Introduction
ByV. Copeland September 1977
The articles in this pamphlet -- taken from the pages of Workers World newspaper in late 1976 and early 1977 -- deal mostly with the defeat of the left wing of the Chinese Communist Party and the comeback of the rightists who were purged during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-1970.
Sam Marcy's analysis of the defeat of the Mao faction, led after Mao's death by Chiang Ching and three others who were slandered as the "Gang of Four," was written during the very heat of the events, but has been amply verified by subsequent events. It is all too clear now, with the return of Teng Hsiao-ping, whom Mao himself removed from office early in 1976, that the anti-Maoists are in control of the party.
The value of these articles, however, lies not merely in their "prediction" of the unfolding political development in People's China, but in the method of their approach to the events at the time they happened, in the application of Marxism-Leninism to the Chinese socialist revolution and to the extreme shifts in the revolution's leadership. Furthermore, the great wealth of background on the revolution and the Cultural Revolution which Marcy brought to this series enriches it so much that it would be worth reading for this information alone.
Finally, the all-important question of the fate of two great workers' states -- the Soviet Union as well as People's China, both of which are still essentially socialist countries -- is discussed here with ten times more clarity and infinitely more class solidarity than can be found anywhere else in the United States. And the role of U.S. imperialism itself is explained more adequately and sharply than in most quarters of the international movement.
Also included is an appendix, "The Cultural Revolution and the Fall of Lin Piao," which is reprinted from an earlier pamphlet, China: the Struggle Within. In it Sam Marcy summarizes the significance of the earlier defeat of Lin who represented the most revolutionary wing within the Chinese leadership, and the rapprochement of the remaining leadership with U.S. imperialism, explaining how the events had indicated that the Cultural Revolution had run its course.
Another article, "In Defense of the Chinese Revolution," by Deirdre Griswold, the editor of Workers World newspaper, reviews the long history of support for the accomplishments of the Chinese Revolution by Workers World Party.
Due to the fact that the articles appeared at different times in different editions of a newspaper, there is a small degree of repetition in some of them. But the editors, in the interest of historical accuracy and desiring not to alter the logic of the successive arguments, have allowed such repetition to remain. On the whole, however, this is not just a literary matter. It was and still is necessary to emphasize that the left has indeed been suppressed in China -- not with the intention of placing a funeral wreath on the Chinese Revolution, but for the purpose of reiterating the precise state of that revolution today and preparing the genuine supporters of that revolution to endure whatever further setbacks are in store, until its inevitable return to the leftward course.