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    This book does not propose to describe the numerous and manifold changes that have occurred, and still are occurring, in that vast country which is China. It would be senseless for a foreign visitor to attempt such a task. The intended purpose, rather, is to arrive at some theoretical conclusions regarding the implications of the changes the Cultural Revolution has effected in the factories of China. The transformations to be discussed were described to me during my visits to a number of factories in 1971. Their impact has been substantiated by numerous articles published in China, which merit the closest attention, both in terms of the facts they describe and in terms of their political orientation.

    The book relies heavily on material I gathered during my stay in China in August and September 1971. Two women students (who wish to remain anonymous) planned and edited a portion of it, using notes taken during my seminar report at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, material I brought back with me, and the text of a lecture I delivered in Paris in November 1971. The book is also based on observations made during earlier trips, in 1958, 1964, and 1967, and on the published and oral accounts by numerous foreign visitors -- workers, peasants, economists, sociologists, etc. -- who have visited China recently.

    The book deals largely with changes as they have affected industrial management and the division of labor in industry. I

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regard these changes as extremely important. Although the transformations in question were given an unprecedented impulse by the Cultural Revolution, it should not be concluded that they originated with this revolution or were the only ones to occur in recent years.

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    The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution thus represents an ideological and political struggle the effects of which bear both on the economic base and on the superstructure, destroying the old social relationships and giving rise to new ones. The very fluctuations of the struggle which unfolded during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution evidence the degree to which its outcome depended both on the mass movement and on its correct orientation by a revolutionary leadership.

    At each stage of the Cultural Revolution, the adherents of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary line had to accomplish an enormous labor of discussion. At the outset, for instance, it took several months for the workers to rebel against the prevailing methods of management and the division of labor and against the diehard supporters of the existing relations in the factories. It was only gradually, through the give and take of prolonged discussion, that they began to realize that the old relations were obstructing progress along the road to socialism. When I visited China in 1967 the members of various revolutionary factory committees told me that during its initial stages they believed the Cultural Revolution to be concerned only with literature and the arts, and that they had distrusted the critics of the situation in their own factories. Eventually they came to understand that the prevailing conditions in the factories had to be changed before further advances along the road to socialism could be made.

    Later, when confronted with the task of elaborating new relations, the workers were often at odds about how to interpret the slogans of the revolutionary line. Months and even years of discussion and struggle were required to achieve the unity indispensable to the success of the Cultural Revolution.[3] Through discussions and struggles involving millions of workers and vast sections of the population, a

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new road was opened up in the struggle for socialism. There is no precedent for such an attempt to transform social relations. It constitutes a decisive and permanent achievement, as decisive and permanent as any scientific or social experiment which discovers new processes or new objective laws.

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cation was then frequently frustrated by the "centralizing" tendency abetted by Liu Shao-chi's line. The new impetus given to the implementation of these principles is designed, within an indispensable coordinating framework, to allow local and provincial authorities the broadest possible initiative, and to enable the workers to take a substantial part in decision making during the planning stage.

    The General Knitwear Factory in Peking was built in 1952 and is located in the center of the city. In 1971 it employed 3,400 people, 60 percent of whom were women. Production is diversified and ranges from weaving (cotton and synthetic fabrics) to finished goods (sweaters, jackets, etc.). Total annual output is on the order of 20 million items. The factory produces for the domestic market as well as for export to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

    The three principal shops are devoted to weaving, bleaching, and sewing. There are also auxiliary shops, including a shop for general mechanical work, where machinery is repaired or modified. The factory includes a child-care center where children can be boarded for as long as a week, and a canteen which serves three meals a day. Two women workers and the vice-chairman of the revolutionary committee gave the following account of the workers' living and working conditions in this factory:

    "We pay particular attention to working conditions and are guided in this by the Chinese Communist Party. We are concerned with the welfare of the workers and the preservation of human initiative. In the old society things were very different. The capitalists did not care about such matters.

    "The shops have air conditioners that maintain an even temperature Elaborate safeguards protect the workers

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against injury from their machines. These protective devices are occasionally disregarded and a few accidents have occurred, but they are very rare. A few installations are not safe and must be replaced. Some shops, such as the one containing the dryers, are excessively hot; the workers in that area receive a special allowance, eat more meat, and rest more frequently. What matters, however, is to reduce the heat. A high temperature around the dryers is inevitable, but every effort is made to minimize its effects on the surrounding areas. You have seen wagons that carry ice; this is one of the ways in which we try to reduce the heat. Bathing facilities are also available to the workers.

    "In the sewing shops we work eight hours a day and take half an hour for a meal. There are two additional fifteen minute breaks for physical exercises designed to prevent work-related disabilities. These are at the same time military exercises, for we must all be prepared in case of an imperialist invasion .

    "Our factory has an infirmary, and in every shop there are barefoot doctors.[1] All doctors attached to the infirmary are required to make daily rounds of the shops. This reduces the need for a worker to consult a doctor elsewhere. If sick workers cannot be properly treated in the factory, they are immediately sent to a hospital. A hospital is located right across from the factory, and there is another one in this district. There is no charge for consultation and medication. The workers get their regular pay while out sick.

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    "Of course, we do not claim that we have done enough to improve working conditions. We must make even greater efforts, for there are always new problems to be solved. The world changes all the time and new contradictions keep cropping up.

    "Women get an extra day off each month. Those who are seven months pregnant work seven hours per day instead of eight. When their work is particularly difficult, as in the case of pedal-operated sewing machines, pregnant women do this work only during the first six months of pregnancy and are then given different jobs. In case of special difficulties, the doctor may recommend a change of work. After a normal confinement, a woman receives a fifty-six-day paid maternity leave. In case of a more difficult confinement, this leave is increased to seventy days. Until her child is one year old, a breast-feeding mother gets two additional thirty-minute breaks a day to nurse her baby; this is reduced to a single thirty-minute period a day during the next six months. Breast feeding is discontinued when the child reaches the age of eighteen months. Between the ages of eighteen months and seven years, children remain full time in the nursery, and stay with their families only once a week; but mothers who do not want to leave them there full time may leave them in the nursery for the afternoon or for the day. In any case, there is enough room for all the children. We don't know the exact number of babies between the ages of fifty-six days and three years. The children between the ages of three years and seven years -- those who have not reached school age -- number slightly over two hundred.

    "Factory pay averages 54 yuan per month, ranging from a high of 102 to a low of 30. Minimum living expenses per person and per month come to about 12 yuan. In cases where all the members of the factory worker's family do not earn 12 yuan, an allowance is provided. Retired workers receive 60 percent of their pay."

    Following are some average wages in other factories. In

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Peking, the pay in 1972 of workers in the petrochemical industry, in Knitwear Factory No. 2, and in construction, averaged 60 yuan, ranging from 35 to 40 yuan to 90 to 102 yuan, depending on the factory. At the textile factory, the engineers, technicians, and cadres earned about 150 yuan.

    In Shenyang, wages at the heavy machinery factory averaged 65 yuan, ranging from 35 to 114 yuan. At the transformer factory, wages in 1971 averaged 63 yuan, ranging from 33 to 104 yuan. Technicians at this factory started at 32 yuan if they were middle school graduates, at 46 yuan if they received a higher education. Three out of 453 technicians earned 225 yuan (these were old technicians who were allowed the pay they used to get). The average pay of 61 yuan for technicians was due to the fact that they included many young people.

    In Shanghai, at Plastic Materials Factory No. 3, pay averaged 65 yuan, ranging from 40 to 100 yuan. Technicians earned between 50 and 110 yuan, apprentices between 18 and 23 yuan, depending on seniority.

    In the district factories, average wages were slightly lower. In one district of Kuantung, the wages of workers in two factories averaged 45 yuan, ranging from 32.5 to 100 yuan.

    The more important factories have various kinds of schools where workers can acquire new knowledge and prepare for new responsibilities. The courses vary in length with the material taught. It takes two years, for instance, for an experienced worker to become an engineer. The Chinese are struggling to replace the notion of "professional advancement" with that of "serving the people" -- being useful to the collectivity. This idea is basic in China, and implies a profound ideological transformation. As will be seen, it permeates the mass organizations, party committees, etc., as well as the relations between factories, planning, and so on. Today, new political responsibilities do not entail a change in wages. Wage ranges are still under discussion. The problem cannot be solved quickly, for extensive investigation is required to de-

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termine the nature of a proper wage policy at the present time. Once this policy has been determined, a great deal of discussion and persuasion is required so as to avoid imposing decisions on those who are not "enemies of the people."

    The vice-chairman of the factory revolutionary committee explained current policies at the factory. He stressed the slogan "politics in command" and contrasted it with the attitudes prevailing before the Cultural Revolution.

    "Chairman Mao has said that in industry we must follow the example of Taching and implement the Anshan Constitution. Implementing the Anshan Constitution means always to put politics in command, strengthen party leadership, launch vigorous mass movements, systematically promote the participation of cadres in productive labor and of workers in management, reform any unreasonable rules, assure close cooperation among workers, cadres [in China, "cadres" refers to political cadres], and technicians, and energetically promote the technical revolution. These are the basic ideas of the Anshan Constitution. Before the Cultural Revolution we rarely put politics in command."

    The case of Taching is a concrete example of how the notion of "politics in command" transforms the relations of production. Taching is a petroleum complex which began operations in 1960 after Soviet supplies were halted, an event which necessitated the most rapid expansion and utilization of Chinese resources. In view of China's lack of drilling equipment, this required an exceptional effort on the part of the workers. The Taching workers did not work in order to earn incentive bonuses, but to serve the people and the revolution. This involved a mass struggle. The petroleum technicians were not merely administrators but were integrated into the work brigades. All problems were discussed daily and collectively; it was thus possible to arrive at solutions transcending a narrow technical outlook. New methods of extraction were put into practice. The result has been that China now holds the world record in terms of international drilling norms.

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Annual production of crude oil continues to increase by about 30 percent. In terms of its oil requirements, China is now self-sufficient. Taching represents for Chinese industry what Tachai represents for agriculture. It points to the socialist road of industrialization.

    The vice-chairman of the revolutionary committee went on to explain that formerly in the factory economics was in command, which meant priority of production, a system of material incentives (bonuses), relying on specialists and experts to run the factory, priority of technique, money, and profit. The "two participations" approach -- participation by political cadres in production and by workers in management -- although well known in principle ever since the Anshan Constitution (1960), existed only in theory. It was the Cultural Revolution which propagated it among the workers, who then increasingly demanded its general application. Today the workers see to it that the cadres participate actively in production work; the cadres and technicians, for their part, regard such participation as correct and indispensable.

    "Before the Cultural Revolution I was assistant director of this factory; in this capacity I implemented the revisionist line. I did not understand what was meant by putting proletarian politics in command, nor did I understand that there were two headquarters within the party. I concentrated on production and technology. I demanded that the workers devote themselves to production -- production, production, always production. When the workers failed to fulfill the plan, they were offered material incentives, bonuses. In the old days there were twenty-eight different kinds of bonuses -- monthly, quarterly, annual bonuses for those who exceeded the established norms, bonuses for quality work. . . . There were also bonuses for those who devoted themselves entirely to their work, without thinking of anything else, without thinking of moving elsewhere. We had some workers from Shanghai who were always thinking of their native province.

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To keep them quiet and tied to their jobs, we gave them bonuses."

    Before the Cultural Revolution, moreover, there was a division between workers and management. The chief criterion of achievement was technical expertise, which meant that workers could not pass judgment on the activities of management. The factory manager was appointed by the central administration. He had considerable powers and could make unilateral decisions, but he had very little contact with the workers. Some party cadres shared this unquestioning belief in technical expertise, and this weakened the bonds between the workers and the Chinese Communist Party. The factory party committee made no effort to build the party and strengthen its leadership role. It concerned itself, in fact, only with production. The workers used to call the former secretary of the party committee "secretary of production."

    "Before the great upsurge of the Cultural Revolution I did not understand what was meant by 'cultural revolution.' I thought it had to do only with cultural circles and education. The more we defended interests opposed to those of the masses, the more the masses criticized us by means of tatzupao [handwritten wall posters], which they hung on the walls."

    The factory used to be run in keeping with an essentially revisionist line which stressed production, bonuses, the importance of experts and technique. In this factory as well as in others, this line made it possible for the enemies of socialism to assume leading positions. These elements were eliminated by the Cultural Revolution -- through the intervention of the workers guided by the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In June 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, the factory party committee was dissolved and replaced with a new committee. Generally speaking, the Cultural Revolution has profoundly transformed the structure and operation of the factories.

    The General Knitwear Factory affords a concrete instance

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of this general transformation. Its history during the Cultural Revolution provides us with the basic features of these changes. In the production units, the Cultural Revolution pursued the objectives of correcting the role and work of the cadres, strengthening the relations between cadres and workers, changing the style of management, and promoting a socialist outlook in everyday life -- a proletarian morality based on a proletarian world outlook (in family life, production, etc.). Central to this vision is the will to subordinate individual and particular interests to the overall interests of the revolution.

    Substantial progress was made toward the realization of these objectives when the masses began to appropriate revolutionary ideas. This involves a study of the basic writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung while relating this study to practice. It also requires collective discussion and study, both inside and outside the factory (in the family, for instance). These collective discussions take many forms. Their primary focus is the effort to understand Marxism and to struggle against revisionism and its ideological consequences.

    One aspect of this activity was the mass movement of criticism directed against the errors of the factory cadres. Its aim was not to eliminate these cadres, except when they had made serious errors, but to help them learn from their mistakes and assimilate revolutionary ideas and the revolutionary line. Wherever the old cadres were reinstated, this was done by the masses. Many of them, after having been criticized, would have preferred not to resume their functions -- largely because, under the influence of the "ultra-leftist" line, criticism was extended to cadres who had committed only slight errors, and sometimes assumed brutal forms (including physical assault). Such methods, instead of helping the cadres correct their practice in keeping with the directives of the party Central Committee, tended to demoralize them and induce them to limit themselves to work involving little poli-

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been elected Red Guards, whereas the contrary is not necessarily the case.

    The activities of the Red Guards and of the workers' management teams are closely related. The Red Guards in effect act as a control on the teams: they record the workers' criticisms and opinions regarding the effectiveness of the workers' management teams, the revolutionary committee, and the party committee. This activity is designed to prevent these groupings from isolating themselves from the masses. The Red Guards thus further the ideological revolutionization of the factory, help the leadership of each work team organize study groups, and play an important role in analyzing the ideas of the masses and refuting revisionist ideas on the spot.

    In view of the very considerable role played by the workers' management teams and the Red Guards in furthering ideological revolutionization, it may be useful to give some concrete examples of their activities at the General Knitwear Factory.

    The first example concerns a young shop delegate who had gradually become preoccupied with production to the exclusion of all other concerns. The workers were displeased with his attitude, and reproved him for no longer putting politics in command. The various work teams in his shop met to discuss the matter and decided to criticize him. Using the public address system, a member of the workers' management team then proceeded to detail the criticisms the work teams had voiced in their discussions. The delegate's initial reaction was to reject the criticism -- he felt ashamed and resented the fact that he had been criticized publicly.

    "The workers explained to him that there had been private discussions, but that he had turned a deaf ear and that it had therefore become necessary to raise the matter publicly. The members of the Red Guards and the workers' management team then reviewed the entire problem with him. Proceeding from the slogan 'make the revolution and promote produc-

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tion,' they undertook a painstaking and patient effort to raise his level of political consciousness and induce him to accept the criticism and transform himself."

    The second example involves the secretary of a shop party cell. The workers' management team considered this cadre's attitude incorrect. Before confronting him the team consulted with the shop workers and together they reviewed his attitude. The discussion resulted in a picturesque statement which reproached the cadre for having four faces: (1) smiling when being praised; (2) ashamed when being criticized; (3) displeased when confronting difficulties; and (4) a face turned away from the masses. This composite description was accompanied by a list of some one hundred specific criticisms.

    The cadre was at first quite upset and did not grasp the significance of the criticism. Finally -- these discussions may go on for days -- he said that he was being rebuked for his character, which he had "inherited from his mother," and for which he was not responsible. The workers then "explained that what was involved was not his character but his world outlook, which had to be changed," that he had to accept the need for a discussion of how his style of work could be corrected, and that he should not think that he was incapable of changing. Each criticism was discussed in detail, and the cadre gradually corrected his relationship to the masses. The workers then took his measure once again: "His four faces have been transformed into four struggles faced with praise, he struggles against pride; faced with criticism, he struggles against displeasure; faced with difficulties, he struggles against discouragement; and when his style of leadership isolates him from the masses, he struggles against his bureaucratic tendencies."

    The workers may also criticize the cadres through tatzupao, through direct or indirect attacks on a functionary, or by citing quotations that are forwarded by a delegation. Criticism is always organized; it never flows from individual

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initiative, but results from collective decisions generally based on an overall estimate of the cadre in question. Criticism focuses on specific points which are examined in the light of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. Cadres may be criticized publicly, but this is not always the case; the masses decide collectively whether or not it is necessary. Workers, on the other hand, are not supposed to be criticized publicly, but in private discussions involving members of their families. This procedure avoids placing workers in unpleasant situations and confronting them in the presence of their fellow workers.

    The revolutionary committee is an administrative body under the political leadership of the factory party committee, and is in charge of the implementation of established policy. The revolutionary committees emerged in a number of factories during the struggles against revisionist management, at a time when the factory party committees were paralyzed. Initially they were supposed to be provisional organs, but their provisional character was rarely alluded to in the years that followed. It appears that it is being recalled more frequently of late. The vice-chairman of the revolutionary committee explained its work:

    "Sometimes we get caught up in administrative detail and neglect political and ideological work. When our revolutionary committee began to function, for instance, we made a tremendous fuss and spent all our time trying to run every thing by telephone. The masses told us that this wouldn't do. During the ensuing discussion, the representatives of the masses told me that ideological work has to come first. This was a good lesson. From then on, I changed my style of work and paid more attention to the overall situation in the factory."

    The revolutionary committee is in charge of relations be-

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    There are two kinds of social property in China: state property and collective property; the second is owned by a specific collective of workers, such as a production brigade. The municipality of Shanghai, for instance, which extends beyond the city proper and encompasses all the suburbs, numbers about 9,800 enterprises and production units, of which 3,200 are owned by the state and 6,600 by collectives.

    Viewed in terms of management, these enterprises can be divided into three categories:

    1. Sizeable enterprises. These are under "state" management -- under the control of the central government or provincial and municipal authorities.

    2. Small urban enterprises. These are managed at the "street" or "neighborhood" level, generally under the direction of the corresponding revolutionary committee.

    3. Industrial enterprises at the district, people's communes, and production brigade levels.

    The first two categories serve the needs of the population, industry, and export, while the third serves predominantly the needs of agriculture, but also supplies some city factories (this is a marginal function). In the cities collectively owned industrial property exists at the "street" level, which involves production units managed within the confines of a residential block or street. In the suburbs collective property is owned primarily by people's communes and production brigades. In

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the municipality of Shanghai in 1971, for instance, industrial enterprises belonging to people's communes and production brigades (collective property) numbered 3,800; those under district management numbered 1,000. These three types of enterprise employed 280,000 people. The number of industrial workers in the municipality of Shanghai totaled 2.56 million.

    The collective enterprises consist of small and medium sized facilities. They are more numerous than the state factories but the value of their output is much lower: they account for only 4 percent of the value of industrial production, whereas state-owned facilities produce 96 percent.

    The general tendency since 1957, and especially since the Cultural Revolution, has been to foster local initiative by decentralizing the management of state enterprises and giving local officials a free hand in managing a growing number of production units. The aggregate value produced under this type of management in Shanghai has developed as follows: In 1957 almost half (46 percent) of the value of industrial output originated in enterprises directly controlled by the central government. In 1970 only 6.8 percent of the value of industrial output originated in enterprises controlled by the central government, whereas 93.2 percent of the value of industrial output originated in locally managed enterprises. This decentralization is motivated by what the Chinese call the need to "struggle against the dictatorship of central management." This struggle is intended to foster a "twofold initiative" -- that of the central government and that of local officials.

    With respect to size, enterprises are considered big, medium-sized, or small. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for the bulk of production. Of the 3,200 state enterprises in Shanghai, only 90 can be considered big (most of these employ more than 3,000 workers), 300 are medium sized, and 2,810 are small.

    The distinction between big, medium-sized, and small

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enterprises is not simply numerical; it also involves type of production. In the mechanical engineering industry, for instance, an enterprise is considered big if it employs more than 1,000 workers. In the textile industry, on the other hand, an enterprise is not considered big unless it employs at least 3,000 workers. In terms of size, the distribution of the total value of production in 1970 was as follows: big, 27.5 percent; medium-sized, 24.5 percent; small, 47 percent. In 1971, the figures were, respectively, 30 percent, 26 percent, and 44 percent.

    The formation of people's communes was the point of departure for a substantial development of collective forms of property in industry.

    The "street factories" are collective enterprises initiated by the inhabitants of a neighborhood or street and run by the neighborhood or street revolutionary committee. They emerged during the period of the Great Leap Forward, and were given a strong impetus by the Cultural Revolution. They represent a new type of industrial development and reflect an effort to destroy earlier forms. They also enable women to participate in the social labor of the community. In 1971 about 200,000 inhabitants of Shanghai worked in such enterprises; and almost all of them were initiated by housewives. These women had primarily political reasons for wanting to become involved in production most of them were not financially obligated to supplement their husbands' incomes. They were motivated by their desire to engage in productive labor.[1]

    The street factories engage in various types of production. They serve the immediate needs of the local population -- mending clothes, sewing, laundering, odd repairs They ease the burden of household work, thus enabling increasing numbers of housewives to become integrated in production.

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They also meet wider needs -- light machine work, manufacture of transistors, etc. These enterprises do not benefit from state investment but depend entire!y on marginal resources (waste materials, old machines, self-financing).

    While these collective urban small enterprises at present cater primarily to local needs, they attempt to meet wider industrial needs and hope eventually to export their output. In the districts and people's communes, the small enterprises produce largely for agriculture (fertilizers, agricultural tools and machinery, small vehicles, etc.), and sometimes for other factories.

    When one of these enterprises develops beyond a certain size it becomes state property; such an outcome is regarded as the crowning achievement of a successful effort. The factory is then directly integrated into the state plan. To cite but one example, a Shanghai textile factory which worked with cotton scraps has recently become a state factory.

    Chinese economic policy attaches a great deal of importance to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Chinese industrial development rests chiefly upon these enterprises. This approach should not be regarded as motivated merely by economic necessity; it also reflects a political choice. One of the major political advantages of these enterprises consists in the fact that they permit a freer development of the workers' management teams than is possible in big, complex enterprises imprinted with the capitalist mode of production and its tendency toward hugeness. The aim of the current political outlook is precisely to break up or limit these giants and replace them with production units that can be controlled by the workers.

    The base level of management is the factories themselves. In Shanghai, for instance, these are supervised by bodies of two types: industrial offices and specialized agencies.

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    The industrial offices specialize in the coordination of the various production units that turn out the same kind of product. Again using Shanghai as an example, there are nine such offices in that city. They specialize in iron and steel production, the production of other metals, chemicals, textiles and handicrafts, mechanical and electrical construction, electronic and telecommunication precision instruments, light industry, electric power, general construction (chiefly factories and housing, but also schools, hospitals, etc.). Each office supervises anywhere from a few dozen or a few hundred to between three hundred and six hundred factories.

    The specialized agencies are controlled by the industrial offices; their area of responsibility is more limited -- tractors, pharmaceuticals, etc. There are some one hundred specialized agencies in Shanghai. They act as intermediaries between the production units and the industrial offices. Some very important factories, however, are linked directly to the corresponding offices. The offices and agencies exercise both economic and political control over the enterprise with respect to planning. They intervene in the formation, institution, coordination, and implementation of the plan.

    The very small number of enterprises directly accountable to the central government are controlled by a ministry which occupies an intermediate level between these enterprises and the government. To ensure unified planning on the provincial level, the plan for each province also encompasses the enterprises controlled by the central government. These enterprises are therefore not extraneous to the province; they receive aid in the planning of production and the allocation of their output from both the central government and the provincial revolutionary committee.

    The local authorities (of provinces, districts, or municipalities) actually play a considerable role in planning and management. This decentralization enables the province or municipality to effect close cooperation between the various regional production units. Management at the provincial level is guided by a broad concept of relatively autonomous indus-

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trial development in each province; this promotes consistent development through the institution of complementary production facilities, and stimulates innovation and the search for local sources of raw materials.

    Management at the provincial level seeks to coordinate the activities of the production units rather than stifle their initiative. In recent years, China was the scene of a struggle against centralization -- the advocacy of centralization was a feature of Liu Shao-chi's line. In certain provinces, notably in the north, organizational structures similar to those of "trusts" had been instituted; they were eliminated during the Cultural Revolution.

    Chinese decentralization is thus radically different from that practiced in the U.S.S.R. and the European "people's democracies," where it is characterized by the growing role of enterprise associations, a diminishing number of planned indices, etc. The political contexts are different. In current Soviet decentralization, power is shifting increasingly to the managers rather than to the workers. This decentralization in fact consists of a redistribution of powers within a state bourgeoisie. Viewed in terms of economic conditions, decentralization in the U.S.S.R. is combined with the erosion of price planning and an increasing stress on the role of profit. In China, on the other hand, decentralization is one of the factors enabling the workers to exercise collective control over their lives. Prices are planned and profit is not in command. The very methods of Chinese planning distinguish it from Soviet planning.

    Decentralization accounts for the exceptional dynamism of the Chinese economy and for the sharp contraction of the administrative apparatus that can be observed everywhere. Such decentralization, moreover, constitutes one of the conditions for the development of socialist forms of management, and for workers' participation in management. It can be effectively combined with an economic plan only insofar as each enterprise subordinates its own interests to overall

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interests as spelled out in the plan. In the absence of this ideological condition, decentralization and planning are incompatible. There is then no other way but to issue peremptory and detailed orders, and to verify their implementation by bureaucratic means. We know what this leads to.

    To designate a plan that is not administratively centralized, the Chinese use the term "unified planning." Its unified character is primarily political. It relies substantially on the initiative of the masses; its own role is an effort to foster and unify these initiatives.

    The unified plan requires the implementation of principles that guide the workers both in the formulation of the plan and in management. At all levels, and in each production unit, the basic principles are the following: to put politics in command -- to subordinate the interests of the factory as such to the collective interest and to the interests of the Chinese revolution; to rely on the initiative of the masses; to develop one's strength to the utmost; "to view agriculture as the base and industry as the dominant factor"; "to prepare against war and natural calamities, and everything for the people"; to follow the general line of socialist construction by applying the criteria of "quantity, speed, quality, economy"; and "to walk on two feet," which means to build both very simple factories and modern factories, big and small factories, and to use advanced and traditional techniques. The elaboration of the plan is also guided by the concrete (quantitative and qualitative) orientations given to different industries as a function of the general political line and the need for balanced overall development.

    A unified plan means that the plans of the various production units must be unified; otherwise it becomes impossible to integrate the plans developed at different levels -- the over all plan for the development of China, provincial plans, and local plans.

    A number of products designated "primary products" -- for instance, important raw materials such as coal and steel --

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are planned directly at the national level. The plan for less important types of production (cement, furniture) is developed at the provincial level. In the case of still other products (farming implements, daily necessities), whose production is so dispersed as to make central planning pointless, the plan is elaborated at the district level. The output of the collective enterprises, which is destined largely for local consumption, falls into this category.

    The national plan focuses first on the enterprises controlled directly by the central government. Production destined for export is also planned centrally. There is a monopoly on foreign trade in China. Import and export are the domain of state agencies which deal directly with the corresponding production units. Little information is available concerning the technical elaboration of the foreign trade plan, but the guiding principles are clear: to avoid placing excessive reliance on any one type of import; to provide aid to certain countries; to increase and diversify the number of trading partners.

    The national plan does not encompass all the provincial and local plans in detail, but it does project the principal requirement of the various provinces. In the case of cement, for instance, the central plan indicates the quantities which the cement-producing provinces must furnish to other provinces. This requirement is incorporated into the provincial plan, which must meet the cement requirements of its own province and other provinces.

    Even with respect to the allocation of the principal products, the state distribution agencies do not specify how each province or district is to employ the raw materials assigned to it. The same procedure is followed within each province. Each district receives indications as to its commitments to other districts. The various levels are thus coordinated flexibly, and not by means of abstract, rigid, and bureaucratic regulations.

    The unified plan reflects a basic outlook: the need to

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struggle against administrative centralism. Its aim is to establish conditions that will enable the immediate producers to exercise effective control over the means of production, rather than to keep them powerless, through the decisions of central offices instead of the mechanism of the market. Unified planning is an integral component of socialist construction.

    The industrial production of consumer goos is planned primarily at the district or provincial level. The state plan and those of the various production units do not focus exclusively on production, but also on the allocation of output. Consumer goods are always distributed by state agencies of commerce, which play an essential role in elaborating and coordinating their planning. These agencies have a very important control function in that they represent the consumers with respect to the enterprises -- the consumers' expressed wants are discussed at meetings between the enterprises and the agencies -- and see to it that these wants are given full consideration. The production units conduct their own surveys and make every effort to keep in touch with the needs of the population. These investigations are carried out with the cooperation and aid of the state agencies of commerce. In projecting the exact quantity of the various products needed by the population, these state agencies compute such factors as rate of inventory turnover, daily product circulation, etc. Sounding out the consumers in regard to their wants helps the production units in their planning. These plans do not spell out in detail how a single product is to be diversified, however. The projection of product assortment is the responsibility of local management.

    Samples of new products (such as footwear) are put on display so that the consumers may be questioned regarding their opinions and wants. Quantities are projected by the state agencies of commerce and adjusted in the course of the year. The production units also survey consumers' reaction to finished goods; they conduct inquiries in shops, homes, and

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work places, which help them to determine desirable modifications.

    An example of how a product was modified as a result of an investigation into its practical use involves a factory which supplied a special type of raincoat to the people's communes. The factory workers arrived to conduct their investigation during the rice-planting season. They noticed that when they bent down, their raincoats dragged in the mud of the fields. Following discussions with the peasants, they altered the raincoats by adding a set of buttons that made it possible to raise the hem of the garment.

    The mechanism of developing the plan -- continuous exchanges between the base and the top -- results in decisions arrived at in common. The party has the final say, but since matters are settled basically through discussion, any resulting contradictions are secondary contradictions. Chinese planning therefore has particular characteristics. The plan tries to rely to the utmost on the masses; it is not the exclusive concern of "experts." It is a political matter. It combines the political orientations -- general line and specific directives deriving from the party with the initiative of the masses. It is the focus of a maximum mobilization of all innovation efforts, and every attempt is made not to waste what the workers have produced. The role of the central administrative officials in the development and institution of the plan, while important in terms of the achievement of overall balance, is relatively limited. This kind of planning aims to develop productive forces resting on the associated workers -- to initiate socialist cooperation.

    Unity among socialist workers must develop on the basis of politics and ideology. Such a unity makes it possible to envisage the eventual elimination of the surviving market relations and the emergence of new socialist social relations, an outcome that is directly related to the ideological revolutionization achieved by the class struggle unfolding under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. The labor ex-

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pended in production can thus become labor that is directly and genuinely social; it can gradually cease to be labor performed exclusively or principally for wages, and become labor expended essentially to satisfy social wants. The conception of the unified plan proceeding from the base serves the need for such a transformation.

    The plans are elaborated within a framework of a continuous exchange of opinions between the base and the top. The state -- in this instance, the state planning committee -- provides a few general indices to the various bureaus of the municipality of Peking (in this instance, the bureau of textiles), which in turn convey approximate indices to individual factories. These indices represent advisory norms. They are preliminary estimates established by the central government, the municipality, and the bureau of textiles, after consultations with the trade departments. They serve as the starting point for further development proceeding from the base -- from within each factory.

    The General Knitwear Factory in Peking has a productive capacity of 20 million items. The preliminary indices, which allow for the factory's capacity for production and diversification, are submitted for discussion by the workers. These discussions evaluate the factory machinery, innovations, and the creative initiative of the masses. The trade departments send their own teams to the factory where they present various marketing data. In the case of jackets, for instance, they set forth requirements regarding quantity, size, material -- cotton, nylon, etc. -- and style -- type of collar, long or short sleeves, etc. Workers and factory employees visit stores and other outlets to obtain first-hand information concerning the views of the customers. Following a series of discussions in

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the workshops, a proposal is forwarded to the bureau of textiles of the Peking municipality.

    In regard to products destined for export, the department concerned makes proposals which are also discussed by the masses, following which the factory presents counter-proposals. The planning agency coordinates all the data in terms of the need to assure an overall balance and establishes definitive indices in consultation with the factory. The decisions taken by the planning agency are then transmitted to the factory.

    There is an annual industrial plan, and it can be broken down into monthly and quarterly plans. These may be modified in keeping with fluctuations in market need. The annual production goals can be modified, if necessary, to prevent the production of superfluous products. Such decisions are made by the planning agency. Within the factory itself, it is the production team supervised by the revolutionary committee which deals concretely with the implementation of the annual plan.

    The General Knitwear Factory operates largely on an annual plan, but the factory also makes proposals for the five-year plans. Some of the principal norms used in the preparation of the plan are aggregate value, quantity of the chief types of production, costs, profit, labor productivity, quality, product design and range. There are also norms concerning labor power, raw materials, etc. All these factors are passed under regular review during the implementation of the plan.

    The plan and the evaluations bear not only on the goals to be attained and the norms to be observed, but also on specific measures to be taken. How should the various tasks be accomplished? What changes should be made in the machines, in the procurement of supplies, in the stocks of raw materials? Every effort is made to solve problems on the spot with the help of campaigns to promote technical revolution-

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ization, so as to conserve raw materials, upgrade the machinery, increase productivity, and improve quality.

    The province of Liaoning has a population of 28 million, two-thirds of whom live in the countryside and one-third in the towns. There are about 2.4 million workers in the province.

    Heavy industry used to be dominant. At present, in keeping with the basic directive regarding the need for the relatively autonomous development of each province, industrial production has been diversified in the older as well as in the new branches of industry. The province now produces a wide variety of industrial products -- iron and steel, machinery, coal, oil, electricity, electrical engineering products, textiles, clothing, shoes, furniture, etc. Agriculture has also been developed and diversified. Industrial production represents 90 percent of the aggregate value of the production of the province, whereas agricultural production accounts for 10 percent.

    On the subject of agriculture, a member of the Liaoning revolutionary committee gave the following explanation:

    "Current agricultural production in the province is probably adequate for our needs. In the municipality of Shen-yang, which has the highest urban concentration in the province -- 60 percent urban and 40 percent rural population -- cereal and vegetable production is now adequate. Previously we had to import 800 million jin [880 million lbs.] of cereal annually. Last year, after a two-year effort, we managed to produce enough for our needs. We used to have to import some vegetables from Canton and a northern province. As of last year, production is adequate to meet the needs of the town's population, and we can even do some exporting. Vegetable production has reached 1.5 billion jin, or 1.65 billion pounds.

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These facts prove that in spite of the size of the urban population we were able to produce the cereals and vegetables we need without neglecting our industrial potential."

    Concerning the plan, this member provided the following information:

    "In the area of planning we are currently at the stage of struggle-criticism-reform. Liu Shao-chi's revisionist line -- which advocated putting profit in command, using material incentives, the domination of experts, and relied heavily on foreigners -- is being refuted. In factory production we are not concerned exclusively with profit; our basic approach is to consider the needs of the national economy.

    "To increase production, we must rely chiefly on political and ideological work so as to ensure that everybody works for the revolution, to serve the people, and not for material incentives. To achieve the success of the plan, we rely on the three-in-one combination of workers, technicians, and cadres, and not on a small number of specialists."

    The plan is developed in several stages. The production units are given general guidelines reflecting estimates of social needs. These guidelines do not include precise figures but rather the orders of priority and magnitude. The initial elaboration of the plan takes place in each production unit, and is guided by the principle of "mobilizing the masses." One point is often stressed: it is necessary to be realistic, to maintain sufficient latitude, to anticipate obstacles. It is necessary to be both bold and modest.

    To obtain concrete data regarding the wants of the consumers or users, the workers conduct their own investigations. The workers of an agricultural machinery factory, for instance, will investigate the situation in the people's communes so as to become familiar with their machinery requirements. When several factories are interested in the same type of product, delegates from these factories meet to discuss the most judicious way of allocating the products, among them. The results of the investigations and discussions

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are reviewed by the revolutionary committees, workers' management teams, and three-in-one teams of each factory.

    These planning projects must then be coordinated. The coordination agencies vary with the nature of the products and the area of consumption. Depending on the case, the official bodies participating in the discussions consist of the district revolutionary committee or the provincial revolutionary committee, and in the case of very large industries, of the central government.

    The political and administrative officials concerned review and coordinate the projects, and establish a balance between resources and requirements. This process, during which contact is maintained with the various production units, results in the development of an overall planning project which encompasses the partial projects. This planning project is for warded to the production units concerned and is again discussed by the workers.

    A member of the Liaoning revolutionary committee described the procedure as follows: "First, from the base to the top; second, a combination of top and base -- the 'top' does not operate in a void, but contacts the various production units with a view to elaborating a new planning project; third, a combination relying principally on the efforts of the province; fourth, a combination of the efforts of both the provinces and the central government."

    The requirements of the state -- those deriving from the central government and reflecting the requirements of the other provinces, of the People's Liberation Army, etc. -- are forwarded to the various provinces and incorporated in the plan of each province. The individual provincial plan also incorporates the dependable resources available from the other provinces The overall approach is always to try to make the provinces and districts relatively autonomous.

    Given the conditions under which the plan is elaborated and the fact that people try to be modest, it should be noted that the plans are in most cases not only fulfilled, but over-

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fulfilled. When it is clear that a plan cannot be fulfilled, however, there is a discussion to determine which of the projected goals is to be abandoned. The choices are made in close consultation with the masses during the implementation of the plan.

    The tendency before the Cultural Revolution was to leave all these problems in the hands of experts and managers. In spite of mass criticism, this tendency has not yet been entirely eliminated. In one instance, the members of a factory revolutionary committee considered the plan impossible to fulfill and wanted to scale it down without consulting the masses. The workers criticized the managers of this factory. When the difficulties were reexamined, solutions were found and, owing to the measures suggested in the course of discussions with the workers, the initial objectives were eventually attained.

    During both elaboration and execution of the plan, the problem constantly arises of establishing a balance between the requirements of consumer needs and those of productive consumption. The method of automatically lowering the projected production goals is rejected; the emphasis is on searching out solutions that will make it possible to reach the initial objectives. This is called the search for an "active balance" rather than a "passive balance." It is also said that imbalances are handled positively and not negatively. This is done in consultation with the workers. In this connection, a member of the Liaoning revolutionary committee made this comment:

    "In last year's plan, coal posed a problem. The alternatives were to make our projections in terms of actual coal production and therefore to narrow the plan's objectives with respect to other products, or to mobilize the masses with a view toward increasing coal production. The workers met many times to discuss the matter. They concluded that since there was not enough coal it was necessary to appeal to the masses to increase coal production and economize on its use.

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    "The masses were informed of the lack of coal and of the resulting situation. As soon as the facts were known, the workers began to exert their efforts. Coal production in the province increased by several million tons. The savings realized were also on the order of several million tons. Industrial activity could thus depend on the necessary fuel for the development of production, and the state plan was fulfilled. This shows that it is better to rely on the initiative of the masses than on slide rules."

    Five-year plans are much less detailed than the annual plans but they are elaborated according to the same principles. They provide general guidelines concerning the desired growth of essential types of production. They do not project detailed objectives for each production unit -- this is considered unnecessary and unrealistic. When the establishment of very large production units is envisaged, however, more detailed projects are formulated in close consultation with the workers familiar with the industry in question. This kind of effort is not limited to "experts" but involves mass participation.

    The five-year plans also encompass far-reaching projects for the renovation and enlargement of the production units. The choice of the factories to be renovated or enlarged is made in consultation with the production units themselves. Within a given branch of industry, the political officials and production units together determine which of these units can benefit most effectively from expansion or renovation. Final selections are made only after comprehensive discussion with the workers of the enterprises in question.

    The details of the projects are the subject of mass discussion within the enterprises. Eventually there are also discussions with the workers of other factories, especially with those in the production units that are to supply the necessary

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equipment for the enlargement or renovation projects. These consultations are very close, and if necessary involve exchanges of workers among the various enterprises so that: they may become familiar with local conditions.

    Insofar as the work of elaborating the plan is done in close consultation with the workers and is based on a careful and concrete examination of the situation with a view toward establishing realistic and modest objectives, its successful accomplishment does not in principle meet with major difficulties. And since the workers participate in elaborating the plan and play a key role in formulating its goals, they are justified in regarding its successful outcome as "their affair" and in exerting all their efforts to attain its objectives. It is nevertheless impossible to develop all aspects of the plan at the same pace: everything during the year does not happen exactly as anticipated; difficulties and problems inevitably crop up. Every effort is made to solve these problems on the spot with the help of the workers. It is only as a last resort that help is requested from other production units, or that the district or provincial revolutionary committee is asked to lower the objectives.

    When, in spite of everything, the plan cannot be realized in its entirety, the problem arises as to which objectives are to be abandoned. In keeping with the principle of stressing the need to satisfy overall needs, priority is generally given to tasks involving meeting the requirements of the other provinces.

    A member of the Nanking revolutionary committee explained: "Priority must be given to achieving a balance at the national level; without a national equilibrium, a provincial balance is impossible." The application of this principle, however, is subject to a concrete examination of whether the course adopted might result in major difficulties in the province.

    At any rate, no decision regarding the lowering of production can be made by the factory itself. Factory plans appar-

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ently are scaled down only in exceptional cases. This is due to the realism of China's economic plans and to the direct contacts between the workers of the various production units engaged in the manufacture of the same product. These close relationships play a decisive role in helping resolve the concrete problems that arise whenever there is a danger that a partial objective of the plan may not be attained.

    The production units maintain contact not only indirectly through the corresponding bureaus but also directly, especially through close relations between the workers of these factories. Efforts are pooled in a search for solutions to whatever problems arise. These direct relationships are a concrete example of socialist cooperation.

    The existence of very close contacts between the various production units in no way signifies that they maintain direct market relations, however. Prices are planned and fixed outside the factories. The allocation of products among the enterprises is made by the state agencies of commerce, which also channel the products to the individual consumers. This is very important in terms of preventing the development of exchanges that bear no relationship to the plan.

    Prices play a rather secondary role in the Chinese economy. Monetary calculation intended to "maximize" the income of each production unit is not a dominant factor in the formulation of planning objectives at the overall level or at the level of a particular production unit. This does not mean that no effort is made to estimate and reduce costs, but prices do not direct production. Production is determined by the political line. The prices themselves are secondary expressions of the political line.

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    There is an essential preoccupation with price stability and overall financial balance. Prices must be stable and the production units must rely as little as possible on public financial resources to make up any deficit; for the production units to be in the red could only lead to an unhealthy situation. On the contrary, the profits of the production units are placed at the service of overall economic development.

    In practice, to speak of stable prices is tantamount to saying that the prevailing prices are largely either "historically given prices" or prices adjusted for political reasons and in keeping with cost variations. The selling prices in each industry are fixed on the basis of cost prices. The selling price to the state agencies of commerce generally equals the average cost price, to which a 15 percent margin is added; the amount represented by this margin is added to the social accumulation fund. The selling price to the consumers is fixed according to a variety of policies.

    1.  There is no profit on essential goods; if necessary they are subsidized by the state. In the case of cereals, for instance, which are under state monopoly, the purchase price from the peasants practically equals the retail price. This means that the state assumes the cost of marketing, transportation, etc. In certain regions, such as the north, where the cost price of cereals (the purchase price from the people's communes) is higher, the retail selling price has nevertheless remained the same as elsewhere. On these products, therefore, the agencies of commerce sustain a loss.

    On the whole, the price to the consumers of certain essential foods has in recent years been lowered without a decrease in the purchase price from the people's communes. The selling price of 50 kg. of rice, for instance, decreased from 17.63 yuan in 1950 to 16.40 yuan in 1970. Similarly, the purchase price from the people's communes may be increased without an increase in the selling price to the consumers; this happened last year in the case of rapeseed and rape oil.

    2.  Products essential to the health of the people are sold

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at cost price, which means that no profit is made on their sale. The price of medicine, for instance, has decreased in keeping with reduced cost price. Thus the price of 200,000 units of penicillin decreased from 2.10 yuan in 1953 to 1.23 yuan in 1970. When a social need is given priority, price gives way to free distribution, as in the case of birth-control devices.

    3.  Everyday necessities are cheap, although a profit margin is maintained. The price of 50 kg. of lump coal, for instance, decreased from 2.80 yuan to 2.50 yuan between 1950 and 1970.

    4.  In the case of nonessential products (transistor radios, cameras, etc.), the "historically given price" is generally maintained. Any eventual drop in the cost price of these products serves to increase the social accumulation fund.

    The main thing is to understand that China's approach to prices involves not merely policies, but politics -- it rests on political and social choices.

    In brief, consumer goods may be divided into three main categories: (1) those corresponding to essential needs -- these are sold at the lowest possible price; (2) those corresponding to less essential needs -- their price to the consumer is higher than their cost price, but is lowered as the cost price decreases; and (3) those currently viewed as corresponding to secondary needs -- their prices remain the same. On the whole, therefore, not only are prices not rising, they are getting lower.

    The price of equipment, raw materials, energy, etc., supplied to the production units is based on cost price. Here, too, every effort is made to maintain price stability, and if a cost price goes down this decrease is not automatically reflected in the selling price to the production units. The drop in cost price is reflected in growing profits for the producing factories and not in reduced costs for the industrial consumer. If the drop in cost price is considerable, however, it is passed on to the industrial consumer, but this is not done

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while an annual plan is operative, so as not to invalidate the comparison between effective cost price and planned cost price. The savings realized by enterprises that paid less than expected for their supplies would be due not to efforts on their part, but to the lower cost of raw materials. For each production unit to be able to evaluate its operation, it is preferable that prices be stable. In any case, the determination of what is to be produced and how production is to take place (techniques used, raw materials utilized, etc.) depends only secondarily on monetary competition. The basic decisions reflect the pressing needs of overall economic development. They are not subordinated to monetary computations such as could be made by individual production units.

    Socialist cooperation between factories requires that an enterprise be as concerned with the interests of the surrounding population and those of the enterprises or consumers for which it produces as with its own particular interests. Following are two examples of such cooperation.

    The first concerns the struggle against pollution, which has achieved spectacular results in such large cities as Tientsin and Shanghai, owing to the cooperation of the various enterprises and of the population. This cooperation has made it possible in these cities to divert waste waters from the rivers, dig underground canals, and build factories for the transformation of these waters. These factories salvage thousands of tons of useful products and produce fertilizers that are used over tens of thousands of acres of land.

    Significant results have also been obtained in the treatment of rubbish, solid wastes, and residual gases, which have been transformed into new raw materials. In the Fouchoun area of Liaoning the treatment of residual gas, waste water, and slag originating in Oil Refinery No. 3 has produced nineteen chemical products and rare metals. As a result of changes introduced in the operation of the refinery, the surrounding

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atmosphere has been purified and raw materials valued at several million yuan are now obtained each year. They include sodium, sulphates, dry ice, raw materials for the manufacture of synthetic textiles, and so on.

    The second example concerns the search for product quality and durability through close cooperation between the industrial producers and the industrial users as well as between the producing industries and the consumers. This cooperation has resulted in considerable achievements, which are confirmed by the industrial and agricultural users, the people involved in the distribution network, and the individual buyers. These achievements serve the interests of the consumers rather than those of the producers. For the producing enterprises, improving the quality, solidity, and durability of their products generally represents a great deal of extra work (research, development, etc.) and eventually rising costs. These improvements, however, do not automatically entail higher prices or increased total sales; the contrary is true when products become more durable.

    The producing enterprises thus subordinate their particular interests to the overall interests of the country. This is the driving force of a new kind of economic progress -- production is no longer dominated by the pursuit of exchange value, growth, monetary returns and profit, but by the pursuit of use value. This presupposes radical transformations in social relations in the economic base as well as in the superstructure.

    Contrary to certain views which claim Marxism as their authority but reject its basic ideas, such transformations are not spontaneous. They are not mechanistically determined by the development of the productive forces. Consequently -- and this point is essential for an understanding of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and its significance -- it should be considered that the transformations in the economic base which can be currently observed in China must of necessity result from a struggle which has been waged, and continues

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to be waged, by the workers to transform the social division of labor, eliminate hierarchical relations within the production units, take management into their own hands, and master technology. This is a political and ideological struggle. It is not a mere revolt. It has a revolutionary character. Its success requires a unity of conception and action, and a correct estimate of the nature of viable transformations and their interdependence. This is why such a struggle demands the leadership of a revolutionary party.

    A first set of observations bears on the significant changes which have been initiated in recent years, and which are designed to further the withering of the social division of labor and foster a new approach to the development of the productive forces. These changes have crucial implications, for they concern the production relations themselves -- the relations of the agents of production among themselves and with the means of production. Socialism, however, signifies not only, nor even primarily, a change in the juridical relations of ownership; such a change may be purely formal. Socialism implies also, and above all, a change in the relations of production.

    It is clearly impossible to examine all the features of the transformations that first emerged on a significant scale during the period of the Great Leap Forward, and were then greatly extended under the impetus of the Cultural Revolution. We will discuss only a few essential features of these transformations.

    One aspect of these transformations bears on the division between administrative tasks and performance tasks. While the distinction between these certainly continues to exist, the division among those who carry them out has tended to become obliterated largely through the expanding activities of the three-in-one teams. These transformations correspond to an unquestionable revolutionization of the industrial enter-

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prises and are laying the foundations for a transition from management by a minority to management by the majority, or mass management.

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    The historical experiences of the Soviet Union and China raise questions about the social consequences of different "methods of management," which correspond to the social conditions underlying the use of the means of production and the allocation of tasks. Depending on the social form of management, those who determine the use made of the means of production, the allocation of tasks, and the nature of production constitute either a minority standing apart from material production or a majority -- the immediate producers. We are therefore dealing here with production relations and class relationships.

    The production relations that are reproduced in a factory, however, basically reflect the social relationships that -- are reproduced in the social formation as a whole, and the class struggle being waged throughout the society. The socialist transformation of the production relations always results from class struggle and, above all, from the ideological and political class struggle being waged throughout the social formation.

    In the combination productive forces/productive relations, the latter play the dominant role by imposing the conditions under which the productive forces are reproduced. Conversely, the development of the productive forces never directly determines the transformation of the production rela-

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tions; this transformation is always the focus of intervention by the contending classes -- that is, of class struggle.

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throughout the transition rests both on this objective basis and on the reproduction, through the ideological and political apparatuses, of bourgeois social relationships. Only an ideological and political proletarian struggle can destroy the old capitalist social relations, including production relations, and fully develop socialist production relations. Progress along the road to socialism depends on the struggle of the proletariat and is never the direct result of a "development of the productive forces" alone. This is why the transition passes through stages characterized by ideological and political struggle. This struggle determines the direction of every social formation moving toward socialism.

    The manner in which the class struggle develops under the dictatorship of the proletariat depends primarily on the political line of the ruling party. This line represents approximate concentration of the correct ideas of the masses, which enables them to draw the lessons of their own experience and that of past proletarian struggles. The political line also constitutes the chief factor making it possible to reject capitalist forms of management. The transformation of industrial management is quite different from a mere modification of "management techniques." It focuses on the production relations themselves, which can be revolutionized only through class struggle. When the proletariat has the initiative, this struggle leads through successive stages to the appropriation by the masses of proletarian ideology and to the effective social appropriation of the means of production.

    In the social formations in which it develops, the capitalist. mode of production brings about a transformation of the work process. One of the aspects of this transformation is the use of machines, which brings into being the collective worker. The former individual relationship of the worker to his work tool disintegrates, and the workers integrated into and dominated by capitalist production relations face the machines collectively, while divided hierarchically and organized in separate production units.

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    The concept of "collective worker" must be distinguished from that of "associated worker," which designates what Marx calls the ''freely associated" workers who enter into relationships differing fundamentally from those that keep them in subjection to capital. This is where the elimination of the bourgeois division of labor intervenes, for the existence of the fully developed associated worker presupposes the end of the division between manual labor and intellectual labor, between administrative tasks and performance tasks, between town and countryside, and between organizationally separated "production units." The Cultural Revolution marks the beginning of the destruction of the old collective worker and the birth of the associated worker -- the birth of socially unified work.

    In order for the means of production to be socially appropriated -- that is, in order for the immediate producers to exercise effective collective control over the means of production -- the working class must overcome its division and achieve unity, and the unity of the immediate producers and their means of production must prevail over their separation.

    So long as a sufficient degree of unity has not been attained, the immediate producers cannot exercise direct social control on a broad scale. They can exercise control only through the intermediary of the ruling proletarian party, which is the instrument of the ideological and political unity of the working class and the broad masses and which is therefore essential to the dictatorship of the proletariat. This party can be the instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat only if it is the carrier of proletarian ideology, and if it ensures the gradual appropriation by the masses of this ideology through a social practice which requires that the relationship between the party and the masses remain an internal rather than an external one.

    The fact that the working class and the broad masses support the activities of the proletarian party, however, does not necessarily mean that the masses have already appropriated

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necessity a unity of practice, ideas, and perceptions -- a political and ideological unity which requires that individual or particular interests be subordinated to collective interests. As long as this is not the case, the social appropriation of the means of production and of output remains imperfect, that is, partially formal.

    Engels stressed this fact when he declared that state ownership of the means of production is but a formal means of resolving the contradiction between the social character of the productive forces and the private character of appropriation. State ownership of the means of production -- even when the state constitutes the dictatorship of the proletariat -- is not yet real social appropriation; it designates a legal relationship and not an overall transformation of production relations.

    As Engels pointed out, in taking possession of the means of production the state appropriates them "in the name of society," which clearly means that this is not as yet a social appropriation (an appropriation by "society" itself). It also means that the immediate producers have not yet appropriated the means of production directly and collectively. The state, in fact, exists only in terms of its separation from the immediate producers. This is why the state must cease to exist before the complete unity of the means of production and the immediate producers can be realized. This, of course, requires a long historical process.

    The abolition of private legal ownership of the means of production and the institution of an economic plan are necessary but insufficient conditions for the effective social appropriation of the means of production. Such an appropriation requires a radical transformation of the social production process, which cannot be forced upon the immediate producers but must result from unified collective action. This unity is in turn possible only if the broad masses reject the nonproletarian ideologies which divide them and make possible the reproduction of exploitative relations.

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    The Cultural Revolution represents a form of class struggle that enables the masses to appropriate proletarian ideology, but it is only a stage in a more extensive appropriation process that corresponds to an objective requirement of socialist construction As long as this requirement is not satisfied, or is satisfied only partially, concepts deriving from the ideology of the exploiting class continue to exist. These concepts make it possible to divide the workers and subject them to exploitative relations. They also make possible the reproduction of these relations and the private appropriation by an exploiting class of the means of production and output. This possibility subsists whatever the juridical form assumed by private appropriation -- it may be that of "state ownership" or "collective ownership" and may even include those forms which best dissimulate the exploitative relations, since they represent private appropriation under the guise of its opposite.

    The appropriation by the masses of proletarian ideology is essential insofar as this ideology enables the masses to unify themselves by initiating an analysis of the contradictions, and thus to resolve these contradictions through class struggle. The appropriation by the immediate producers of proletarian ideology enables them to comprehend that the social process of production is not simply a "juxtaposition" of "individual acts," but a collective activity which must be dealt with as such before it can be brought under control. As long as the social process of production cannot be dealt with as a single process by the immediate producers, it is divided into more or less separate elementary processes. The unity of the social process is then maintained through the intervention of agents who are extraneous to production and who, unless subjected to the political leadership of the proletariat expressed in a proletarian dictatorship, constitute a dominant and exploiting class.

    Since the relations through which the unity of the production process is realized appear as "necessary," the ideology of

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the class which dominates the social process of production represents this process as a simple sum of individual or particular processes which can be realized, coordinated, and "perfected" only through the intervention of privileged agents placed above the immediate producers. Both bourgeois ideology and that of the other exploiting classes thus provide an illusory "justification" for modes of production that imply a basic social division -- the division into classes. By creating the illusion that the exploited can "liberate" themselves individually or through isolated actions, this ideology fosters division within the dominated class itself, enabling the dominant class to maintain exploitation and reproduce the social and material conditions essential to exploitation.

    And again, if proletarian politics is not in command in the management of the enterprises, the enterprises are divided among themselves in the same way that the immediate producers are divided among themselves. The dominant factor will then be either market and money relations or a production plan imposed upon the immediate producers from without. In the first case, it is profit which is in command; in the second, production. In both instances, the activity of the immediate producers is in fact subordinated to particular interests and not to the overall interests of the revolution.

    When proletarian politics is not in command, each enterprise tends to promote its own interests rather than the overall interest, whether to make more profit or to realize its "plan." Instead of effectively cooperating among themselves and eventually carrying out more difficult or less "profitable" tasks, the enterprises do their utmost to secure the easiest plan or the most profitable orders. There is much scheming to obtain specific orders and plans, to secure more production facilities, or to have goods of poor quality certified as acceptable. At the same time, the workers, instead of applying themselves to revolutionizing the production relations, are urged to produce a maximum output in the name of their personal interest, individual incentives play a decisive

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role, and the entire incentive system demands supervision, control, and a hierarchical organization which ensures the reproduction of capitalist relations in the enterprises while causing proletarian ideology to wane. Money is then the dominant factor in production as well as in the plan itself.

    Under such conditions the initiative and enthusiasm of the masses are stifled and production can increase only through the accumulation of additional means of production and through technical changes instigated from the top. Accumulation -- the driving force of capitalist extended reproduction -- comes to prevail over the socialist development of the productive forces. The central role of accumulation determines the specific content of the economic plan -- an overriding concern with the need to produce an output that exceeds the consumption of the masses, with the result that the needs of the masses are neglected. This in turn undermines the initiative of the immediate producers and their will to work. Under these conditions the producers must be made to achieve the plan's objectives through a system of individual material reward and repression. Such a system enables a class that is extraneous to the immediate producers to reestablish or extend its control over the workers and consequently to exploit them.

    It must be emphasized that, contrary to the assertions of revisionist ideology, the concern with profit cannot produce results "analagous" to those obtained when proletarian politics is put in the forefront. Ideologically, a preoccupation with profit and the primacy of individual and particular interests are incompatible with proletarian ideology. Politically, the predominance of individual interest is bound to strengthen controls, distrust, and repression. Economically, there is always a contradiction between particular interests and the overall interests of the workers and of the revolution.

    It is an "economist" illusion, analogous to that of "liberalism," to believe that a "system" is possible which can create complete harmony between a preoccupation with individual

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interest and the need to satisfy the overall interest. There are constantly cases when what is most "satisfactory" to a particular enterprise is not satisfactory to the workers as a whole, or in terms of the revolutionization of the production relations, or to the world revolution. There are constantly cases when the need to satisfy the general interest requires individuals or enterprises to make sacrifices. As the Chinese put it, "We must not forget that we ourselves and our enterprise are but part of a whole, and that in carrying out our individual work we must always try to take the whole into consideration."

    In giving priority to proletarian politics the Chinese workers are transforming the enterprises, which have now ceased to be mere "production units" and are becoming interrelated political units, in which the producers are exercising their power, and ideological units. In this connection, Mao Tse-tung has stated that when priority is given to proletarian politics, "management is also socialist education."[6] Putting proletarian politics in command is therefore essential to socialist management of the enterprises, to the development of socialist productive forces, to the growth of the will to struggle, and to the socialist transformation of the producers.

    The Cultural Revolution represents a very important and unprecedented stage along the road of socialist development, but it is no more than a stage. The class struggle is far from finished and the struggle between the two lines continues. Accordingly, criticism and campaigns to rectify the work style of the new organizations are constantly necessary. Without such criticism and campaigns there is the inevitable risk that these organizations may move away from the socialist road. In August 1967, Mao Tse-tung stressed his belief that several cultural revolutions will be necessary:

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The present Great Cultural Revolution is only the first of its kind. There will of necessity be several of these revolutions in the future. The question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, requires a very long historical period before it can be settled. If the struggle is not waged successfully, the restoration of capitalism will remain a constant possibility.

    On rereading the preceding pages, I find that they throw insufficient light on the fact that the transformations in the social relationships brought about by the Cultural Revolution did not result from "spontaneous" mass action inspired by the illusory views of the "ideology of spontaneity," but from mass action aided by the political guidelines of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary line, and from the activities of the workers, peasants, cadres, etc., who adhered to this line. These guidelines and activities alone made it possible to concentrate the correct initiatives of the workers, and enabled the Chinese masses to unify their struggles and to define the objectives they had to attain before they could hope to overcome a bourgeois line and social relationships that obstruct China's progress along the road to socialism.

    Insofar as I did not adequately elucidate the active role of the revolutionary line and failed to provide sufficient historical data regarding the conditions under which it challenged the bourgeois line, the wrong impression may have been created that the social transformations in question were the "assured" outcome of favorable objective conditions alone. Such a view would obscure the scope and complexity of the struggles which the Chinese masses had to wage against the bourgeois line, under both its revisionist and "ultra-leftist" guises.

    To gain a better understanding of the struggles that occurred during the Cultural Revolution it should be kept in

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mind that although the contradictions which the Cultural Revolution made it possible to resolve -- thus helping China to advance along the road to socialism -- were indeed objective conditions, the Cultural Revolution nevertheless became an effective force only because the masses had been summoned to action by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (notably through the decision of the Central Committee, "Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," adopted on August 8, 1966, and through the communique of the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Central Committee, adopted on August 12, 1966), and it came to have a profound impact only insofar as the Chinese masses appropriated the revolutionary ideas of Marxism. It should also be recalled that the implementation of the revolutionary line was impeded by the presence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas among the masses themselves. If these ideas had not been prevalent among the masses, the bourgeois line could have mobilized only the handful of people who stood to gain from its victory.

    The Cultural Revolution, therefore, should be viewed as a stage in the struggle between the proletarian line of the Chinese Communist Party and the bourgeois line. This stage has its particular characteristics, to be sure; but the struggle itself continues -- it existed before the Cultural Revolution and is destined to continue as long as the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideas continue to exist, and as long as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat continue to confront each other. These points will become clearer if a number of crucial considerations are kept in mind.

    If proletariat and bourgeoisie continue to exist under the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is because capitalist relations (which are the objective foundation of both bourgeoisie and proletariat) do not simply vanish when the proletarian revolution occurs, or even when socialist forms of ownership come to prevail. Because of the continued existence of these capitalist relations, the workers continue to be partially sepa-

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rated from the means of production and a minority retains the possibility of determining the employment of the means of production. The basic objective of the proletarian line is precisely to destroy both capitalist relations and the classes based on these relations. This objective can be attained only through the revolutionary transformation of social relations as a whole -- political and ideological as well as production relations.

    The basic objective of the bourgeois line is to maintain class divisions through the preservation and, if possible, development of capitalist relations. The activities inspired by the bourgeois line pursue this objective regardless of what the adherents of this line, especially ordinary workers, "think" this objective represents. And because of the very nature of the class relations and of the class struggle determined by these relations, the bourgeois line presents itself in two seemingly contradictory aspects.

    One aspect has a rather obvious conservative character. Its adherents advocate "postponing" all new changes in the social relations until "the productive forces are sufficiently developed"; in the meantime they proclaim the need for "economic efficiency," which in turn is said to require a special kind of discipline. In China, this aspect of the bourgeois line corresponded to Liu Shao-chi's line. Since it has been frequently analyzed, among others by Jean Daubier in Histoire de la révolution culturelle prolétarienne en Chine which I have already cited, I will not dwell on this point.

    The other aspect of the bourgeois line presents itself under the guise of its "opposite," with the result that its conservative character is obscured and only a careful analysis of its slogans and practices can elucidate its true class character. This second aspect of the bourgeois line corresponds to the "ultra-leftist" line and was very widespread during the Cultural Revolution. This postscript is intended primarily to provide some particulars and to present a few facts and re-

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flections concerning the activities of the proponents of this line, which have given rise to a great deal of confusion.

    The ultra-leftist line advanced two kinds of slogans. On the one hand it pushed measures that did not correspond to the needs and possibilities of the moment, thus trying to represent a secondary contradiction as a principal contradiction and dividing the workers by presenting them with objectives that cannot be realized at the moment. On the other hand -- and this was more important -- it launched petty-bourgeois slogans corresponding to the guise which bourgeois ideology assumes when it is operative among the masses. These slogans obstruct viable transformations by presenting the masses with objectives that appear "radical" but do not lead in the direction of a real transformation of social relationships. In the long run these slogans tend to disarm, discourage, and divide the masses. Ultra-leftist activity undermined the revolutionary unity of the masses with respect to many other questions as well; for instance, it tried to force some people's communes to abandon the practice of making payment reflect the amount of work done, or immediately and completely to give up private individual plots of land and farming, before they were ready for this.

    In order to understand how the bourgeois line manifested itself under its ultra-leftist guise during the Cultural Revolution, we must briefly recall some of the measures and forms of action advanced by this line, so that they may be compared with the slogans and activities of the proletarian line.

    Whereas the proletarian line waged an ideological class struggle designed to enable the masses to appropriate the ideas and analyses of Marxism-Leninism, and those who were the targets of criticism to understand their errors and rectify them, the ultra-left resorted whenever possible to personal attacks, humiliation sessions, and even physical violence. On

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July 29, 1967, I witnessed such a humiliation session at the Shanghai Iron and Steel Institute. I thought at the time that this represented an isolated case without wider political implications. When I visited this Institute again in 1971, 1 learned that these humiliation sessions had been initiated by adherents of the ultra-left, that they had been numerous, and that they had eventually resulted in the use of physical violence. Work at the Institute was paralyzed for months and resumed after the leading member of the ultra-left at the Institute had been expelled; the person in question, incidentally, was not a worker but an intellectual.

    Under the conditions then prevailing in China, the substitution of personal attacks, humiliation sessions, and violence for ideological class struggle was characteristic of a bourgeois line. Whereas the criticism of false ideas helps the masses to gain increasing understanding of what is correct and what false -- of what corresponds to the interests of the revolution and to their own -- personal attacks cannot possibly achieve this essential end. Rather than helping their targets to rectify errors, these attacks discourage rectification, especially when they represent simple administrative mistakes, or even acts in no way to be faulted, as grave political errors.[1]

    Above all, personal attacks tend to direct the attention of the masses to facts that are not essential, such as a person's past, and divert their attention from what is essential -- false and correct ideas and their origins, the social relationships and social practices in which these ideas are rooted and which must be transformed. In launching personal attacks the ultra-left made extensive use of the "biographical" method, which consisted in accumulating particulars concerning every party member's life history. This diverted the attention of the masses from the analysis of ideas and easily observable prac-

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tices, and tried to undermine their efforts at analysis by getting them to wait passively for the "revelations" supposedly contained in "secret documents."

    The substitution of personal attacks for ideological class struggle corresponds to a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois practice and therefore pursues specific political ends. In resorting to these practices the ultra-left sought to achieve two complementary ends: the replacement of experienced and dedicated revolutionary cadres with its own people; and the preservation of existing social relationships. It correspondingly advanced the notion that it is more important to replace one person with another than to revolutionize prevailing social relationships. During 1967 the ultra-left openly advocated a "life-and-death struggle" in the style of "dragging out Peng into broad daylight" and "beating the dog in the water."[2] This shows clearly that the ultra-left was concerned not with transforming social relationships but with personalizing on-going struggles.

    During the latter half of 1967 the proponents of the revolutionary line increasingly insisted on the need to wage a twofold campaign -- first, to "completely discredit the handful of party persons in authority taking the capitalist road," and second, to "carry to success the struggle-criticism transformation in the respective units,"[3] in other words, to struggle for the transformation of social relationships. The ultra-left, for its part, continued to speak only of criticisms and condemnations, which enabled it to ignore the task of revolutionizing the social relationships.[4]

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materialism and Marxism, where ideas, whether correct or false, "do not fall from the sky," but derive from practice and always have a class character.

    To be sure, it is not under the simplistic guise of ideas that "fall from the sky" that the ultra-left could permit itself to advance its idealist concepts. It does not represent self-interest as a "natural human trait," as does traditional bourgeois idealism, but as a remnant of capitalism supposedly surviving only "in people's minds." A 1967 Hongqi editorial stated

    The core of the system of ideas of the exploiting classes is egoism, selfishness. As a result of the thousands of years of existence of the system of private ownership, such egoism has a deep-rooted influence. The old social system has been eliminated, but as our great leader Chairman Mao has observed, "Invariably, remnants of old ideas reflecting the old system remain in people's minds for a long time, and they do not easily give way." The bourgeoisie makes use of precisely this trash to corrupt the masses and the younger generation, to try to conquer the hearts of the people, and to fight against the proletariat.[8]

    The unqualified assertion that "the old social system has been eliminated" implies that classes and their ideology can no longer have any roots in the present ; this makes the ideological remnants themselves incomprehensible, and, above all, sets only a "moral target" for the masses and not a political target as well -- the destruction of the social relationships that underlie the existence, practices, and ideas of the bourgeoisie. Consequently, the assertion that the only ideas that survive were produced by bourgeois relations which have already been eliminated leaves the bourgeois relations themselves intact. This view is identical with that of Liu Shao-chi, who also singled out the task of "hunting down" mistaken ideas.

    The ultra-left not only helps maintain the persisting bourgeois relations by denying that they exist, but also obstructs

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the struggle against selfishness. Such a struggle is necessary in that it is an essential stage in an ideological struggle the aim of which is not the illusory immediate and total destruction of selfishness, but the concrete confrontation of this quality within the framework of an ideological revolution that clears the way for economic, material transformations which alone can make it possible to consolidate the proletarian ideology. The materialist view of history clearly shows that progress in the direction of a classless society requires the continuous transformation of the objective relations and of ideology through successive stages of offensive and consolidation. In advancing abstract and idealist slogans, the ultra-left actually implements a bourgeois line under a "leftist" guise.

    It may be useful to compare the ultra-leftist and revolutionary positions with respect to this question. The views of the revolutionary line are stated with great clarity in a recent article in Hongqi entitled "Why Is It Necessary to Study Political Economy?" The article contains the following passage:

    In socialist society, the production relations and the productive forces, as well as the superstructure and the economic base, are at one and the same time in accord (this is the basic feature) and in contradiction. The socialist relations of production correspond to the development of the productive forces, but they are not yet perfect, and this imperfection is in contradiction with the development of the productive forces. The socialist superstructure corresponds to the economic base, but it still contains insufficiencies that are in contradiction with the socialist economic base. In particular, the capitalist factors in the relations of production and in the domain of the superstructure impede the development of the productive forces, weaken and even undermine the socialist economic base. The proletariat and other laboring masses desirous of taking the socialist road always demand the continuous transformation of those aspects of the production relations and the superstructure that do not correspond, respectively, to the productive forces and the economic base, so that the socialist relations of production and the socialist super-

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advocated was not the concrete transformation of work regulations -- the transformation of the codified forms of the production relations and division of labor -- but the illusory elimination of any regulation whatever with respect to work safety, attendance, quality control, etc.

    In making this demand the ultra-left pursued several objectives. In proposing an unattainable goal -- the elimination of all rules -- rather than a realistic goal -- the effective socialist transformation of the social relations and of the rules by which they are "codified" -- the ultra-left in fact obstructed the attainment of the viable goal. Furthermore, by opposing the socialist transformation of the division of labor and indefinitely prolonging a struggle pursuing an illusory goal, it helped disorganize production and violate the slogan "grasp revolution, promote production," and tended to discredit the Cultural Revolution in the eyes of the masses, who were getting weary of endless discussions and confrontations and of their destructive effects on production and everyday life. The ultra-left mobilized mass dissatisfaction with bourgeois work regulations and at the same time diverted it by encouraging its petty-bourgeois rather than proletarian aspects. It did this in various ways, but principally by legitimizing "private" discontent and sanctioning the view that individuals should not work unless they feel like it. Such a notion, of course, has nothing in common with communism -- it reflects the distorted ideas of "communism" as it is construed by the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

    Through its activities and slogans the ultra-left placed numerous obstacles in the path of victory for the revolutionary line. The masses and revolutionary cadres of the Chinese Communist Party overcame these obstacles because they were able to develop proletarian practices inspired by the revolutionary line and Mao Tse-tung's instructions. These instructions summed up the lessons to be drawn from both the creative initiatives of the masses and the destructive practices of the ultra-left; they gave concrete indications re-

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garding the real goal to be pursued -- the struggle against the capitalist division of labor -- and the means to be used to that end -- the elimination of "unreasonable rules," especially through the institution of three-in-one combinations under the leadership of the working class.

    When the masses had appropriated these guidelines, particularly by fully assimilating the revolutionary content of the May 16 directive, they were able to overcome ultra-leftist opposition to the effective transformation of production relations. The ultra-left then suffered its first major defeat, but it retained some of the organizational influence it had gained by promoting the petty-bourgeois aspect of mass aspirations, an approach that had enabled it to disregard the revolutionary and proletarian aspect of these same mass aspirations.

    The same opposition between the proletarian orientation of the revolutionary line and the petty-bourgeois orientation of the ultra-left was evident in regard to the question of wages. For the adherents of the proletarian line the basic task is the most thorough possible elimination of material incentive, for they strengthen the workers' (individualist) bourgeois relationships to their work. For the ultra-left, on the contrary, the basic task was the restructuring of the entire wage system.

    Although the revolutionary line also poses the question of restructuring the wage system (a concern which led to decisive changes through the elimination of the material incentive denounced by the masses, the simplification of a complex wage structure which divided the workers, etc.), it does not view this as a basic and immediate problem. Proceeding from a Marxist viewpoint, it holds that, as Marx said, distribution relations are always "the reverse side of the production relations." This is precisely why the proletarian line stresses the crucial importance of revolutionizing the production rather than the distribution relations, for it is illusory to believe that the latter can be revolutionized as long as the production relations remain unchanged.

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    For the proletarian line, moreover, the goal of the revolution is communism, that is, the elimination of the wage system itself. The transition period must therefore prepare the way for the elimination of wage relations, not only by revolutionizing production relations, but by developing forms of distribution that provide compensation for existing inequalities (with respect to physical strength, health, etc.) by means other than wages. In fact, compensating these inequalities by means of wages tends to prolong the existence of the wage form; this is why it is preferable whenever possible to resort to compensations corresponding to collective forms of distribution and deriving from sources "outside" the wage relations; such is the case when canteens, day-care centers, health services, etc., are made increasingly available.

    By its unqualified stress on egalitarianism in the area of wages, the ultra-left tended, in fact, to strengthen the wage form. It further evidenced the bourgeois character of its views when it tried, often successfully, to establish political attitude as the criterion of payment for members of people's communes. This was a kind of "material incentive" to take a political position. A political position, however, can be revolutionary only if it derives from class reasons and not from personal interest. The general application of this practice would have "resulted in the gradual transformation of the advanced political and ideological views of a vanguard into growing privileges for a minority," and in the "encouragement of political opportunists . . . always spouting 'the correct line' . . . this could easily lead to the gradual substitution of ostentatious conduct for collectivist attitudes, for a political attitude must be noticeable before it can be praised and remunerated. Hence, the obvious risk that the external manifestations of the revolutionary spirit will assume increasing importance."[11]

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workers for the study of Marxism-Leninism and not to divert them from this purpose. In practice, however, the ultra-left did its utmost to dissuade the masses from the study of Marxism-Leninism, particularly (and this is only apparently paradoxical) by proclaiming "the absolute authority of Mao Tse-tung Thought." They could thus say that Chairman Mao's instructions must be carried out regardless of whether or not their full significance was understood.

    The ultra-left diverted the workers from serious study by enjoining them to obey mindlessly. This was contrary to what Mao Tse-tung himself had said: "Communists must always go into the whys and wherefores of anything . . . on no account should they follow blindly and encourage slavishness." Here too, the ultra-left merely adopted the substance of Liu Shao-chi's line, which also advocated "blind discipline," although in a different guise. Similarly, the cult of personality fostered by the ultra-left tended to undermine the people's confidence in Chairman Mao and encourage blind obedience to any directive allegedly emanating from him. This approach would in the long run have led to extensive manipulation of the masses.

    Ultra-leftist opposition to the appropriation by the workers of Marxism-Leninism was evident in the following statement: "Mao Tse-tung's thought is Marxism-Leninism at a higher level of development. In our era, the study of Mao Tse-tung's thought is the best way to study Marxism-Leninism."[14] This was tantamount to saying that the study of Marxism-Leninism was an obsolete and unnecessary task and that it was pointless to engage in serious study of historical materialism, dialectical materialism, and the basic works of Marxism-Leninism.

    Since the political defeat of the ultra-left, the basic works of Marxism and Leninism are again being widely disseminated; what is equally important, mass study of these

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works has been strongly encouraged with a view to helping the workers "distinguish between true Marxism and false Marxism." The Chinese press is publishing an increasing number of articles by workers and cadres explaining how they are benefiting from serious study of Marxism-Leninism, and why they regard such study as necessary. The following was written by a worker-cadre:

    A worker-cadre like me has deep class sentiments for the Party and Chairman Mao as well as experience in my work, but simple class sentiments cannot replace consciousness in the struggle between the two lines and pure practical experience cannot replace Marxism-Leninism. If I should overlook the importance of studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought, which is a summing-up of the experience of the world revolution and the Chinese revolution, I cannot avoid committing empiricist errors. Although direct experience gained from practice reflects a certain reality of the objective world, it is only perceptual knowledge and the reflection is superficial, partial and incomplete.[15]

The last sentence is aimed at another ultra-leftist tendency -- to disarm the masses by one-sidedly stressing the importance of direct knowledge and advocating empiricism and spontaneism, and thus to strengthen bourgeois ideology and confuse the workers.

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practice for the national and international historic practice of the masses -- a practice that must be systematized and synthesized before it can be assimilated through study. In sanctioning such a substitution, the ultra-left encouraged empiricism and tended to deprive the Chinese masses of the experience deriving from the history of national and international class struggles. When it has no access to this experience -- which is summed up in the works of Marxism-Leninism and kept alive through the action of the proletarian party -- the revolutionary movement is bound to regress, thus strengthening the bourgeoisie with respect to the proletariat.

    Throughout the Cultural Revolution the revolutionary line combated ultra-leftist activities fostering empiricism. As these activities came under increasing attack by the revolutionary line, this bourgeois ideological tendency began to lose its impact.

    There can be no question of a "definitive victory," of course; that the struggle continues is evidenced by a number of recent articles in the Chinese press, notably by the article cited earlier, "Overcoming Empiricism," which contains the following remarks:

    We would commit mistakes of empiricism if we regard direct experience as something absolute and rigid -- using partial experience as an unalterable formula and applying it everywhere, using old experience to look at new things which have developed and changed, or overrating our partial experience and underrating or even denying the correct experience of others. . . . The realm of practical activity is extremely wide, but the scope of an individual's practice is always limited. While we attach importance to direct experience gained from personal practice, we should also treasure the creations of the masses, be good at making investigations and study, and learn with an open mind from other people's experience. Only thus can we do our work well. . . . One cannot have direct experience in everything. Actually most knowledge comes from indirect experience. If anyone believes only in himself and sets his personal experience against the masses' and direct experience against indirect, he will also commit empiricist

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    The contradiction between the empiricism and spontaneism of the ultra-left (what could be called its assertion of "the absolute authority of the masses") and its dogmatism (expressed in its affirmation of "the absolute authority of Mao Tse-tung Thought") is an apparent one. In each instance the intended purpose is the same -- to deny the necessity of studying Marxism-Leninism, to deny the role of theory and the party as indispensable instruments for helping the masses to distinguish between correct ideas and false ideas and thus to unify their activities. In each instance the ultra-leftist formulations help weaken and divide the workers. The empiricism and spontaneism of the "ultra-left" are further testimony to the bourgeois character of its political line.

    The temporary and partial successes achieved by the ultra-left delayed the victory of the revolutionary line. They sowed confusion insofar as the apparent "radicalism" of the ultra-left created the false impression that it represented a genuine left current. The ambiguous character of ultra-leftist practices and assertions manifested itself at several levels.

    Tactically, of course, the ultra-left did not openly proclaim itself as a specific independent current. It sought to assume the guise of an authentically Marxist-Leninist revolutionary tendency; it dissimulated its real character by interweaving its own assertions, which reveal its true class character, with Marxist-Leninist concepts and Mao Tse-tung's writings. This mixture of Marxist and revolutionary formulations and bourgeois and petty-bourgeois practices marked the real class character of the ultra-left and enabled it to deceive some workers and infiltrate the organs of power.

    There is no doubt that the strictly ultra-leftist slogans quite often met with a favorable response among the laboring masses. During the transition period, in fact, the aspirations of the workers may have a twofold character. Insofar as they continue to be marked by the objective division of the masses (deriving from the reproduction of bourgeois relationships, the continued existence of capitalist factors, etc.), the

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workers retain a petty-bourgeois, individualist, and idealist character. At the same time, they also reflect a desire to transform the world; in other words, they also correspond to a revolutionary will. The ultra-left accordingly adapted its empiricism, spontaneism, and dogmatism to the petty-bourgeois aspect of mass aspirations. This elicited a response which became even more extensive when the ultra-left adopted some of the formulations of the proletarian line.

    It was only after they had gained first-hand experience in the course of protracted, complex struggles and benefited from the assistance provided by the adherents of the proletarian line that workers influenced by the ultra-left learned to distinguish between two opposing sets of assertions: those the ultra-left had borrowed from the revolutionary line, without translating them into practice; and those whose "radicalism" was in no way revolutionary since they did not aim at genuine change but merely substituted "life-and-death struggles" and personal attacks for a real struggle to transform social relationships, in keeping with the authentic aspirations of the revolutionary masses.

    Another factor also contributed to the temporary and limited successes of the ultra-left. The initial phase of the Cultural Revolution was marked chiefly by struggle and criticism and since the revisionist guise of the bourgeois line was then the focus of attack, the ultra-leftist position appeared to be closely associated or even identical with the revolutionary line. Even during this phase, the differences between the revolutionary and ultra-leftist lines were as profound and pervasive as at any other time (since they bear on the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat), but they were temporarily relegated to a subordinate place, even though they were apparent in numerous publications and statements. A careful examination of these publications makes this quite clear.

    But after the first phase of the Cultural Revolution -- once the revisionist line had suffered major defeats and new rela-

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tionships had to be developed -- the bourgeois character of the ultra-leftist line (which fostered the old relationships) compelled it to abandon its apparent affinity with the revolutionary line. The struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois lines then turned into an increasingly explicit struggle between a revolutionary line and an ultra-leftist line.

    During the initial phase of the Cultural Revolution the ultra-left had acquired a mass base among radicalized university and middle school students. As long as the struggle focused primarily on the superstructure -- on the ideological apparatuses, universities, research institutes, etc. -- the power of these radicalized youths was relatively significant. The student milieu witnessed a profuse growth of sharply contending rival ultra-leftist groups. On August 13, 1971, I had a conversation with the revolutionary committee of Peita (Peking) University, during which a young committee member characterized the activities of the ultra-left after the collapse of Liu Shao-chi's line as those of a clique which had tried to divide the revolutionary ranks: "The fact that we, young students, lacked social experience and had an undeveloped world outlook enabled these class enemies to infiltrate our ranks." He then pointed out that in June 1967 armed struggle erupted at the university, which paralyzed the Cultural Revolution. The struggles came to an end only after a workers' team arrived at the university. He added: "After we had gained this practical experience, we realized that we could not depend exclusively on the students and faculty to advance the cause of the Cultural Revolution . . . that we could not do anything without the aid of the workers and peasants."

    As the focus of struggle shifted to the factories, thereby creating a vast upsurge of working-class political activity, this social base of the ultra-left became increasingly less important. When the working class finally intervened directly in the universities, middle schools, research institutes, etc., the influence of the ultra-left declined sharply. Working-class intervention led to growing mass unity around the revolutionary

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line. As the ultra-left became isolated, it was driven to dissimulate its real aims and resort to personal attacks.

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they found it, and still find it, difficult to understand that the ultra-left, which they confused with the revolutionary line and which played such a prominent role in Chinese political life, should have collapsed so suddenly. The explanation, however, is quite simple -- as soon as the Chinese workers had grasped its true class character, the ultra-left was bound to lose its mass base.

    The political collapse of the ultra-left certainly had serious consequences for those of its adherents who refused to admit their errors and tried to engage in conspiratorial activities, but historically these consequences -- which were seized upon exclusively by the "serious" (bourgeois) press -- are but the secondary effects of the disintegration of ultra-leftist influence.

    Nevertheless, the ultra-left, as we have already indicated, did not suffer a "definitive and total" defeat. The proletarian line will inevitably continue to be faced with a bourgeois line whose revisionist and ultra-leftist manifestations may well assume new guises. Such confrontations are the inescapable outcome of a class struggle which during the transition period is rooted in the continued existence of bourgeois relationships; these in turn can be eradicated and superseded by new relationships only in the course of successive revolutionary struggles. This is why other cultural revolutions will be required to continue the task initiated by the first one.

    As I have indicated earlier, some familiarity with the main features of the struggle between the two lines, and particularly the struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line under its ultra-leftist guise, is indispensable for an understanding of the most recent phase of the Cultural Revolution, and especially of the ideological and political conditions under which the social transformations effected by the Cultural Revolution could be realized. Although the class struggle which has been unfolding in China since 1966 is not yet understood in all its aspects and will have to be fully evaluated by the Chinese themselves, the conclusions pre-

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sented here are readily verifiable through a careful examination of material published in China (and available in translation) since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. It is also possible that the Chinese Communist Party has made a more extensive evaluation than would appear from published material, for many of the discussions that have taken place in China and the conclusions drawn from them are not necessarily made accessible in publications destined for foreign dissemination. Furthermore, insofar as the overwhelming majority of former ultra-leftists had made honest mistakes and have since recognized their errors, the ideological struggle against this line assumes specific forms. Judging by available information, this struggle appears to be characterized by the predominance of critical analysis of some of the ideological themes of the ultra-left, and not by a systematic, overall critique of the ultra-left as such. If such is indeed the case, this is undoubtedly due to the fact that the ultra-left never, represented itself as a unified current, since it was itself divided into factions and more or less contradictory tendencies, and that an ideological struggle waged in this manner offers the greatest possibility for preserving the unity of both the party and the masses, this being a constant concern for the Chinese Communist Party.