|
CAST
AWAY ILLUSIONS, PREPARE FOR STRUGGLE
|
(August 14, 1949)
It
is no accident that the U.S. State Department's White
Paper on U.S. relations with China and Secretary of
State Acheson's Letter of transmittal to President
Truman have been released at this time. The publication
of these documents reflects the victory of the Chinese
people and the defeat of imperialism; it reflects
the decline of the entire world system of imperialism.
The imperialist system is riddled with insuperable
internal contradictions, and therefore the imperialists
are plunged into deep gloom.
Imperialism
has prepared the conditions for its own doom. These
conditions are the awakening of the great masses of
the people in the colonies and semi-colonies and in
the imperialist countries themselves. Imperialism
has pushed the great masses of the people throughout
the world into the historical epoch of the great struggle
to abolish imperialism.
Imperialism
has prepared the material as well as the moral conditions
for the struggle of the great masses of the people.
The
material conditions are factories, railways, firearms,
artillery, and the like. Most of the powerful equipment
of the Chinese People's Liberation Army comes from
U.S. imperialism, some comes from Japanese imperialism
and some is of our own manufacture.
The
British aggression against China in 1840 was followed
by the wars of aggression against China by the Anglo-French
allied forces, by France, by Japan, and by the allied
forces of the eight powers (Britain, France, Japan,
tsarist Russia, Germany, the United States, Italy
and Austria); by the war between Japan and tsarist
Russia on Chinese territory; by Japan's war of aggression
against China in China's northeast, which began in
1931; by Japan's war of aggression against all China,
which began in 1937 and lasted eight long years; and,
finally, by the latest war of aggression against the
Chinese people, which has gone on for three years,
waged to all appearances by Chiang Kai-shek but in
reality by the United States. As stated in Acheson's
Letter, the United States in this last war has given
the Kuomintang government material aid to the value
of "more than 50 percent" of the latter's "monetary
expenditures" and "furnished the Chinese armies" (meaning
the Kuomintang armies) with "military supplies." It
is a war in which the United States supplies the money
and guns and Chiang Kai-shek supplies the men to fight
for the United States and slaughter the Chinese people.
All these wars of aggression, together with political,
economic and cultural aggression and oppression, have
caused the Chinese to hate imperialism, made them
stop and think, "What is all this about?" and compelled
them to bring their revolutionary spirit into full
play and become united through struggle. They fought,
failed, fought again, failed again and fought again
and accumulated 109 years of experience, accumulated
the experience of hundreds of struggles, great and
small, military and political, economic and cultural,
with bloodshed and without bloodshed and only then
won today's basic victory. These are the moral conditions
without which the revolution could not be victorious.
To
serve the needs of its aggression, imperialism created
the comprador system and bureaucrat-capital in China.
Imperialist aggression stimulated China's social economy,
brought about changes in it and created the opposites
of imperialism- The national industry and national
bourgeoisie of China, and especially the Chinese proletariat
working in enterprises run directly by the imperialists,
those run by bureaucrat-capital and those run by the
national bourgeoisie. To serve the needs of its aggression,
imperialism ruined the Chinese peasants by exploiting
them through the exchange of unequal values and thereby
created great masses of poor peasants, numbering hundreds
of millions and comprising 70 percent of China's rural
population. To serve the needs of its aggression,
imperialism created for China millions of big and
small intellectuals of a new type, differing from
the old type of literatus or scholar-bureaucrat. But
imperialism and its running dogs, the reactionary
governments of china, could control only a part of
these intellectuals and finally only a handful, such
as Hu Shi, fu Sinian and Qian Mu; all the rest got
out of control and turned against them. Students,
teachers, professors, technicians, engineers, doctors,
scientists, writers, artists and government employees,
all are revolting against or parting company with
the Kuomintang. The Communist Party is the party of
the poor and is described in the Kuomintang's widespread,
all-pervasive propaganda as a band of people who commit
murder and arson, who rape and loot, who reject history
and culture, renounce the motherland, have no filial
piety or respect for teachers and are impervious to
all reason, who practice community of property and
of women and employ the military tactics of the "human
sea" - in short, a horde of fiendish monsters who
perpetrate every conceivable crime and are unpardonably
wicked. But strangely enough, it is this very horde
that has won the support of several hundred million
people, including the majority of the intellectuals,
and especially the student youth.
Part
of the intellectuals still wants to wait and see.
They think: the Kuomintang is no good and the communist
Party is not necessarily good either, so we had better
wait and see. Some support the Communist Party in
words, but in their hearts they are waiting to see.
They are the very people who have illusions about
the United States. They are unwilling to draw a distinction
between the U.S. imperialists, who are in power, and
the American people, who are not. They are easily
duped by the honeyed words of the U.S. imperialists,
as though these imperialists would deal with People's
China on the basis of equality and mutual benefit
without a stern, long struggle. They still have many
reactionary, that is to say, anti-popular, ideas in
their heads, but they are not Kuomintang reactionaries.
They are the middle-of-the-roaders or the right-wingers
in People's China. They are the supporters of what
Acheson calls "democratic individualism." The deceptive
maneuvers of the Achesons still have a flimsy social
base in China.
Acheson's
White Paper admits that the U.S. imperialists are
at a complete loss as to what to do about the present
situation in China. The Kuomintang is so impotent
that no amount of help can save it from inevitable
doom; the U.S. imperialists are losing grip over things
and feel helpless. Acheson says in his Letter of Transmittal:
The
unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous
result of the civil war in China was beyond the control
of the government of the United States. Nothing that
this country did or could have done within the reasonable
limits of its capabilities could have changed that
result; nothing that was left undone by this country
has contributed to it. It was the product of internal
Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to
influence but could not.
According
to logic, Acheson's conclusion should be, as some
muddleheaded Chinese intellectuals think or say, to
act like "the butcher who lays down his knife and
at once becomes a Buddha" or "The robber who has a
change of heart and becomes a virtuous man," that
is, he should treat People's china on the basis of
equality and mutual benefit and stop making trouble.
But no, says Acheson, trouble-making will continue,
and definitely so. Will there be any result? There
will, says he. On what group of people will he rely?
On the supporters of "democratic individualism." Says
Acheson:
…
Ultimately the profound civilization and the democratic
individualism of China will reassert themselves and
she will throw off the foreign yoke. I consider that
we should encourage all developments in China which
now and in the future wok toward this end.
How
different is the logic of the imperialists from that
of the people! Make trouble, fail, make trouble again,
fail again … till their doom; that is the logic of
the imperialists and all reactionaries the world over
in dealing with the people's cause, and they will
never go against this logic. This is a Marxist law.
When we say "imperialism is ferocious," we mean that
its nature will never change, that the imperialists
will never lay down their butcher knives, that they
will never become Buddha, till their doom.
Fight,
fail, fight again, fail again, fight again … till
their victory; that is the logic of the people, and
they too will never go again this logic. This is another
Marxist law. The Russian people's revolution followed
this law, and so has the Chinese people's revolution.
Classes
struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated.
Such is history, such is history of civilization for
thousands of years. To interpret history from this
viewpoint is historical materialism; standing in opposition
to this viewpoint is historical idealism.
The
method of self-criticism can be applied only within
the ranks of the people; it is impossible to persuade
the imperialists and the Chinese reactionaries to
show kindness of heart and turn from their evil ways.
The only course is to organize forces and struggle
against them, as in our People's War of Liberation
and the agrarian revolution, to expose the imperialists,
"irritate" them, overthrow them, punish them for offenses
against the law and "allow them only to behave themselves
and not to be unruly in word or deed." Only then will
there be any hope of dealing with imperialist foreign
countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.
Only then will there be any hope that those landlords,
bureaucrat-capitalists, members of the reactionary
Kuomintang clique and their accomplices, who have
laid down their arms and surrendered, can be given
education for transforming the bad into the good and
be transformed, as far as possible, into good people.
Many Chinese liberals-the old-type democratic elements,
i.e., the supporters of "democratic individualism,"
whom Truman, Marshall, Acheson, Leighton Stuart and
the like count on and have been trying to win over-often
find themselves in a passive position and are often
wrong in their judgments on the U.s. rulers, on the
Kuomintang, on the Soviet Union and also on the communist
Party of China. The reason is precisely that they
do not look at, or disapprove of looking at, problems
from the standpoint of historical materialism.
It
is the duty of progressives-the Communists, members
of the democratic parties, politically conscious workers,
the student youth and progressive intellectuals-to
unite with the intermediate strata, middle-of-the-roaders
and backward elements of various strata, with all
those in People's China who are still wavering and
hesitating (these people will waver for a long time
to come and, even after they have once become steady,
will waver again as soon as they meet difficulties),
give them sincere help, criticize their wavering character,
educate them, win them over to the side of the masses,
prevent them from being pulled over by the imperialists
and tell them to cast away illusions and prepare for
struggle. Let no one think that there is no more work
to do now that victory is won. We still have to work,
to do a great deal of patient work, before we can
truly win these people over. When they are won over,
imperialism will be entirely isolated, and Acheson
will no longer be able to play any of his tricks.
The
slogan, "Prepare for struggle," is addressed to those
who still cherish certain illusions about the relations
between China and the imperialist countries, especially
between China and the United States. On this matter,
they are still passive, their minds are still not
made up, and they are still not determined to wage
a long struggle against U.S (and British) imperialism
because they still have illusions about the United
States. There is still a very wide, or fairly wide,
gap between these people and ourselves on the question.
The
publication of the U.S. White Paper and Acheson's
Letter of Transmittal is worthy of celebration, because
it is a bucket of cold water and a loss of face for
those who have ideas of the old type of democracy
or democratic individualism, who do not approve of,
or do not quite approve of, or are dissatisfied with,
or are somewhat dissatisfied with, or even resent,
people's democracy, or democratic collectivism, or
democratic centralism, or collective heroism, or internationalist
patriotism- but who still have patriotic feeling and
are not Kuomintang reactionaries. It is a bucket of
cold water particularly for those who believe that
everything American is good and hope that China will
model herself on the United States.
Acheson
openly declares that the Chinese democratic individualists
will be "encouraged" to throw off the so-called "foreign
yoke." That is to say, he calls for the overthrow
off Marxism-Leninism and people's democratic dictatorship
led by the Communist Party of China. For this "ism"
and this system, it is alleged, are "foreign," with
no roots in China, imposed on the Chinese by the German,
Karl Marx (who died 66 years ago), and the Russians,
Lenin (who died 25 years ago) and Stalin (who is still
alive); this "ism" and this system, moreover, are
downright bad, because they advocate the class struggle,
the overthrow of imperialism, etc.; hence they must
be got rid of. In this connection, it is alleged,
"the democratic individualism of China will reassert
itself' with the "encouragement" of President Truman,
the backstage Commander-in-Chief Marshall, Secretary
of State Acheson (the charming foreign mandarin responsible
for the publication of the White Paper) and Ambassador
Leighton Stuart who has scampered off. Acheson and
his like think they are giving "encouragement," but
those Chinese democratic individualists who still
have patriotic feelings, even though they believe
in the United States, may quite possibly feel this
is a bucket of cold water thrown on them and a loss
of face; for instead of dealing with the authorities
of the Chinese people's democratic dictatorship in
the proper way, Acheson and his like are doing this
filthy work and, what is more, they have openly published
it. What a loss of face! What a loss of face! To those
who are patriotic, Acheson's statement is no "encouragement"
but an insult.
China
is in the midst of a great revolution. All China is
seething with enthusiasm. The conditions are favorable
for winning over and uniting with all those who do
not have a bitter and deep-seated hatred for the cause
of the people's revolution, even though they have
mistaken ideas. Progressives should make use of the
White Paper to explain things to all these persons.
(From
Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Vol. IV)
|
| | |
| |
|
|