriously ill. During the week of these reports-I was in Peking at the time-Mao attended the opera in the capital, showing himself sufficiently vigorous to mount the stage at the end of the performance and greet the singers. Since then it has seemed better to me, in this matter, to rely on direct word from Peking rather than on speculations from faraway places. Judging by his

10 K. S. Karol, loc. cit. supra (footnote 1). A fuller account appears in Karol's La Chine de Mao, Paris, Laffont, 1966.

11 Peking Review, Nov. 18, 1966.

recent lack of output, Mao's powers as a theorist have declined. But recent communications from Peking testify that he is still active physically and shows no signs of serious illness.12 Of course he may die at any moment, but no theory of recent changes in Chinese politics can validly be built upon the hypothesis of his serious illness. Back in 1938, interestingly enough, Edgar Snow remarked on the frequency with which Mao underwent "newspaper demise”: “He has been repeatedly pronounced dead by his enemies, only to return to the news columns a few days later." 13

It has also been said that the Cultural Revolution, especially the Red Guard movement, is a kind of hooliganism, a galloping rampage out of the party's control. In a recent issue of this journal, Mr. Gelman wrote of "unbridled lunacy"—although in another passage he referred to the Red Guards as a "method of conducting a purge." 14 (Can they be both?) This view may be based on an overestimation of the authoritativeness of the tatzupao (wall newspaper), the contents of which have led some representatives of the foreign press to build up an image at once of chaos and of a power struggle of bewildering complexity. If a tatzupao called for the renaming of a street or square, some reporters assumed that the renaming was a fact. If one called for the disbanding of the non-Communist political parties, some dispatches flatly announced their dissolution. An extraordinary flood of rumors has thus been disseminated abroad, creating all sorts of false impressions. Current Scene, for example, reported that "the few remaining churches in China have been stripped and closed"--which is an exaggeration.15

p. 72.

14 No. 6 (November-December), 1966, pp. 8 and 13. 15 Current Scene (Hong Kong), Sept. 5, 1966, p. 2. French Protestant circles which recently received a visit from a Chinese Christian delegation, as well as private communications from China, deny that all Chinese churches have been closed. 16 Eastern Horizon (Hong Kong), November 1966, p. 12. 17 "The Man Alongside Mao," The New Republic, Dec. 3, 1966, p. 18.

recalls coming across them in civil war days." Then, as now, they were neither vandals whose activity was unrelated to the wishes of the CCP, nor some kind of intended replacement for the party. Significantly, they have never attacked the rule of the party as such, but only the wrongdoings of individuals within the party. They have an official function-but it is not to rule or make decisions. They provide a therapy of social expression for a bottled-up generation which has known much discipline and little excitement. And they are amateur priests of Communist social morality. Their methods are rough and ready; orthodoxy is not always maintained. But they are probably effective in keeping the Chinese people in a state of alertness, self-criticism, and anxious concern for what the dominant elements in the CCP regard as the public good. They keep alive the kind of Boy Scout atmosphere which the foreigner finds in China today. “It is a very fine thing," commented Hung Ch'i (November 1, 1966), "that the masses in their hundreds of millions are paying such attention to state affairs." This politicized atmosphere of compulsory enthusiasm is the lifeblood of Communist dictatorship. But the revolutionary youth are meant only to participate, not to wield authority. There seems to be an element of shadowboxing in the "titanic struggles" in which they are engaged. One wonders whether the ferociousness of the "reactionaries" is not being exaggerated so that the ensuing "victory" over them may seem the more glorious.

18

The Red Guards are also a weapon employed by Mao against people and institutions which do not accord with his vision of communism; and as the current symbol of the Maoist vision, they arouse the antipathy of the many people inside and outside the CCP who are not enthusiastic believers in that vision. But it is doubtful whether the Red Guards are engaged in permanently rearranging the top levels of power in the CCP. Their origin predates the August 1966 Central Committee meeting; hence they cannot be seen purely as a creation designed to redress an imbalance which became evident at that meeting. Speculation about who is "in" and who is "out" in Peking is especially hazardous in a period when tatzupao are everywhere. And it is not certain that those who are now "out" will not be received back "in" after the struggle is over and the lessons of the Cultural Revolution have been sufficiently rammed home.

18 See Le Monde (Paris), Nov. 2, 1966; Current Scene, Sept. 5, 1966, p. 5.

In accord with the interpretation of ideology as a kind of myth, I do not take at face value the charges against Chou Yang, P'eng Chen, Wu Han, Teng T'o, Lu Ting-yi, Lo Jui-ch'ing and the rest— let alone those which have so far been made explicitly only in tatzupao, against Liu Shao-ch'i for example. Chou Yang does not have a "reactionary" record, whatever Peking now says; P'eng Chen and Lu Ting-yi do not have a record of great sympathy for Moscow; Liu Shao-ch'i, indeed, has not been at all backward over the years in extolling the thought of Mao. Furthermore, the offending works of Wu Han and Teng T'o (Hai Jui Dismissed from Office, Evening Chats at Yenshan, and Notes from the Three-Family Village) were already five years old when attacked. The vital question is why 1966 brought the attacks. The explanation is probably that we are witnessing a “mythological” phenomenon. The guilty ones are guilty not of decades of betrayal, but simply of dissenting from a current decision or emphasis of major importance. However, the disagreement has been dressed up in mythological garb; the past is remade to fit in with the logic of the attacks on the dissenters. Only if one takes the ideology of Peking at face value can the Cultural Revolution be viewed as just a purge; if the ideology is taken as myth, the Cultural Revolution is at once less, and much more, than simply a purge.

Key to the Cultural Revolution

Why has the task of stoking up the fires of corporate spirit and ideological unity been given such high priority at this time? Certainly Mao Tse-tung, the poet, the romantic, for whom politics is the master science, has a record of impulsiveness extending back to his clash with Chen Tu-hsiu in Hunan. "Time presses," he has written. "Ten thousand years are too long. Seize the day, seize

the hour!" 19 He has shown himself more restlessly ambitious than most Communist statesmen to summon heaven down upon earth by political action-even if hell is raised in the process. Yet unilateral Leaps Forward have their risks, as Peking officials will now admit. And China is unquestionably passing through a period of crisis and anxiety in her foreign relations. A war rages at her doorstep, and it gets larger and closer to China with each year, even with each month.

19 Cited in Peking Review, Oct. 28, 1966, p. 21.

On Culture and War

To defeat the enemy we must rely primarily on the army with guns. But this army alone is not enough; we must also have a cultural army, which is absolutely indispensable for uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy.

-Mao Tse-tung, Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, 1942.

There are increasing indications that US imperialism is bent on its policy of extending its war adventure. We are bent on our policy, too. The great proletarian cultural revolution now under way in China is the biggest and best method of preparing against war.

—“Commentator," writing in Jen-min Jih-pao (Peking), Sept. 17, 1966.

Hanoi and Canton are closer than Washington and Chicago. Peking believes it likely that she will, as the Vietnam war extends more and more, find herself in a war with the mightiest power on earth, the United States-and all this at a time when a curtain of mistrust separates China from her former champion and formidable ally, the USSR. Is this a time for experimentation, for ambitious Leaps Forward with their attendant risks?

One would hardly think so, but there is another perspective in which the Cultural Revolution can be viewed. It would not make sense-given the manifest concern of Peking over the Vietnam warto launch a new campaign at this time, unless the campaign were related to the Vietnam crisis and, indeed, designed to prepare China for any eventuality that might arise from that crisis. The primary reason for the Cultural Revolution, it seems to me, is precisely the dual threat of "revisionism" and “imperialism" which the dominant CCP leadership believes to be sharply accentuated by the Vietnam war. The Cultural Revolution is the Maoist fashion of girding China's loins to face possible armed struggle with the United States; it seeks to accomplish this in the "proletarian" manner consistent with CCP thinking and with the material and military limitations of China in her present stage of development. Five considerations may be briefly set forth to support this thesis.

Mao also told Snow in January 1965 that China would fight the United States only if her own territory were attacked. But in July 1966 an ominous new doctrine that the war has "no bounds" appeared. "Since by your aggressive actions you [the United States] have destroyed the bounds of the war," declared Jen-min Jih-pao on July 5, one week after the bombing of North Vietnamese oil installations, "all the countries and peoples that genuinely support the Vietnamese people's war of resistance against US aggression have also ceased to be subject to restrictions." Then this question: "Since you have come from the skies and the sea, why can't others fight back on the ground?" Again, celebrating the sixth anniversary of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1966, Peking announced a policy of preparedness to beat back the US "at any place and at any time." 31

Mao told Snow two years ago that he thought the United States probably would not invade China. That hope now appears to be dead. By December 1966, Peking was flatly stating that China is included in US imperialism's criminal plan to enlarge the war." 32 Since the damage sustained by the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on December 14, Peking's position has become even tougher, and there have been increasing references to "preparations against war." 33 The year 1966 also brought a toughened attitude in Peking towards the participation of Thailand in the US war effort. Bangkok was warned that it was "inevitably linking up Thailand with the Vietnam battlefield." 34

Parallel Development

Third, the increasing gravity and toughness of the Chinese position on Vietnam synchronizes with the unfolding of the Cultural Revolution. Exalta

29 NCNA, July 22, 1966.

30 At least since Ho Chi Minh's famous "Appeal" of July 17, 1966, and Liu Shao-ch'i's "Statement in Support of President Ho Chi Minh's Appeal" (July 22, 1966), this has been Peking's position. See T'ao Chu's insistence on "immediate" withdrawal of US forces, NCNA, July 22, 1966.

31 Jen-min Jih-pao, cited in The New York Times, Dec. 21, 1966.

32 Peking Review, Dec. 9, 1966, p. 26; also see ibid., Dec. 23, 1966, p. 14.

33 E.g., ibid., p. 15.

34 Ibid., May 20, 1966.

tion of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and of its chief, Defense Minister Lin Piao, "closest comrade in arms" of Mao, has served as both the focus of the former and the vehicle for much of the latter. Space forbids a chronological treatment of the entire period of the Cultural Revolution, but the September 1965 session of the CCP Central Committee not publicized at the time but only nine months later, in the context of the Cultural Revolution **—should be mentioned, as it appears to have been the springboard not only for intensified propaganda on the Vietnam war, but also for the first salvos in the cultural offensive, which were fired in November 1965 issues of Wen Hui Pao and Chiehfang Chün Pao. Lin Piao's much-discussed essay, "Long Live the Victory of People's War," published in September 1965, and the elaborate press conference of Foreign Minister Chen Yi later the same month registered Peking's toughened international posture. "China is ready," said Chen Yi. "She has made all necessary preparations." There was an increasing exaltation of the PLA as a "great school, to be imitated by all Chinese,3 and the Fourth General Political Department Conference of the PLA (December 1965-January 1966)-like the Central Committee meeting three months previously-functioned as a powerhouse for further "cultural” attacks and for more talk of war. The PLA was called upon to "reinforce its war preparations so as to be ready at any instant to break the imperialist aggression of the USA." 38 At the same time, Chieh-fang Chün Pao, the organ of the PLA, assumed an importance comparable to that of Jen-min Jih-pao itself, publishing two of the key documents of the Cultural Revolution on April 18 and May 4. The double-barreled theme of the "cultural" offensive became the struggle against "revisionism" and "imperialism," in an atmosphere suffused with the siege mentality.

9936

In their nature and historical origins the Red Guards are paramilitary," and they have been taught to use grenades and bayonets, as well as to admire the spiritual greatness of the PLA. Lin Piao has called them "a powerful reserve force of the PLA." 40 The kind of solidarity embodied in the Guards smacks of the military-and their current deployment could even be viewed as a sort of test

35 Chieh-fang Chün Pao, June 6, 1966.

36 Le Monde, Aug. 4, 1966. 37 Ibid., Aug. 21-22, 1966.

38 Ibid., Aug. 5, 1966.

39 Current Scene, Sept. 5, 1966, p. 7.

40 Quoted in China News Summary, (British Regional Information Office, Hong Kong) Oct. 6, 1966.