The long awaited Tenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party took place in Peking between 24 and 28 August. This was the first full-scale Congress of the Party for more than four years. The Congress took place in secret, and its existence was not announced until after it had ended. The main outcome appears to have been the consolidation of the leadership and political line that has dominated the Party since the purging of party leaders Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta in 1971.
LEFT CURRENT These two men represented a left political: current within the Chinese bureaucracy that gained temporary power during the Cultural Revolution' by both suppressing the threat of a real political revolution against the bureaucracy from the Red Guard left, and, at the same time, supporting some of the anti-bureaucratic and anti-imperialist ideas which arose during these years of mass upheaval. In international affairs Lin advocated the famous strategy of surrounding the 'cities' of the world (the imperialist countries) by the "countryside' of the World (the countries exploited by imperialism. In his political report to the Congress, Party vice-Chairman Chou En-lai repeated the charge that Lin Piao tried to defect to the Soviet Union. This may well be true, as may the claim that Lin did not support Chairman Mao's revolutionary foreign policy' - i.e. increasing collaboration with US impérialism at the expense of the struggle in Indochina. It is significant that all the currents that have emerged within the Chinese bureaucracy in opposition to Mao's leadership have leaned in some way towards the Soviet Union. This reflects both a certain feeling of solidarity with the Russian bureaucrats, but also an awareness that Mao's anti-Soviet obsession actually weakens the workers states in the face of imperialism.
DANGEROUS LINE The Congress reaffirmed the politically dangerous line that Soviet "imperialism' represents an equal - or even greater - threat to China than US imperialism. In domestic affairs, wide scope has been given to the use of material incentives and market mechanisms to regulate the economy. Local military commanders and the forces grouped around them have been allowed to maintain considerable autonomy. (These commanders have always been closely linked to the local State administration and represent a conservative wing of the bureaucracy.) The party leadership would no doubt like to strengthen central authority, and deliberately stresses the threat of Soviet 'social imperialism in order to achieve this end. The danger is that this anti-Soviet hysteria can lead to a real and perilous isolation, which will not be offset by the "friends' Peking thinks it has in the imperialist camp. The fact remains that imperialism will eagerly seize any opportunity it can to strike a blow against the Chinese workers state. James Wilcox Red Weekly 7 September 1973 Page 7
"apology" is not a principled ques