November-December 1999

The arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party Teng Hsiao-ping made many absurd statements about economic construction. In a nutshell, his economic ideas are essentially those of the comprador bourgeoisie. Domestically speaking, he represented the bourgeoisie and wanted to seize the leadership over the national economy from the proletariat and turn China’s socialist economy into a bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist economy. In foreign affairs he practised capitulation and national betrayal and attempted to turn China into a colony or semi-colony of imperialism and social-imperialism.

Reimposing “Direct and Exclusive Control of Enterprises by the Ministry Concerned”

After Teng Hsiao-ping took up work again, he imposed without the knowledge and approval of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao an economic administration system of "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned." This means a few top persons in the central ministries concerned could directly issue orders to enterprises in all parts of the country and exercise leadership over them. Enterprises of the same trade thus formed into a seperate system operating by themselves, thereby liquidating the controlling power of the Party Central Committee and the local Party committees over the economy and negating the unified leadership of the Party committees at various levels.

As early as 1956, Chairman Mao pointed out that in order to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, strengthen the socialist economic base and build a strong socialist country, it is necessary to handle correctly the relations between the central and local authorities and "let the localities undertake more work under unified central planning." This will bring the initiative of both the central and local authorities into play. However, Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping for a long time refused to implement this correct principle; instead, they lauded the imperialist trusts to the skies.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution smashed the two bourgeois headquarters of Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao. During the revolution, the masses and the revolutionary cadres rose in revolt against "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry cerncerned" and promoted the implementation of Chairman Mao’s correct principle. China no longer has to ship grain from the south to the north nor coal from the north to the south. Deposits of coal, petroleum and natural gas have been discovered in the south. Small iron and steel, chemical fertilizer, cement, machinery and hydro-electric power industries have mushroomed in the various localities and output has multiplied, while many small and medium-sized cities have developed into new industrial centres. All this shows the absolute correctness of Chairman Mao’s instruction that "it is far better for the initiative to come from two sources than from only one." This is of great and far-reaching significance to developing the national economy with greater, faster, better and more economical results.

After Teng Hsiao-ping resumed work, he lapsed into his old ways. On the pretext of exercising "centralized and unified," leadership, he wanted to "turn over to the higher authorities" what he called "key enterprises which serve the whole nation and require organized co-ordination on a national scale." If this policy had been followed, most of the big enterprises and the lesser ones working in co-ordination with them in all parts of the country would have been "turned over." This would inevitably have undermined the imtiative of the localities and the broad masses of the people and sabotaged socialist construction as a whole. What Teng Hsiao-ping undertook to do fully shows that he was stubbornly opposed to Chairman Mao’s principle of bringing into play the initiative from both the central and local authorities, that he wanted to reverse the correct appraisal of the Cultural Revolution, and that he wished to continue pushing the revisionist line and take the beaten track of imperialist trusts.

The system of "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned" is diametrically opposed to the Party’s unified leadership. It is splittism and advocates the doctrine of "many centres" in opposition to the Party Central Committee; it is despotism and bourgeois dictatorship over the localities and the masses. The purpose of Teng Hsiao-ping’s reimposing "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned" was the liquidation of our socialist economy through "rectification." This kind of "control" would inevitably divide up the socialist economy of ownership by the whole people and turn it into the "private property" of respective trades. And the various trades and departments would become sharply opposed to each other. The overtly distinct division of labour would lead to undermining each other’s work and the relations between them would be turned into capitalist relations of competition.

Since "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned" disregarded inter-departmental equilibrium in the national economy, it would inevitably undermine the rational distribution of the national economy and the multi-purpose utilization of resources and obstruct extensive socialist cooperation.

Teng Hsiao-ping’s "rectification" of the economy by means of "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned" was intended to bring about a capitalist concentration of production and monopoly and enforce the revisionist practices of running factories by relying on experts, putting profits in command, offering material incentives, giving first place to production and putting technique above everything else. It also aimed at negating Chairman Mao’s line and policies,concerning the socialist revolution and construction, at expanding and strengthening bourgeois right, at changing the socialist orientation and road of our enterprises and turning the socialist economy into a bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist economy.

Pushing the Soviet Revisionist Managerial System

Resurrecting the economic administration system of "direct and exclusive control of enterprises by the ministry concerned" and introducing the Soviet revisionist managerial system in the enterprises to exercise bourgeois dictatorship over the working class are two aspects of the bureaucrat-monopoly capitalism Teng Hsiao-ping worked for. Chairman Mao pointed out in 1964: "Management itself is a matter of socialist education. If the managerial staff do not join the workers on the shop floor, can live and work with them and modestly learn one or more skills from them, then they will find themselves locked in acute class struggle with the working class all their lives and in the end are bound to be overthrown as bourgeois by the working class." Teng Hsiao-ping always acted in contravention of Chairmin Mao’s instruction that we must wholeheartedly rely on the working class, and obstinately tried to push his revisionist line characterized by hostility to the working class. He openly declared that "reliance on the workers, peasants and soldiers is relative," categorically refused to regard the working class and the poor and lower-middle peasants as masters of the state, and denied that they had right to control the economy. He showed the utmost hatred for the revolutionary action of the working class during the Great Cultural Revolution in criticizing the capitalist and revisionist managerial principles, rules and regulations, and he lost no time in mounting a vengeful counter-attack the moment he came into office again. He not only brought out again the set of rules aimed at "controlling, checking and repressing" the workers, but clamoured for dealing with them "as strictly as possible." This proves to the hilt that he was indeed the general representative of those bourgeois elements sucking the blood of the workers whom Chairman Mao had scathingly criticized.

Which political line is followed and which class wields the power of leadership in an enterprise are factors determining which class actually owns it. If Teng Hsiao-ping had been allowed to carry on with his revisionist line, the leadership of the enterprises would inevitably be seized by the capitalist-roaders, the bourgeoisie in the Party, who would use the power in their hands to embezzle and squander huge amounts of wealth created by the working class and ride roughshod on the backs of the workers. In that case, the socialist enterprises would exist only in name and would be turned into bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist enterprises.

What Teng Hsiao-ping pushed was merely a carbon copy of the so-called "economic reforms" introduced by Khrushchov and Brezhnev. To develop bureaucrat-monopoly capitalism the Soviet revisionists energetically pushed what they called a "new economic system" with material incentives and putting profits in command as the core. They gave top priority to expertise and relied on specialists to run the enterprises, and the bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist class completely controlled the leadership over the national economy. The rules and regulations of their enterprises stipulate explicitly that the managers are vested with the power to sell, transfer or lease any part of the enterprises’ means of production, to recruit and fire workers at will and to do whatever they like to the workers, that is to say, exercise bourgeois dictatorship over them. The Soviet revisionists exercise vertical leadership over the enterprises through the two-level organizational system of "ministry-production combine enterprises" or the three-level system of "ministry-industrial combines-production combine enterprises." These combines which are large in scale have centralized practically the managerial functions of the enterprises. By pushing this "new economic system" the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has intensified its monopoly and control over the enterprises throughout the country.

The reality of the Soviet Union is a mirror. It helps us to see clearly that once the socialist economy turns into a bureaucrat-monopoly capitalist economy, it will bring disaster to the labouring people. Powerless politically and exploited economically, the working people of the Soviet Union today are having a very hard time. The Ninth Five-Year Plan, decked out by the Soviet revisionists as a "Welfare plan," has gone bankrupt; the rate of industrial growth is constantly diminishing; agriculture is in a hopeless mess; there are serious disproportions between the various departments of the national economy; and the contradiction between the worker-peasant masses and the handful of bureaucrat-monopoly capitalists is sharpening with each passing day. All this is steadily aggravating the political and economic crisis of Soviet social-imperialism. Teng Hsiao-ping’s attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Soviet revisionists could only lead to a serious disruption of China’s socialist relations of production and superstructure and destroy the socialist economy.

“Major Policy” of Capitulation and National Betrayal

Chairman Mao has pointed out that under China’s historical condition, those who stubbornly choose to take the capitalist road are in fact "ready to capitulate to imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism." This was the case with Teng Hsiao-ping. In his eyes, the Chinese people were no good at carrying out economic construction or bringing about the modernizations of agriculture, industry, national defence and science and technology, nor, for that matter, was the socialist system of any help. The only feasible way to "speed up the technical transformation of industry and raise labour productivity" is to "import foreign techniques and equipment." For this purpose he put forward a so-called "major policy" under which China would sign "long-term contracts" with foreign countries, with the foreign capitalists supplying the "most up-to-date and the best equipment," to be "paid for" by China with its mineral products. This "major policy" was purely a policy of out-and-out capitulation and national betrayal.

In economic construction, whether to rely on the strength of our own people or worship everything foreign and rely on foreign countries represents two diametrically opposed lines. Chairman Mao has taught us: "Rely mainly on our own efforts while making external assistance subsidiary, break down blind faith, go in for industry, agriculture and technical and cultural revolutions independently, do away with slavishness, bury dogmatism, learn from the good experience of other countries conscientiously and be sure to study their bad experience too, so as to draw lessons from it. This is our line." Teng Hsiao-ping completely betrayed this line advanced by Chairman Mao. His socalled "major policy" actually opposed putting China’s economic construction on the basis of the strength of the Chinese people and advocated instead "importing foreign techniques and equipment."

Whether or not to adhere to the principle of independence and self-reliance is not only an economic question but, first and foremost, a political one. An important means employed by imperialism and social-imperialism to control and plunder other countries is to monopolize advanced techniques and equipment and use their economic strength to check the other countries’ development and carry out extortion, infiltration and expansion. In the world today, if a country is not independent and self-reliant economically, it cannot become politically independent or cannot consolidate its independence and is liable to fall under the control of one or the other superpower.

We hold that, under the guidance of the principle of independence and self-reliance, it is necessary to import some foreign techniques and equipment on the basis of equality and mutual benefit and in accordance with the needs of our country’s socialist revolution and construction. But we absolutely cannot place our hopes for realizing the four modernizations on imports. If we do not rely mainly on our own efforts but, as Teng Hsiao-ping advocated, rely solely on importing foreign techniques copying foreign designs and technological processes and patterning our equipment on foreign models, we will for ever trail behind foreigners in our country’s development of technology and even its entire national economy will fall under the control of foreign monopoly capital.

Some economists of the monopoly capitalists allege that industrially backward countries can only "take off" by relying on the techniques of imperialism. That Teng Hsiao-ping, with the label of a Communist Party member should chime in with such nonsense was a big irony indeed! This of course was not a mere coincidence. It showed that Teng Hsiao-ping’s economic concepts fully met the needs of imperialism.

The Soviet revisionists’ newspaper Pravda had advocated mortgaging Soviet resources to bring in foreign capital and experience and using part of the products turned out by the factories to be built to pay back the debts some time in the future. Teng Hsiao-ping’s "major policy" is of the same stuff as that of the Soviet revisionists. The essence of this "policy" is to ask for foreign loans by selling out China’s natural resources and state sovereignty.

Teng Hsiao-ping shamelessly asserted that his "major policy" had three "advantages," namely, the policy made it possible for China to export, to promote technical transformation and to absorb labour power. What kind of "advantages" are these? They mean nothing but this: the foreign monopoly capitalists would contribute money and equipment while China would supply the necessary labour power, thus the doors would be thrown wide open for the imperialists to plunder China’s natural resources and bleed its people. The Chinese people had more than enough of such "advantages" before liberation. If this capitulationist "major policy" of Teng Hsiao-ping’s were followed, China would be reduced step by step to a raw materials supplying base for imperialism and social-imperialism, a market for their commodities and an outlet for their investments. And not only would the fruits of socialist revolution be forfeited but those of the democratic revolution would also be brought to naught. This fully reveals the ugly features of Teng Hsiao-ping who worked as a comprador for the imperialists and represented the interests of big foreign capitalists.

Historical Experience Merits Attention

Historical experience over the past hundred years tells us that it is but an illusion to think that China can become strong and prosperous by depending on imperialism for techniques and loans to develop its economy. In the latter half of the 19th century, advocates of the "Westernization Movement" of the late Ching Dynasty stressed the need to "accept loans to develop the country." They considered that China’s only "chance of making progress" and "way of survival"' was to use the country’s natural resources as mortgage to borrow large amounts of money from the imperialist countries and to "copy" foreign techniques to build up an industry. Things turned out to be just the opposite. It was these capitulationist ideas which suited the imperialists perfectly, to dump their surplus goods, export capital and carve up China. The "Westernization Movement" drained China’s resources day by day and deepened her national crisis.

In the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China, there were some people enthusiastically advocating "saving the country by industrialization." They deemed that the root cause of China’s poverty and backwardness was her underdeveloped industry, and they believed that China would become strong and prosperous by developing industry and commerce on a large scale. They did not have the courage to launch a thoroughgoing struggle against imperialism and feudalism but harboured the illusion that China could develop a capitalist industry without overthrowing imperialist rule. However, under the dual oppression of the imperialists and their lackeys, the destiny awaiting those advocates of "saving the country by industrialization" was either failure, with all their illusions rising in bubbles, or throwing themselves into the embrace of the imperialists and ending up in the same way as comprador capitalists. During his youth, Teng Hsiao-ping had cherished the idea of "saving the country by industrialization." In the decades that followed, his bourgeois stand and world outlook had not changed a bit. As the revolution develops in depth, his reactionary bourgeois nature became more and more exposed. From opposing the socialist revolution and attempting, to restore capitalism to taking even the mantle of the comprader capitalists and practising capitulations and National betrayal, Teng Hsiao-ping could not but end up in the same ignominious way as compradors in China’s history.

Chairman Mao has pointed out: "Only socialism can save China." This is the historical conclusion arrived at by the Chinese people after protracted revolutionary struggles. Departing from Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, from the dictatorship of the proletariat and from the socialist road, it would be wishful thinking to hope for China’s independence and prosperity and the Chinese people’s freedom and happiness. Revolution is changing and can change everything. So long as we firmly implement Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, persevere in taking class struggle as the key link and adhere to the principle of independence and self-reliance and resolutely rely on and bring into full play the enthusiasm and creativeness of the broad masses of people, we will surely be able to build China into a powerful socialist state with modern agriculture, industry, national defence and science and technology before the end of this century and continue to advance towards the great goal of communism.

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