When the editor asked me along with other ex-editors to offer some thoughts on the occasion of The China Quarterly's 50th anniversary, I was at a loss.  At the celebration which David Shambaugh held for the 35th anniversary in 1995, I wrote fairly extensively about the founding and early development of the journal (No.143, pp. 692–96) and did not have much to add.  So I made the suggestion that I should reprise a special feature of the first China Quarterly.  For that founding issue, I solicited a number of senior Sinologues to give their appraisal of the PRC on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.  Could I, now senior, be given a similar opportunity to look back at the founding of the PRC on the occasion of its 60th anniversary?  This article is the consequence of the editor's kind agreement.Governmen

MacFarquhar, Roderick

The China Quarterly

When the editor asked me along with other ex-editors to offer some thoughts on the occasion of The China Quarterly's 50th anniversary, I was at a loss.  At the celebration which David Shambaugh held for the 35th anniversary in 1995, I wrote fairly extensively about the founding and early development of the journal (No.143, pp. 692–96) and did not have much to add.  So I made the suggestion that I should reprise a special feature of the first China Quarterly.  For that founding issue, I solicited a number of senior Sinologues to give their appraisal of the PRC on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.  Could I, now senior, be given a similar opportunity to look back at the founding of the PRC on the occasion of its 60th anniversary?  This article is the consequence of the editor's kind agreement.GovernmentAuthor's Origina

Macfarquhar, Roderick

Harvard University - DASH

 On “Liberation”  (Article begins on next page)The Harvard community has made this article openly available.Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters.Citation MacFarquhar, Roderick. 2009. On "Liberation." The ChinaQuarterly 200: 891-894.Published Version doi:10.1017/S0305741009990919Accessed February 19, 2015 10:06:18 AM ESTCitable Link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10288442Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University's DASHrepository, and is made available under the terms and conditionsapplicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth athttp://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#OAPOn “Liberation”When the editor asked me along with other ex-editors to offer some thoughts on theoccasion of the CQ’s 50th anniversary, I was at a loss.  At the celebration which DavidShambaugh held for the 35th anniversary in 1995, I wrote fairly extensively about the foundingand early development of the journal and did not have much to add.  So I made the suggestionthat I should reprise a special feature of CQ 1.  For that founding issue, I solicited a number ofsenior sinologues to give their appraisal of the PRC on the occasion of its 10th anniversary.Could I, now senior, be given a similar opportunity to look back at the founding of the PRC onthe occasion of its 60th anniversary?  This article is the consequence of the editor’s kindagreement. The Chinese Communists, CCP, refer to their victory in 1949 as the “Liberation,” and it'sgood shorthand for that event.  But after 60 years, a cycle of Cathay, it is an appropriate time toconsider the validity of that term in the light of events that followed that victory.1 "Liberation" officially meant lifting the three great burdens off the backs of the Chinesepeople: imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism, and "their general representative, thereactionary Kuomintang government,"2 as Mao put it on September 21, 1949 in his speechentitled "The Chinese people have stood up." Imperialism had in fact mostly disappeared someyears before the Communist victory, and the British were pleasantly surprised that the processwas not completed with a takeover of Hong Kong.  Taking the term feudalism to mean the2 Opening address to the 1st plenum of the CPPCC, Sept. 21, 1949; Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (Beijing: FLP,Vol. 5, 1977), p. 16.1 Longer versions of this article were delivered in conferences in Hong Kong and Shanghai andin a speech at Claremont McKenna College earlier this year.traditional Confucian social system, hierarchical and patriarchal, that did still exist, and indeed,despite all the Chairman's efforts, much of it survived him and flourishes in the countryside inthe reform era.  As for bureaucrat-capitalism, big business, especially firms with foreign connections andclose ties to the KMT regime, this simply referred to those proprietors who had fled to Taiwan orHong Kong. Those who stayed in China could be classified as national, i.e. patriotic, capitalistsby the CCP, whatever their previous connections or activities, as Premier Zhou Enlai's explainedfrankly to one self-confessed and worried "comprador bureaucratic capitalist."3What was certainly true in Mao's litany was that the "reactionary Kuomintanggovernment" had been soundly beaten. What October 1 marked was not a revolution, but victoryin a Civil War.  The revolution followed the victory. After a horrendous century of foreign invasions, domestic rebellions and warlordism, theCCP triumph had brought the enormous boon of peace and unity. For the first time since theOpium War, the Chinese had a strong central government in place. The hitherto hobbled searchfor wealth and power could resume as the revolution began. And at least partial liberation mighthave been achieved had Mao kept the promise of “New Democracy.”  .The ideas of New Democracy were delivered in a speech by Mao on January 9, 1940, adesperate time for China in general and the CCP in particular.  The anti-Japanese United Frontbetween the CCP and the KMT was being undermined by Nationalist pressure on Communistbase areas and clashes between military units of their respective armies. So in "New Democracy,"Mao began trying to construct a different united front by appealing to China's notional "third3 See Sherman Cochran, "Capitalists choosing Communist China: The Liu family of Shanghai, 1948-56," in JeremyBrown & Paul. G. Pickowicz (eds), Dilemmas of Victory: the Early Years of the People's Republic of China(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), p.370.force," principally intellectuals who had chosen neutrality between the main contenders forpower in China and formed a few parties of their own.4According to Mao, the historical characteristic of the Chinese revolution was that it waspart of the world revolution, but that it would be divided into two phases, democracy followed bysocialism, and that the democratic stage would be of a new and special type, "New Democracy."Its task would be to change the colonial, semicolonial, and semi-feudal form of society into anindependent democratic society. China was currently in this first phase.5  With the formation ofthe CCP in July 1921, the proletariat had joined the bourgeoisie in leadership of this revolution.But the big bourgeoisie, Mao said, was "extremely flabby economically and politically, and italso has another quality--namely, a proneness to compromise with the enemies of therevolution.”6  Under these circumstances it would be welcomed in the revolutionary ranks, butthe proletariat, the peasantry, and the petty bourgeoisie, notably the intellectuals, wouldconstitute the basic forces in a future democratic Chinese republic.  An important part of theappeal of New Democracy to members of the third force was supposed to be the distinctionwhich Mao drew between Soviet proletarian dictatorship and China's future dictatorship ofseveral revolutionary classes, though this distinction would turn out to be illusory in practice.7 7 Ibid., pp. 342-3.6 Ibid., p. 338-339.5  Schram, op.cit., p. 333.4 For a discussion of the Chinese situation in which Mao gave birth to "New Democracy," see the introduction toStuart R. Schram (Ed.), Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, Vol. VII: New Democracy,1939-1941 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005), pp. xxxvii-lxxxii. For the United Front, see Lyman P. Van Slyke,Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Stanford University Press, 1967).Nevertheless, for businessmen, and peasants, too, if they were listening, New Democracyheld out attractive promises for the economy. Mao reiterated the words of the 1924 KMTmanifesto, blessed by Sun Yat-sen, which undertook to nationalise major banks and industrialand commercial enterprises.  But Mao went on to say that the new democratic republic "willneither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of suchcapitalist production as it does not 'dominate the livelihood of the people,' for China's economy isstill very backward." Mao asserted that the new state would introduce land reform, confiscatingthe property of big landlords and giving it to poor peasants, in line with Sun Yat-sen's slogan of"Land to the tiller." But it would, he said, "turn the land over to the private ownership of thepeasants without establishing a socialist agriculture. A rich peasant economy will be allowed inthe rural areas.”8In view of future events, New Democracy might be considered a bogus prospectuspromulgated by a deceitful political entrepreneur in extremis. Yet for a few years after 1949, NewDemocracy still seemed to be in place.  Mao was understandably obsessed with the importance ofensuring that production was maintained in town and country after the CCP victory. In March1949, he still saw the way ahead in terms of the first New Democratic phase of the revolution."Our agriculture and handicrafts are still scattered and individual, somewhat as they were inancient times, and they will remain so for a fairly long time to come. Whoever overlooks orbelittles this point will commit 'Left' opportunist mistakes." Turning to industry, he asserted thatanyone who advocated "too much or too rigid restriction of private capital or holds that we can8 Ibid., p. 343.simply eliminate private capital very quickly, is also entirely wrong; this a 'Left' opportunist oradventurist view.”9In a report circulated within the party later in the year, Mao's heir apparent Liu Shaoqialso warned against "adventurism"and explained: "This means going beyond realistic limits indrawing up economic plans and measures by trying to bring in too many socialist measures tooearly and without preparation. This can lead to forfeiting the support of our Party by the peasantsand small producers, thus undermining the alliance between the urban proletariat and thepeasants and courting the failure of the new democratic political regime led by the proletariat.”10Liu maintained his support for the New Democratic order into the early 1950s. In July1951, he condemned attempts to undermine the basis of family farming and move intoagricultural cooperatives as "mistaken, dangerous and utopian agrarian socialist thinking." Aslate as October 1952, he was explaining to Stalin that it would be in 10 to 15 years that the partyhoped to move the peasants into cooperatives or collective farms, a timeline which Stalinapproved.11 But by the autumn of 1952, Mao had changed his mind and was ready to discard hisbrainchild, New Democracy, and move towards rapid socialisation.12 Perhaps this was why,when marking the 90th anniversary of Liu Shaoqi's birth in 1988, the onetime chief editor of the12 Ibid., p. 6.11 Lin Yunhui, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo shi, vol. 2, Xiang shehuizhuyi guodu, 1953-55 (The transition tosocialism, 1953-55) (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2009), pp. 11,50-5 1.10  Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi (Beijing: FLP, 1984), I, p. 428.9 Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Beijing: FLP, 1961), IV, pp. 367, 368.official People's Daily, Hu Jiwei, exclaimed: "If there really had been a Liu Shaoqi line, thatwould have been so good!”13  Good for China almost certainly, but not for socialism.For as ever, Mao's political instinct was better than Liu's. Had New Democracy persistedfor 10- 15 years as planned, it would have been extraordinarily difficult and disruptive to launchthe socialist phase 2 of the CCP program. New Democracy would have developed andentrenched capitalism.14  The experience of the last 30 years suggests that it would have broughtprosperity much earlier to China, but Mao did not fight for 22 years to preside over a capitalistnation.So he changed the party line. By June 1952, Mao was criticising phrases like "Firmlyestablish the new democratic social order" uttered by Liu or Premier Zhou Enlai.15  But Liu andZhou followed his lead, partly because he had so often proved correct in the past, and partlybecause in 1943 they had voted him the right of final decision.16The key issue was rural collectivisation.  In the summer of 1955, with the prospect of abountiful harvest, Mao proclaimed that a new socialist mass movement was imminent throughoutthe countryside and he launched a ferocious attack on party officials who disagreed with him as"tottering along like a woman with bound feet.”17  Mao's speech galvanised rural cadres into afrenzy of activity to prove that they were not women with bound feet.17 Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, V, p. 184.16 See Lin Yunhui, op. cit., p. 12.15 Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, V, p. 93.14 This view is shared by Professor Lin Yunhui; ibid, pp. 6-8.13 Ibid., p. 12. During the Cultural Revolution, all the alleged sins and errors of Liu were lumped together as the LiuShaoqi line.By autumn 1955, victory was in sight, and Mao turned his sights on the urban sector.Meetings were held with leading capitalists. Urban cadres turned out to be as dynamic as theirrural colleagues.  During January 1956, nationalisation or collectivization of all commercial,industrial and handicraft enterprises was achieved in all China’s major industrial cities.  By the8th party congress in September 1956, the transition to socialism was basically over. Instead ofbeginning after 10-15 years, it had been completed in six, and without the catastrophes associatedwith the same process in the Soviet Union. In addition to Mao's charismatic leadership, thevictory was due to the party's authority over the populace, asserted in a series of often bloodycampaigns in the early 1950s. The fear generated by these campaigns was an integral part of thesocialization process.  Thus was the "liberation" of New Democracy, favored by Liu Shaoqi andZhou Enlai, exchanged for the Stalinist straight-jacket ordered by Mao.Later Mao abandoned the command economy for the tragic experiment of the Great LeapForward.  Later still he undermined the dictatorship of the Leninist-Stalinist party by instigatingthe chaos of of the Cultural Revolution.  In the thirty years since the abandonment of Maoisteconomics and politics, the Chinese have finally achieved the partial liberation promised by NewDemocracy 60 years ago, and contributors to the CQ have chronicled the resulting Chineseeconomic miracle.  The Chinese people must hope that one of the Chairman’s most famoussayings applies today: ‘The successes are great, the problems are many, but the future is bright.’18 18 ‘Chengji weida, wenti bu shao, qiantu guangming,’ (Mao Zedong sixiang wan sui (1967), p.261

On “Liberation”

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On “Liberation”

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