Newsgroups: alt.politics.radical-left,alt.activism,alt.politics.communism,de.soc.politik.misc,alt.politics.india.communist
Subject: UNITE! Info #36en: Remember Tiananmen '89 and '76
From: rolf.martens@mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Message-ID: <Pw_K8.2067$t4.3740@nntpserver.swip.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 08:05:03 GMT
On the 8th anniversary of the infamous Tiananmen massacre in 1989, I'm
reposting, and now as part of the UNITE Info
series, something
that I wrote and sent precisely a year ago.
Since then, the revisionist dictator mainly responsible for that massacre, Deng Xiaoping, has died. The sentences below addressed directly to him today may be taken as addressed to his successor, Jiang Zemin.
In this posting, the bigger part however consists of a description and an assessment of that earlier and likewise historical event on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, China, the demonstrations on 05.04.1976 and the suppression of those demonstrations. For the Marxist-Leninists in particular, still today, this event IMO contains some even more important lessons than the 1989 one.
Below, I've added some sub-titles to the original posting. - RM]
REMEMBER TIANANMEN 4.6.1989 AND ALSO 5.4.1976
The peoples of the world should remember the events at Tiananmen
Square, Beijing, China, on 4 June 1989 and also those on 5 April
1976. Both those days are symbols of the resistance of the Chinese
people against revisionist, phoney-Marxist
and in reality
fascist forces and arch enemies of socialism.
On 4 June 1989, military forces of the Deng Xiaoping clique massacred people who were protesting against its revisionist oppression and demanding democratic rights and an end to the enormous price rises after the re-establishment of capitalism in China. This was a historical crime which very clearly exposed the fascist character of that regime to the whole world.
Bourgeois propagandists all over the world have been saying that this
was repression by a socialist
regime. It wasn't. Those
bourgeois propagandists themselves at that time had long been
applauding the overthrow of socialism in China in 1976-78 and
supporting the Deng Xiaoping revisionists' rule.
They all hated the successful socialism in China which was guided by the correct Marxist-Leninist line of Mao Zedong and which was a brilliant example to the great majority of people in the world.
As for the revisionist traitor and present dictator Deng Xiaoping, the peoples of the world should remember something which he himself said 22 years ago, when on 10 April 1974 he, as representative of the then still socialist China, held a speech before the U.N. General Assembly.
This happened to be an important speech. In it, Chairman Mao's correct analysis of the world as then divided into three parts, or three worlds, was presented publicly for the first time.
In this speech, the later traitor Deng Xiaoping among other
things also said (I quote from my posting UNITE! Info #11en
on 27.05.96, in which excerpts from a 1974 pamphlet published
by Foreign Languages Press, Peking, were reproduced:)
If capitalism is restored in a big socialist country, it will inevitably become a superpower. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which has been carried out in China in recent years, and the campaign of criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius now under way throughout China, are both aimed at preventing capitalist restauration and ensuring that socialist China will never change her colour but will always stand by the oppressed peoples and oppressed nations.
If one day China should change her colour and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.
Well spoken, Mr. present dictator Deng! I hope that you're reading these lines, or that some secretary of yours is. Here I offer you some salt:
and some pepper:
and invite you to eat up that statement of yours 22 years ago. It really was very good - whoever suggested that it be included in that speech of yours. My own guess is that it was Chairman Mao.
He knew about the constantly existing danger of a capitalist
restauration. He and the other genuinely communist leaders in
China at that time were combating both that openly-Rightist
deviation which you somewhat later, from autumn 1975 on, correctly
were criticized for leading and also the contending deviation
which in reality also helped you in your efforts to undermine
socialism in China, that likewise bourgeois one of the
Gang of Four, which was camouflaged with a lot of phoney-Left
demagoguery.
Only a few months before that speech of yours, Mr. Deng, comrade Zhou Enlai had very correctly stated, in his report to the important Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in August 1973, on the work of the Central Committee, i.a., concerning the question of combating bourgeois tendencies in the party:
It is imperative to note that one tendency covers another. The opposition to Chen Tu-Hsiu's Right opportunism which advocated 'all alliance, no struggle' covered Wang Ming's 'Left' opportunism which advocated 'all struggle, no alliance'. The rectification of Wang Ming's 'Left' deviation covered Wang Ming's Right deviation. The struggle against Liu Shao-chi's revisionism covered Lin Piao's revisionism.(Documents of CPC 10th Congress, Peking Review 35-36/1973, p. 21)
Covering each other, in part also contending with each other, and both being supported in several ways by the main international reactionary forces at the time, US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, those two reactionary tendencies and bourgeois headquarters in China, yours and that of the Gang of Four, only some 3-5 years later most unfortunately for the peoples in the whole world succeeded in bringing about the overthrow of socialism in China.
But, as once upon a time you pointed out yourself, Mr present
dictator Deng, you and your allies and your successors in the
long run will not get away with it. The peoples in the whole
world undoubtedly will take your
wise advise of 22 years ago,
expose the revisionist regime in China, oppose it and work together
with the Chinese people to overthrow it. The bourgeois
exploiters and oppressors in China, and those in other countries
too, for instance here in Sweden, in reality have no future.
Undoubtedly, although they on the surface today may appear to be
quite strong, their rule will be overthrown everywhere.
When remembering the reactionary suppression against the people on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, 7 years ago, people and in particular the proletarian revolutionary forces not only in China itself but those in the whole world should, at the same time, remember the suppression on the same square 20 years ago, in the spring of 1976.
These events, those of 5 April 1976, were less bloody than those of 4 June 1989. As far as is known here, they didn't cause any deaths. But it's important to remember in the same context, and likewise to draw lessons from, those events too. They were a case of suppression against the people by a regime that was, at the time, still socialist, and which had until then never engaged in such a thing but had only, in those cases where dictatorship had to be exercized - and under socialism, it sometimes does have to be exercized - had done this against the bourgeoisie and their restoration attempts, never against the masses. But that time, the socialist regime in China was temporarily swayed by one of the reactionary groups, the Gang of Four.
It was also the case that the events of 5 April 1976 were diffi- cult to understand for people abroad at the time, also for in- stance for those who, like myself, were adherents of Mao Zedong's geuninely internationalist proletarian revolutionary political line and thus took great interest in developments in China and considered themselves to be quite close friends and supporters of the people in that country.
From the Chinese government, this time incorrect information was
disseminated internationally, the 5 April '76 events being described
as counterrevolutionary disturbances
by adherents of
Deng Xiaoping's Right-deviationist line
which were justly suppressed
.
But obviously, as later became clear, this was a falsification
of what had actually taken place.
At the Tiananmen on 05.04.76, there obviously were certain actions
by pro-Deng Xiaoping forces too, trying to take advantage
of the then situation. But this was only a secondary aspect of
what took place. The main thing on that day was that the people
protested against their not being allowed to pay tribute to the
late Premier Zhou Enlai, who had passed away in January 1976 but
whose death the Gang of Four went all out to prevent people from
mourning, since Zhou Enlai had been a genuine revolutionary, an
important ally to Mao Zedong and a feared adversary of the phoney
Left
Gang's.
The people in early April '76 had placed a great number of wreaths on a monument on Tiananmen Square, on the occasion of the Quangming Festival, to honour the late Premier Zhou. But on the morning of 5 April, those wreaths were removed by militia forces obviously acting on orders influenced by the Gang of Four, under the circumstances that Chairman Mao at that time was rather seriously ill and other leaders obviously not able effectively to counter the Gang. That Gang's actions also were covered by their ostensibly supporting the then ongoing public campaign to criticize Deng Xiaoping's renewed openly-Rightist bourgeois deviationism.
The removal of the wreaths greatly angered the people, hundreds of thousands of whom demonstrated on the Tiananmen and who, when their just demands for the return of their tributes to Premier Zhou were refused, also took such action as to set fire to a jeep and a small building. But then all were called on by the radio stations etc in reality controlled by the Gang of Four to leave the square. And later, militia were used to force those who didn't obey those calls off the square, in an action of reactionary suppression.
By a meeting two days later, on 07.04.76, of the Political Bureau
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,
two decisions were made which were, in themselves, quite correct,
as seen from the standpoint of the great majority of people:
Deng Xiaoping was dismissed from all posts, and Hua Guofeng
was appointed First Vice-Chairman of the CC of the CPC. The latter
decision was a blow against the Gang of Four, who had wanted
their higher-ranking
member Zhang Chunqiao to get that post.
But at the same time, that CPC Politbureau meeting - from which Mao Zedong because of his illness was absent - obviously in two respects was swayed by the Gang of Four:
Firstly, also some decisions on state matters were made, bypas-
sing the People's National Congress which, according to China's
constitution, had sole authority to decide on such matters. And
secondly, the people's demonstration and revolutionary protest
actions on the Tiananman were stated to have been a counter-revolutionary
incident which, in the main, obviously it was ab-
solutely not.
Therefore, on this occasion, the CPC Political Bureau in certain
respects went against the people, which was a serious thing, in
fact indirectly favouring the Right deviationist line of Deng
Xiaoping too, since he got the blame
for something that had in
fact been in the main correct.
In October 1976, a month after Mao Zedong's death, the Gang of Four correctly were dealt a big blow by the forces of Hua Guofeng, who foiled the Gang's coup attempt. But soon afterwards, those forces too committed treason by teaming up with the forces of Deng Xiaoping, utilizing the people's great anger against the Gang and their jubilation at the victory over it. And thus in the following two years, capitalism was completely restored in China, whith those disastrous consequences which have followed.
The people, and in particular the revolutionaries, in all coun- tries should draw important lessons both from the events of 4 June 1989 and also from those of 5 April 1976.
Rolf Martens
[So far the posting originally sent on 04.06.96.]
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