China: the Struggle Within: Hail the Communes! Hail the Communes!
March 1959
The Communes are a new and higher stage of the Chinese Revolution. We proudly defend them against the red-baiting assaults and vicious slanders of the pen-prostitutes of capitalism, and if need be, against the bomb-happy generals of imperialism.
Hail the revolutionary energy of the Chinese youth! Hail the brave emancipation of the courageous Chinese women! Hail the devotion of the young students and intellectuals who labor in field and factory, side by side with the workers and tillers of the soil in the most back-breaking labor!
(Our enthusiasm for, and solidarity with, the Communes is not one whit lessened by our irreconcilable political differences with the Chinese leadership. But it is necessary for the American workers to know first and foremost that the workers and peasants of revolutionary China have made a tremendous achievement for the benefit of labor throughout the world.)