Watchful eye on new Chinese Communists

Press, 24 August 1977, Page 8

Watchful eye on new Chinese Communists

NZPA Tokyo China’s Communist Party has adopted a new party constitution which puts probationary members under sharp scrutiny for one year, and establishes disciplinary j committees to keep an eye on all 35 million members at all levels.

These developments were reported by First Party Vice-Chairman Yeh Chienying in a lengthy address to the eleventh party congress which ended last Thursday, the Chinese news agency, Hsinhua, reported yesterday. Although it invokes the name of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the new constitution approved by the congress evidently seeks to repair the damage done to the party by Mao and party radicals, led by his wife Chiang Ching, during and after the 1966-69 cultural revolution.

It rules out coercion, repression, and struggle in deal-

I ing with controversial issues.

Without exception, it says, no probationary member may become a full member until after the prescribed period of one year. This provision is made to better eduj cate, observe, and understand party members.

The constitution says those guilty of coercion or repression — crimes laid to the radicals — should be investigated and punished. The 1969 party constitution, subsequently revised, hailed Mao and specified that the late Defence Minister, Lin Piao, was to be his successor. Accused of treason, Lin Piao died in a 1971 plane crash.

The new charter states the banner of Chairman Mao is “The great banner guiding our party to victory through united struggle” It is silent on the knotty problem of the succession to the party chairmanship, now held by former vice-premier, Hua Kuo-feng.

The constitution describes die Communist Party as the political party of the proletariat, and specifies it must lead the people of all nationalities in making China a powerful socialist country with a modern agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology by the end of the century. This is the goal set by the late Premier Chou En-lai in January 1975. The charter puts a new interpretation on Mao’s call to run against the tide, a phrase used to justify the overthrow of many top party leaders during the cub tural purge.

By going against the tide, Chairman Mao meant going against the adverse tide of revisionism, splittism and conspiracy, Yeh said. Yeh praised Hua, hailing him as Mao’s “good student and successor,” “wise leader of our party and people, and the brilliant supreme commander of our army.”