* An earlier version of this text was given as the Contemporary China Institute Annual Lecture on 8 June 1981. I wish to thank the Institute for providing the stimulus to this reflection.

1. Xu Tailai takes the former view in an article in Lishi yanjiu. No. 4 (1980), pp. 19–36;Google ScholarYifeng, Huang, President of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and a co-author, take the latter in Lishi yanjiu, No. 6 (1980), pp. 21–30.Google Scholar

2. See the article by Xulu, Chen, “Zhongguo jindaishi shang de geming yu gailiang ” (“Revolution and reform in modern Chinese history ”), Lishiyanjiu, No. 6 (1980), pp. 3–19.Google Scholar

3. See, for example, a reference to the “modernization” (Jindaihua) of agriculture, in the original text of Mao's April 1945 report “On Coalition Government,” Mao Zedong ji, 9, p. 244; and a discussion of “modernization” (xiandaihua) in both industry and agriculture in his speech of 9 October 1957 at the 3rd Plenum, Xuanji, V, p. 503.

4. Wan-sui (1969), p. 245, and Wan-sui (1967), p. 15.

5. Xu Tailai, article cited, Lishi yanjiu, No. 4 (1980), p. 35.

6. Esherick, Joseph, Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 256–59.Google Scholar

7. Dazhao, Li, “Wode Makesizhuyi guan,” Xin Qingnian, VII (6), 1919.Google Scholar It is a striking reflection of the wholly new climate of intellectual discourse in China that the “dualism” of Li's outlook in 1919 should have been explicitly underscored in a recent article: Zhengmin, Du, “Li Dazhao zhexue sixiang fazhan chu tan” (“A preliminary investigation into the development of Li Dazhao's philosophical thought”), Zhexue yanjiu, No. 6, 1981, p. 56.Google Scholar

8. For a concise but clear discussion of the relation between Li Dazhao's interpretation of Marxism and that of Rignano (from which the above apt evaluation is drawn), see Barrett, David P., “Socialism, Marxism and Communism in the Thought of Hu Han-min” (University of London Ph.D thesis 1978), pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

9. Hunan lishi ziliao, No. 9 (1959), pp. 83–84;Google Scholartranslated in Schram, S., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York, Praeger: 1969), pp. 297–298.Google Scholar

10. The previously-accepted official date of 1 July for the founding of the Party has now been shown to be in error: the First Congress took place from 23 to 31 July 1921. (See the article of Weizheng, Shao, “The First National Congress of the Communist Party of China: a verification of the date of convocation and the number of participants,” Social Sciences in China, 1,1980, pp. 108–129.)Google Scholar

11. For the decisions of the First Congress, see Kung-po, Ch'en, The Communist Movement in China (New York: East Asian Institute of Columbia University, 1960), pp. 106–110. The Chinese originals of these materials have been lost, and Chinese scholars are obliged to rely on this English version, made by Chen Gong bo in 1924, and on a Russian translation basically similar in substance. The two versions have been re-translated into Chinese and printed side by side in Yida huiyilu (Reminiscences of the First Congress) (Beijing: Zhishi Chubanshe, 1980, pp. 104–114). The handiest source regarding the Chinese working class during this early period remains Jean Chesneaux, Le Mouvement ouvrier chinois de 1919 à 1927 (Paris, Mouton, 1962).Google Scholar

12. The origins of the bloc within are discussed by Dov Bing in his article “Sneevliet and the early years of the CCP,” The China Quarterly, No. 48 (1971), pp. 677–697. (See also his polemics with Mrs. Muntjewerf in The China Quarterly, Nos. 53 and 54.) In the light of these exchanges and the available sources, including extracts from the Comintern archives utilized by some of the contributors to Komintern i Vostok (The Comintern and the East) (Moscow: Nauka, 1969), it is plain that Sneevliet proposed the bloc within to Chen Duxiu and the Chinese Communists in March 1922 (whether or not the meeting at which he did so was a formal Plenum of the Central Committee), was rebuffed by them, went immediately to Moscow where he obtained formal endorsement of his proposal by the Executive Committee of the International, and then returned to China where, in August 1922, he forced this idea down the throats of his Chinese comrades.Google Scholar

13. S. Schram, The Political Thought, pp. 268–269.

14. This fact was recounted by Mao to Edgar Snow in his autobiography as published in Red Star over China; see also Schram, S., Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), pp.127–128.Google Scholar

15. “An analysis of the various classes of the Chinese peasantry and their attitudes toward revolution” (January 1926), Schram, S., The Political Thought, p. 245.Google Scholar

16. S. Schram, The Political Thought, p. 269.

17. Discussions on 8 and 9 July 1980, as a member of the “North American Delegation to Study Problems of the Chinese Revolution.” (Other participants on this occasion were Jerome Ch'en, Ed Friedman and Tsou Tang.)

18. Resolution of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party (26 August 1931), d'Encausse, H. Carrère and Schram, S., Marxism and Asia (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 246.Google Scholar

19. Marxism and Asia, p. 333. (It is not surprising that Kuusinen should have adopted this view, since he had personally drafted many of the Comintern directives in question.)

20. Liu Shaoqi, “On the Party” in Three Essays on Party-Building (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980), pp. 177–191passim. (This version, which is reprinted verbatim from the translation published in 1954, has been corrected slightly on the basis of the Chinese text.)Google Scholar

21. Ibid.. p. 181.

22. Mao Zedong ji, 2, p. 95.

23. “On Protracted War,” extract in S. Schram, The Political Thought, p. 284. (The reference to war as the supreme example of conscious activity has been removed from the current official version.)

24. Schram, S. (ed.), Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 178. (Speech of 30 January 1962.)Google Scholar

25. Communist China 1955–1959. Policy Documents with Analysis (edited by Bowie, and Fairbank, ) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 429; translation amended on the basis of the Chinese text in Renmin ribao, 27 May 1958. (This passage is missing from the version in the Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i published in 1968 by the U.R.I., Hong Kong.)Google Scholar

26. Ibid.. p. 421.

27. “Sixty articles on work methods,” Wan-sui (supplement), p. 32; translated in Current Background (CB) No. 892, Hong Kong, U.S. Consulate-General, 1970, p. 5.

28. David S. G. Goodman, “Central-Provincial Relationships in the People's Republic of China: Sichuan and Guizhou, 1955–1965” (University of London PhD Thesis, 1981), pp.242–243.

29. See the rather faint praise in the editorial note which has (probably correctly) been attributed to Mao accompanying the re-publication in Renmin ribao (13 October 1958) of Zhang's article “Pochu zichanjieji de faquan sixiang” (“Smash and eliminate the ideology of bourgeois right”).

30. Wu Jiang, “Buduan geming lunzhe bixu shi chedi bianzheng weiwu lunzhe” (“A partisan of the theory of the permanent revolution must be a thoroughgoing dialectical materialist”)o Zhexue yanjiu, No. 8, 1958, pp. 25–28. For a complete translation, see Schram, S., Documents sur la théorie de la “révolution permanente” en Chine (Paris: Mouton, 1963), pp. 19–31. The above passages appear in Schram, The Political Thought, pp. 99 and 135–136. (Italics added.)Google Scholar

31. Mao's article, written for the first issue of the new theoretical organ Hongqi, was translated in Peking Review, No. 15,10 June 1958, pp. 3–4. The key passages also appear in Schram, The Political Thought, pp. 351–352.

32. Mohan, Lin, Genggaode juqi Mao Zedong wenyi sixiang de qizhi (Raise even higher the banner of Mao Zedong's literary and artistic thought) (Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe, 1960), p. 24.Google Scholar

33. Speech at the Supreme State Conference, 5 September 1958, Wan-sui (1969), p. 228.

34. This resolution, adopted on 27 June 1981 by the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee, was published on 30 June, on the eve of the official anniversary of the founding of the Party. The English translation is conveniently available in Beijing Review, No. 27,6 July 1981, pp. 10–39; the Chinese text appears in Renmin ribao, 1 July 1981, pp. 1–5. Here and throughout the remainder of the present article, I shall refer to it by paragraph number, rather than page, since it has been reproduced in many different places. The above quote is from No. 17 of the 38 paragraphs into which the text is divided. On the whole I have reproduced the official translation, with minor amendments here and there.Google Scholar

35. Wan-sui (1969), p. 27; Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), Miscellany of Mao Tse-tung Thought (1974), p. 29.

36. Wan-sui (1969), p. 247, and Wan-sui (1967), pp. 12, 17, 49 etc.; JPRS, Miscellany, p. 128. (The materials from the Second Zhengzhou Conference have not been translated.)

37. Speech of 15 February 1945 at the Party School, in Ziliao xuanbian (n.p., 1967), p. 124.

38. In his speech to a conference of cadres from the Shanxi-Suiyuan area, 1 April 1948, Mao Zedong ji, 10, p. 138; translation in Schram, The Political Thought, pp. 341–42. (The reference to “agrarian socialism” has been eliminated from the Selected Works version.)

39. Speech of 23 July 1959 at the Lushan Conference, in Schram, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed, pp. 133–35.

40. Fairbank and Bowie, Communist China 1955–1959, p. 456.

41. Ibid.. p. 491.

42. See, in particular the relevant passages of his speech of 1 February 1942, launching the Yan'an Rectification Campaign, in Schram, The Political Thought, p. 313; and his Talk at an Enlarged Work Conference of 30 January 1962, in Schram, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed, p. 163.

43. Schram, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed, pp. 277–78.

44. The discussion of current Chinese views in this concluding section is based in the first instance on printed materials of the past three years, and on conversations, in June and July 1980, with a number of leading Chinese scholars and intellectuals during a visit to China as a member of the delegation mentioned in footnote 17. I have also taken account, however, of the resolution adopted on 27 June 1981, which appeared while this article was being revised for publication, though it does not fundamentally alter the picture already perceptible from other sources.

45. Zhongguo shehuizhyui jingji wenti (Beijing: Renmin hubanshe, 1979), especially pp.191–201.Google Scholar

46. Wan-sui (1969), p. 340; JPRS, Miscellany, p. 264.

47. Hu Fuming, “Guanyu woguo shehuizhuyi fazhan de tedian” (“On some peculiarities of our country's socialist development”), Part 2, Shehui kexue (Shanghai), No. 3,1980, p. 79.

48. See the “Symposium on Mao and Marx” in Modern China, Vol. 3, Nos. 1, 2 and 4, 1977, especially the contributions of R. Pfeffer and A. Walder and my replies. (It is worth recalling, incidentally, that the word “voluntarist” has been extensively used and abused in anti-Chinese polemics by the Soviets, who have conveniently forgotten that it was originally put into circulation 30 years ago by western scholars to characterize what Lenin did to Marxism.)

49. Hu Fuming, “Guanyu woguo shehuizhuyi”, Shehui kexue. No. 3, 1980, pp. 73–4.

50. “Resolution on certain questions in the history of our Party,” para. 17.

51. Xue Muqiao, Jingji gongzuo bixu zhangwo jingji fazhan guilü (In economic work we must grasp the laws of economic development), report of 14 March 1979 to the Section on Enterprise Management of the State Economic Council, reprinted (with some cuts and changes) in Dangqian woguo jingji ruogan wenti (Some current problems of China's economy): (Beijing Renmin chubanshe), 1980, pp. 3–29.

52. Xue Muqiao, Some current problems …, pp. 7–9. This passage is somewhat attenuated as compared to the original report, and the reference to deaths from hunger has been removed in the published version.

53. Ibid.. pp. 10–11. (Here the reference to the Eighth Congress has been removed.)

54. I have attempted to present my own personal view of Mao's place in the history of the Chinese Communist Party for a non-specialized audience in “Mao Zedong,” History Today, Vol. 31, April 1981, pp. 22–29.Google Scholar

55. Renmin ribao, 11 April 1981. (The translation in Beijing Review, No. 17, 27 April 1981, is abridged and has thereby lost some of its substance and bite.)

56. “Resolution on some questions,” paras. 17, 18and 21.

57. “Resolution on some questions … ”, para. 22.

58. Ibid., paras. 8,19 and 20.

59. Ibid.. para. 24, section (1).

60. Schram, S., “The ‘Military Deviation’ of Mao Tse-tung,” Problems of Communism, No. 1, 1964, pp. 49–56.Google Scholar

61. Dazhao, Li, “Lu Yu Shan deng sheng de Hongqianghui” (“The Red Spears in Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi and other provinces”), in Li Dazhao xuanji (Selected Works of Li Dazhao) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe), 1962, pp. 566–67.Google Scholar

62. Article cited, Renmin ribao, 11 April 1981, p. 2. (This expression does not appear in the Beijing Review translation.)

63. “Resolution on some questions … ”, para. 35, ss. (4) and (5).

64. The paragraph added by Mao appears in Schram, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed, p. 231. The full text of Zhou's report was translated in Peking Review, No. 1, 1965.Google Scholar

65. “Resolution on some questions … ”, para. 20, s. (3).

66. Fuming, Hu, article cited, Part 1, Shehui kexue. No. 2, 1980, p. 54, and Part 2, Shehui kexue, No. 3, 1980, pp. 73–74.Google Scholar

67. Xin Zongqin and Xue Hanwei, “Zenyang lijie ‘shehuizhuyi jiushi xuanbu buduan geming’” (“How shall we understand [Marx' statement] ‘ Socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution’”), Renmin ribao, 19 June 1980, p. 5.

68. On this theme see, for example, my introduction to Schram, Documents sur la théorie de la “révolution permanente”, pp. xix–xxix.

69. “Resolution on some questions …, ” para. 35, s. (1).

70. Ibid.. para. 36.

71. Stalin, J., Marxism and Problems of Linguistics (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972), p. 27.Google Scholar

72. SW.Vol. V, p. 393.