Chinese Stalinists Lurch into Reverse Gear

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The watchword appears to be "All change!"

Under Mao the growth of the population was sanctified; now stringent measures have been brought in to penalise couples having more than one child.

Under Mao,. People's Communes and collectivisation in agriculture were the order of the day; now a fundamental revision, and breaking down of the old structures is in progress.

Under Mao incentives were out; now lively debates centre on how to "encourage the ardour of the peasants"

In the past population control was decried as a bourgeois notion.

Now the Hua-Deng regime in China has set out major restrictions on the number of births allowed.

Repayment

A couple are gladly allowed one child and receive allowances, etc.

However, if another child Is born, all the previous allowances have to be repaid: and if a third comes along, their taxes are increased to penalise them.

It is too early to say what sort of reaction will grow against these dictates.

However, it is clear that great anxiety has been expressed to the chaos that has resulted from the "readjustments" which have been proposed in the agricultural sector.

The People's Daily in Peking in fact expressed its anxiety in a front page attack on the risks of chaos which the dismantling of the production teams heralds.

With the exception of State farms, the People's Communes are organised into several brigades which are sub-divided into production teams.

But two Central Committee documents; unpublished, adopted last December (On several problems of the accelerated development of agriculture and The work rules of rural People's Communes) which were widely circulated in the provinces, put forward as their main line the "criticism of the ultra-left line"

Leftist errors

It claimed that many "leftist" errors had been committed over the years.

Now under the pretext of giving maximum autonomy to the production team, comes a dismantling of all agriculture which was the responsibility of brigades and communes.

In Hunan, for example, one brigade which reared pigs collectively has seen its animals either killed, sold or distributed to the peasants.

The same happened in forestry and orchards.

What is in practice happening is a return to the family unit and individual plots.

Disruption Thus the debate in the pages of the People's Daily between local peasants and sections of the party leadership worried at the disruption to production.

This has been followed by the announcements from the second session of the Sth Assembly which stated that the rhythm of modernisation is to be slowed down, more investment is to be channelled into agriculture, light industry fostered rather than heavy, and more 'rational' use is to be made of resources. • Opposition has of course continued in the base of the In one magazine, Tansuo, given out in front of the "wall of democracy" there is a viole nt attack on Deng Xiaoping as well as an overall critique of the regime.

Most of the authors of this text were subsequently arrested.

The choices facing the Chinese people according to Tansuo are:

«Either we wish thạt society will progress, that the standard of living and production will develop rapidly and that the social system is completely reformed.

Or we want to perpetuate the class dictatorship in Mao's way, that is to say to refuse democracy, and therefore never to achieve the modernisation of production and the way of life of the people."

The ex-Red Guard leaders who now produce Huang. He (Yellow River) in Hong Kong have a more politically worked out analysis.

They point out the desire of Deng to modernise and agree with him that the small and middle cadres act as an obstacle to liberalisation.

Deng describes them as "The people who monopolise the toilets but do nothing in them."

Dangerous

The problem is that it is dangerous to change line under conditions of continual purge.

Therefore they take

initiatives.

However, the Huang points out:

"When you want to proceed to make some adjustments, you quickly realise that it is necessary to change everything."

This understanding of the need to completely overthrow the bureaucracy from the Chinese workers' state is essential to tackle the fight for the mobilisation of the workers and peasants.

The political weakness of the leading clique is still obvious from the continuing repression.

The opposition group, the Alliance of Human Rights has protested against the "illegal" arrest of three of their members including Ren Wanding.

The April 5 Tribune has criticised:

"those who think that by adopting administrative measures and methods of violent repression they will bring together different movements of thought."

About 30 dissidents are said to have been arrested since the beginning of April. regime."

Mugabe went on to call for an inter-African High Command to defend the Front Line states.

The emphasis of pressure on Britain and the US is symptomatic of Mugabe's whole PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Young Whatever he says about no collaboration with Muzorewa, the political direction the struggle has taken is one in which secret • diplomacy and manoeuvring is the dominant method.

In the imperialist nations the workers movement must prepare a campaign of solidarity with the guerrilla struggle focussed around independent workers' action to black the supplying of materials to the Smith/Muzorewa regime and opposition to recognition or the dispatching of imperialist troops as "peacekeepers"

In the Labour Party the despicable record of pro-imperialist Owen must be placed systematically before the membership and a fight taken up for a Labour leadership which supports anti-imperialist struggles to repiace the one which has done so much to knife them.

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Bolivian workers in the streets opposing Banzer's coup in 1971 JSE opposition and the threat of a. 'communist takeover' as his reasons.

Pereda, however, was not Banzer.

His rule was short. in announcing that new elections would not take place until May 1980, he not only ignored the precarious position. of his government in face of the rising revolutionary currents inside the proletariat and the peasantry, but he also antagonised the MNR and sections of the officer corps.

These dissident officers were not so much followers of the populist General Torres, whose regime (1970-71) had witnessed the establishment of . the workers' and peasants' Popular Assembly.

They were rather a group of officers outraged at their failure influence under Banzer. and achieve promotion Innuenet frightened of the effect on the unity of the armed forces if some concessions were not made to popular demands for democratic rights.

Some of these officers had links with the MR and particularly with that faction led by Hernan Silez Zuazo who was the legitimate' victor in the Figurehead Consequently in November