Mao Tse-tung and the Theory of the
Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
Stuart R. Schram
In the history of the Chinese communist movement, the re-emergence
of the term "permanent" or "uninterrupted" revolution is clearly associated with the Great Leap Forward of 1958. It is then that the concept
was first put forward once more after an eclipse of 30 years, and though
it has since been employed from time to time, the most important articles
on the subject were published in 1958 and 1959. The Cultural Revolution,
has, however, altered our perception of this as of so many other important
matters, both by making available new information and by placing the
events of the previous decade, in a new perspective.
Ten years ago, when I undertook to translate some of the articles on this
subject which had appeared in the Chinese press, and to offer an interpretation of their significance,1 we were dealing with writings signed by
relatively unknown ideologists who claimed to be speaking in the name
of Mao Tse-tung. These writers did indeed quote a few tantalizing sentences by the Chairman himself, but it was impossible to put such
citations in context and properly to understand their significance, since
they came, as we now know, from inner-Party documents then entirely
inaccessible. Now we are in a position to study Mao's own formulation
of the theory, in the light of many other materials regarding the ideological and policy debates which took place within the Chinese Communist
Party at the time of the Great Leap. The time therefore seems ripe for a
reconsideration of the subject.
In my earlier monograph referred to above, I considered the theory
in three different contexts: as it derived from persistent traits in Mao's
own thought and approach to politics; as compared to the views of other
Marxist thinkers - Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin; and as a reflexion of
conditions in China at the time. In this article, I should like to follow a
pattern basically similar, but different in emphasis. On the relation between Mao's theory and the Marxist tradition, and especially on the
similarities and differences between Mao and Trotsky, I shall say relatively little, for I would not have a great deal to add to what I wrote
a decade ago. I will refer once more to the differences between Mao and
Stalin, for these are fundamental to an understanding of Mao's origin1. S. Schram, La "revolution permanente" en Chine. (Paris: Mouton, 1963).
(Despite the publication date, the book was in fact written in 1960-61, and printed
in 1962.)
222
The China Quarterly
ality. My main concern, however, will be neither with the history of
Marxist doctrine, nor with the contrast between the Soviet and Chinese
conceptions of revolution, but with the circumstances in which the theory
emerged in China in 1958. The information which has become available
about past ideological differences between Mao and his comrades is
worthy of interest in itself, but it can also guide us in taking a new
look at the reality which called forth such radically different responses.
It is this dimension of the problem which was most inadequately treated
in my earlier monograph. It should be possible today to grasp somewhat
better this central question of the relation between theory and practice.
It is perhaps appropriate to say a word, at the very beginning, about
the tedious but inescapable question of how "pu-tuan ko-ming" should
be translated. During the period of the Great Leap, the term was, of
course, rendered into western languages, in official translations published
in Peking, as "uninterrupted" or "continuous" revolution.2 Although
this is the most accurate translation in terms of the literal meaning of the
Chinese expression, I preferred in the early 1960s, and still prefer today,
the translation "permanent revolution." The essential reason for this
lies in the fact that pu-tuan ko-ming is the term which has been used
for more than three decades, and is still used today, to translate into
Chinese Trotsky's "theory of the permanent revolution." It was clear
from the beginning that those who chose this terminology could not be
unaware that they were courting a comparison with Trotsky. The situation has become even clearer since we have been able to read Mao Tsetung's speech of 28 January 1958, to the Supreme State Conference,
in which he says: " Wo chu-chang pu-tuan ko-ming lun. Ni-men pu yao
i-wei shih T'o-lo-ssu-chi ti pu-tuan ko-ming lun " (" I advocate the theory
of the permanent revolution. You must not think that this is Trotsky's
theory of the permanent revolution ").8 Quite obviously, if Mao were not
deliberately using the same term as Trotsky, and thus inviting confusion,
there would be no need for him to warn his listeners against confusion.
Moreover, the Chinese used in 1958, and still use today, pu-tuan ko-ming
to translate Marx's expressions "die Revolution in Permanenz" or "die
Permanenzerklarung der Revolution."*
Much more could be said on this question, but the foregoing remarks
2. Since 1969, the Chinese have suddenly started translating pu-tuan ko-ming
as " continued revolution," instead of " uninterrupted " or " continuous " revolution, thus deliberately obscuring the difference between this term and the concept
of "continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" (wucli' an-chieh-chi chuan-cheng hsia chi-hsu ko-ming), which became current during
the later stages of the Cultural Revolution. I shall return to this point and its
possible significance at the end of the present article.
3. In Mao chu-hsi tui Feng, Huang, Chang, Chou fan-tang chi'tuan ti p'i-p'an
(n.p., n.d.), p. 3; translated (badly) in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. I, No. 4,
pp. 13-14.
4. For the latest example, see the article by Chao Yang, originally published
in Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily) (Peking) on 5 July 1969, and translated in
Peking Review, No. 5 (1970), p. 4.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
should suffice to explain my position. In any case, these semantic controversies about translation into a western language are obviously of slight
importance compared to the problem of what the Chinese term meant
to Mao - and to those who disagreed with him - and how it related to
their own experience at the time of the Great Leap. Turning now to
matters of substance, I should like to begin by situating the theory in the
context of Mao's mentality and the development of his thought. If we
are to approach this problem correctly, it is necessary, I think, to take
as our starting-point a judgment which at first glance may appear paradoxical: as a philosopher in the strict sense, Mao is not original, nor
even competent; and yet he has a profoundly philosophical turn of mind.
Let us consider in turn the two aspects of this contradiction.
As for Mao's grasp of Marxist philosophy as such, the most striking
evidence is provided by the lectures on dialectical materialism which he
delivered in the spring and summer of 1937 at the Anti-Japanese MilitaryPolitical University in Yenan. Until quite recently, these were known
only from a fragment published in 1940, the authorship of which had
been questioned by some. The complete text, revised "here and there by
Mao in 1959, has now become available in the Red Guard compilation
Mao chu-hsi wen-hsiian (Selected Writings by Chairman Mao). An
examination of this shows that well over half of the whole text, and
from 80 to 90 per cent, of those passages dealing with the principles of
Marxist dialectics, rather than with their application in China, are copied
more or less verbatim from translations of Soviet writings.5
5. Although Mao would apparently prefer to forget this production today,
there is not the slightest doubt as to its authenticity. As I have pointed out elsewhere, articles by Chang Ju-hsin in Chieh-fang jih-pao (Liberation Daily) (18 and
19 February 1942) specifically referred to it as Chairman Mao's most important
contribution to dialectics, and the very passage which he quoted (which I translated in part in a review in The China Quarterly, No. 29 (January-March 1967),
p. 159), appears verbatim in the recently-available Red Guard text. The sources
employed for Chapter II of "Dialectical Materialism" are the same as those
identified earlier by K. A. Wittfogel in his study of Chapter I ("Some Remarks
on Mao's handling of Concepts and Problems of Dialectics," Studies in Soviet
Thought, Vol. m , No. 4 (December 1963), pp. 251-277). The extent of the plagiarism is, however, even greater than in Chapter 1.1 propose to publish subsequently
in The China Quarterly an analysis of this text, with detailed indications regarding
the borrowings from the Soviet writings translated by Ai Ssu-ch'i and others,
and also of the changes made by Mao in revising, in 1959, the contemporary
text of the lectures as published in K'ang-chan ta-hsiieh in 193S. (See The Political
Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York and London: Praeger. Revised edition,
1969), pp. 84-89 and 185-190. In view of the subsequent appearance of a complete
English translation, in Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) (Washington),
No. 50792, I shall probably not go ahead in the immediate future with the plan
announced there for publishing my own English version of paragraphs 1 to 6
of Chapter II.) The variants between the 1938 and 1959 versions are indicated
in the Chinese text as reprinted recently in the edition of Mao's writings edited
by a group of young Japanese scholars under the leadership of Takeuchi Minoru.
(Collected Writings of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 6 (Tokyo: Hokubosha, 1970), pp.
265-305.) (See the review of this issue, pp. 366-69.) By way of illustration of
the extent of plagiarism involved in this text, paragraph 4 of Chapter II, as
223
224
The China Quarterly
It is quite evident to anyone who reads through this text with an
open mind why Mao preferred for the most part to copy rather than
to express the same ideas in his own words. He was only an apprentice
in the study of Marxist philosophy, and was afraid that if he reformulated the more abstruse theoretical points, he might distort them and
betray his ignorance. But this point is not really of great importance,
except to those who regard philosophy as the be-all and end-all of human
endeavour. For though Mao's contribution to the "science of dialectics"
is small, his contribution to the "dialectics of revolution" is very great
indeed, and it is that which interests us here. His applications of dialectics
to the problems of man and the universe, and above all to the problems
of political struggle, are as picturesque and colourful as his formal exposition of "dialectical materialism" is awkward and wooden. More important, they translate a conception of man, society and the universe in
ceaseless and unending flux which has no real parallel in Soviet thought,
and which lies at the heart both of the Great Leap Forward of 1958, and
of the Cultural Revolution.
This mentality receives particularly compact and striking expression
in one of the fragments on dialectics, dated "early 1959 or thereabouts,"
which appear in Mao chu-hsi wen-hsilan:
Sons are transformed into fathers, and fathers are transformed into sons,'
women are transformed into men, and men are transformed into women.
Such transformation cannot take place directly, but after marriage sons and
daughters are born; is this not transformation? The oppressors and the
oppressed are transformed into one another; such are the relations between
the bourgeoisie and the landlords on the one hand, and the workers and
peasants on the other . . .
The finite is transformed into the infinite, the infinite is transformed into
the finite. The dialectics of the ancient world were transformed into the
metaphysics of the middle ages, and the metaphysics of the middle ages was
transformed into the dialectics of the modern period. The universe is also
in the process of transformation; it is not immutable. Capitalism leads to
socialism, socialism leads to communism, and communism too will be transformed, it will also have a beginning and an end, it will certainly be divided
into stages, or there will be still another name, it cannot be established once
and for all, having only quantitative changes and no qualitative changes,
that would go against dialectics. There is nothing in the world that does not
appear, develop and decay. Monkeys were transformed into man, man
appeared and the whole human race will cease to exist in the end, it may
be transformed into something else, and at that time the globe itself will
have ceased to be. The whole earth will be destroyed, and the sun will also
originally written, is made up as follows (using the symbols TK for Hsin chehsiieh ta-kang (Tu-shu sheng-huo ch'u-pan-she, 1936), and HC for Che-hsueh
hsuan-chi (San-lien shu-tien, 1950)): TK, p. 191, lines 1-4 and 11-12, p. 192,
lines 8-12, p. 193, lines 8-13, p. 194, lines 1-3; HC p. 161, lines 11-14, p. 163,
lines 4-13; TK p. 194, line 12, followed by lines 4-11, p. 195, lines 11-13, p. 196,
line 1, p. 197, lines 5-6, 7-9, 11-14, p. 198, lines 1-4, 5-13, p. 200, lines 3-4,
p. 201, lines 2-3, 5-9.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
cool off, the temperature of the sun is already much lower man it was in
ancient times . . .6
The basic point in this quotation, for the purposes of the present discussion is, of course, Mao's view of communist society as something
which does not necessarily represent the ultimate destiny of humanity.
I could not, however, resist including the first few sentences, which illustrate the fact that it is not only China's Khrushchev who clothes his
exposition of dialectics in metaphors taken from biology rather than
from physics and mathematics.7
There is a striking parallel between this passage and one written by
Mao in 1918, when he was a student at the Normal School in Changsha.
which is clearly inspired not by Marxism, but by the heterodox currents
in traditional Chinese thought:
I say: the concept is reality, the finite is the infinite, the temporal is the
intemporal, imagination is thought, I am the universe, life is death, death is
life, the present is the past and the future, the past and the future are the
present, the small is the great, the yin is the yang, the high is the low, the
impure is the pure, the thick is the thin, the substance is the words, that
which is multiple is one, that which is changing is eternal.8
It would, of course, be absurd to suggest that there is today only
Taoism and no Marxism in Mao's conceptual framework, though it
appears that, at the time of the Great Leap, some professional philosophers thought just that. The Concise Philosophical Dictionary, Mao complained, contradicted him by saying that the concept of the transformation of life into death and death into life was "metaphysical," and the
concept of the transformation of war into peace and peace into war was
"erroneous."9 But another fragment of 1959, even as it illustrates, in
curious language, the traditional notion that male and female merge
into one another, adds a vital element absent from tradition, which Mao
has drawn both from Marxism and from his own experience, namely
the importance of struggle as the source of truth and progress:
Errors must also be committed, it is impossible not to commit them, the
commission of errors is a necessary condition for the taking shape of a correct
6. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsiian, pp. 29-30; also translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 32.
7. See The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, p. 94.
8. Quoted by Mao's biographer Li Jui. See The Political Thought of Mao
Tse-tung, p. 26.
9. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsiian, p. 29, translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 31. The
point of these criticisms was presumably sot Mao's idea that opposites are transformed into one another as such — since, as indicated by a quotation in paragraph 5 of "On Contradiction," Lenin, too, had spoken in these terms — but
the nature of the examples chosen, which evoked all too clearly the old yin-yang
dialectics. (Because of the very large numbers of editions, both English and
Chinese, of "On Contradiction" now about, I have identified citations to this
work, here and elsewhere, by the paragraph in which they appear rather than by
the page number, with the thought that this would make it easier for the reader
to locate them.)
225
226
The China Quarterly
line. The correct line is defined with reference to the erroneous line, the two
constitute a unity of opposites, the correct line takes shape in a struggle
with the erroneous line. . . . That there should be only what is correct, and
not what is erroneous, is without example in history. This is the negation of
the law of the unity of opposites, it is metaphysical. If there were only men
and no women, if women were to be negated, what would happen then?
(Fo-ting nii-jen tsen-mo pan)10
The quest for the antecedents of the dialectical bent of Mao's thought
is a fascinating - though perhaps insoluble - problem in intellectual
history, but it is of less concern to us here than how Mao applied this
approach to the problems of Chinese society during the period of the
Great Leap. As a basis for the discussion of this question I should like
to quote here in full the two main passages in which Mao, in January
1958, put forward the theory of the permanent revolution. Both of these
are now available in translation,11 but there is always room for disagreement regarding the nuances of ideological texts such as these. Let me
therefore present here my own versions, first of the brief paragraph from
Mao's speech of 28 January to the Supreme State Conference, and then
of the more elaborate formulation in paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Sixty j
.Articles on Work Methods.
I. Extract from Mao's speech of 28 January 1958 to the Supreme State
Conference:
I advocate the theory of the permanent revolution. You mustn't think
that this is Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution. In making revolution, one must strike while the iron is hot, one revolution following another;
the revolution must advance without interruption. The Hunanese have a
saying: "There is no pattern for straw sandals; they take shape as you
weave them." Trotsky advocated that the socialist revolution should be
launched even before the democratic revolution was completed. We do not
proceed like that. For example, liberation in 1949 was followed by land
reform, and as soon as land reform was completed, we set up mutual aid
teams, followed by lower-stage co-operatives, and then by higher-stage
co-operatives. Within seven years, co-operativization was carried out, and
the productive relations were changed. Following this, we carried out
rectification, and then, striking while the iron is hot, we proceeded, after
rectification, to launch the technical revolution . . .12
II. From the Sixty Articles on Work Methods:
21. Permanent revolution. Our revolutions follow each other, one after
another. Beginning with the seizure of power on a nation-wide scale in 1949,
there followed first the anti-feudal land reform; as soon as land reform was
10. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsuan, p. 30, translated in JPRS, No. 50792, p. 33.
11. The speech of 28 January in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. I, No. 4,
pp. 10-14; the Sixty Articles in Current Background {CB\ (Hong Kong: U.S.
Consulate General), No. 892, pp. 1-14, and in Jerome Ch'en: Mao Papers (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 57-75.
12. Mao chu-hsi tui Feng . . . , p. 3.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
completed, agricultural co-operativization was begun. There also followed
the socialist transformation of private industry, commerce and handicrafts.
The three great socialist transformations, that is to say, the socialist revolution
in the ownership of the means of production, were basically completed in
1956. Following this, we carried out last year the socialist revolution on the
political and ideological fronts. This revolution can be basically concluded
before July 1st of this year. But the problem is still not resolved, and for a
fairly long period to come, the method of airing of views and rectification
must be used every year to solve the problems in this field. We must now
have a technical revolution, in order to catch up with and overtake England
in fifteen years or a bit longer. Because China is economically backward,
and its material foundation is weak, we have hitherto been in a passive
position. Mentally, we feel that we are still fettered; in this respect, we have
not yet achieved liberation. We must summon up our energies, and in another
five years, we may be in a somewhat more active position. After ten years,
we will be in a still more active position. After fifteen years, when we have
more grain and more iron and steel, we will be in a position to exercise yet
greater initiative. Our revolution is like fighting a war. After winning one
battle, we must immediately put forward new tasks. In this way, we can
maintain the revolutionary enthusiasm of the cadres and the masses, and
diminish their self-satisfaction, since they have no time to be satisfied with
themselves even if they wanted to; new tasks keep pressing in, and everyone
devotes his mind to the question of how to fulfil the new tasks. In calling for
a technical revolution, we aim to make everyone study technology and
science. The rightists say we are petty intellectuals, incapable of leading the
big intellectuals. There are also those who say that the old cadres should be
"bought off," paid a bit of money and asked to retire, because the old
cadres do not understand science and technology, and only know how to
fight and to carry out land reform. We must definitely summon up all our
energies, we must definitely study and carry through this great technical
revolution bestowed on us by history. This question must be discussed in
cadres' meetings, and we must hold a general meeting of cadres to discuss
what other skills we possess. In the past, we were capable of fighting and of
carrying out land reform. Now it is not enough to possess these skills alone.
We must learn new skills, we must really understand professional work
(yeh-wu), we must really understand science and technology. Otherwise, we
will be incapable of exercising good leadership. In " On People's Democratic
Dictatorship," which I wrote in 1949, I had this to say: " The serious task
of economic construction lies before us. We shall soon put aside some of the
things we know well, and be compelled to do things we don't know well.
This means difficulties." "We must overcome difficulties, we must learn what
we do not know." A period of eight years has elapsed. During these eight
years, one revolution has followed another, and with everyone's mind concentrated on these problems, a great many people were unable to find time
to study science and technology. Beginning mis year, we must, even as we
carry forward and complete the socialist revolution on the political and
ideological fronts, shift the emphasis in the Party's work to the technical
revolution. This question must receive the attention of the whole Party. Party
committees at all levels may carry out a preliminary exchange of views
within the Party in advance, and explain things clearly to the cadres, but
for the time being no propaganda should appear in the press. After July 1st,
227
228
The China Quarterly
we will play up the matter, because by that time the rectification campaign
at the grassroots level will be drawing to a close, and the main attention of
the Party can be shifted to the technical revolution. Once attention is shifted
to the technical side, there is also the possibility of neglecting politics. We
must therefore pay attention to integrating technology with politics.
22. The relation between redness and expertness, between politics and professional activities (yeh-wu), is that of the unity of two opposites. We must
definitely criticize and repudiate the tendency to pay no attention to politics.
On the one hand, we must oppose empty-headed politicians; on the other
hand, we must oppose pragmatists who lose their sense of direction.
There is not the slightest doubt about the unity of politics and economics,
the unity of politics and technology. This is the case year after year, and
will be the case for ever. This is precisely what is meant by " both red and
expert." The term "politics" will continue to exist in the future, but its
content will change. Those who pay no attention to ideology and politics,
and are busy with their work all day long, will become economists or
technicians who have lost their sense of direction, and this is very dangerous.
Ideological work and political work are the guarantee that economic and
technical work will be carried through, they serve the economic basis. Ideology
and politics are 'the supreme commander; they are the soul. Whenever we
are even slightly lax in our ideological and political work, our economic
and technical work will certainly take a false direction.
At present, there is on the one hand the grave class struggle between the
socialist world and the imperialist world. On the other hand, as regards
conditions within our country, classes have not yet been finally wiped out,
and there is still class struggle. These two points must be taken fully into
account. In the past, the basic content of politics consisted in struggle
against the class enemy. But after the people come to have their own
political power, the relationship between this political power and the people
is basically a relationship among the people, and the method employed
is not forcible repression, but persuasion. This is a new political relationship.
It is only in dealing with the law breakers among the people who disrupt the
normal social order that this political power adopts temporarily, and in varying degrees, methods of forcible repression, as a supplement to persuasion.
During the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, there are still
hidden among the people some anti-socialist hostile elements, such as the
bourgeois rightists. In dealing with such elements, we also adopt basically
the method of solving the problems by letting the masses air their views. It is
only toward serious counter-revolutionary elements and saboteurs that we
adopt the method of repression. After the transition period has come to an
end, and classes have been completely abolished, then, as far as conditions
within the country are concerned, politics will consist entirely of relationships among the people. At that time, ideological and political struggle
among man and man, as well as revolution, will definitely still continue to
exist, and moreover cannot fail to exist. The law of the unity of opposites,
the law of quantitative and qualitative change, the law of affirmation and
negation, exist forever and universally. But the nature of struggle and
revolution is different from what it was in the past It is not a class struggle,
but a struggle between the advanced and the backward among the people, a
struggle between advanced and backward science and technology. The
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
transition from socialism to communism is a struggle, a revolution. Even
when we have reached the era of communism, there will definitely still be
many, many stages of development, and the relationship between one stage
and another will necessarily be a relation leading from quantitative change
to qualitative change. Every mutation or leap is a revolution, and they
must all go through struggle. The " theory of no clashes " is metaphysical.
Politicians must understand something of specialized work (yeh-wu). It is
difficult to understand too much, but it won't do to understand too little
either; they must definitely understand something of i t Those who do not
understand reality are pseudo-red; they are empty-headed politicians. We
must integrate politics with technology. In agriculture we must run experimental plots; in industry, we must grasp advanced models, try out new
techniques, and experiment with the manufacture of new products. All this
involves using the method of " comparison." Under similar conditions,
the advanced and the backward are compared, thus inciting the backward
to catch up with the advanced. The advanced and the backward are
the two extremities of a contradiction, and "comparison" is the unity of
opposites. There is disequilibrium between one enterprise and another, and,
within an enterprise, between one workshop and another, one work group
and another, one individual and another. Disequilibrium is a universal
objective law. Things forever proceed from disequilibrium to equilibrium, and
from equilibrium to disequilibrium, in endless cycles. It will be forever like
this, but each cycle reaches a higher level. Disequilibrium is constant and
absolute; equilibrium is temporary and relative. The changes in economic
equilibrium and disequilibrium in our country at the present time involve
many partial qualitative changes in the midst of an overall process of
quantitative change. A certain number of years hence, when China has been
transformed from an agricultural country to an industrial country, there will
be a leap, and after that the process of quantitative change will continue.
Criticism and comparison should be extended not merely to economics,
production, and technique; we should also compare in the field of politics,
that is, in the art of leadership, to see who can lead a bit better.13
These texts, and especially the second one, raise so many important
ideological and policy issues that it is difficult to know where to begin
in analysing them. It may be convenient to start with the problem of
permanent revolution and the relation between the successive stages of
the revolution, which occupied a prominent place in the controversies in
Russia regarding Trotsky's theory. This aspect is not really central to an
understanding of Mao's ideas at the time of the Great Leap, but precisely
for that reason it will be helpful to get it out of the way first.
The official position on this problem was laid down in the resolution
of the Wuhan Plenum on the communes in December 1958, in which it
was stated:
13. The above passage includes the full text of paragraphs 21 and 22 of the
Sixty Articles on Work Methods, as given in an untitled collection of Mao's
writings and speeches distributed by Richard Sorich of Columbia University.
Mao's preface is dated 31 January 1958; the document was apparently distributed
by the Central Committee on 19 February.
229
230
The China Quarterly
On the question of transition from socialism to communism, we must not
mark time at the socialist stage, nor should we drop into the Utopian dream
of skipping the socialist stage and jumping over to the communist stage. We
are advocates of the Marxist-Leninist theory of permanent revolution; we
hold that no "Great Wall" exists or can be allowed to exist between the
democratic revolution and the socialist revolution and between socialism
and communism. We are at the same time advocates of the Marxist-Leninist
theory of the development of revolution by stages; we hold that different
stages of development reflect qualitative changes and that these stages,
different in quality, should not be confused.14
This was entirely in accord with what Mao had said in 1937 about the
relation between the democratic and the socialist revolutions:
In the case of a two-part essay, the second part can be written only after
the first part has been completed. Resolute leadership of the democratic
revolution is the condition for achieving the victory of socialism. . . .
We advocate the theory of the transition of the revolution, of the transition
from a democratic revolution to a socialist orientation. The democratic
revolution will undergo several stages of development, all under the slogan
of a democratic republic, not that of a soviet regime. . . .
We advocate the theory of the transition of the revolution, not the
Trotskyite theory of permanent revolution nor semi-Trotskyite "Li Li-sanism." We stand for going through all the necessary stages of a democratic
republic in order to arrive at socialism.15
As I wrote in my 1963 monograph on the subject, this warning against
the temptation of leaping from one stage to another was above all a verbal
precaution to ward off the accusations that Mao was imitating Trotsky,
who had explicitly called for "telescoping" the stages of the revolution.16
For, although in the course of the Chinese revolution, both before and
after 1949, Mao has shown a strong sense of the need to distinguish
"stages" - that is, a realization that everything was not possible at a
given time - he has also been reluctant to draw the boundaries between
these stages too rigidly, lest they serve as a pretext for inaction and for
lack of vigour in pressing the revolution.
This aspect of Mao's thinking comes through clearly in a brief passage
on the permanent revolution in his speech of March 1958 at the Chengtu
conference, which marked the real beginning of the implementation of the
Great Leap Forward policies, when he said:
In the democratic revolution of the past, the revolution was constantly
divided into two stages, the former serving as a preparation for the latter.
We are partisans of the theory of the permanent revolution, and yet so
many comrades give no thought to the time for carrying out the socialist
revolution, or to how land reform should be carried out. They close their
eyes to the sprouts of socialism (she-hui-chu-i meng-ya), although the sprouts
14. H. Can-fere d'Encausse and S. Schram, Marxism and Asia (London: Allen
Lane, The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 302.
15. The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 226-227.
16. La "revolution permanente" en Chine, pp. xviii, xxvii.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
of socialism appeared long ago. For example, in Juichin, and in the amtiJapanese base areas, sprouts of socialism appeared in the form of mutual-aid
teams.17
The use of the term meng-ya, or sprouts, the same which figured in
the celebrated controversy of a decade ago about " sprouts of capitalism "
under the (presumably feudal) society of the Ming, clearly implies that,
even during the phase of the democratic revolution, socialist elements
were maturing within the womb of the old society. Similarly, even
though the exaggerated claims about building communism overnight
were abandoned in December 1958, it was still postulated that "communist elements" existed in the China of the communes, and that they
must be actively cultivated, so that a number of partial qualitative
changes would have taken place in Chinese society and the final great
qualitative change from socialism to communism would be merely a
matter of form. There is still a distinction here between Mao's theory
and Trotsky's "telescoping" and "leaping over" stages, but it is a very
fine one.
The problem of the relation between stages in the revolutionary process is manifestly linked to that of the nature of the qualitative changes
occurring in socialist and communist society. But before dealing with
this, it is time to consider Mao's view of the state of Chinese society in
1958, and of the way in which the revolution should be carried forward.
The reference, in the passage just quoted, to "so many comrades" who
did not understand the need to cultivate the "sprouts of socialism"
during the democratic phase of the revolution evokes the differences
within the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950s regarding the pace of
agricultural collectivization. Clearly there were still disagreements at the
time of the Great Leap regarding the speed of economic and social
change, but the originality of Mao's position was characterized rather by
the pattern and spirit he wished to impart to the whole process.
The essence of his approach is summed up in homely form in the
Hunanese folk-saying quoted in his speech of 28 January, and in more
philosophical terms in the concept of "disequilibrium" expounded in the
Sixty Articles. "There is no pattern for straw sandals; they take shape
as you work on them." In other words, the course of the revolution
cannot be laid down in advance in all its details. The broad goals economic development, socialism, communism - are of course known,
but their meaning, and the path for reaching them, must be continually
reassessed in the light of events. This view, which might be called Mao's
"uncertainty principle," finds its theoretical justification in his insistence
on the importance of "disequilibrium."
One cannot fail to note the parallel between Mao's statement in point
22 of the Sixty Articles: "Disequilibrium is constant and absolute;
equilibrium is temporary and relative," and what he has written else17. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsuan, p. 80. (The translation in JPRS, No. 49826, p. 48,
unfortunately omits entirely the clause referring to the permanent revolution.)
231
232
The China Quarterly
where about the universality and absoluteness of contradictions. Indeed,
" On Contradiction " actually contains, in paragraph 4, a sentence referring to the fundamental character of disequilibrium. But, once more, the
real key to understanding the meaning of this concept in 1958 is to be
found not in textual comparisons, but in a consideration of Mao's
economic policies at that time.
As already suggested, it was not simply the very rapid pace of
economic development set at the time of the Great Leap Forward which
ultimately led to Mao's rupture with Liu Shao-ch'i and other Party
leaders. In his public statements at least, Liu not only accepted the need
for such an acceleration, but justified it most eloquently. Thus, in his
speech of May 1958 to the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress,
he declared:
Some say that speeding up construction makes people feel "too tense,"
and so it's better to slow down the tempo. But are things not going to get
tense if the speed of construction is slowed down? Surely one should be
able to see that a frightfully tense situation would exist precisely if more
than six hundred million people had to live in poverty and cultural back-,
wardness for a prolonged period. . . .18
The crux of the matter was rather the economic philosophy underlying
the Great Leap, according to which the organizations at various levels
responsible for taking decisions regarding industrial and/or agricultural
production were incited to advance as rapidly as possible, without
worrying unduly about the compatibility between all these different activities. To be sure, Mao had dealt at some length, in his speech of April
1956 on the Ten Great Relations, with the balance between the various
sectors of the economy. The following year, discussing China's planned
economy in his speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions
among the People," he described balance as " nothing but a temporary,
relative unity of opposites," continually upset by changes in the situation,
but treated disequilibrium as the result of a "mistake" to be overcome.19
But, by 1958, his ideas had clearly undergone a change, for the paragraph
in the Sixty Articles on Work Methods dealing specifically with the
relation between national and local planning implies in reality the negation of balance as an effective principle governing economic development.
The relevant passage, in paragraph 9 of the Sixty Articles, is vital to an
understanding of what Mao meant when he spoke, in more abstract
language, of the universality of disequilibrium, and therefore ought to
be quoted here:
There are three sets of production plans. The Center has two sets. One
is the plan that must be fulfilled and is made public; the other is the plan
that is expected to be fulfilled and is not made public. The local administration also has two sets. The first set of the local administration is the second
18. Marxism and Asia, p. 298.
19. Selected Readings from the Works of Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Peking,
1967), p. 361.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
set of the Center, and this is the one which must be fulfilled by the local
administration. The second set is expected to be fulfilled by the local
administration. Appraisal and comparison should be made with the Center's
second set as the criterion.20
It is clear that, in this pyramid of plans, the lower one goes, the
higher the targets. Thus the centre's second plan, which is not made
public, sets higher targets than are publicly announced, and these higher
targets are binding on the local authorities, who for their part are
expected to set privately and to strive for even more ambitious objectives.
When, in the atmosphere of euphoria which swept across China in the
summer of 1958, local authorities at various levels and the leaders of
the newly established communes began to vie with one another in setting
increasingly inflated targets, the third set of plans referred to by Mao
became in fact the only meaningful set as far as the greater part of
China's productive activity was concerned. And since appraisal and comparison were to be made with the centre's second set - long since left
behind by events - as the criterion, one can only conclude that there
remained no effective basis for the co-ordination of production.
But was this anything to worry about? Mao had clearly suggested in
the Sixty Articles that it was not. Just as Hegel (and Mao himself) had
described contradictions as the motor of all change, the passage quoted
above implies that disequilibrium is a spur driving economic progress
forward. "Disequilibrium," Mao wrote, "is a universal objective law.
Things forever proceed from disequilibrium to equilibrium, and from
equilibrium to disequilibrium, in endless cycles. It will be forever like
this, but each cycle reaches a higher level."
Not surprisingly, Mao's enthusiasm for disequilibrium was not shared
by the planners. This was made abundantly clear, in terms both of
theory and of practical policy, by the organ of the State Planning Commission, Chi-hua ching-chi {Planned Economy). Although Mao's draft
of the " Sixty Articles on Work Methods " containing the passage already
quoted, was dated 31 January 1958, the views expressed in the first four
issues of this journal for 1958 were by no means fully in accord with
Mao's. In the first issue, dated 9 January 1958, Li Fu-ch'un himself, after
criticizing those conservatives who did not want to apply Chairman
Mao's General Line for building socialism "more, faster, better, and
more economically," turned his attention to the errors of the "adventurists." Such people, he said, rather than concentrating China's scarce
resources on critical points, demanded that every sector and every productive unit forge ahead as rapidly as possible. The result of these uncoordinated efforts would be entirely counter-productive. Plans drawn up
under the guidance of such thinking might be "well-intentioned," but
they would lead inevitably to the negation of critical points, and of
20. Untitled collection (see footnote 13), p. 30; translated in CB, No. 892, p. 3.
233
234
The China Quarterly
"comprehensive balances" among the components of the national
economy."
By the time issue No. 3 appeared on 9 March, the editors had manifestly read Mao's directive and felt themselves obliged to take account
of it, but they did so in a spirit significantly different from his. "Equilibrium is temporary and relative," quoted the lead editorial, but it went on
to say that in drawing up plans, this temporary and relative equilibrium
was most important. Should disequilibrium emerge, strenuous efforts
should be made to overcome it.22 Another editorial in the same issue, on
the importance of the mass line in planning work, declared that when
" difficulties and disequilibrium appeared in the course of implementing
the plan, the masses should be consulted and mobilized in order to overcome such negative phenomena."28 In the April issue, those who regarded equilibrium as something absolute and unchanging were criticized, but the alternative offered was "living," "positive" or "active"
equilibrium, rather than disequilibrium. A view according to which " the
more disequilibrium the better, the sharper the contradictions the better "
was described as "obviously untenable." "Active equilibrium," the
editorial stated, "consists in letting the advanced carry along the backward, letting the backward catch up with the advanced. It is upwardlooking equilibrium, not downward-looking equilibrium."2* In other
words, the essential principle remained equilibrium just the same.
When issue No. 5 of Planned Economy appeared on 9 May, four days
after Liu Shao-ch'i had proclaimed the slogan of " permanent revolution "
at the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress, it contained a resounding editorial on "putting politics in command" of planning work,
in which the positive function of disequilibrium was finally recognized.
The sentence already mentioned from "On Contradiction" stating that
"disequilibrium is basic" was cited as the authority for this view. While
the technique of drawing up balances should, of course, be used, it was
wrong, the article stated, to reduce production of one commodity just
because it was running ahead of others entering into the same process.25
This seemed clear enough - but the very next issue revealed how little
enthusiasm the editors, and behind them the State Planning Commission, had for Mao's approach. It contained a symposium entitled: "What
is the Basic Method of Planning Work," in which none of the four contributors appeared to agree with Mao. Three of the articles argued that
the method of balances and the mass line should be taken as equally
fundamental, and constituted in fact an inseparable unity. As one of them
pointed out, there was nothing mysterious about drawing up plans and
21. Chi-hua ching-chi, No. 1 (1958), p. 3. The problem of translation is complicated by the fact that p'ing-heng can refer either to balance or equilibrium as
a general concept, or to balances as a planning technique. Given the focus of
this article, I have chosen the first alternative whenever the context did not
preclude this.
22. Ibid., No. 3 (1958), p. 4.
23. Ibid., p. 6.
24. Ibid., No. 4 (1958), p. 2.
25. Ibid., No. 5 (1958), pp. 1-2.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
balances, and the masses were already doing it; the Party's slogan "Let
the whole people manage industry" meant precisely "Let the whole
people do planning." The remaining author came down firmly in favour
of the idea that the method of balances was and must remain the basic
method of planning work, though it might have been misapplied in the
past by those divorced from the masses and obsessed with equilibrium
for its own sake. The basic task was to "organise equilibrium on the
foundation of the mass line." Only one of the contributors even mentioned such a thing as disequilibrium, and he dealt with the topic by
quoting the relevant passage from Mao's speech of 27 February 1957,
drawing from it the conclusion: " We can see that Chairman Mao, like
Lenin, regards balance as the mark of the superiority of a planned
economy."26
At the end of 1958, Planned Economy ceased publication. Times had,
of course, changed, but an article in the very first issue of the new journal combining planning and statistics showed how little the planners had
altered their views. The human consciousness, the author said, has a
tendency to lean to one side (i pien too, as recommended by Mao in 1949
in "On People's Democratic Dictatorship"). In the past, there were a
lot of people who stressed comparisons and equilibrium, and made absolutes of them, imagining that the whole national economy should advance
in good order like the ranks of an army. When, in 1958, the iron and
steel industry had forged ahead in the course of the Great Leap, this
"old theory of equilibrium" had been subjected to quite justified
criticism. But others had now fallen into the opposite error, imagining
that comparison and balances were no longer necessary. In this other
mistaken view:
It is all right if there is disequilibrium in the development of the national
economy; wherever the Commander-in-chief goes, the others will follow. If
there is disequilibrium, well, let there be disequilibrium. These people hold
that in planning work, there is no need to calculate material balances, or to
pay attention to what is possible in the light of material and technical
conditions, otherwise it is "negative equilibrium," or "the theory of
conditions." "
It would be going too far to assume that the "commander-in-chief"
referred to in this passage was today's "great supreme commander
and great helmsman"; the reference is presumably to the local Party
secretaries who were making bold claims for their area or commune. But
the view ridiculed here sounds strangely like that of Chairman Mao.
The purpose of interpolating the above passage on the theoretical discussions of 1958-59 is not to give a complete and balanced account of
the views of Chinese economists, since that would require a much more
detailed analysis of the ideas expounded in many journals, including,
in particular, Ching-chi yen-chiu (Economic Research), which took a
26. Ibid. No. 6 (1958), pp. 13-18.
27. Chi-hua yii tung-chi (Planning and Statistics), No. 1 (1959), p. 7.
235
236
The China Quarterly
somewhat different line.28 It is rather to suggest, on the basis of actual
materials rather than of imagination, some of the policy debates which
lay behind Mao's theories at the time of the Great Leap.
Mao himself admitted, in his speech of 23 July 1959 at Lushan, that
the methods he had been promoting, if carried to an extreme (as in fact
they were), amounted to the negation of planning. Although he put the
blame, rather disingenuously, on the State Planning Commission, which
had ceased, from the summer of 1958, to draw up comprehensive balances
for the national economy, he did recognize that he had not adequately
grasped the complexities of the problem:
They rejected comprehensive balances, they completely failed to calculate
the amounts of coal, iron and transport required. Coal and iron cannot walk
by themselves, they must be transported in wagons. This point I had not
foreseen.29
This does not mean, of course, that Mao repudiated, in 1959 or at
any time thereafter, the basic convictions underlying the Great Leap
Forward, which might be summed up, in grossly oversimplified form,
as follows:
(1) Rapid economic development was indispensable if China were to
maintain her position in the world, especially at a time when it was
already clear that less support and assistance would be forthcoming from
the Soviet Union.
(2) This development, as Mao had begun to spell out in his collectivization speech of 31 July 1955, would have to be labour intensive rather
than capital intensive, and would thus call for many small-scale local
undertakings, which could hardly be centrally planned and controlled,
and would therefore require a large measure of initiative at the grass
roots.
(3) Many cadres, both political and technical, had not adequately
grasped the urgency of more rapid development or the need to break
new paths to achieve it.
We have already suggested that the pace of development was not in
itself a decisive issue, at least between Mao and Liu Shao-ch'i. More controversial was the problem of keeping cadres constantly on their toes
and urging them to go all out. " The ideology of the permanent revolution," wrote one of the authors whose articles on the subject I translated
a decade ago, "is an ideology which constantly stimulates the enthusiasm
of the cadres and the masses."80 As we have already seen, this was
directly inspired by Mao's own statement, in the Sixty Articles of January
28. For the views on equilibrium and "proportioned development" of another
very senior and influential Chinese economist, see Kenneth Walker, "Ideology
and Economic Discussion in China: Mao Yin-ch'u on Development Strategy
and his Critics," Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. XI, No. 2,
Part I (January 1963), pp. 113-133.
29. Mao chu-hsi tui Feng . . . . p . 10.
30. Kao Yang-chih, article in Cheng-chih hsiieh-hsi (Political Study), No. 18
(1959), in La " revolution permanente " en Chine, pp. 57-58.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
1958, that permanent revolution is a way to " maintain the revolutionary
enthusiasm of the cadres and the masses." There were, quite clearly, a
certain number of what might be called genuine rightists in the Chinese
Communist Party at that time, but the dividing line between Mao and
Liu Shao-ch'i (as between Mao and Stalin, who had certainly not hesitated to force the pace of economic and social change in the Soviet Union)
was not so much the question of tempo as the question of order versus
disorder, of leadership versus spontaneity.
To be sure, Mao is no worshipper of spontaneity and uncontrolled
mass initiative. Informed that the Shanghai people's commune had proposed the abolition of " chiefs " (chang), Mao declared in February 1967:
" This is extreme anarchy; it is most reactionary.... In reality, there will
always have to be chiefs." ai And it is an open question to what extent the
actions of the supreme chief in China over the past four years have promoted genuine mass spontaneity and initiative. But, as Mao himself said
in 1956, summing up his philosophical credo in a single sentence:
"Everywhere in the world there are contradictions; if there were no
contradictions, there would be no world."* 2
If we endeavour to grasp what may have been the relation between
the partisans of the Great Leap Forward and the real conservatives within
the Chinese Communist Party, it is instructive to take once more as a
starting-point a text from Chairman Mao, who said in his Chengtu speech
of March 1958:
In 1956, something got blown away - the general line of "more, faster,
better, and more economical," the promoters of progress, the Forty Articles
[on agricultural development]. There were three kinds of people, and three
different reactions: one was regret, another was indifference, and the third
was rejoicing that something had got blown away, the feeling that a rock
had dropped to the ground, and from now on the empire would be at peace.
Of the groups of people having these attitudes, the two extremes were small,
while that in the middle was large. Regarding very many issues in 1956,
there were these three attitudes. When it was a question of fighting Japan,
fighting Chiang Kai-shek, or land reform we were relatively united, but on
the question of forming co-operatives, there had to be three attitudes. Is
this assessment correct?88
It has, of course, been pointed out by many people in the past (in particular by Franz Schurmann), that the radical impulse imparted to Chinese
economic policies by Mao during the second half of 1955 and the early
months of 1956, was largely dissipated for a year and a hah*, from the
spring of 1956 to the autumn of 1957. Here we have confirmation of
this fact from the most authoritative possible source.
These remarks of Mao's clearly fall within the compass of our present
discussion, for the "to-k'uai-hao-sheng'" General Line was explicitly
31. Talk with Chang Ch'un-ch'iao and Yao Wen-yuan, in Mao chu-hsi wenhsiian, p. 62; translation in JPRS, No. 49826, p. 44.
32. " On the Ten Great Relations." Untitled collection (see footnote 13), p. 19.
33. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsiian, p. 33; JPRS, No. 49826, p. 51.
237
238
The China Quarterly
linked to the theory of the permanent revolution by virtually all those
who wrote on it at the time of the Great Leap Forward, and regarded as
the most succinct expression in concrete policy terms of the same radical
impulse.84 Indeed, one of the most detailed and interesting articles on
the subject went so far as to identify the two, declaring: "The great
leap forward in the productive forces of our country has resulted precisely from the revolution consciously carried out by the people of our
country in their social relations, as in the rectification movement and the
formation of people's communes. It has been urged forward by the line
of the permanent revolution put forward by Comrade Mao Tse-tung:
'Summon up all our energies, advance with all our strength, to build
socialism more, faster, better and more economically.'"85
Other articles published in late 1959 and early 1960 describe the
"permanent revolution" as a process of permanent or uninterrupted
struggle with right opportunist thinking. Mao's statement at Chengtu in
March 1958 made it plain, however, - as he has repeatedly done in other
texts throughout his career - that the hot and the cold are always a
minority, and the lukewarm form the great mass of humanity. The
problem was therefore not only to combat the genuine rightists, but to
stir the great mass in the middle out of their complacency. It will be recalled that, in the Sixty Articles on Work Methods, Mao specifically
stressed this aspect of "permanent revolution," declaring: "Our revolution is like fighting a war. After winning one battle, we must immediately put forward new tasks. In this way, we can maintain the
revolutionary enthusiasm of the cadres and the masses, and diminish their
self-satisfaction, since they have no time to be satisfied with themselves
even if they wanted to; new tasks keep pressing in, and everyone devotes
his mind to the question of how to fulfil the new tasks." This passage
was taken over in virtually the same words, though with the order slightly
rearranged, in one of the articles I translated a decade ago. There the
author proceeds to sum up this idea, and perhaps the main concrete
implication of the theory, in the following sentence: "Therefore, in this
sense, the ideology of the permanent revolution is also an ideology which
continuously stimulates the enthusiasm of the cadres and the masses." *•
But if the main policy implication of the theory of the permanent
revolution is to urge on the cadres to mobilize the masses, there remains
the intriguing philosophical problem of the nature of the qualitative
changes occurring in socialist and communist society. Here Mao's originality lies partly in the simple affirmation that there will be revolutions
even when the stage of communism has been reached. It will be recalled
that the passage on the permanent revolution in the Sixty Articles on
34. Cf. Sun Ting-kuo, article in La " revolution permanente " en Chine, pp. 4-5;
Kuan Feng, ibid. p. 18.
35. Wu Chiang, article in Che-hsueh yen-chiu, No. 8 (1958), p. 25; translated
in op. cit. p. 23.
36. Kao Yang-chih, article in Cheng-chih hsueh-hsi, No. 18 (1959), p. 19;
translated in La "revolution permanente" en Chine, pp. 57-58.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
Work Methods began: "Our revolutions follow each other, one after
another." This sentence was quoted in a number of articles which I
translated earlier. In two of these, the citation continues in quotation
marks as follows: " I n the past it was like this, and in the future it will
also be like this, it will be like this eternally. Even when communist
society has been reached, it will be no exception; it is simply that, at
that time, the nature and form of the revolutions will be different from
those in class society, that's all." 37 This passage does not occur in the
January 1958 draft of the Sixty Articles. It is reported that the Sixty
Articles were re-issued in the spring of 1956 in revised form, as a regular
inner-Party document, and these sentences may have been added at that
time. In any case, there is little doubt that they stem from Mao.
Even more interesting is Mao's conception of the nature of these
"revolutions" under communism, and the way in which they take place.
The essential point here, in terms of the philosophical concepts involved,
is that the type of qualitative changes under communism which Mao
has baptized "revolutions" will take the form of a rupture in the continuity of development, or of a leap from one quality or stage to another.
The notion that there are sudden changes (ch'ung-t'u) and leaps (fei-yao)
in the development of things appears twice at least in Mao's 1937 lectures
on dialectical materialism, and both times it is taken straight from one
of the two sources he is copying.18 There are, however, two fundamental
differences. First, the Mao of 1937 (like his sources) saw the universe
as involved in ceaseless flux, but as nevertheless unending and indestructible. For example, he wrote in his discussion of movement:
[Dialectical materialism] holds that the appearance of a new form, a new
quality, or a new category of things, arises from a rupture in the continuity
and passage through a leap resulting from a clash (ch'ung-t'u) and a rupture
(p'o chit), but at the same time the continuity and reciprocal links between
things can definitely not be absolutely demolished. Finally, dialectical
materialism holds that the world is inexhausible (unlimited), and this is
true, not only of the world as a whole, but also of parts of the world. Does
not the electron, just like the atom, manifest a complex yet inexhaustible
world?
We now know that the electron manifests no such thing. Indeed, the
Mao of 1937, following his Soviet sources which still talked about the
"ether" as something real, was much farther removed from the perspectives of modern physics than the Mao of 1959, with his vistas of a time
when " the globe itself will have ceased to be." 8 9 This point, though intriguing, is obviously less central for our purposes than the nature of
37. Wu Chiang, article in Che-hsueh yen-chiu, No. 8, 1958; translated in La
"revolution permanente" en Chine, p. 20.
38. See paragraphs 4 and 6 of Chapter II, compared to HC, p. 163, and TK,
pp. 222-223. The quotation below is from para. 6. Cf. Collected Writings of
Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 6, p. 288.
39. Mao did not modify the passage quoted above in revising his lectures in
1959, but then the revision of this text was very superficial.
239
240
The China Quarterly
the political clashes and leaps which will take place under communism.
Here the situation is, in a word, that Mao has moved forward from his
Soviet sources of the thirties to a more radical vision of social change
in the future, whereas, by the time Mao read these translations in 1936
and 1937, Stalin had already begun to move backward towards a less
dialectical view of social change under communism.
In 1927, at the height of the struggle with the Opposition, Stalin had
given an eloquent description of the contradictions within the Soviet
Union, even using the metaphor of "waves" which has since become
dear to Mao:
In our country there are classes, there are contradictions within the country,
there is a past, a present and a future, in our country there are contradictions
between them, and we cannot advance placidly through the waves of life.
Our advance passes through struggle, through the development of contradictions . . . , through the discovery and liquidation of these contradictions
The struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying and
that which is being born, such is the foundation of our development40
But, as early as his report of 1936 on the new constitution, Stalin declared that the frontier between workers and peasants was fading away,
and that the contradictions between them were in the process of disappearing. And in the article on dialectical and historical materialism
which he contributed to the History of the CPSU published in 1938, he
stated categorically: " A n example of the complete correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive
forces is the socialist economy of the U.S.S.R., where collective ownership of the means of production corresponds fully to the collective
character of the process of production." 41 To be sure, in the last years of
his life, Stalin refuted those Soviet ideologists who had drawn excessively
sweeping conclusions from these words, to the effect that there were
absolutely no contradictions at all, even minor ones, between the productive forces and the relations of production in the Soviet Union; he
had been talking, he said, about the situation as a whole. But at the same
time, he put forward the singularly un-dialectical view that contradictions'
in socialist society were resolved not by revolutions, but by gradual
change, without qualitative leaps. Even such a profound transformation
as agricultural collectivization in the Soviet Union, he said, had taken the
form of a gradual transition, "without ruptures," because it constituted
a "revolution from above." 42
Whatever may have been his errors and sins later on, Lu Ting-i was
clearly speaking directly for Mao when he challenged these views in
April 1960, in the context of the great campaign against "modern revi40. Stalin, Sochineniya, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1946-51), Vol. X, pp. 330-331.
41. Istoriya Vsesoyuznoy Kommunisticheskoy Partii (Bol'shevikov) (Moscow,
1950), p. 118.
42. Stalin, Marksizm i Voprosy Yazykoznaniya (Moscow, 1953), pp. 28-29;
see also his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (Moscow, 1952).
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
sionism" which had just been launched. In his speech on that occasion
he criticized "certain theories" according to which "it suffices to consolidate the socialist system, and there is no need to develop it; and even
if it must still be developed, even if we must still advance toward communism, it is quite unnecessary to pass through a struggle or a qualitative
leap." In this way, he continued, " the process of permanent revolution
of human society would continue to a certain point and then stop. On a
philosophical level this corresponds to a metaphysical viewpoint and not
to the viewpoint of dialectical materialism."4* We can now observe that
Lu's very language was borrowed from Mao, who had written in the
Sixty Articles: "Every mutation or leap is a revolution, and they must
all go through struggle. The ' theory of no clashes' is metaphysical."
This statement by Mao is clearly a direct attack on the views of Stalin
himself. It is therefore not surprising that, in his Chengtu speech of March
1958, Mao should have declared:
Superstition restrains our mind and does not allow us to consider problems
freely. When one studies Marxism, it is very dangerous if one does not do
it in an audacious style. Stalin also advocated audacity, but afterwards he
deteriorated somewhat. Nevertheless, the Leninist foundation of his wri'tings
on linguistics and economics [obviously " Questions of Linguistics " of 1950
and "Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R." of 1952] was
relatively correct, or fundamentally (chi-pen) correct.*4
If Stalin in his later writings was only "relatively correct" in Mao's
eyes, this was probably in large part because he did not share Mao's
open-ended, dialectical vision of the future of socialist and communist
society, and believed instead that everything could be kept tidily under
control by a "revolution from above." 45
This discussion of the theoretical differences between Mao and Stalin
has brought us to the point where we can endeavour to sum up the essential policy differences dividing Mao not only from the Soviet leader and his
successors, but also from a large group - probably the majority - within
the Chinese Communist Party, as caught and refracted in the theory of
the "permanent revolution." The argument about "revolution from
above" versus the mass line contains within it, by implication, all the
43. Jen-min jih-pao, 23 April 1960. See also Wu Chiang's similar remarks as
translated in La "revolution permanente" en Chine, p. 21.
44. Mao chu-hsi wen-hsuan, p. 79. The translation in JPRS, No. 49826,
p. 47 is not quite accurate, and thus obscures some of these points.
45. Another interesting illustration of what Mao thought of Stalin as a philosopher is to be found in the original 1937 version of "On Practice," which
constitutes para. 11 of Chapter II of the lectures on dialectical materialism. Here
Mao said (according to the recent Red Guard text), after stressing the importance
of dialectics as a guide to revolutionary action: "This complete doctrine of
dialectical materialism was created by Marx and Engels, Lenin developed mis
doctrine, and on reaching the present period of the victory of the socialist revolution in the Soviet Union and of the world revolution, this doctrine has again
moved to a new stage, its content has become even richer. . . ." (Mao chu-hsi wenhsiian, p. 26). Not a word about Stalin in all this.
241
242
The China Quarterly
other issues we have been talking about previously. For it means, in
effect, no large-scale struggle among the members of society, since initiative is firmly in the hands of the leading Party cadres. It also means no
ruptures or brusque leaps in the process of economic development, since
the course of development is set by the planners at the centre and not
by innovation from below. Finally, it means a stress on expertise rather
than redness. As can be seen from the corresponding passage in the
Sixty Articles, for Mao there was no "red and expert dichotomy"; it
was indispensable that everyone should be both. For the Soviets and for
many of his comrades, on the other hand, a choice was in fact necessary,
and there was no doubt in their minds as to which should receive priority.
Thus, I have looked (all too cursorily) at the theory of the permanent
revolution, both as the expression of Mao Tse-tung's dialectical vision
of the universe, and as a symbol of his uncompromising will to drive
the revolution forward, despite the opposition of the conservatives and
the inertia of the waverers, at a time when the rhythm of socialist transformation was constantly a subject of debate. It would be a fascinating
exercise to trace this concept year by year through the ensuing decade,
but the result would be to expand this article into a book. I shall
therefore leap directly to the present, with only one passing glance at
the intervening decade.
The term "permanent revolution," though less in vogue than at the
time of the Great Leap, has, as everyone knows, cropped up from time
to time in Chinese ideological writings ever since 1958. It is perhaps
of interest to note that an instruction of Lo Jung-huan to the People's
Liberation Army (PLA) Political Academy on 12 September 1958, reproduced in February 1961 in the Bulletin of Activities,™ after stressing that
the study of Chairman Mao's works was the primary thing, and the classical writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin should be read "selectively," declared that the three main texts for learning Mao's philosophy
were "On Practice," "On Contradiction" and the "Sixty Articles on
Work Methods " - of which the only genuinely philosophical part is the
two points quoted above regarding the permanent revolution and the
dialectics of socialist and communist society. In other words, the " permanent revolution " was certainly still very much on the order of the day
in 1961, as far as the PLA was concerned, at a time when Lin Piao
was already deeply involved in turning the army into a "great school"
of Mao Tse-tung's thought.
This is most intriguing in the light of a paradox which I shall now
simply point out, without seriously urging any explanation of it. This
is that, while a reference to "permanent" or "uninterrupted" revolution
has been written into the new Party Constitution, Lin Piao did not use
the term even once in his very long report to the Ninth Party Congress,
where the Constitution was adopted. Moreover, the term was wantonly
46. Kung-tso t'ung-hsun, No. 8, pp. 12, 14.
Mao Tse-tung and Theory of Permanent Revolution, 1958-69
mistranslated into English as "continued revolution." 47 It is obviously
possible to disagree as to whether pu-tuan ko-ming should be translated
as "permanent," "uninterrupted," or "continuous" revolution, but to
translate it "continued revolution" makes no sense at all. Why this
should be done I cannot understand, unless it be to veil the difference
between this term and the one used repeatedly by Lin Piao in his report,
"continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat."
This is not a very convincing hypothesis, but I cannot think of any other.
The brief passage in the constitution is a summary of most of the
basic ideas going under the name of permanent revolution, as they were
expounded by Mao Tse-tung in 1958:
Socialist society is a relatively long historical stage. Classes, class contradictions, and class struggle will exist from beginning to end of this historical
stage as will the struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism,
the danger of a capitalist restoration, and the threat of subversion and
aggression from imperialism and modern revisionism. These contradictions
can only be resolved by relying on the theory and practice of Marxist
permanent revolution. The great proletarian cultural revolution in our
country is precisely a great political revolution under conditions of socialism, in which the proletariat opposes the bourgeoisie and all exploiting
classes.48
Two months after the close of the Ninth Party Congress, in July 1969,
Jen-min jih-pao published an article by Chao Yang ("morning sun" perhaps a pseudonym?) of " a certain unit under the PLA General
Logistics Department," entitled "Conscientiously Study Chairman Mao's
Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." The expression in the title is Lin Piao's, but the term pu-tuan
ko-ming occurs constantly throughout the article. For some reason, this
article was translated into English only half a year later, on 30 January
1970; once again, the term is persistently rendered as "continued revolution" - except in referring to Marx, when it becomes "permanent," or to
Lenin when it becomes (consistently with Lenin's own vocabulary) " uninterrupted." 49 Apart from references to events of the past few years, and an
occasional quotation from recent statements by Mao, this article does
not differ greatly from those published during the period of the Great
Leap - for example, from that of Ju Ch'ien, published in Jen-min jih-pao
almost exactly a decade earlier, on 27 June 1959. Perhaps the only
significant thing about it is that it ends with the classic quotation from
the resolution of December 1958 - which, as we have seen, was directed
superficially at least against leftist excesses. This passage is followed
by only two sentences of conclusion: " That is to say, we are partisans
of a permanent revolution by stages, and also of continuing the revolu47. See the English version of the constitution in Peking Review, No. 18 (1969),
p. 36.
48. My translation. Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 327-328.
49. Peking Review, No. 5 (1970), pp. 4-7.
243
244
The China Quarterly
tion by stages. (Wo-men shih yu chieh-tuan-ti pu-tuan-ko-ming-Iun-che,
yeh shih yu chieh-tuan-ti chi-hsu-ko-ming-lun-che.) Once we grasp this
theory, we shall be able to overcome and prevent both 'left' and right
opportunist errors, and carry forward the revolutionary cause of the
proletariat both actively and steadily."
Instead of offering a lengthy conclusion about the significance of the
theory of the permanent revolution yesterday and today, I propose to end
with a piece of rather tentative speculation. Consider the strict parallelism
of the balanced elements in the two sentences just quoted (which, incidentally, disappears completely from the Peking Review translation, since
"permanent" and "continued" revolution are regarded as the same
thing, and the first sentence is therefore telescoped to read "We are
advocates of continued revolution by stages"). Could it be that "permanent" revolution is regarded as a potentially "leftist" thing, as well
as a mentality which characterizes the activists, while "continued"
revolution (i.e., chi-hsii ko-ming) is a potentially rightist thing, a thing
which characterizes the steady, reliable elements, the backbone of the
Party bureaucracy? Were this interpretation correct, it would follow that
there exist in China today two tendencies, which might be called the party
of activism and the party of order or moderation, and that Lin Piao is
on the side of order. Perhaps the spirit of "permanent revolution,"
though the term is written into the Party Constitution, is not really very
much alive in China today.
WORLD POLITICS
A Quarterly Journal of International Relations
Offering articles based on research on the frontiers of scholarship—-in history,
geography, economics, international relations, military affairs, foreign policy,
sociology, and political theory.
Articles of prime importance and interest appearing in
No. 4
VoL XXIII
July 1971
Development under Two Systems:
Comparative Productivity Growth since 1950
Abram Bergson
The Social Costs of Modernization:
David E. Powell
Ecological Problems in the U.S.S.R.
The Arms Race Phenomenon
Colin S. Gray
Strategic Interdependence and the Politics of
Michael J. Brenner
Inertia: Paradoxes of European Defense Cooperation
The Macedonian Syndrome: An Historical Model of
Myron Weiner
International Relations and Political Development
Review Articles
Political Science in the U.S.S.R.: " To Be
Rolf H. W. Theen
Or Not To Be "
William Welch and
Soviet Foreign Policy Studies and
Jan F. Triska
Foreign Policy Models
One Year $7.50 . Two Years 11130 . Single Copies $2.50
Published under the editorial spoo orshipoftbe
CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540