Published: Challenge, Vol. 13, No. 23, November 4, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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PEKING–The “moderates” have apparently won the fight against Chiang Ching (Mao’s widow) and the three other “radicals” in the Chinese leadership. One thing that can be seen in this fight is that the charges launched by both sides against each other are true.
The “moderates,” led by Hua Kuo-feng, are already going back to the revisionist economic policy of Teng Hsiao-ping and Chou En-lai (which was repudiated earlier this year in a massive campaign which led to the dismissal of Teng). The “moderates” want to strengthen the alliance between China and the U.S.
The “radicals” on the other hand have been exposed as opportunists, living the good life while hypocritically leading the campaign against the capitalist roaders, and as having wild ambitions to take over the Party. These “radicals” were the same ones that betrayed the Red Guards (the real left in China) during the Cultural Revolution of 1965-68, allying themselves with the “moderates” to attack the Shanghai Commune of 1967 (see last issue of Challenge). Like all opportunists, now that their “allies” have no use for them, they have been cast aside.
In reality, these two groups have no essential differences. Both are leading China down the path of revisionism. While the “moderates” accuse the “radicals” of “worshipping things foreign.” a dozen officials of Pullman Kellogg, a Houston company, flew to Peking to inaugurate three agricultural chemical complexes that are part of the largest contract ever awarded by China to a U.S. company. Company officials in Houston said “they read political developments there (in China) as similar to the hoopla evidenced in the U.S. during national political convention.” (N.Y. Times, Oct. 26).
The struggle in China will accelerate and the hold of the “moderates” might not be as secure as it seems. As these two factions fight each other, the real left in China must develop their own Communist Party to lead the Chinese masses back on the road of revolution.