The Press MONDAY, MAY 8, 1967. No End Yet To The Cultural Revolution

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 14

The Press MONDAY, MAY 8, 1967. No End Yet To The Cultural Revolution

A few weeks ago Mao Tse-tung’s cultural revolution seemed to have ground to a halt. The Red Guard students were being sent back to school, order and discipline were to be restored, and excesses were being condemned. Necessity might have dictated this course. Crops had to be planted and industry kept in motion. Contentment rather than discontent the growing tranquillity of mind that Mao wanted to root out had fostered strong opposition to the revolution. No-one could say whether Mao had accepted the need for a period of consolidation that would help his final victory or whether the Prime Minister, Chou En-lai, an advocate of order and efficiency, had prevailed. Since then it has become fairly clear that, while Mao and his supporters have not abandoned the cultural revolution, Chou En-lai has effected important reconciliations among party leaders and has checked the momentum of the revolution. After months of public vilification by the Maoists, no reconciliation with President Liu Shao-chi seems possible. The breach must be complete between Mao, the revolutionary, and Liu, an austere leader devoted to the Communist Party as the fount of authority and guide to action. Liu’s deposition must now be inevitable. The way has been prepared for it and it may mark the end of a phase of the cultural revolution. When Stalin feared that he was losing control of the Soviet Communist Party in the thirties he used the secret police to purge it. Mao has felt the same loss of control since his programme for the “Great Leap Forward” was stopped and shelved in 1959. He has tried to purge the Chinese Communist Party of “revisionists”; to do this he appealed to “ the masses ” through the Red Guards and, later, sought the support of the Army. Both the Red Guards and the Army appear to have been unreliable allies. The “ triple alliances ” that were to seize power were to combine representatives of the Army, leaders of “ revolutionary mass organisations ” (including the Red Guards and other new organisations), and Government and party leaders loyal to Mao’s thought. They were to take over from “corrupted” revolutionaries. The alliances have run into trouble. Their elements have not united happily. In four provinces they have formally taken office; provisional committees have been formed in Shanghai and, recently, in Peking. This apparent success in the capital, a stronghold of anti-Maoists, was accorded special celebrations last month. Elsewhere the provincial newspapers and radios have expressed pro-Mao sentiments. Moderating action by the Army and bargains with party leaders who openly opposed the cultural revolution were probably inspired by Chou En-lai. If Mao’s revolutionaries have failed to unite or have failed to supplant “ corrupted ” party and Government men the blame must be laid somewhere. Chou has declared himself on the Mao side. On the principle that the root of the evil must be tom out, the attack continues against Liu. Success in this may end one aspect of the cultural revolution: the straggle for the succession to power. The Maoists will have ensured continuity of leadership and policy.

Other aspects of the revolutionary movement remain obscure. It is by no means clear that the convulsions of recent months have revived a crusading spirit, or that they have strengthened the Communist regime in the distant provinces of Tibet and Inner Mongolia. They have done nothing to assert China’s status in world affairs. They have stirred traditional feelings of nationalism and antipathy towards foreigners. Although China may not emerge from this episode militarily stronger, it will be politically more aggressive. The world has been witnessing—if indistinctly what may be an exclusively Chinese form of political development. The unorthodox elevation of Mao above the party is in line with the tradition of Chinese political loyalty to men rather than to ideas. Mao hopes to bequeath his “ thought ” as a political guide to China and has attempted to ensure, through the cultural revolution, that the people will demand adherence to his thought by his successors. It might be argued that his successors,, among whom none can match Mao’s stature in the minds of millions of Chinese, will require the support of such a legacy to maintain their authority. Either way, this is a phase of the revolution which has not ended yet.