Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

POLITICAL SCIENCE

BAPS-13

Contemporary Political Philosophy

Block-02 MAO ZEDONG

UNIT 5: MAO ZEDONG: AN OVERVIEW

UNIT 6: MAO ZEDONG : ON CONTRADICTION
UNIT 7: MAO ZEDONG: ON REVOLUTION
UNIT 8: MAO ZEDONG :HUNDRED FLOWERS POLICY
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur

Material Production
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Odisha State Open University

© OSOU, 2021. Development process and social movements in

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UNIT- 5 MAO ZEDONG: AN OVERVIEW
Structure

5.1 Objectives

5.2 Introduction

5.3 Educational Doctrine of Mao Zedong

5.4 The Theoretical Foundations

5.5 Summary

5.6 Exercises

5.7 References

5.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit you will be able to-

 Understand the life sketch of Mao Zedong

 Understand the educational doctrine of Mao Zedong
 Know the theoretical foundations

5.2 INTRODUCTION

Maoism like Marxism and Leninism was one of the most debated subjects of the 20th
century. Maoism is the teachings and formulations that were advanced by Mao Zedong.
He is popularly known as Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976). Born at Shaoslian in Munan
province of China in 1893 (December 26) Mao is the second Marxist revolutionary
(Lenin being the first) who bought about a successful revolution in a backward country
like China. Moreover, lie did so primarily with the 11elp of the peasantry - a class
which, Marx thought, had no revolutionary potential. On October 1, 1948, Mao Zedong
proclaimed the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC is a
single-party state controlled by the Communist Party of China. He joined the army of
Hunan province during the 1911 revolution led by Kuomintang (KMT), a bourgeois
nationalist party of Sun Yat Sen. Soon after the success of the KM'T revolution, he
moved to Changsha (Capital of Hunan) and later lo Peking (Now Beijing). It was here
1
that he came under the influence of the radical Marxist leader Li Dazhao who arranged
a job for him in the university library.

However, he left the job and returned to Changsha, and became active in the
Communist Party of China (CPC). Between 1921-25, he organized the mine workers.
He also travelled to various parts of China which gave him a first-hand impression of
the exploitative conditions under which the Chinese peasantry was reeling at that time.
'This was a period of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC. However, the tension
between the two began to develop when the CPC, pressed for agrarian reforms wilily
were not acceptable to the KMT, because they were bound to adversely affect the
interest of the KMT learners many of whom were landlords. By 1927, the relations
between the KMT and the CPC became so bitter that the KMT decided to hit the
communist.

During this rebellion, Mao wrote his first major work - Analysis of Classes in Chinese
Society. Here, he identified the various strata of Chinese peasantry- small, marginal,
idle, and the big peasant and the revolutionary potential of each of them. He highlighted
the contradiction between the peasantry and the feudal lords.

In the subsequent years, Mao launched an extensive program of land reforms and
crushed all “counterrevolutionaries” who were perceived as enemies of the state. Mao
is believed to have written two serious pieces during this period; one titled "On
Practice" and the other called "On Contradiction", both of which were published after
the success of the Chinese revolution. In the 1940s, he gave a blueprint of the future
Chinese Government titled "New Democracy" (1945). During 1942-43, Mao
consolidated his position in the CPC by eliminating all his possible potential rivals
through a rectification campaign. He also advocated a strategy of mass mobilization of
peasants which is known as Mao’s Mass-line. Here, he took a highly nationalist posture
against the Japanese invasion and tried to organize the Chinese people around the
national sentiment. He also refined his theory and practice of guerrilla warfare. The
threat to Chinese security during the Second World War again brought the KMT and
the CPC together. When the cooperation between the two finally ended in 1949, Mao
became the head of the Chinese state which began to be called the People's Republic
of China (PRC). During the reconstruction of the Chinese society, Mao gave a nod el
different from the one envisaged by Marx in his writings or the one attempted by Lenin

2
in the Soviet Union. In the early 1950s, Mao gave his famous call of "Let Hundred
Flowers Bloom" which allowed different viewpoints in the CPC to be expressed freely
and openly. Later, he attempted collectivization of agriculture followed by a call for a
Geert Leap Forward to bring about a quick transition to communism in China. These
attempts Mao did not fully succeed, which generated some resentment and even
opposition to Mao's management of the economic agenda. Mao tried to fight this
opposition with an ideological plan and gave a call for a Cultural Revolution in 1966.
This was an attempt at recharging the revolutionary zeal of the CPC cadres. He
remained to this idea till his death in 1976 (September 9).

Some of his works are “On Contradiction”, “On New Democracy”, etc. The difference
between Maoism and Marxism is that Mao argued that, peasants should be the
revolutionary class in Chinese society rather than the workers.

5.3 EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE OF MAO ZEDONG

Besides being a key figure of Marxism, and a great protagonist, strategist, and
theoretician of the proletarian revolution in China, Mao Zedong was an important
educator of the proletariat. With his extensive writings on education and his
considerable practical experience in teaching, he paved the way for a specifically
Chinese form of socialist education. The Chinese sum up his contribution to education
in the phrase: ‘the educational doctrine of Mao Zedong’. Mao Zedong gradually
developed and refined his educational doctrine based on three main building blocks:
his personal experience of teaching, Marxism, and the very rich cultural heritage of the
Chinese nation. Mao Zedong was born on 26 December 1893. He died on 9 September
1976. Between 1914 and 1918 he received systematic teacher training at the First
Provincial Normal School of Hunan province. While studying, he divided his time
between revolutionary thinking and educational activities. Throughout his lifetime he
would continue to accumulate valuable experiences as an educational practitioner and
theorist.

During 1917–27, he began many educational innovations. In 1917, he founded a night

school for workers, where he taught history. In August 1918, he organized the departure
of fellow Chinese students to France who were traveling on a combined work and study
scheme. He was also appointed assistant librarian at the University of Beijing in the
autumn of that year. In June 1919, the Hunan student association was formatted under
3
his dynamic guidance. In June 1920, he was appointed administrator (i.e. head teacher)
and Chinese language teacher of the primary school attached to the First Provincial
Normal School of Hunan. He founded the Open University of Hunan in August 1921.
In December, he became secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Committee of
Hunan province and a member of the secretariat of the worker’s movement in the
province. In addition, he established a night school for workers in Changsha. In 1925,
he carried out an investigation in the Hunan countryside; and by the end of the
following year, peasant associations had been set up in over half the province’s 75
districts and more than 20-night schools for rural dwellers had opened on his initiative.
In May 1926, he became the principal of the Canton Peasant Movement Training
Institute, where he taught three courses on the peasant question in China, education in
the countryside, and geography. In March 1927, he left to head the Central Peasant
Movement Training Institute in Wuchang. The agrarian revolutionary struggle (1929–
37) was an opportunity for the Chinese Communist Party to gain useful experience in
the autonomous organization of education. During this period, Mao Zedong was
personally involved in teaching at the Red Army Academy and organized the political,
military, and cultural training of officers and soldiers. He was also Director of the
Soviet University where many cadres were trained to meet an urgent need in the soviet
region.

During the war of resistance and liberation against Japan (1937-1949), Mao Zedong,
already extremely busy leading the revolutionary struggle and carrying out many other
tasks, nevertheless continued to supervise revolutionary education directly by chairing
the Pedagogical Committee of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College. He
made a significant personal contribution by holding classes and developing teaching
aids. Education made rigid strides in all the revolutionary bases. In the Shaanxi-Gansu-
Ningxia border region, for instance, there were originally only three secondary schools
and 120 primary schools. In 1946, the number of primary schools rose to 2 990, there
were seven secondary schools, and all sorts of other institutions had been opened,
including the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, the North Shaanxi Public
School, the Central Party School, the Marx-Lenin Institute, the Women’s University,
the Yan’an University, the Lu Xun Art Institute, the Young Cadres Training Institute,
the Norman Bethune School of Medicine, the Institute of Natural Sciences and the
School of Administration. Mao Zedong lectured in many of them.
4
Following the founding of New China, Mao Zedong not only produced a prompt
definition of a policy to establish and develop mass education, but he also inspected the
schools himself, made friends with educators, and read and approved important
documents on education. Under his guidance, teaching flourished and broke new
ground. It is therefore clear that his extensive teaching experience was a strong
influence in shaping his educational doctrine since it provided him with a practical
basis. All of these activities took place at a time when history was being made, through
the fight for victory in the revolution and the construction of a new society. The
educational doctrine of Mao Zedong is thus broadly based on both aspects of his
revolutionary experience.

5.4 THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

At the beginning of his active life, Mao Zedong strongly opposed the feudal warlords
and the imperialists, but his political ideas were still imbued with liberalism, democratic
reformism, and Utopian socialism. Very soon, however, his revolutionary activities,
especially at the time of the May Fourth Movement and the New Culture Movement,
led him to discover new ideas. In particular, he frequented the Marxist research circle
founded by the precursor of Communism in China, Li Dazhao, where his political
thought gradually took shape. In 1920, Mao Zedong read The Communist Manifesto
of Marx and Engels, from which he drew the initial premises of his stance and his
method. These works, he said, ‘built up in me a faith in Marxism from which, once I
had accepted it as the correct interpretation of history, I did not afterward waver’. 2 He
also declared that ‘by the summer of 1920 I had become, in theory, and to some extent
in action, a Marxist’.3 From then on his activities were inextricably linked to the growth
of the Chinese Communist Party and its subsequent development in the face of many
complications and difficulties.

Besides Marx, Lenin also exerted a relatively strong influence on the formation of the
correct political thought of Mao Zedong. By 1926, Zedong had read some passages of
the state and revolution for himself and had become acquainted with it through
quotations or digests by other writers. In addition to the state and revolution, the works
of Lenin which he would read the most assiduously during his lifetime included two
tactics of social democracy, ‘left wing’ Communism: an infantile disorder, imperialism,
the highest stage of capitalism, and, the Philosophical notebooks when they were
5
published. He was looking for theoretical guidance in Lenin’s works on how to lead the
democratic revolution in China, and then progress to the stage of socialist revolution.
He immersed himself in Marxist philosophy. It must be emphasized that it was
Marxism, and more particularly Marxist philosophy, which constituted the theoretical
foundation of the educational doctrine of Mao Zedong.

5.5 SUMMARY

Mao was the son of a rich peasant who was intellectually restless by nature and was
profoundly dissatisfied with Chinese society. Mao Zedong gradually developed and
refined his educational doctrine based on three main building blocks: his personal
experience of teaching, Marxism, and the very rich cultural heritage of the Chinese
nation. Mao Zedong was born on 26 December 1893. He died on 9 September 1976.
Between 1914 and 1918 he received systematic teacher training at the First Provincial
Normal School of Hunan province. While studying, he divided his time between
revolutionary thinking and educational activities. Throughout his lifetime he would
continue to accumulate valuable experiences as an educational practitioner and theorist.
After graduating from college in 1918 in Chiangsha, he became a librarian at Peking
University where he founded a Marxist student circle. However, he left the job and
returned to Changsha, and became active in the communist party of China. In this unit,
we have discussed the life sketch of Mao Zedong, the Educational Doctrine, and the
various theoretical contribution of Mao Zedong.

5.6 EXERCISES

1. Discuss the Educational Doctrine of Mao Zedong?

2. Write a note on the Theoretical Foundation of Mao Zedong?

5.7 REFERENCES

Mohanty, Manoranjan. The Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong. Aakar Books, New
Delhi.

Rebecca E. Karl (2010): Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A
Concise History.Durham: Duke University Press.
6
Wu, Yiching (2014): The Cultural Revolution of the Margins, Chinese Socialism in
Crisis. Harvard University: Harvard University Press.

Maurice, Meisner (1988): Mao’s China and After. New York: Free Press

7
UNIT-06 MAO ZEDONGS: ON CONTRADICTION

Structure

6.1 Objectives

6.2 Introduction

6.3 Contradiction

6.4 Principal Contradiction

6.5 Antagonistic and Non Antagonistic Contradictions

6.6 Summary

6.7 Exercises

6.8 References

6.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit you will be able to-

 Understand Mao’s Theory of Contradiction

 Understand the Principal Contradiction
 Understand the Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic Contradictions

6.2 INTRODUCTION

Maoism like Marxism and Leninism was one of the most debated subjects of the 20th
century and is most likely to remain so in the 21st century in the face of the expanding
process of capitalist globalization. This is because the formulations advanced by Mao
and the later Maoists, challenge some of the dominant assumptions relating to the basic
issues of struggle for liberation, equality, justice, and self-development in course of
social transformation in all societies. Born in Shaoshan in the Hunan province of China
in 1893 Mao is the second Marxist revolutionary (Lenin being the first) who brought
about a successful revolution in a backward country like China. Mao, like Lenin, was

8
both a theoretician and a practitioner. Mao Zedong's thought initiated several
innovative formulations on revolution and social transformation which continue to
reverberate leading to intense political debates on the nature of democracy, socialism,
and the human future in the 21st century throughout the world.

Mao was the son of a rich peasant who was intellectually restless by nature and was
profoundly dissatisfied with Chinese society. After graduating from college in 1918 in
Chiangsha, he became a librarian at Peking University where he founded a Marxist
student circle. However, he left the job and returned to Changsha, and became active
in the communist party of China. He traveled to various parts of China which gave him
a firsthand impression of the exploitative conditions under which the Chinese peasantry
was reeling at that time. By 1927 the relations between Kuo mintang (KMT) and the
Communist Party of China (CPC) became so bitter that the KMT and the CPC,

Mao was asked to organize a rebellion of Hunan peasants. During this rebellion, Mao
wrote his first major work - Analysis of Chinese Society. Here, he identified the various
strata of Chinese peasantry - small marginal middle, and the big peasant and the
revolutionary potential of each of them. He highlighted the contradiction between the
peasantry and feudal lords. He attempted the Harvest Uprising of peasants in 1928, but
the uprising was crushed and Mao had to flee along with his supporters to nearby
mountains. From these mountains, Mao started guerrilla warfare tactics. Through these
tactics, CPC was able to capture various parts of southeast China.

Mao set up several peasant soviets in the captured areas. However, the KMT tried to
crush these guerrilla attacks and encircled the areas where peasant soviets had been set
up. Finally, the KMT armies drove out the revolutionaries who took shelter in the
northwest hills of China. This escape became famous as Mao’s stay in the northwest
was the most fruitful period for the CPC. It was here that Mao began an extensive study
of Marxist philosophy. His well-known pieces of work namely “on Practice” and ‘On
contradiction” were written during this period.

In the 1940s, he gave a blueprint of the future Chinese government titled New
Democracy.” He also advocated a strategy of mass mobilization of peasants which is
known as Mao’s Mass–Line Populism. The basis of Mao’s power was the success of
party strategies and policies after the onset of the Sino- Japanese war in 1937 the
conclusive success of these strategies and policies from 1945 to 1949 further bolstered
9
his ultimate authority. Mao’s authority was further enhanced by his major initiatives in
the 1949-57 period. In the 1950s, Mao gave his famous call of “Let Hundred Flowers
Bloom” which allowed different viewpoints in the CPC to be expressed freely and
openly

6.3 CONTRADICTION

Maoism does not figure prominently either in the Western discourses on Marxism or
the discourses on development and transformation in the west. Paradoxically,
communist movements and discourses on social transformation in the Asian, African,
and Latin American countries derive a lot of insights and inspiration from the Maoist
tradition. This is because they find the ideological creativity in Mao Zedong’s theory
and political practice attractive. In the two philosophical essays of Mao, “On practice
and “On contradiction”, both written in 1937, the essential point made by Mao is that
theory has to be derived from practice.

The doctrine of “Contradiction” occupies an important aspect in the political

philosophy of Mao. In an essay entitled “On contradiction” Mao wrote thus: the law of
contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of
materialist dialectics. This chooses the traditional Marxist notion of dialectics. In
several places, Mao stressed that the unity of opposites is the essence of dialectics.
According to Mao, changes in nature, as well as a society, take place primarily as a
result of the development of internal contradictions. As Mao said: External causes are
the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change.’ According to this
law, contradictions in society can be resolved mainly within the society.

A revolutionary movement in a country can succeed only if it is backed by the masses

of that country and if it is self-reliant. The principle of self-reliance in China’s
revolutionary people’s war was a manifestation of this law. In recent decades China’s
essentially self-reliant strategy of economic development and particularly policies
related to the Great Leap Forward which seeks to generate resources within each sector,
reflects the same approach. Mao’s discussion on contradiction is profusely loaded with
quotations from Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Mao accepts Engel’s assertion that” motion
itself is a contradiction.” Engels said that it was even truer of the highest forms of
motion of matter Mao repeats Lenin’s examples of unity of opposites given in Lenin’s
philosophical Note Books.
10
6.4 PRINCIPAL CONTRADICTION

In the long process of development of things, there are specific stages and in each stage
some contradictions are more powerful than the others. According to Mao, “one of
them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development
determines or influences the existence and development determine or influences the
existence and development of other contradictions. “ Mao also insists that there is only
one principal contradiction at every stage of the development of the process and when
another stage emerges a new principal contradiction also emerges. He gives three major
instances to explain this.

In a capitalist society, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie form the principal
contradiction society, the proletariat, and bourgeoisie form the principal contradiction,
and the other contradictions like the one between the remnant feudal class and the
bourgeoisie are non-principal. During a war of imperialist aggression, the principal
contradiction is between imperialism and the country which is attacked. In this
situation, all the classes except the traitors temporarily unite against the national enemy
for the contradictions among them are non-principal. But there are instances where
imperialism operates through the ruling classes of a country and the principal
contradiction comes to be the one between the masses on the one hand and the alliance
of imperialists and the domestic ruling class on the other.

6.5 ANTAGONISTIC AND NON-ANTAGONISTIC CONTRADICTIONS

At different stages of the development of a thing, its contending forces have different
degrees of intensity in their confrontation. In the 1937 essay “On contradiction” Mao
Zedong discussed this question and pointed out that antagonism was a particular
manifestation of the struggle of opposites” contradictions between the oppressor and
the oppressed classes are indeed bound to contain an element of antagonism. But some
of these contradictions remain latent and only at definite stages do they manifest
antagonism. As Mao put it, “some contradictions which were originally
nonantagonistic develop into anta agonistic ones, while others which were originally
antagonistic develop into non-antagonistic ones”.

Based on this perspective, Mao formulated his theory of new democracy and under it
the strategy of a four-class united front with the national bourgeoisie, in it. The
11
contradiction between the proletarian and the national bourgeoisie which had an
element of antagonism in it was understood as non – antagonistic at that time so that
there could be a united front on the other were antagonistic. This approach was further
clarified in Mao’s essay “On the people’s Democratic Dictatorship” published in June
1949. Methods of dictatorship were to be applied to the handling of antagonistic
contradictions whereas democratic methods of persuasion and education were to be
used in case of non-antagonistic contradictions.

In his 1957 speech, ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People Mao
analyzed deeper into these concepts and explained their application to the
contemporary problems facing China. He remarked that to deny the existence of
contradictions is to deny dialectics. Society at all times develops through
contradictions. Party leaders should recognize contradictions that exist between
government and society, between the leaders and the led. These contradictions should
be correctly handled. “By antagonistic contradictions, he meant the contradictions
between ourselves and the enemy while the contradictions among the people vary in
content in different countries and different periods of history. Mao said that those who
supported the building of socialism in China at that point were among the ‘people’ and
those who opposed it were ‘the enemies of the people.’

Mao’s 1957 speech criticized two erroneous lines of thinking. First was the rightist
viewpoint within and outside the Communist Party of China (CPC) which thought that
class contradictions had disappeared with the socialist transformation which had taken
place in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Against this, Mao emphasized the
existence of numerous nonantagonistic contradictions and also some continuing basis
of antagonistic contradictions in the socialist society. The second viewpoint which Mao
criticized exaggerated the threat of counter-revolution in China and showed excessive
alarm at the Hungarian uprising in 1956. He pointed out that they underrated the
achievements of long years of popular revolutionary struggle and the success in the
suppression of counter-revolutionaries in China. Between these two extremes, Mao
asked for clearly distinguishing between the antagonistic and non-antagonistic
contradictions and correctly handling them.

Among the examples of non-antagonistic contradictions that Mao gives are The
contradictions between the working class and the peasantry, between the workers and

12
peasants on the one hand and the intellectuals on the other, and so on. Correct handling
of contradictions among the people demands the practice of democracy under
centralized guidance and not a dictatorship. The 1942 formula of ‘unity, criticism,
unity’ was applicable in resolving these contradictions.

An important aspect of this notion is the transformation of a non – antagonistic

contradiction into an antagonist one and vice versa. The Chinese national bourgeoisie
moved from its original antagonistic position vis-à-vis China’s working classes and
came to be included in the united front: it was generally cooperative with the ‘ people’s
democratic and then the socialist transformation of China’s economy. It continued to
have a dual character, containing both antagonism and non- antagonism. The role of
the party policy is extremely significant in guiding the development of contradictions
from one stage to another. If contradictions among the people are not handled properly,
antagonism may arise. This may appear in the form of sharp differences between
workers and peasants in terms of wages, living standards, and cultural level, between
the government and the people in the forms of bureaucratic and elitism, and between
the party and the masses also in the same form.

6.6 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have discussed Mao's views about classes in Chinese society, his notion
of peasant revolution, and his views on contradictions and new democracy are
discussed. The Maoist notion of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions is an
important contribution to the Marxist theory.

6.7 EXERCISES

1. What has been Mao's contribution to the theory of contradictions?

2. Write a short note on Antagonistic Contradictions?
3. Write a short note on Non Antagonistic Contradictions?

13
6.8 REFERENCES

Mohanty, Manoranjan. The Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong. Aakar Books, New
Delhi.

Rebecca E. Karl (2010): Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A
Concise History.Durham: Duke University Press.

Wu, Yiching (2014): The Cultural Revolution of the Margins, Chinese Socialism in
Crisis. Harvard University: Harvard University Press.

Maurice, Meisner (1988): Mao’s China and After. New York: Free Press

14
UNIT-7 MAO ZEDONG: ON REVOLUTION

Structure

7.1 Objectives

7.2 Introduction

7.3 Role of Peasantry in Revolution

7.4 New Democracy

7.5 Cultural Revolution

7.6 A critical Assessment of Mao’s theory of the Cultural Revolution

7.7 Summary

7.8 Exercises

7.9 References

7.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit you will be able to Understand -

 The concept of New Democracy

 The Role of Peasantry in Revolution
 The concept of the Cultural Revolution

7.2 INTRODUCTION

Mao like Karl Marx and Lenin was also strongly opposed to Capitalism. Initially, Mao
was of the view the violent struggle between two antagonistic systems i.e. Capitalist
and Socialist societies is inevitable. However, later he also placed the view that it may
be prevented, it is not rigid and can change with the change of circumstances over time.
Hence, Mao had a flexible attitude toward opposition to capitalism. He put forward the
view of the People’s War and he also stated that instead of Proletarian Revolution

15
(urban working-class revolution), the leadership of the revolution in China would be
provided by the peasants for the rural areas. He believed in the continuous character of
the revolution. Some of the important works of Mao include “On Contradiction”, “On
New Democracy”, etc.

7.3 ROLE OF PEASANTRY IN REVOLUTION

Mao tried to apply Marxism- Leninism in China with reasonable modifications and
changes to keep pace with changes in the Chinese society and polity. Thus he modified
Marxism Leninism by relying heavily on the peasantry’s revolutionary potential. It
should be noted that Marx has treated the peasantry with some degree of contempt. For
the most part, peasantry for him was conservative and reactionary; it was no more than
a bag of potatoes unable to make a revolution. Even Lenin had relied mainly on the
proletariat in the urban centers of Russia for mass insurrections and had not placed
much faith in the peasantry’s revolutionary potential. Mao’s fundamental contribution,
therefore, was to bring about a successful revolution in China mainly with the help of
the peasantry’s revolutionary potential. Mao’s fundamental contribution, therefore,
was to bring about a successful revolution in China mainly with the help of the
peasantry. More than anything else, his revolutionary model became the inspiration for
several Afro-Asian peasant societies. Further, Mao in his Cultural Revolution phase
drew some lessons from the course of post-revolutionary reconstruction in the Soviet
Union and warned against the emergence of a new bourgeoisie class who were
beneficiaries of the transitional period.

7.4 NEW DEMOCRACY

Mao sought to establish a new order in China in the form of what he called “New Democracy”.
He said “In China, it is clear that whoever can lead the people in overthrowing imperialism and
the forces of feudalism can win the people’s confidence, because these two, and especially
imperialism, are the mortal enemies of the people. Today, whoever can lead the people in
driving out Japanese imperialism and introducing democratic government will be the saviors
of the people. History has proved that the Chinese bourgeoisie cannot fulfill this responsibility,
which inevitably falls upon the shoulders of the proletariat.

Therefore, the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, and the other sections of the petty
bourgeoisie undoubtedly constitute the basic forces determining China’s fate. These classes,
some already awakened and others in the process of awakening, will necessarily become the
16
basic components of the state and governmental structure in the democratic republic of China,
with the proletariat as the leading force. The Chinese democratic republic which we desire to
establish now must be a democratic republic under the joint dictatorship of all anti-imperialist
and anti-feudal people led by the proletariat, that is, a new-democratic republic, a republic of
the genuinely revolutionary new Three People’s Principles with their Three Great Policies.

This new-democratic republic will be different from the old European-American form
of the capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship, which is the old democratic form
and already out of date. On the other hand, it will also be different from the socialist
republic of the Soviet-type under the dictatorship of the proletariat which is already
flourishing in the U.S.S.R., and which, moreover, will be established in all the capitalist
countries and will undoubtedly become the dominant form of state and governmental
structure in all the industrially advanced countries. However, for a certain historical
period, this form is not suitable for the revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial
countries. During this period, therefore, the third form of state must be adopted in the
revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely, the new-democratic
republic. This form suits a certain historical period and is therefore transitional;
nevertheless, it is a form that is necessary and cannot be dispensed with.

Thus the numerous types of the state system in the world can be reduced to three basic
kinds according to the class character of their political power: (1) republics under
bourgeois dictatorship; (2) republics under the dictatorship of the proletariat; and (3)
republics under the joint dictatorship of several revolutionary classes.”

Accordingly, the New Democracy that Mao talked of is a joint dictatorship of all the
revolutionary classes and the system of government in this state system is democratic
centralism. Mao wanted the four diverse classes namely the Proletariat, Peasantry,
Petty Bourgeoisie, and National Bourgeoisie to live in peace and believed that the
diverse needs of these different classes my not necessarily create conflict with each
other.

7.5 CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The period of the Great Leap Forward (GLF) from mid- 1958 to the end of 1960 saw
both successes and setbacks for the Maoist line. The enthusiastic mass upsurge of 1958
confirmed the popularity of the new line. But severe economic difficulties had begun
to appear by the end of 1958. The great leaf strategy entailed significant changes in the
17
political situation. It stripped considerable power from the central government
bureaucracy and transferred it in many cases to local party cadres. And it introduced
important new strains into Sino- Soviet relations. The 1959 - 60 period saw great
economic difficulties causing more modernization of the 1958 strategy. In 1959 the
CPC experienced an intense inner-party struggle with Defense Minister Pong Dehuai
attacking the 1958 line and policies frontally.

Mao Zedong in the year 1966 launched the Cultural Revolution known in full as the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was a politico-social movement by him to
reassert his control over the Communist party. This movement represented an attempt
by Mao to go beyond the party rectification campaigns—of which there had been many
since 1942—and to devise a new and more radical method for dealing with what he
saw as the bureaucratic degeneration of the party. It also represented, beyond any doubt
or question, however, a deliberate effort to eliminate those in the leadership who, over
the years, had dared to cross him. The victims, from throughout the party hierarchy,
suffered more than mere political disgrace.

Mao launched the 'Cultural Revolution' aiming to purge the country of 'impure'
elements and revive the revolutionary spirit. One-and-a-half million people died and
much of the country's cultural heritage was destroyed. In September 1967, with many
cities on the verge of anarchy, Mao sent in the army to restore order.

The Cultural Revolution provided the form and the focus to the idea of continuing
revolution. It established the need for revolutionary class struggle involving the masses
to uphold the proletarian line. The central committee circular of 16 May 1966 which
launched an attack on the outline Report on the current Academic Discussion of the
Group of five in charge of the Cultural Revolution, initiated the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution (GPCR).

From mid-January 1967, the Cultural Revolution became a nationwide political

movement aimed at drastic changes in the educational, social, cultural, and
administrative system of Chinese society and polity. The role of the Army escalated
steadily throughout 1966 and 1967. Now, once the Cultural Revolution entered the
stage of the seizure of power, the military played an even greater part in Chinese
politics. Its job was not only to help seize power from the party establishment but also
to ensure thereafter that order was maintained. It was estimated that altogether 2 million
18
officers and troops of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) participated in civilian
affairs during the Cultural Revolution.

Mao’s ideas on building socialism which led him to launch the Great Leap Forward in
1958 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 have been subjected to too much criticism in
China during the reform period and also by development analysts in the liberal and
neo-liberal mold all over the world. These mass campaigns caused enormous hardships
to millions of people. Yet it is important to understand the Maoist perspective which
guided those initiatives. Essentially these campaigns, especially the Cultural
Revolution raised qualitative questions about achieving high growth of production as
in the case of capitalist systems, but it was to be based on the socialist vision of creating
an egalitarian society with socialist values and moving toward a classless society.

Mao shut down the schools of the nation and called for a massive mobilization of the
youth. Mao Zedong’s sought to penalize those leaders of the Community Party who
had adopted bourgeoisie values and lacked the revolutionary spirit. Very soon this
movement gained momentum and the student's formed paramilitary groups called the
Red Guards. It was a way of reviving the communist revolution by strengthening
ideology and clearing out opponents. Many intellectuals of the society who did not
prescribe the Communist way of thinking were persecuted.

Mao through this revolution wanted to upgrade the role of the masses as well. In the
process, in 1967, Mao set up also set up revolutionary committees including the
members of the People’s Liberation Army who later took over the power of the state
as well as of the party in given areas. Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to have
ended in 1968. The Gang of Four (senior leaders of the Communist Party of China who
were charged with treason) and the military general Lin Biao were labeled as two major
“counter-revolutionary” forces. After Mao’s death and the subsequent arrest of the
members of the “Gang of Four” in 1976 the Cultural Revolution ended.

While the Cultural Revolution was an entirely logical culmination of Mao’s last two
decades, it was by no means the only possible outcome of his approach to revolution,
nor did need a judgment of his work as a whole to be based primarily on that last phase.

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7.6 A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF MAO’S THEORY OF THE
CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Deng leadership (after the death of Mao) had four major criticisms against Mao’s
theory of the Cultural Revolution.

 Firstly, socialism was not about poverty but about improving the material
conditions of people to achieve an egalitarian society.
 Second, mass campaigns in the name of fighting class enemies suspended all
institutions, led to the arbitrary use of power, and harassed and killed many
innocent people.
 Third, the theoretical premise that treats culture or ideology as autonomous is
an idealist deviation of Mao which put superstructure independent of the
economic base, thus violating the tenets of dialectical and historical
materialism.
 Fourthly, egalitarianism is promoted during equality irrespective of the
contribution made by a worker. It is beyond dispute that Mao Zedong thought
initiated several innovative formulations of revolution and social reformation
which continue to reverberate leading to intense political debates on the nature
of democracy, socialism, and the human future in the 21stcentry throughout the
world.

7.7 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have discussed Mao's views about classes in Chinese society, his notion
of peasant revolution, lies views on contradictions and new democracy are discussed.
The Maoist notion of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions is an important
contribution to the Marxist theory. In addition to it, his advocacy of 'let hundred flowers
bloom’ and 'great leap forward' is also discussed.

7.8 EXERCISES

1. Write a note on the Role of Peasantry in Revolution?

2. Discuss Mao’s Concept of New Democracy?
3. Critically examine Mao’s theory of the Cultural Revolution?

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7.9 REFERENCES

Mohanty, Manoranjan. The Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong. Aakar Books, New
Delhi.

Rebecca E. Karl (2010): Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A
Concise History.Durham: Duke University Press.

Wu, Yiching (2014): The Cultural Revolution of the Margins, Chinese Socialism in
Crisis. Harvard University: Harvard University Press.

Maurice, Meisner (1988): Mao’s China and After. New York: Free Press

21
UNIT-8 MAO ZEDONG: HUNDRED FLOWERS POLICY

Structure

8.1 Objectives

8.2 Introduction

8.3 Mao’s Hundred Flowers Policy

8.4 Summary

8.5 Exercises

8.6 References

8.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit you will be able to-

 Understand Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Policy

8.2 INTRODUCTION

Maoism like Marxism and Leninism was one of the most debated subjects of the 20th
century. Maoism is the teachings and formulations that were advanced by Mao Zedong.
He is popularly known as Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976). On October 1, 1948, Mao
Zedong proclaimed the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC
is a single-party state controlled by the Communist Party of China. In the subsequent
years, Mao launched extensive programs of land reforms and crushed all “counter-
revolutionaries” who were perceived as enemies of the state. Some of his works are
“On Contradiction”, “On New Democracy”, etc.

During the reconstruction of the Chinese society, Mao gave a nod el different from the
one envisaged by Marx in his writings or the one attempted by Lenin in the Soviet
Union. In the early 1950s, Mao gave his famous call of "Let Hundred Flowers Bloom"
which allowed different viewpoints in the CPC to be expressed freely and openly.

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8.3 MAO’S HUNDRED FLOWERS POLICY

This policy of the Hundred Flowers Policy was advocated by Mao Zedong during the
period Cultural Revolution in China. He was of the view that it would be wrong to think
that there should be only one ideology in a state or society. The Hundred Flowers Policy
implies that the views of all classes, strata, and groups of people should be taken into
account. So, each and everyone’s thinking or views in China were like a flower and
every flower is important and together they are like such hundred flowers and they
should be allowed to grow and blossom. Mao’s Hundred Flowers Policy is the
reflection of the principle of free expression. Hence, Mao through this policy wanted
to upgrade the role of the masses and emphasized that coercion shall not be used in
ideological matters. Instead, only persuasion should be made use of. However, the
underlying principle would be that of Marxism.

Mao said “We are living in a period of great social change. Chinese society has been
in the midst of great changes for a long time. The War of Resistance against Japan was
one period of great change and the War of Liberation another. But the present changes
are much more profound than the earlier ones. We are now building socialism.
Hundreds of millions of people are taking part in the movement for socialist
transformation. Class relations are changing throughout the country. The petty
bourgeoisie in agriculture and handicrafts and the bourgeoisie in industry and
commerce have both experienced changes. The social and economic system has been
changed; the individual economy has been transformed into a collective economy, and
capitalist private ownership is being transformed into socialist public ownership.
Changes of such magnitude are of course reflected in people’s minds. Man’s social
being determines his consciousness. These great changes in our social system are
reflected differently among people of different classes, strata, and social groups. The
masses eagerly support them, for life itself has confirmed that socialism is the only way
out for China. Overthrowing the old social system and establishing a new one, the
system of socialism, means a great struggle, a great change in the social system and
men’s relations with each other. It should be said that the situation is sound. But the
new social system has only just been established and requires time for its consolidation.
It must not be assumed that the new system can be completely consolidated the moment
it is established; that is impossible. It has to be consolidated step by step. To achieve

23
its ultimate consolidation, it is necessary not only to bring about the socialist
industrialization of the country and persevere in the socialist revolution on the
economic front but also to carry on constant and arduous socialist revolutionary
struggles and socialist education on the political and ideological fronts.”

Mao further says “Second, the situation regarding the intellectuals in our country. No
accurate statistics are available on the number of intellectuals in China. It is estimated
that there are about five million of all types, including both higher and ordinary
intellectuals. Of these five million, the overwhelming majority are patriotic, love our
People’s Republic, and are willing to serve the people and the socialist state. A small
number do not quite welcome the socialist system and are not very happy about it. They
are still skeptical about socialism, but they are patriotic when it comes to facing
imperialism. The number of intellectuals who are hostile to our state is very small. They
do not like our state, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and yearn for the old society.
Whenever there is an opportunity, they will stir up trouble and attempt to overthrow
the Communist Party and restore the old China.

As between the proletarian and the bourgeois lines, as between the socialist and the
capitalist lines, they stubbornly choose to follow the latter. This line is not practicable,
and therefore they are ready to capitulate to imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-
capitalism. Such persons are found in political circles and industrial and commercial,
cultural and educational, scientific and technological, and religious circles, and they
are extremely reactionary. They account for only 1 or 2 or 3 percent of the five million
intellectuals. The overwhelming majority, or well over 80 percent, of the total of five
million, support the socialist system in varying degrees. Many of them are not yet quite
clear on how to work under socialism and on how to understand, handle and solve many
of the new problems.”

According to Mao “The majority have the desire to study Marxism and have already
learned a little, but they are not yet familiar with it. Some of them still have doubts,
their stand is not yet firm and they vacillate in moments of stress. This section of
intellectuals, constituting the majority of the five million, is still in the middle. Those
who strongly oppose Marxism, or are hostile to it, are very few. Some disagree with
Marxism, although they do not openly say so. There will be people like this for a long
time to come, and we should allow them to disagree. Take some of the idealists for

24
example. They may support the socialist political and economic system but disagree
with the Marxist world outlook. The same holds for the patriotic people in religious
circles. They are theists and we are atheists. We cannot force them to accept the Marxist
world outlook. In short, the attitude towards Marxism of the five million intellectuals
may be summed up as follows: Those who support Marxism and are relatively familiar
with it are a minority, those who oppose it are also a minority, and the majority support
Marxism but are not familiar with it and support it in varying degrees.

Here there are three different kinds of stand — resolute, wavering, and antagonistic. It
should be recognized that this situation will continue for a very long time. If we fail to
recognize this, we shall make too great a demand on others and at the same time set
ourselves too small a task. Our comrades in propaganda work have the task of
disseminating Marxism. This has to be done gradually and done well so that people
willingly accept it. We cannot force people to accept Marxism, we can only persuade them. If
throughout several five-year plans a fairly large number of our intellectuals accept Marxism
and acquire a fairly good grasp of it through practice, through their work and life, through class
struggle, production, and scientific activity, that will be fine. And that is what we hope will
happen.”

Mao said “Third, the question of the remolding of the intellectuals. Ours is a culturally
underdeveloped country. For a vast country like ours, five million intellectuals are too
few. Without intellectuals, our work cannot be done well, and we should therefore do
a good job of uniting with them. Socialist society mainly comprises three sections of
people, the workers, the peasants, and the intellectuals.

Intellectuals are mental workers. Their work is in the service of the people, that is, in
the service of the workers and the peasants.” “Now, when it comes to serving the new
society, the reverse is the case. The left-wing stands firm, the middle wavers (this
wavering in the new society is different from that in the old), and the right-wing resists.
Moreover, intellectuals are educators. Our newspapers are educating the people every
day. Our writers and artists, scientists and technicians, professors and teachers are all
educating students, educating the people. Being educators and teachers, they have to
be educated first.”

According to Mao “Fourth, the question of the integration of the intellectuals with the
masses of workers and peasants. Since they are to serve the masses of workers and

25
peasants, intellectuals must, first and foremost, know them and be familiar with their
life, work and ideas. We encourage intellectuals to go among the masses, to go to
factories and villages. It is very bad if you never in all your life meet a worker or a
peasant. Our state personnel, writers, artists, teachers, and scientific research workers
should seize every opportunity to get close to the workers and peasants. Some can go
to factories or villages just to look around; this may be called “looking at the flowers
on horseback” and is better than doing nothing at all. Others can stay for a few months,
conducting investigations and making friends; this may be called “dismounting to look
at the flowers”. Still, others can stay and live there for a considerable time, say, two or
three years or even longer; this may be called “settling down”.

Some intellectuals do live among the workers and peasants, for instance, technicians in
factories, technical personnel in agriculture, and teachers in rural schools. They should
do their work well and become one with the workers and peasants. We should make it
a common practice to get close to the workers and peasants, in other words, we should
have large numbers of intellectuals doing so. What is involved here is the question of
stand or attitude, that is, of one’s world outlook. We advocate “letting a hundred
schools of thought contend”, and there may be many schools and trends in every branch
of learning, but on the matter of world outlook, there are only two schools in our time,
the proletarian and the bourgeois. It is one or the other, either the proletarian or the
bourgeois world outlook. The communist world outlook is the world outlook of the
proletariat and no other class. Most of our present intellectuals come from the old
society and families of non-working people. Even those who come from workers’ or
peasants’ families are still bourgeois intellectuals because the education they received
before liberation was a bourgeois education and their world outlook is fundamentally
bourgeois. If the intellectuals do not discard the old and replace it with the proletarian
world outlook, they will remain different from the workers and peasants in their
viewpoint, stand, and feelings and will be like square pegs in round holes, and the
workers and peasants will not open their hearts to them. If the intellectuals integrate
themselves with the workers and peasants and make friends with them, the Marxism
they have learned from books can become truly their own. To have a real grasp of
Marxism, one must learn it not only from books but chiefly through class struggle,
practical work, and close contact with the masses of workers and peasants. When in
addition to studying some Marxism our intellectuals have gained some understanding
26
of it through close contact with the masses of workers and peasants and their practical
work, we will all be speaking the same language, not only the common language of
patriotism and the socialist system but probably even that of the communist world
outlook. If that happens, all of us will certainly work much better “

Mao said “Fifth, rectification. Rectification means correcting one’s way of thinking
and style of work. Rectification movements were conducted within the Communist
Party during the anti-Japanese war, during the War of Liberation, and in the early days
after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Now the Central Committee of
the Communist Party has decided on another rectification within the Party to be started
this year. Non-Party people may take part or abstain as they wish. The main thing in
this rectification movement is to criticize the following incorrect ways of thinking and
styles of work — subjectivism, bureaucracy, and sectarianism. As in the rectification
movement during the anti-Japanese war, the method this time will be first to study
several documents, and then, based on such study, to examine one’s thinking and work
and unfold criticism and self-criticism to expose shortcomings and mistakes and
promote what is right and good. On the one hand, we must be strict and conduct
criticism and self-criticism concerning mistakes and shortcomings seriously, not
perfunctorily, and correct them; on the other hand, we must use the method of the
“gentle breeze and mild rain” and that of ‘learning from past mistakes to avoid future
ones and curing the sickness to save the patient’, and we must oppose the method of
‘finishing people off with a single blow”.

Mao further says, “Ours is a great Party, a glorious Party, a correct Party. This must be
affirmed as a fact. But we still have shortcomings, and this, too, must be affirmed as a
fact. We should not affirm everything about ourselves, but only what is correct; at the
same time, we should not negate everything about ourselves, but only what is wrong.
Achievements are the main thing in our work, and yet there are not a few shortcomings
and mistakes. That is why we need a rectification movement. Rectification means the
whole Party studying Marxism through criticism and self-criticism. We can certainly
learn more about Marxism in the course of the rectification movement”

27
8.4 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have discussed Mao Zedong sought to establish a new order in China
in the form of what he called “New Democracy”. Mao Zedong in the year 1966
launched the Cultural Revolution to upgrade the role of the masses. Mao advocated
the policy of the Hundred Flowers that implies thinking of every Chinese people is
important for the progress of Chinese politics. Mao’s had a flexible attitude towards
opposition to capitalism because he later stated that mutual relationships might grow
between the two antagonistic systems namely- Capitalism and Socialism gradually with
the changing period. Hence, Mao wanted the four diverse classes namely the
Proletariat, Peasantry, Petty Bourgeoisie, and National Bourgeoisie to live in peace and
believed that the diverse needs of these different classes my not necessarily create
conflict with each other.

8.5 EXERCISES

1. Discuss Mao’s Hundred Flower Policy?

2. Write the meaning of Mao’s Hundred Flower Policy?

8.6 REFERENCES

Mohanty, Manoranjan. The Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong. Aakar Books, New
Delhi.

Rebecca E. Karl (2010): Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A
Concise History.Durham: Duke University Press.

Wu, Yiching (2014): The Cultural Revolution of the Margins, Chinese Socialism in
Crisis. Harvard University: Harvard University Press.

Maurice, Meisner (1988): Mao’s China and After. New York: Free Press

28