Capitalist media twists Chinese history: Deng 
Liqun called "Maoist"

by mim3@mim.org

The mainstream media has noticed a conflict within 
the Chinese Communist Party. Usually MIM is all in 
favor of Western monopoly media outlets' noticing 
that the Chinese Communist Party is not monolithic 
now or historically and that parties practicing or 
claiming to practice democratic-centralism 
necessarily contain contradictions within them.
 
However, a recent article published by CNN calls 
the "left" faction of the Chinese "Communist" 
Party "Maoist"(1) and this we cannot abide. 
Lately, the Western media has been calling Deng 
Liqun "conservative" and now even "Maoist." Author 
Willy Wo-Lap Lam was calling Deng Liqun "quasi-
Maoist" and "Maoist" in the same CNN-published 
article, because Deng Liqun opposed admitting 
private capitalists into the party as Jiang Zemin 
has declared would happen. 

CNN-published articles 
now even claim that "leftists" are attacking 
Chinese "Communist" Party leader Jiang Zemin for 
"revisionism" and are holding rival meetings at 
the Qinhuangdao resort, which is a few hours from 
the traditional Beidahe resort where party leaders 
meet.(2) MIM's position is that private farming 
and industry run for profit have long been in 
place in China. To notice that China's communist 
party has gone "revisionist" now is late. What we 
are seeing is a struggle between factions of a 
capitalist party. 

Because the historical 
understanding and depth of the bourgeois media and 
most scholars is shallow, we find it important to 
give some details about who Deng Liqun is. He was 
a secetary to Liu Shaoqi, who was the head-of-
state in China before being overthrown as the 
leading capitalist-roader in the party in the 
Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)-- China's 
Khruschev. 

Far from being "leftist," when the 
Cultural Revolution came to an end with Hua 
Guofeng's coup against the "Gang of Four," Deng 
Liqun was a crucial actor saying that even the 
coup against the "Gang of Four" was not putting 
China far enough down the capitalist-road. In 
other words, these Hua Guofeng "centrists" who 
ended up allying with Deng Xiaoping "rightists" 
were too left-wing for Deng Liqun. Thus, when it 
came in turn for the rightists to deal with the 
centrists, Deng Liqun was there as a crucial prop 
for the rightists. 

While Mao called the Cultural 
Revolution one of his two great accomplishments in 
life, reports (3) say that it was Deng Liqun who 
fleshed out how Liu Shaoqi would be restored to an 
official party history position within "Mao Zedong 
Thought."

According to the "Resolution on CPC 
history, 1949-1981," which is a crucial document 
explaining the Deng Xiaoping line, Mao's Cultural 
Revolution was a mistake. With this Deng Xiaoping 
line in power, the capitalist-controlled Communist 
Party of China changed from a revolutionary 
communist line to a revisionist state-capitalist 
line. To accomplish this, it watered down the 
importance of Mao Zedong's thought and emphasized 
the contributions of Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou 
Enlai and Deng Xiaoping to "Mao Zedong Thought." 

When Mao died, China did not necessarily have to 
go down the capitalist-road, but Mao's true 
successors in the leadership of the Chinese 
Communist Party--the "Gang of Four"-- lost a 
struggle for the soul of the party. As a result, 
China turned back to private capitalist farming, 
"free" markets for most of the economy, eight-
digit unemployment and vastly increased suicide, 
mental illness, pornography distribution, divorce 
and crime of all kinds.

Note: 
1. 
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/07/w
illy.colum n/index.html 
2. 
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/08/c
hina.willy .left/index.html 
3. Lowell Dittmer, 
China's Continuous Revolution: The Post-Liberation 
Epoch 1949-1981 (CA: University of California 
Press, Berkeley, 1987), p. 221.