CULTURAL REVOLUTION: IN SEARCH OF A MAOIST MODEL By EDWIN F. JONES I. INTRODUCTION-POLICIES AND POLITICS Over the past 23 years the PRC has initiated a significant process of economic development. A self-sustaining dynamics of growth has been established, as the PRC has acquired the capacity to save, invest, and develop its technology and human resources. The government accepts the fostering of economic growth as a central objective, and the people are conditioned to participate in and adjust to the imperatives of economic growth. Still, economic growth has been erratic. Rapid growth has been the norm, but it has been periodically disrupted by political upheavals. The result has been a rather low average growth rate, as shown by the following data (average annual GNP growth rates 1): The PRC has argued that these political movements were necessary to secure an egalitarian and dedicated revolutionary society, but the cost should be noted. Had the PRC maintained an average annual growth rate of 8 percent, or even 6 percent, over the 19 year period, its per capita GNP would be double or half again higher, respectively, what it is today. It is difficult to speak of a Chinese model of development, for the PRC has followed varied economic strategies. At first, Chinese leaders hoped over an 18 year period to follow the path and pace of the USSR, which in its initial industrialization raised the urban share of the Soviet population from 18 percent in 1926 to 33 percent in 1938. In China the lack of a farm surplus and Stalin's refusal of massive credits at the 1952-53 aid negotiations dashed these hopes. The USSR did, however, agree to support a respectable industrial program paid for currently through Chinese exports, and during 1950-57 the PRC employed a modified Soviet model, adopting Soviet organiza 1 See Ashbrook, supra, p. 5, for GNP estimates. tional methods and concentrating on the construction of a complete modern industrial complex. However, Mao independently seized on the notion that an alleged vast reservoir of under-employed rural labor could be mobilized politically to accelerate economic growth and restore a revolutionary atmosphere to the bulk of society left untouched by the capital-intensive industrialization. Against the nearly unanimous opposition of his top lieutenants, he pushed through collectivization and socialization during 1955-56. But by 1957 the disruptions of this program had loosed bitter criticism and were seemingly forcing major retrench ments. Mao was stung into doubling his bets, launching in 1958 a total political mobilization of Chinese society through communes and the Leap Forward. Technical and fiscal controls were largely abandoned in the political drive. There was brief, heady talk of achieving an economic miracle in a few years, such as an annual steel output of 40 million tons and an urban population of 200 million. Instead, the Leap Forward disintegrated into chaos, and ended in mid-1960 with a collapse of farm output, massive economic imbalances, and the Soviet Union contemptuously washing its hands of responsibility of China's industrialization. In the ensuing crisis, China's leaders hammered out a new 20-year strategy stretching to 1980, which placed great stress on rational techniques and technology. The goal was to regain economic balance, attain a marked degree of independent self-sufficiency, and restore conditions for renewed rapid industrialization and urbanization. The initial task for the 1960s was to raise farm output and to elevate industrial technology, a prerequisite to regain social stability and to secure a domestically-based recovery of industrial output. For this purpose, the planners chose to concentrate resources in the most efficient bases, the rich farm areas and the old industrial cities. The plans proposed that, as these bases developed surpluses, development would be extended to other areas of China in the 1970s, but selectively along lines dictated by economic considerations. The initial results of the strategy were dramatically successful. By 1964, a satisfactory growth of farm output had been secured at low cost, firmly rooted in the supply of industrial inputs to agriculture. Technological developments permitted a rapid recovery of industrial output during 1964-66, with extreme sophistication found in certain areas, such as advanced weapons. But the very success of the strategy apparently turned Mao against it. As in the 1950's, he found economic development becoming the preserve of technical bureaucracies and touching only a small share of China's population. His lieutenants and much of the Party were increasingly convinced that improved techniques rather than revolution would secure China's future. The "socialist education campaign," the counterpart of politics to the economic program, was being carefully circumscribed at every turn to prevent social disruption, and accordingly was ineffective. As the Third Five-Year Plan (1966-70) approached, Mao apparently believed he had to take drastic action to change China's political course before it became irretrievably congealed. In 1966 Chairman Mao precipitated the Cultural Revolution which has shaken up China's politics and society as it has wound a tortuous way through a radical phase, a military government phase, and now possibly a more relaxed phase seeking a return to normal political processes. How has it changed China's strategy and what are its prospects? To gain some insight on this question we may examine Mao's thought or his requirements, the changing appreciation of China's situation as seen through the three successive phases of the Cultural Revolution, and altered social and economic conditions. A. Mao's Thought Mao's beliefs can be related to his nature and experience. A charismatic leader, skilled politician, and shrewd judge of men, he has tended to rationalize an ideal world that would provide full scope (for the use of these talents. He has come to view institutions, such as bureaucracies and incentive systems designed to guide men's activity and to chart and administer the nation's course, as instruments which might appeal to lesser nations and insecure leaders but which inevitably defend the status quo and are non-revolutionary. The higher organization he prescribes for China emphasizes political persuasion and direct communication between the political leaders and the masses, to the exclusion of an intervening bureaucracy. Political movements reveal the thought of the masses, and national decisions are based, not on a bureaucrat's calculations, but on political judgments of the enthusiasm and understanding of the masses. These beliefs developed and strengthened in over two decades of rule. In the 1950s he was obliged to give lip service to the bureaucratic Soviet model, and to present his later aberrations of collectivization before mechanization and of communes as Asian adaptations of this model. In the 1960s, freed from this inhibition and under compulsion to defend the Chinese brand of socialism against that of the Soviets, he organized his analysis systematically in an exchange of letters with the CPSU. These latters spelled out precisely where, in Mao's view, the USSR had strayed from the path of revolution and had become "revisionist," and constituted a commitment that China would not follow this path. Mao appears to have been the despair of the economic planners. He seems to have been bored by the economic affairs, and by his own testimony did not involve himself deeply in economic work for 13 of the 16 years of PRC existence up to 1966. Yet in this period he has brought to a halt two soundly functioning economic programs and strategies. His calculus differs from the planners. He is not concerned with the return on invested resources, but rather with how many people were affected and how it did alter their thinking. His predilection for political campaigns disrupts orderly development. Mao's lieutenants in charge of practical affairs have attempted to influence him in various ways with limited success. After over 35 years of Party rule, Mao's leadership has become institutionalized and unchallengeable. He is a proud man, and his enormous political successes have justified the extension of the normal large ego of a political leader to a mystic sense of destiny. Liu Shao-ch'i's efforts to deflect Mao in the early 1960's through bureaucratic footdragging, noncooperation, and subtle alteration of directives led eventually to Mao's destruction of Liu's party bureaucracy in the Cultural Revolution. Peng Teh-huai's direct confrontation and criticism in 1959 to halt the "Great Leap" proved fruitless and may have prolonged the "Great Leap." Chen Yun criticized Peng's approach as impetuous and counterproductive, arguing that the proper way to influence Mao was to provide him the facts and let him make his own decision. Chen believed that Mao, unchallenged, would have terminated the "Great Leap" on his own accord on receiving the 1959 harvest estimates. Chen's point highlights a certain flexibility on Mao's part. Mao's commitment is to a revolutionary style or process, and not to any program or fixed end. Mao's campaigns are begun for vague ends where the political opportunities lie, assume form and purpose in the course of the drive which may be quite altered from the original aim, and are terminated when the political profit wanes without any compulsion to reach fixed goals. In short, Mao is a practical politician who knows when to fish and when to cut bait. There is some reason to suspect that Mao's conflict with the economic planners may be less acute in the future than in the past. The political campaign of the Cultural Revolution is now over, and the harshness of its initial aims has moderated. As in the early 1960's, Mao seems likely to accept political compromises to restore a stable government, and to refrain for some time from controversial drives which might strain its fabric. At the same time, the economic program of the future may be more to his liking, since it seems likely to extend more broadly over the population in an emphasis on farm development, a slow improvement of living standards, and possibly renewed urban growth. Such a program could generate political support and enthusiasm, in which Mao's requirements and the planners' objectives may tend to converge. B. Search for the Maoist Model Through Three Governments Beginning with the "socialist education campaign" of 1963, Mao may be said to have presided over and charged four governments with the implementation of his ideas, and has discharged three of these in disgrace. The first was the Liu Shao-ch'i regime (1963-66). The three Cultural Revolution "governments" did not have a formal structure or authority, but rather represented phases in which one of the three ranking leaders under Mao after the start of the Cultural Revolution played a dominant role. The initial radical phase may be termed the Chen Po-ta regime (1966-68) after the head of the Cultural Revolution group, followed by a military government phase, which may be labelled the Lin Piao/PLA regime (1968-71). With the fall of Lin Piao in September 1971 a new and as yet unproved regime under Chou En-lai has begun. The Cultural Revolution has in many respects been a typical political campaign, beginning with vague but apparently extreme "asking demands" that were pressed in the initial violent, radical phase. After this phase reached its political limits, a new consolidating phase began in which the aims were moderated. Here complications appear to have arisen from the extreme reliance on the military to restore order and production levels, related to administrative style, resource priorities, and a blockage of a return to more normal political processes. The Chou En-lai regime, charged with completing the consolidation, is faced with the over-riding issue of political instability and weakness in the state administrative structure. It appears likely that it will be accorded a relatively free hand to moderate policies as required to further this end. Although it must still bargain with the military over resources, there are signs it intends to press comprehensive farm development more vigorously, since this is one Cultural Revolution objective that holds promise of contributing to political stability and popular approval. 1. The Chen Po-ta regime (1966-68). This amorphous and anarchic phase of the Cultural Revolution introduced exhileration, excitement and change to the social and political scene, particularly for the formerly despondent youth. A new political openness appeared, as Red Guard posters revealed purloined official documents and the government's dirty linen to a fascinated public which for the first time gained an intimate glimpse of the men and the policy processes that had governed. It was also a period for letting off steam and airing deep-seated grievances. Youth pilloried their elders under the slogan, "investigate everyone over 40," and took their delight in enforcing a repudiation of the "four olds" (traditional practices) on the older generation. Citizens felt free to harass and torment the officious petty apparatchiks who had formerly tyrannized them. In the end, all this proved empty of substance and purpose. Extreme policy aims were implied in a negative fashion in the condemnation of most of the policies of the previous regime, but there was relatively little positive discussion of the shape and character of the regime that would replace it. With the extreme disruption of civil order and production between mid-1967 and mid-1968, it became necessary to terminate this phase. 2. The Lin Piao/PLA regime (1966-71). The army was the one institution that had retained an integrity throughout the preceding regime, and in the second half of 1968 it was given full authority to impose civil order and restore production. There was a radical transition phase in the winter of 1968-69 when the lectures to peasant discussion groups implied major rural reforms, such as eliminating private plots, expanding the production unit to the brigade level, and imposing various egalitarian income distribution systems. But by the spring of 1969, these impulses were countermanded, and the military imposed a nononsense program which involved little change but sent the workers back to the plants, the students to school or to the rural area, and reestablished civil authority. However, a moderate rural program involving limited resources took shape at this time. The production brigades were to built up with increased planning functions and responsibility for health and education programs. The large number of small fertilizer plants on which construction had been suspended in 1967 were to be completed, while a beginning was to be made on establishing a comprehensive farm machinery production and repair system throughout all provinces and counties. Rural industrialization was to be promoted on a small and experimental scale. This government established an authority by moving military men into critical executive posts throughout the government and society with responsibility for final decisions. Well over half the officers, although a much smaller proportion of enlisted men, of the PLA appear to have been engaged in this program, with the proportion declining somewhat as the regime progressed with the return of many civilian cadres to active work. These military men have not been transferred on |