Re: Luftmensch on maoism

[detcom@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Rolf, I agree with you that the period of the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution and the history of the overthrow of socialism
in China is very important today.  It was studying this period
over again that led us to break with the Avakianists and denounce
their phony Maoism.  However, you make a greivious error in
thinking Chiang Ching a "hypocitical rightist".  You say a lot of
stuff, insinuating that proof of her rightism is that the masses
were "jubilant" when she and the other revolutionaries were
arrested.  This isn't so.  Armed struggles broke out, and
ESPECIALLY in Shanghai.  The real rightists had to have many
tens of thousands of real revolutionaries arrested after their
coup. Many never heard from again.   And the account of the
mass protests in Tienamen Square from "Peking Review" show clearly
the counter-revolutionary aspect of it all and that it was clearly
organized by the Pro-Dengists in the main, they were not just taking
advantage of it.
I am sure very few on this list have the Peking Reviews so I
present here the article telling the story that Rolf mentions.
I hope it helps to clarify the true nature of the demonstration.
In re-reading it I could see where Avakian-lumpen methodology traces
back to.   -Jay Miles / Detroit

ROLF WROTE:
The mass protests on Tienanmen Square on 05.04.76, essentially,
*were* a protest against Jiang Qing's and the other "G 4" peoples'
*suppressing* the manifestations of mourning for Zhou Enlai. There
were some other forces mixed up in the whole thing also, some
supporters of the *other* anti-Mao fraction, that of Deng Xiaoping,
which tried to take advantage of the situation, but, if you read the
issues of Peking Review from that time carefully, you can confirm
the above pretty well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL INCIDENT AT
TIEN AN MEN SQUARE

>from Peking Review #15, April 9, 1976 (Translation of Renmin
Ribao(People's Daily) reports by worker-peasant-soldier
correspondents and staff correspondents.)

Early April, a handful of class enemies, under the guise of
commemorating the late Premier Chou during the Ching Ming
Festival, engineered an organized, premeditated and planned
counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square
in the capital.  They flagrantly made reactionary speeches,
posted reactionary poems and slogans, distributed reactionary
leaflets and agitated for the setting up of counter-revolutionary
organizations.  By means of insinuation and overt counter-revolutionary
language, they brazenly clamoured that "the era of Chin Shih Huang
is gone."  Openly hoisting the ensign of supporting Teng Hsaio-ping,
they frenziedly directed their spearhead at our great leader
Chairman Mao, attempted to split the Party Central Committee headed
by Chairman Mao, tried to change the general orientation of the
current struggle to criticize Teng Hsaio-ping and counterattack
the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, and
engaged in counter-revolutionary activities.

The counter-revolutionary activities culminated on April 5.  At
about 8 a.m., a loudspeaker car of the municipal Public Security
Bureau was overturned, the body of the car and its loudspeakers
smashed.  After 9 a.m., more than 10,000 people gathered in front
of the Great Hall of the People.  At its maximum the crowd at
Tien An Men Squaare numbered about 100,000 people.  Except for
a handful of bad elements who were bent on creating disturbances,
the majority of the people were passers-by who came over to see
what was happening.  Some of the people were around the Monument
to the People's Heroes; the majority were concentrated on the
west side of the square near the eastern entrance to the Great
Hall of the People.  A dozen young people were surrounded and
beaten up by some bad elements, recieving cuts and bruises on
their heads with blood trickling down their swollen faces.  The
hooligans shouted: "Beat them to death!  Beat them to death!"
An army guard who tried to stop the hooligans by persuasion had
his insignia pulled off, uniform torn and his face beaten to
bleed.  The bad elements exclaimed:  "Who can put this situation
under control?  Nobody in the Central Committee can.  Should he
come today he would not be able to return!"  Their counter-
revolutionary arrogance was unbridled to the extreme.  The masses
were infuriated and many of them said: "Ever since liberation,
Tien An Men Square has always been the place where our great
leader Chairman Mao reviews parades of the revolutionary masses.
We'll absolutely not tolerate such counter-revolutionary acts
happening here!"  Several hundred worker-militiamen who went up
the flight of steps leading to the Great Hall of the People to
stand guard were broken up into several sections by the hooligans.
The latter repeatedly shouted reactionary slogans and savagely
beat up anyone in the crowd who opposed them.  Some of those who
got beaten up were dragged to the monument and forced to kneel down
and "confess their crimes."

At 11:05 a.m., many people surged towards the Museum of Chinese
History on the east side of Tien An Men Square.  In front of the
museum, a woman comrade who came forward to dissuade them was
immediately manhandled.  At this moment, a bunch of bad elements
besieged a People's Liberation Army barracks by the clock tower
in the southeast corner of the square.  They crushed the door, broke
into the building and occupied it.  A few bad elements, sporting a
crew cut, took turns to incite the people, shouting themselves hoarse
through a transistor megaphone.  Towards noon, some of the trouble-
makers proclaimed the inauguration of what they called "committee of
the people of the capital for commemorating the Premier."  A bad
element wearing spectacles had the impudence to announce that the
Public Security Bureau must give a reply in ten minutes.  He
threatened that if their demands were not met, they would smash the
public security department.

At 12:30, the P.L.A. fighters on guard duty at Tien An Men Square
marched in formation towards their barracks to guard it.  The bad
elements who were making disturbances shouted in instigation: "The
people's army should stand on the side of the people!" and "Those
befuddled by others are innocent!"  Later, they overturned a
Shanghai sedan car and set it on fire.  The firemen and P.L.A.
guards who came to the rescue were blocked, and a fire engine was
wrecked.  These bad elements said that putting out the fire meant
"suppressing the mass movement."  Several members of the fire-brigade
were beaten to bleed.

At 12:45, a detachment of people's police came as reinforcement.
But they too were taunted and stopped.  The caps of several policemen
were snatched by the rioters and thrown to the air.  Some even threw
knoves and daggers at the people's police.  Several policemen were
surrounded and beaten up.

In the afternoon, the sabotage activities of this handful of counter-
revolutionaries bacame still more frenzied.  They burnt up four motor
vehicles bringing water and food to the worker-militiament on duty or
belonging to the public security department.  Around 5 o'clock in the
afternoon, this gang of bad elements again broke into that barracks,
abducted and beat up the sentries, smashed the windows and doors on
the ground floor and looted everything in the rooms.  Radios, quilts,
bed sheets, clothing and books were all thrown into the fire by this
gang of counter-revolutionaries.  They also burnt and smashed dozens
of bicycles of the Peking worker-militiament.  Black smoke rose to
the sky amid a hubbub of counter-revolutionary clamors.  Nearly all
the window panes in the barracks were smashed.  Then they set the
barracks on fire.

The revolutionary masses showed their utmost hatred for this
counter-revolutionary political incident.  Yet the handful of bad
elements said glibly: "It manifests the strength of the masses."  They
went so far as to claim brazenly that "the situation has now got out of
hand and it would be of no use even if a regiment or an army was called
in," and so on and so forth, showing their unbridled reactionary arrogance.

See how these counter-revolutionaries use extremely decadent and
reactionary language and the trick of insinuation to viciously attack
and slander our great leader Chairman Mao and other leading comrades
on the Party Central Committee:
     "Devils howl as we pour out our grief, we weep but the wolves
laugh.  We spill our blood in memory of the hero; raising our brows,
we unsheathe our swords.  China is no longer the China of yore, and
the people are no longer wrapped in sheer ignorance: gone for good
is Chin Shih Huang's fuedal society.  We believe in Marxism-Leninism,
to hell with those scholars who emasculate Marxism-Leninism!  What
we want is genuine Marxism-Leninism.  For the sake of genuine Marxism-
Leninism, we fear not shedding our blood and laying down our lives;
the day modernization in four fields is realized, we will come back to
offer libations and sacrifices."

The clamours of these counter-revolutionaries about combating "Chin
Shih Huang" and demanding "genuine Marxism-Leninism" were out-and-out
counter-revolutionary agitation in the same vein as the language used
in Lin Piao's plan for a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat, "Outline
of Project '571'".  By directing their spearhead at our great leader
Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao,
and lauding Teng Hsaio-ping's counter-revolutionary revisionist line,
these counter-revolutionaries further laid bare their criminal aim to
practise revisionism and restore capitalism in China.

In the past few days these elements not only wrote reactionary poems
but put up reactionary posters.  They lauded Teng Hsiao-ping and
attempted to nominate him to play the role of Nagy, the chieftain of
the counter-revolutionary incident in Hungary.  They raved that "with
Teng Hsaio-ping in charge of the work of the Central Committee, the
struggle has won decisive victory" "to the great satisfaction of the
people throughout the country."  They uttered vile slanders, saying
that "the recent so-called anti-Right deviationist struggle is the
act of a hanful of careerists to reverse verdicts."  They openly
opposed the great struggle initiated and led by Chairman Mao to repulse
the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts; their
counter-revolutionary arrogance was inflated to the utmost.

However, the time when these counter-revolutionary elements ran rampant
coincided with the day of their downfall. Going against the will of the
people, they were extremely isolated.  As these bad elements were making
disturbances, perpetuating acts of violence and sabotage, many
revolutionary people courageously stepped forward to denounce their
counter-revolutionary acts and struggled against them.  The Peking
worker-militia, people's police and army guards on duty at the square
and the revolutionary people present at the time worked in close
co-operation, and fought bravely in defence of Chairman Mao, the Party
Central Committee, Chairman Mao's revolutionary line and the great
capital of our socialist motherland.

When the handful of bad elements again set fire to the barracks at 5
p.m., the army guards put out the fire at the risk of their own lives.
To safeguard the Great Hall of the People, more than 100 Peking worker-
militiamen were injured, a dozen of them seriously wounded.  Six army
guards were abducted and many wounded.  Risking dangers, the people's
police persevered in fighting.  Although the barracks was besieged and
fire was engulfing the first floor, leading comrades of the Peking
worker-militia command post persevered in the struggle on the second
floor.  At this critical moment, the switchboard operator calmly
reported the news to leading departments concerned.

At 6:30 p.m., after Comrade Wu Teh's speech was broadcast, most of
the onlookers and the masses who had been taken in quickly dispersed.
But a handful of counter-revolutionaries continued their desperate
resistance and again posted some reactionary poems around the Monument
to the People's Heroes.  Three hours later, on receiving an order from
the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, tens of thousands of
worker-militiamen, in co-ordination with the people's police and P.L.A.
guards, took resolute measures and enforced proletarian dictatorship.
In high morale, the heroic Peking militiamen valiantly filed into
Tien An Men Square and mounted powerful counterattacks.  They encircled
those bad elements who were still creating disturbances and committing
crimes in the vicinity of the Monument to the People's Heroes.  They
detained the active criminals and major suspects for examination.  In
the face of powerful proletarian dictatorship, the handful of rampant
rioters could not withstand even a single blow.  They squatted down,
trembling like stray dogs.  Some hurriedly handed over their daggers,
knives and notebooks on which they had copied the reactionary poems.
Several criminals who pulled out their daggers in a vain attempt to put
up a last-ditch fight were duly punished.  The revolutionary masses and
people of the whole city heartily supported and acclaimed the revolutionary
action of the Peking worker-militia, the people's police and the P.L.A.
guards.





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