The American Socialist and the Chinese Revolution

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

[Now that I am in the home stretch of creating electronic archives for the
American Socialist magazine, I am pleased to discover one of the more
interesting articles in a treasure-chest of interesting articles. In the
April 1959 issue, Bert Cochran takes the measure of the Chinese Revolution.
As somebody trained in the Trotskyist movement, you find certain
preoccupations in Bert's article that go with the territory. What is of
more interest, however, is the overall positive embrace of the greatest
socialist revolution since 1917.

[This is in vivid contrast to the American SWP's generally sectarian and
uninformed attitude toward Mao's revolution. At my first branch meeting in
1967, I voted for the expulsion of Arne Swabeck who was a founding member
of the party and who had evolved toward Maoism. (Swabeck was one of the
"talking heads" in Warren Beatty's memorable "Reds".) One after another,
party members got up to denounce the veteran as a Mao-ite. If you wanted to
let the branch know you meant business, you'd pronounce it "Mayo-ite" as if
we were talking about a sandwich spread rather than a revolutionary
movement that had liberated a billion people.

[The SWP leader who hated Maoism the most was one Tom Kerry, an old
merchant seaman who wore a permanent scowl. Every time he got up to
denounce Ernest Mandel and the other European Trotskyists for being soft on
Maoism, he'd refer to the Chinese beau-ROH-cracy as opposed to the
beau-RAH-cracy. I figured he used that pronunciation because it sounded
more uncompromising or something. RAH might be mistaken for RAH-RAH.

[At the recent conference on American Trotskyism, I learned from Richard
Fidler that Les Evans, a younger party leader of the 1960s and a serious
China scholar, found it impossible to have a rational discussion with
Kerry. Even the slightest concession to the Chinese Communists would result
in a tirade from the cranky old man. I also learned at the conference that,
according to Michael Livingston, Harry Braverman was something of a Maoist
himself.

[The biggest problem with American Trotskyism is that it hardly dealt with
Maoism itself. Mostly it was content to repeat Trotsky's polemics against
the Comintern over the 1927 Shanghai uprising, as if this had anything to
do with Mao's peasant uprising and successful overthrow of the comprador
bourgeoisie.

[Beneath you will find a section from Bert Cochran's "New Thunder Out of
Communist China" from the April 1959 American Socialist. It was so contrary
to the normal accepted discourse of Trotsky's disciples that an outraged
Michael Harrington, a Shachtmanite at the time, wrote in to complain. I
include a brief section from the May 1959 exchange between him and Cochran.
It epitomizes the differences between Marxism and the kind of Left
Menshevism that Harrington found congenial. Following in the footsteps of
Karl Kautsky, Harrington states, " When...an underdeveloped country
attempts a quick industrialization on basis of its own national resources,
it will develop a totalitarian apparatus." Cochran replies in Leninist
fashion, "Regimentation and dictatorship, as far as I can see, are
inevitable with a forced industrialization of a backward country. The
alternative is not democracy as it is practiced in England or even in the
United States, but the regime of Indonesia, or Pakistan, or Iran, or Chiang
Kai-shek. I think the Chinese people are far better off with what they have."]

====

>From Bert Cochran, "New Thunder Out of Communist China", American
Socialist, April 1959

HERE is how the new course shaped up in practice. Beginning with the winter
of 1957, great armies of rural laborers were mobilized for thousands of
local regional irrigation and conservation projects. A number of these were
enormous modern engineering ventures organized by the central government
and requiring sizable investments of equipment. The bulk were smaller
affairs of a labor-intense character involving little investment. work,
financed in great part by the food supplied to the laborers, has been
estimated to have added an actual third to the total accumulation fund.
According to Liu Shao-chi the government invested 1,450 million yuan to
harness the Huai river, and completed over 1,600 million cubic meters of
masonry and earth work in eight years. But by means of labor, money, and
material resources of the peasants themselves, in six months of the winter
of 1957 and spring of 1958, more than 12,000 million cubic meters of
masonry and earth work were completed in Honan and Anhwei provinces alone.

China s use of chemical fertilizer is still negligible, and dependent on
foreign sources for most of that. The original plan looked forward to the
manufacture of three million tons in 1962, which would only provide under
20 pounds per acre as against Japan?s use of 40 times as much per acre. But
it is remarkable to note that in this same period, the peasants accumulated
15¼ billion tons of crude and mud fertilizers with which they were able to
achieve startling results. The two main efforts, improved irrigation and
increased use of fertilizer, coupled with better seed election and control
of pests and plant diseases, has been sufficient for spectacular increases
in 1958 which revolutionized all perspectives. Where the original figure
for grain was 250 million tons, later revised downward to 240 million tons
for 1962, production for 1958 is now estimated at 350 to 375 million tons ?
double last year?s crop. Where the raw cotton target was 2-2/5 million
tons, later revised downward to 2-1/6 million tons for 1962, production for
1958 was estimated at 3-1/3 million tons ? again, a doubling of production
within one year. Output of cured tobacco, sugar cane and sugar beets
doubled. Other farm produce increased by 20 to 40 percent. It was assumed
by Westerners, as the reports of bumper crops came in, that the sown area
had been considerably extended. But Liao Lu-yen, the Minister of
Agriculture, explained that the area enlargement was very slight; the
increases were due primarily to higher yields unit.

WHAT is one to make of these figures? There has never been reported
anything like it. The most spectacular example of agricultural advance in a
population-congested has been that of Japan. It was able to double
agricultural production prior to mechanization from 1885 to 1915, a period
of thirty years, by standardization, seed selection, improved irrigation,
scientific management, and large uses of commercial fertilizers. In this
thirty-year span, output by three-quarters, a rate of increase of 2-2/5
percent ear, with the rural population declining while the national
population was rapidly growing. Western experts convinced that this type of
advance was excluded for China, as her population density was already
extreme and growing at an alarming rate, and her productivity per acre was
high, much of her farming being practically of the garden type.

Thee 1958 achievement has demolished this Western expertise. It has
demonstrated that once the social barriers to the scientific application of
production techniques and utilization of labor are swept away, even in a
country as thickly inhabited as China (where a smaller acreage than of the
United States supports a population 3¾ times as large), productivity
advances are possible of a magnitude and at a rate that no one had dared
suggest before. Even if we downgrade the figures considerably (as Chinese
statistics necessarily have a high component of inaccuracy, and the
Communists have a tradition of juggling with figures), it is still
unimpeachable, as many Western observers have attested, that agricultural
production has been revolutionized and the whole economic perspective has
altered for the better.

Complete article at: http://www.marxmail.org/cochran_china.htm

====

Michael Harrington-Bert Cochran exchange, American Socialist, May 1959

HARRINGTON:

FINALLY, let me return to the basic point in terms of your final remarks on
democracy. You write that democracy requires a certain material level. Of
course! That ABC. But the point is not to under-value the relevance of
democracy to socialism ? which I feel was the implication of your words ?
but to re-emphasize it. When, an underdeveloped country attempts a quick
industrialization on basis of its own national resources, it will develop a
totalitarian apparatus, for that is the only way that the peasant can be
forced to give up his surplus or the worker be kept at the grindstone. In
the process, the totalitarians will not exist as an abstract and classless
force, but enjoy the fruits of their economic, social and political power
at once. This grim mechanism of accumulation only be changed if there is
massive aid from advanced (socialist, or socialist-tending) countries. It
will, I think, become generalized so long as the present international
situation continues, and so long as there is no perspective of socialism in
an advanced country.

All of this is hardly encouraging, but this is the reality must face. In
dealing with China, what realism compels us to recognize is that
industrialization is being carried in an anti-socialist way which is
bringing a new social class to power. On this point, there is enough
evidence. Your major failure, to my mind, was that you did not the problem
of the basic direction of the system squarely and that, in your ambiguous
remarks about democracy, you gave unwitting aid to those who would corrupt
the very image of socialism through their attitude phenomenon like that of
Chinese Communism.

COCHRAN:

You say that Chinese planning has a "gimmick" character and you cast doubt
that the rural industry drive amounts to much. We have to beware, it seems
to me, of bending the stick so far in direction of suspicion as to deprive
ourselves of the possibility of comprehending the actual process under way.
It is easy to get into such a mood because the Communists are unscrupulous
manipulators of data. But it is the duty of conscientious social observers
to strike a reasonable balance on the basis of the best information
available. We do not have any reliable statistics as to the value the goods
turned out in cottage and rural industry as against urban industry. But
even if we had them, they would not tell us too much. Chinese economic
development is occurring on several different levels. The commanding fact
of rural industry is not its inevitably low productivity, but that it can
be gotten under way with a small capitalist investment, with such technical
skills as locally available, and that it puts to use resources and or which
would otherwise go to waste. It is one aspect the great public works, which
in turn makes possible huge agricultural increases, which in turn add to
the capital fund for industrialization and general growth. In other words,
it is part of a chain reaction; it has what the economists call a
multiplier effect.

NOW, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. As a result of the public
works and local industries program ? the two are closely linked ? China
reported greater agricultural progress than in the previous five years.
Food grains shot up to 350-375 million tons, and they are talking in terms
of 525 million tons this year. Of course, we can say the figures are all
lies, but the Russian experience should caution us, while viewing the
statistics critically, against blanket rejection. I am prepared to accept
that it is not all beer and skittles: the transportation system is probably
badly overstrained, a lot of the rural ventures probably flopped, some
costly miscalculations were made, etc., etc. But the economic balance sheet
reads very high. The British and Australian journalists on the scene accept
the fact of an unprecedented agricultural breakthrough. This is all the
more impressive as it is taking place while heavy and general urban
industry is being relentlessly pushed ahead. How can monumental
achievements of this kind be waved away as "gimmicks"? Aren?t we in danger
of repeating the experience of some of the professional Russian critics:
scoffing and jeering year after year only to wake up one fine day to
discover that Russia is the world?s second industrial power?

Complete exchange at: http://www.marxmail.org/harrington_cochran.htm


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/