Revolutionary People Research Articles

Creating a National Culture: An Overview

The challenges ahead for Mozambique as it engages in cultural transformation as well as in other areas of fundamental change are enormous. But the record of conquests and victories over the last 15 years has been equally enormous and remarkable. The Mozambicans are determined and confident in their ability to build a new and revolutionary people’s culture, based on the worker-peasant alliance, transforming antiquated and exploitative culture into one which allows for a rich blossoming of the human personality and potential. In this confidence and determination, there may be lessons for us all.

Creating a National Culture: An Overview

The challenges ahead for Mozambique as it engages in cultural transformation as well as in other areas of fundamental change are enormous. But the record of conquests and victories over the last 15 years has been equally enormous and remarkable. The Mozambicans are determined and confident in their ability to build a new and revolutionary people’s culture, based on the worker-peasant alliance, transforming antiquated and exploitative culture into one which allows for a rich blossoming of the human personality and potential. In this confidence and determination, there may be lessons for us all.

The “Revolution Principle”: Ideology and Constitutionalism in the Thought of James Wilson

Americans have not always adjusted comfortably to their peculiar heritage as the first revolutionary people of the modern era. Yet the idea of revolution fascinated the founding generation. The reflective, educated leaders based their speculation on the classical conception they inherited from the English Whig or Common-wealth radicals and the venerable ancients. Many went beyond that perspective in the effort to explain the changes produced by the experiences of 1763 to 1789. These thinkers strove to articulate a distinctively American conception of revolution. This article deals with the contribution toward that end of one man, thus making no claim to definitiveness in any broader sense. James Wilson of Scotland and Pennsylvania merits special study as a seminal thinker of considerable significance in American history. For he stands at the beginning of a line of American theorists and activists who not only espoused the idea of revolution but based American constitutionalism on that seemingly contradictory foundation. From reluctant rebel, Wilson emerged as the preeminent spokesman for a new, progressive ideology which fostered one important strand in the variegated fabric of American constitutional thought.

North Korea

ERHAPS THE most striking feature of North Korean politics today is the bizarre effort being made by Il-sung, for three decades the unchallenged ruler of his country, to establish a family dynasty with his 36-year-old son, Chong-il, as his chosen political heir. If he brings it off, the aging dictator (he is 64) will have turned Marxist doctrine upside down with a vengeance, and succeeded in doing what no other Communist leader has ever done before, or even attempted to do. This dynastic program is already well advanced. It was reported in late February that the Politburo of the ruling North Korean Workers Party had recently recommended Chong-il as his father's successor, and that his formal designation as such will probably be announced on the elder Kim's 65th birthday (April 15) or at the Sixth Party Congress, expected to be held later in the year.1 Il-sung has long been surrounded by perhaps the most extravagant personality cult to be found anywhere in the world. The North Korean media almost invariably refer to him in such terms as the respected and beloved fatherly leader of the Korean people, peerless patriot and ever-victorious, iron-willed brilliant commander, the greatest military strategist the has ever known, and so forth. He is acclaimed as the most profound revolutionary genius of all time, without precedent in the West or East, in all ages, the sun of the nation, and adored by all world revolutionary people. His birthplace at Mangyongdae is said to be the cradle of the revolution, and the country's leading university is named after him. The word communism has been eliminated from all official publications in North Korea, and replaced by the term Kim Il-sung ideology. The country erected a massive 23-meter-high statue of President in Pyongyang, the capital, in celebration of his 60th birthday in 1972.

The Working Class Rejects the "Doctrine of the Mean"

Abstract From Confucius to Lin Piao, all reactionaries in history who tried to restore the old order and turn back the clock invariably advocated the "doctrine of the mean [chung yung]." Confucius praised the "doctrine of the mean" as the "supreme virtue"; Chiang Kai-shek spoke of it as "the most refined and correct philosophy of life"; and Lin Piao babbled that the "doctrine of the mean … is rational." The revolutionary people, however, have nothing but contempt for all this trash. Hadn't Confucius cursed that "the inferior man opposes the mean"? This shows that the "doctrine of the mean" has always been opposed by the revolutionary people since antiquity. The working class is the most thoroughgoing revolutionary class, so it should thoroughly criticize this doctrine.

A Vicious Motive, Despicable Tricks

Since the day the five-star red flag was hoisted over Tienanmen Square and the birth of new China was proclaimed, different political forces of the world have assumed different attitutes toward the earthshaking social changes in China and the tremendous achievements of her socialist construction. Hundreds of millions of revolutionary people and friends all over the world have voiced admiration and sympathy, whereas a handful of reactionary forces have expressed indescribable horror and deep hatred. This is what has happened to all great revolutions whether in China or other lands, in ancient times and now. The anti-China film China by the Italian director M. Antonioni, which was first shown in some Western countries last year, reflects the attitudes of the tiny handful of imperialists and social-imperialists in the present-day world who have an inveterate hatred for new China. The appearance of this film is a serious anti-China event and a wild provocation against the Chinese people.

Speech at Rally Celebrating the Seventeenth Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China (October 1, 1966)

Comrades and Friends, Today is the great festival of the seventeenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On behalf of our great leader Chairman Mao, the Central Committee of the Party, and the Government of the People's Republic of China, I most warmly salute the workers, peasants, and soldiers, the revolutionary teachers and students, the revolutionary Red Guards and other militant youth organizations, the revolutionary people of all nationalities, and the revolutionary cadres throughout the country, and extend a hearty welcome to our friends from different countries of the world!

Completely Carry Out Our Great Leader Chairman Mao's Latest Instruction, and Firmly Execute the Battle Order Issued by the Proletarian Headquarters

Abstract Under the guidance of the extremely important recent instructions of our great leader Chairman Mao, a large number of workers' Mao Tsetung's thought propaganda teams are rapidly entering colleges and universities and other units which have failed to conduct a successful struggle-criticism-transformation campaign. Thus, a high tide in the struggle-criticism-transformation campaign, under the leadership of the working class and participated in by millions of revolutionary people, is being fiercely launched with a force strong enough to overthrow mountains and upset seas. After they have studied Chairman Mao's latest instructions and Comrade Yao Wen-yuan's important article, "The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything," the broad masses of workers across the nation courageously and without restraint say: "Whenever Chairman Mao waves his hand, we march forward! Under the leadership of the proletarian headquarters, with Chairman Mao as its commander and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao as its deputy commander, we must study better and make living use of Mao Tsetung's thought. The working class should always raise its political consciousness in the course of struggle, unite with the broad masses of revolutionary people of all levels to march forward along Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary path, persist in carrying out the great historical mission of a struggle-criticism-transformation campaign, and win a complete victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!"

Thoroughly Destroy the Old Legal System and Eliminate Bourgeois Legal Thought

Exactly fifteen years have elapsed since the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee issued, in February 1949, the "Directive Concerning the Abolition of the Kuomintang Liu-fa Ch'uan-shu [Compendium of Six Laws] and the Establishment of Judicial Principles in Liberated Areas" (hereafter referred to simply as the "Directive"). This Directive is the product of the combination of the theory of Marxism-Leninism on the state and law with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution; it is one of the concrete manifestations of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's political thought on people's democratic dictatorship. It has served a decisive function in guiding the thorough destruction of the Kuomintang' s reactionary legal system after the victory of the Chinese people's revolution, in wiping out the residual poisons of the bogus Liu-fa Ch'uan-shu in the minds of the people, in demarcating the boundary of principle between the new and the old laws, and in establishing the socialist revolutionary legal system. Promulgation of the Directive is completely in keeping with the interests and the needs of revolutionary people. In the work of China's revolutionary legal construction it is a document replete with great historical significance.

China to the Left of Russia

Chinese public action in 1963 adhered closely to the doubledual themes of the Tenth Plenum (September 1962) of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): While waging a struggle against foreign and domestic class enemies ... our Party must sharpen its vigilance and correctly wage a struggle. against and against dogmatism. By year's end, the Khrushchevite Soviet Union was being treated as a foreign The drive against bourgeois influences at home shaped up as a strong resurgence of collectivism, accompanied by talk once again of all-people's ownership of the means of production. The warning against dogmatism was largely ignored, except for insistence on realism and practicality in coping with domestic problems and in re-training Party cadres. The attack on revisionism continued with even less restraint than in the past. The entire country went to school in a massive program of socialist education-carried to all Party cadres, to trade unions, to peasants, to the remnant bourgeoisie (reversing a 1962 theme), to intellectuals, to parents and children, to teachers and pupilswhich emphasized that no line could be drawn between domestic and foreign enemies. The mood was extremely militant. Sino-Soviet relations-once comradely, fraternal, socialist-degenerated to open hostility. The year had opened with a brilliant series of Chinese doctrinal attacks on Khrushchevite postures, and had ended with Chinese efforts to excommunicate the Soviet leaders from the international communist movement. In the CCP view, the Soviet Union had joined the imperialist United States to undermine China's socialist construction and to frustrate her capabilities for attaining Great Power status. Red Flag's National Day (October 1) editorial plainly intended Khrushchev in its references to who call themselves 'Marxist-Leninists' and to renegades to Marxism-Leninism, and transparently predicted for him the fate of Trotsky, Bukharin and Rykov. distinguished the genuine Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people throughout the world from those who attack the CCP. which has adhered to Marxism-Leninism. exposed their policy of capitulation to U. S. imperialism, torn away their Marxist-Leninist cloak... . The Editorial Department of People's Daily bitterly declared (November 2): It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Soviet leaders no longer consider the imperialists, headed by the United States, and the reactionaries of all countries to be their is the. [true] Marxist-Leninists, the revolutionary people, and China in particular, who are their enemy. Khrushchev had characterized Sino-

Communist China in Overview

During 1962 Chinese people continued their uphill quest for a higher standard of living amidst unresolved difficulties of Commnunist regime. difficulties were openly acknowledged, but not always candidly identified-being ascribed to bad weather or to shortcomings in some of our work. A better idea of their range is gained from specific measures of action recommended by Premier Chou En-lai to National People's Congress (March 27-April 16). Official optimism remained unshaken. Under centralized leadership of Central Committee. People's Daily declared, there is no that cannot be overcome and no enemy that cannot be defeated (January 1). Nine months later, Vice-Premier Ch'en Yi asserted: We are still confronted with many difficulties. course of socialist construction is in its nature one of continuously overcoming difficulties. A revolutionary people is able to overcome any difficulty (October 1). basic doctrinal objectives of Chinese Communist regime were reaffirmed, but target dates were postponed. class struggle is complicated, tortuous, with ups and downs and sometimes it is very sharp, Central Committee announced on September 28; it would persist throughout historical period of transition from capitalism to communism (which will last scores of years or even longer). . Emphasis was placed on maintaining purity of Marxism-Leninism in domestic and foreign affairs, but a growing sense of national isolation was shown by assertions that success had been achieved by the militant spirit of relying on our own efforts... (Central Committee, September 28). principal datum points for observing evolution of official policy in 1962 are: (1) New Year's Editorial of People's Daily, January 1; (2) Press Communique on Third Session of Second National People's Congress (lMfarch 27-April 16) [April 16]; and (3) Communique of Tenth Plenary Session of Eighth Central Committee of Communist Party of China (September 24-27) [September 28]; two principal expositions of basic ideological problems were: (4) Li Wei-han's long article in February 10 double issue of Red Flag, on The Struggle for Proletarian Leadership in Period of NewDemocratic Revolution in China, and (5) provocative article by Editorial Department of People's Daily on More on Nehru's Philosophy in Light of Sino-Indian Boundary Question (October 27).1 All of