Left communism in China
In the
Beginning of the concept
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The "ultra-left" argued for a change to the system of organization prevalent in the Cultural Revolution. While they agreed with the revolutionary goals of the "Revolutionary Committees", they worried that these new committees contained only the same old organizational structure. In this sense, they drew on a classical Maoist concern with the persistence of capitalist prerogatives or "bourgeois right".[1] The masses could achieve democratic control over production and distribution only through "a new political power of the Paris Commune type".[2]
When the central Maoist leaders launched the GPCR in the spring of 1966, they launched a campaign for students and academics to criticize "
Although the 16 Points called on not only students but also "the masses of the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres" to carry out this struggle and although it encouraged activists to "institute a system of general elections, like that of the Paris Commune, for electing members to the Cultural Revolutionary groups and committees and delegates to the Cultural Revolutionary congresses", this and other proof of the central Maoist leaders made clear that this was to be wen (文) struggle rather than a wu (武) struggle. The leaders used these terms to emphasize that "martial" (wu) or physical violence should be avoided in favor of "verbal" (wen) struggle (
When in late 1966 over a million workers in Shanghai extended their activism into a
It was out of this momentary radicalization of GPCR mass politics and its sudden suppression and redirection that the ultra-left currents were born under the direct order from Zhou Enlai, first independently within rebel groups scattered throughout China, then by late 1967 in increasing dialogue until their suppression during the following years. The earliest record GPCR scholar Wang Shaoguang has found of something resembling an ultra-left position is an open letter from two high school students to Lin Biao, published under the pseudonym Yilin-Dixi in November 1966.[5]
The Shengwulian was a self-styled ultraleft group,[6] and was the GPCR's most famous such group.[7] It sought to emulate the Paris Commune as the historical example of popular power and argued that China's "new bureaucratic bourgeoisie" would have to be destroyed to establish a genuinely egalitarian society.[8] The group's significant political writings include its Program and Yang Xiguang's "Whither China?" [9] Whither China? argued that the central conflict in China during the Cultural Revolution was not between Mao Zedong's proponents and opponents, or between the proletariat and the former wealthy, but instead between the masses and a "Red capitalist class" that was "decadent" and impeding historical progress.[10]
See also
- Anarchism in China
- Mao-Spontex
- Maoism
Notes
- ^ For a paradigmatic example of "ultraleftist" political philosophy, certainly the most well known and widely discussed, one can see "Whither China?" by Yang Xiguang.
- ^ "Whither China?"
- ^ Marx Engels Lenin On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. People's Press. February 1975. pp. 1–2.
- ^ Mao Zedong, "Talks at Three Meetings with Comrades Chang Ch’un-ch’iao and Yao Wen-yuan", Selected Works, Volume 9.
- ^ Wang Shaoguang. 1999. "'New Trends of Thought' on China's Cultural Revolution". Journal of Contemporary China, 8:21, 3.
- OCLC 881183403.
- S2CID 143570883.
- OCLC 881183403.
- )
- ^ "Whither China?". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
Further reading
- The 70s Collective, ed. 1996. China: The Revolution is Dead, Long Live the Revolution. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
- Chen Erjin. 1984. Crossroads Socialism: An Unofficial Manifesto for Proletarian Democracy. Trans. Robin Munro. London: Verso.
- Mehnert, Klaus, ed. 1969. Peking and the New Left: At Home and Abroad. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Meisner, Maurice. 1999. Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic, Third Edition. New York: The Free Press.
- Wang Shaoguang. 1995. The Failure of Charisma: The Cultural Revolution in Wuhan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
External links
- Communist Left on China
- "The rise and suppression of the 'ultra-left' in the Chinese cultural revolution" by Pete Brown
- "'New Trends of Thought' on the Cultural Revolution" by Wang Shaoguang
- "Rethinking 'Capitalist Restoration' in China" by Yiching Wu
- 宋永毅、孙大进编. 1997. 《文化大革命中的异端思潮》. 香港:田园书屋.
- 《特权论》(《论无产阶级民主革命》),陈泱潮(陈尔晋)著
- 《从阶级关系反思中国的“资本主义复辟”》,吴一庆著
- 《“文革”为什么结束?》,韩少功 (陈益南《一个工人的"文革"》的序言)