andreeva_tia_nauchnyi_angliiskii_iazyk_vypusk_7_doklad_vystu
.pdfcome out in the PRC. Among these publications the most es sential is the third volume of The Biographical Chronicle of Mao Zedon. The recent book by Chen Jian on the origin of the Korean War also provides extremely valuable information from the Chinese Communist Party Archives. The published writings of CCP top officials, such as Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and others are of great importance as well. The collection of Mao Zedong Works Since the Foundation of the PRC is particularly worthy mentioning.
Additional data can be found in memoirs of various So viet, Chinese. American, and East European party and state of ficials, including those of Nikolai T. Fedorenko, Lazar M. Ka ganovich, Anastasia I. Kartunova, Nikita S. Khrushchev, Kon stantin C. Koval, Ivan V. Kovalev, Ledovsky, Mikoyan, Molotov, Sergei L. Tikhvinsky, Peter P. Vladimirov (Vlasov), Bo Yibo, Hu Qiaomu, Shi Zhe, Wu Xiuquan, Peter S. Deri abin, Harrison Forman, Milovan Djilas, and some others. The Dimitrov diaries and the diaries of Soviet Ambassador to China Vasilii V. Kuznetov are also extremely useful.
The available documents demonstrate conclusively that Mao's "new democratic" policy in no way contradicted the general course of the world communist movement directed by Stalin himself. The "new democratic" policy of the CCP was in total agreement with the "people's democratic" shift of interna tional Communism as a whole.
This shift took place during and after the Seventh Comin tern Congress of 1935. It was then that Stalin began to antici pate a real Nazi menace to the Soviet Union. It was the primary reason he started to change Communist tactics as he sought al lies among the democratic nations. Needless to say, in his arm chair calculations he was far from abandoning his strategic goal of the ultimate Communist conquest of the world. He was simply engaging in maneuvers that, in essence, were aimed at trying to deceive the West. During World War II Stalin even
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dissolved the Comintern. According to Yugoslav Communist Milovan Djilas' memoirs, the idea of dissolving the Comintern Tirst arose "around the time the Baltic states were joining the Soviet Union", i.e., around 1940. Here is what Stalin himself revealed in 1944: "The situation with the Comintern was be coming more and more abnormal. Here is Vyacheslav Mik hailovich [Molotov, Stalin's commissar of foreign affairs] and I were racking our brains, while the Comintern was pulling in its own direction - and the discord grew worse". It was deception that constituted the foundation of Stalin's "people's democ racy", and in his private talks with his comrades-in-arms the Bolshevik leader made no secret of it. As Djilas recalled:
The substance of his suggestions was, on the one hand, that we ought not to "frighten" the English, by which he meant that we ought to avoid anything that might alarm them into thinking that a revolution was going on in Yugoslavia or an attempt at Communist control. "What do you want with red stars on your caps? The form is not important but what is gained, and you — red stars by God, stars aren't necessary!" Stalin exclaimed angrily.
At the same time this policy also had some additional di mensions. It would definitely facilitate the Communists' take over of their own countries after the war. In their capacity as national "democratic" parties the Communist organizations could most likely establish their hegemony over a relatively broad coalition of anti-imperialist nationalist forces. Following the Comintern's bitter and frustrated struggle against the na tional bourgeoisie in Western and Eastern countries, this shift in Stalin's policy signified international communism's return to Lenin's policy of the united front, which was set forth by the founder of the Comintern in 1920. After all, Stalin would only benefit from the triumph of his satellites.
While seeking victory, nevertheless, he could be quite cautious regarding its results. As a Russian National Commu nist Stalin must have worried about the future emergence of
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new mighty centers of Communist power. A Communist Yugoslavia or even more plausibly a Communist China, which would implement the same Soviet model of a short-cut eco nomic modernization by dictatorial means, might create a challenge to his hegemony over the Communist world. Limit ing the ambitions of foreign Communists to the "democratic" tasks of their own indigenous revolutions, Stalin hence bound them to himself and subordinated their policy to his.
Finally, we cannot underestimate either Stalin's dogmatic approach to Marxist historical materialism. According to Sta lin's views basically expressed in his History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (Mos cow, 1938), the length of a path to Socialism depended on a level of socio-economic development of a particular country after the Communist takeover. Hence, the less economically advanced countries would have to go through a much longer preliminary period than would Russia before getting to Social ism. This period would resemble the Soviet New Economic Policy (NEP) of the 1920s. Even if Stalin himself as well as - his close confederates were indeed much more radical in their practices than they were in theory, they still fanatically ob served some kind of sacramental religious ritual awhile preaching how to achieve socialism.
When WWII ended in 1945 the first factor that determined Stalin's shift - the existence of the anti-fascist coalition - no longer prevailed. The Communist, takeovers in a number of countries in subsequent years also invalidated the second fac tor. Stalin's fear of multi-polar Communist world, however, and his adherence to theoretical dogmas did not disappear, but rather actually increased.
All these factors affected the CCP. It is noteworthy that the idea of dissolving the Comintern first occurred to Stalin right at the time when Mao Zedong was expounding his "new democratic" ideas. Was this a mere coincidence? Apparently
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not. In his conversations with Stalin's confederate Mikoyan in February 1949 Mao Zedong acknowledged that he had based his own ideas on Stalin's conclusions regarding the nature of the Chinese revolution. Stalin kept a close eye on the develop ment of events in China. He had his own secret informers even in the ranks of the CCP Politburo, and could more or less ef fectively influence the Chinese Communist leadership. Mao Zedong and other CCP leaders, on their own, consistently fa miliarized him with their plans and intentions, regularly con sulting with Moscow. "Comrade chief master," - that is how Mao Zedong called Stalin in his code telegrams to Moscow right after the war. Was it simply a diplomatic gesture on the part of a skilled political leader? It was not only that! Mao per fectly understood that his own struggle for power in China could be successful only if the CCP had Soviet military and economic support. Therefore, it was necessary that he be ex tremely loyal to Stalin, whose suspicious nature was known. That is why, for example, in his telegram of August 28, 1948, while describing to Stalin the issues he would like to discuss with him during his future visit to the Soviet Union, Mao de clared: "We should come to agreement in order to make our political course totally in line with that of the USSR". As he did with the Yugoslavian Communist leaders in 1944, Stalin also periodically cooled off Mao's true communist excitement. Strange as it may seem, documentary evidence indicates that during the official struggle for New Democracy Mao Zedong was more rigid than Stalin. With respect to New Democracy he was even reluctant or negative, but still continued to follow the New Democratic course in order to placate the Moscow leader.
It was Stalin rather than Mao, who tried to show that the CCP had allegedly distanced itself from the Bolshevik party. Moscow refused to receive the head of the CCP until the Peo ple's Republic of China was proclaimed. Stalin did so in spite of Mao's desire to visit him so as he did not want to welcome
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the guerilla leader and give the West a pretext to declare Mao "a Soviet agent." Instead he sent Mikoyan on a secret mission to the Chinese Communist headquarters in Xibaipo in Hebei, to discuss the most important issues. Among these issues there was one that dealt with the nature of the future New Demo cratic power in China. Here is wrhat Mao Zedong wrote about it in his November 30, 1947 telegram to Stalin: "In the period of the final victory of the Chinese revolution, following the ex ample of the USSR and Yugoslavia, all political-parties except the CCP. should leave the political scene, which significantly strengthen the Chinese-revolution". This thesis apparently contradicted what Mao himself wrote in his On Coalition Gov ernment. Moreover, it opposed the entire course of New De mocracy, which aimed at creating a multi-party system in China. Stalin responded in a telegram of April 20, 1948 in which he said:
- We do not agree with this. We think that the various opposition parties in China which represent the middle strata of the Chinese population and are opposing the Guomindang clique will exist for a long time. And the CCP will have to involve them for cooperation against the Chinese reactionary forces and imperialist powers, while keeping hegemony, i.e., the leading position, in its hands. It is possible that some representatives of these parties will have to be included in the Chinese people's democratic government and the government itself has to be proclaimed a coalition government in order to widen the base of this government among the population and to isolate imperialists and their Guomindang agents. It is necessary to keep in mind that the Chinese government in its policy will be a national revolutionary-democratic government, not a Communist one, after the victory of the People's Liberation Armies in China, at any rate in the period immediately after the victory, the length of which is difficult to define now.
Stalin then further elaborated this idea, pointing out that
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this means that nationalization of all land and abolition of private ownership of land, confiscation of the property of all industrial and trade bourgeoisie from petty to big, confiscation of property belonging not only to big landowners but to middle and small holders exploiting hired labor, will not be fulfilled for the present. These reforms have to wait for some time.
Mao seemed to accept Stalin's point of view without res ervation and in his April 26, 1948 telegram to Stalin, put the whole responsibility for "leftist tendencies" on local CCP lead ers, informing Stalin that these tendencies "have already been thoroughly corrected".
In January - February 1949, during his meetings with Mao, Mikoyan again made the Soviet position clear to the CCP leader. Mao affirmed his acceptance. In his lengthy speech on present and future CCP policies delivered to his guest in early February, he spoke about cooperation with the national bour geoisie and of land reform without confiscation of property. At the same time he noticed that even though the coalition gov ernment would include some "democratic parties", the future Chinese state "in fact will be a proletarian dictatorship." More- -over, he declared that the new China would adhere to Soviet experience during the process of reconstruction. These points, however, did not fundamentally contradict Stalin's views. After all, the Moscow "chief master" was no moderate; he only wor ried about an external display of the Communist power in the future unified China and about the pace of Chinese moderniza tion. He was quite pleased when the parties came to a formal agreement.
Nevertheless, in early 1949, while anticipating the inevi table triumph of the Communist Party in its fight with the Guomindang, Mao Zedong tried to get back to his radical premise. At the time Mao once again inclined to abandoning the notion of a New Democratic revolution in light of how the situation in China would likely develop after the military and
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politically victories of 1948 and 1949. He was about to do so in order to stimulate the revolutionary process and transcend what he saw as the limited scope of New Democracy. Charac teristically, in his report to the Central Committee Second ple nary session in March 1949, Mao Zedong almost completely avoided mention of the New Democratic revolution, using the phrase "popular democratic revolution" instead. The resolution of the Second plenary session indicates what difference Mao could imply while contrasting these terms. It contended, that in countries of Eastern Europe, which at the time were considered to be "people's or popular democracies", "the existence and de velopment of capitalism ... the existence and development of free trade and competition ... are limited and cramped". As for the notion of a New Democratic revolution, it meant more eco nomic democracy. From that time the concept of New Democ racy virtually disappeared from the texts of Mao's speeches and articles of the time and his new programmatic text, which he would publish on June 30, 1949, would be titled "On the Peo ple's Democratic Dictatorship".
Stalin again intervened in this matter. His personal con versations with Mao Zedong during the Chinese leader's visit to Moscow in December 1949 - February 1950 are particularly germane to our discussion. During these talks Stalin empha sized that "the Chinese Communists must take the national bourgeoisie into consideration". He also softened Mao's harsh position in regard to the Western world, pointing out that "there is no need for you [the Chinese] to create conflicts with the British ... The main point is not to rush and to avoid conflicts." Mao had to reassure Stalin that they would not touch the na tional bourgeoisie and foreign enterprises "so far".
The Soviet media and most of the Soviet social scientists, notably Sinologists, skillfully covered Stalin's tactical maneu vers. Let us give only one example. During their private talks both parties addressed each other as "Comrade and Commu
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nist", but until 1952 the Soviet press always referred to the Chinese Communists as "Mr." and "Mrs." Even the book by the American journalist Forman, originally entitled Report from Red China (New York: H. Holt & Co, 1945), was trans lated and published in the Soviet Union under a different title - In New China (Moscow: Izdatelstvo inostrannoi literatury, 1948). The Soviet press carefully avoided applying the term "Communist" to the CCP's regime. The Chinese ruling party, the Soviet media as democratic or progressive, rather than communist usually referred itself to.
Stalin's maneuvering finally helped the CCP establish, its own dictatorship. The Chinese Communist Party's course aimed at creating New Democracy turned out to be an integral part of the stalinization of China.
During the subsequent period of 1949-1953 Mao Zedong intensified the stalinization of his country. After the establish ment of the PRC, a bitter civil war continued in the Southern provinces and did not end even with the expulsion of the rem nants of GMD army to Taiwan. The Communist regime not only engaged in a new stage of mobile warfare, but also strug gled against various social forces, which had not supported the Guomindang in its competition for power with the CCP. These forces included the traditional rural elite and substantial portion of the former Guomindang army, especially its local divisions in Beijing and in Yunnan, which had surrendered to the Com munists. It also included some local authorities, which during the civil war maintained a neutral position, taking refuge in the political periphery. The CCP provided all these people space in which to hide pending the final destruction of the Guomindang, but then slowly but surely the party began to set up its power at the county level, radically changing the local elite. This took place concomitant with the installation into power of new local authorities during the agrarian reform movement in 1950 and after.
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It was during this period that the CCP encountered des perate opposition on the part of its domestic enemies. Only now did the civil war assume larger dimensions, involving in its orbit millions of active participants. According to official Chinese Communist estimates, by the end of 1952, two million people were killed by the new regime during its struggle against counter-revolutionary elements. In addition, two mil lion more were imprisoned or sent to labor camps. The war continued into 1952, but official information about casualties was no longer published. Russian Sinologist Colonel Boris N. Gorbachev revealed that thirty-nine corps of the People's Lib eration Army (PLA), i.e., more than 140 divisions composed of 1.5 million soldiers participated in the conflict. It was an un precedented civil war in China. One of the most brutal acts of the civil war was the execution of former Guomindang officers who had come over to the Communist side. According to So viet General G.G. Semenov who served as an advisor to the commander of the North Chinese military district, after the promulgation of the People's Republic 22,014 "criminals" were "unmasked" in the former regiments of General Fu Zuoyi, that is in the former Beijing garrison that came over to the PLA side. Among the cases officially handled by the Communist Army Political Department 1,272 counterrevolutionaries were subject to immediate death, 14,513 to death with deferred exe cutions, and 6,223 to exile.
The struggle in the countryside during the agrarian reform was particularly sharp. It is known that in 1946, the CCP aban doned the "black partition" slogans. It even gave up the slogans of rentand interest-reduction. This policy ensured landlords' neutrality and contributed to the social isolation and ultimate rout of the Guomindang. However, payback time for this class myopia soon arrived. For about three years the CCP land re form, gradually moving from the North to the South. One may term this the agrarian revolution from above. The peasantry re-
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mained passive, and the CCP leadership sent special Party ac tivists' brigades down to the rural areas. These brigades, num bered annually about 300,000 people, set up peasants' associa tions, installed new power elite, and harshly persecuted the "landlords" and "wealthy peasants".
Mass public trials with simplified judicial procedure were held in numerous villages. Death sentences were the typical outcome. Millions were executed or sent to labor camps. Re gardless of what policy the party officially proclaimed, the number of well-to-do peasants was reduced radically. Power in the countryside along with substantial economic privileges was transferred to the new Communist elite.
The urban rich soon shared the fate of their rural counter parts. In December 1951, the CCP initiated repressive cam paigns against the bourgeoisie: the Sanfan ("three anti") cam paign against bureaucratic corruption and the Wufan ("five anti") campaign against private business. Following this, mass public trials, which had the right to issue death sentences, were convened in a number of instances. The courts and the sum mary executions they carried out, were usually held in public. More common, however, was the practice of making the bour geois pay huge indemnities that substantially undermined their economic position.
The intelligentsia also became an object of the ideological struggle. In 1951, on the CCP's initiative, a campaign of Marxist indoctrination commenced. The controversy over the film. Life o f Wu Xun, was used as a pretext. Beginning with an intellectual discussion, it turned into ideological condemnation of dissident views that started the thought reform movement. This very first campaign demonstrated the methods of ideo logical terror, which would play an ominous role in the intel lectual life of the People's Republic. Even the ruling party was affected by the intensification of the class struggle. As early as 1951, the Party leadership passed a resolution to unleash an in-
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