CONCLUSION

      Cultural Revolution China stood out in the world as on a path to development clearly diverging from the capitalist path. We have seen that the struggles over whether or not to maintain that divergent course through experiment and arduous class struggle formed the context of a political, and after twelve years, a social revolution. The reaction against the Cultural Revolution has been most unfortunate for proletarian administration of government and the economy, women's liberation, youth and poorer sections of the peasantry.

      Ironically, the revisionists claim that the Cultural Revolution was an economic disaster and that in 1976 the economy was on the "verge of collapse." However, from 1949 to 1970 the industrial working class expanded three and one half times. Furthermore, from 1952 to 1975 per capita income averaged at least 3% growth per annum. Even Zhou Enlai said that the gross value of agricultural output increased 51% between 1964 and 1974 and industrial output grew 190% in value.

      The alliance of Western sociologists and neoclassical economists that says that China absolutely had to embark on economic reforms to overcome the so-called irrationality of the economy, can not back its argument empirically. According to the figures of the 1984 Chinese government, every sector of the economy grew substantially during the period from 1967 to 1976. National income grew an average of 4.9% annually. Output grew 6.8% annually. From 1966 to 1976, output increased 77% while population grew 26%. Even the most tumultuous part of the Cultural Revolution saw rapid growth. 1970's output was 24% above 1966's. Chinese economists as of 1984 have had to moderate their argument concerning the "chaos" and "collapse" of the Cultural Revolution economy. For ideological reasons, Western social scientists still cling to their view of the Chinese reforms as representing the triumph of reason—rationality—not just an historical choice to try out capitalism.

         Deng and Hua like to paint themselves as the saviours of the economy, but what did they save it from? Whatever it was the state capitalists rescued—exploitation of class by class? —has it been worth a long list of reversals in policies guided by a new socialist vision in agriculture, industry, the coercion of labor, the division of labor and the anarchy of production?

 AGRICULTURE:

 ●State appropriation of agricultural surplus such that the urban/rural absolute income gap expands

 ●Cutting in half the rural population covered by collective medical insurance

 ●Expansion of private plots from 5% to 15%

 ●Breakdown of the collective ethic and the reinforcement of the family as the main economic unit

 ●Contracts in agriculture and independent, family-oriented remuneration

 ●Agricultural production that is over 60% for exchange, as opposed to planned use

 INDUSTRY

 ●"Profit in command" officially established in industry

 ●One man management and the abolition of mass-mobilization organizations and techniques of production, revived use of Stalin's dictum "cadres decide everything"

 ●Tax laws that legitimize property relations between the central government and locality

 ●A 55% corporate tax rate not unlike that in Western countries

 ●Price gouging by bureaucrats in certain goods

 ●Inflation of about 15%

 ●Discussion of future possibilities of taking welfare out of state enterprise budgets to be replaced by corporatist style unions

 ●Reforms since 1984 underway to remove most of state's role in appropriating inputs in production and to move to completely competitive and autonomous firms, "competitive capitalism"

 COERCION OF LABOR

 ●Increasing regulation of labor discipline and use of law as mystification for exploitation

 ●Mergings and closings of tens of thousands of enterprises for the purpose of a crackdown on management and labor and as a mechanism to enforce survival of the most profitable enterprises and exploiters

 ●Removal of cadres from participation in production tasks

 ●Abolition of the right to strike

 ●Tens of millions of urban unemployed youth and women and seven million more each year left outside the state-run economy

 ●One-third to one-half "surplus labor" in the countryside

 ●Thousands of firings as part of "labor consolidation" and as a means to force the workers to work harder

 ●Temporary contracts in the works for all industrial workers

 ●Attempted relegation of women to the home and certain jobs in "logistics" and the end of political campaigns to smash sexism

 ●New life for pre-1949 customs of female infanticide, prostitution and large rural families for the sake of economic security

 

DIVISION OF LABOR

 ●Modernization centered in the cities and suburbs

 ●Reforms that hand over rural administration to cities

 ●Capitulation to an international division of labor

 ●Experts in command, "cadres decide everything"

 ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION

 ●The longest sustained overinvestment in China's history at 30% of GNP per year and climbing

 ●Loss of control by the central government of over 50% of investment

 ●Inability to produce the right goods and finish projects despite market "reforms"

 ●Both overproduction and shortages

 ●Mass public capital punishment to establish an atmosphere of fear and to instill individuals with blame for crime

 ●Record economic and white collar crime rates

 ●Skyrocketing mental illness and the rebirth of the psychiatry profession

 ●Imperialist control over strategic and declining sections of the Chinese economy—i.e. energy

 China is more accurately characterized as state capitalist than socialist.