Assertion: Class Conciliation with the Bourgeoisie

Hoxha accuses the CP of China and Mao Tsetung of reconciling classes and tolerating counter-revolutionaries

"The Communist Party of China has maintained a benevolent opportunist stand towards the exploiting classes, and Mao Tsetung has openly advocated the integration of capitalist elements into socialism."(57)

This is not only evil slander but also reveals his ignorance of the situation in China at that time. Less than a year after the founding of the People's Republic, Mao wrote "Don't Hit Out in All Directions":

"At present our relations with the national bourgeoisie are very strained; they are on tenterhooks and are very disgruntled. Unemployed intellectuals and workers are dissatisfied with us and so are a number of small handicraftsmen. The peasants in most rural areas are complaining too because agrarian reform has not yet been carried out there and besides they have to deliver grain to the state.…
In order to isolate and attack our immediate enemies, we must convert those among the people who are dissatisfied with us into our supporters.…
The national bourgeoisie will eventually cease to exist, but at this stage we should rally them around us and not push them away. We should struggle against them on the one hand and unite with them on the other."(58)

This was correct tactics by the CP of China in accordance with the situation at that time: "Don't hit out in all directions," "don't make too many enemies," "relax the tension a little." For this reason the enemies were handled carefully and there was more stress on education than before. Disregarding the circumstances, Hoxha reacts dogmatically:

"Proceeding from such anti-Marxist concepts, according to which with the lapse of time the class enemies will be corrected, he [Mao] advocated class conciliation with them and allowed them to continue to enrich themselves, to exploit, to speak, and to act freely against the revolution."(59)

Once again it is Hoxha's bad trick to turn Mao into an anti-Marxist by quoting him incompletely. In order to "prove" his above assertion he quotes Mao Tsetung again out of context:

"We have a lot to do now. It is impossible to keep on hitting out at them day in day out for the next fifty years. There are people who refuse to correct their mistakes, they can take them into their coffins when they go to see the King of Hell."

The people in question are Rightist intellectuals. Did Mao Tsetung really take a conciliatory and capitulationist stand towards them, as Hoxha wants us to believe? In order to unmask Hoxha's dishonest method, let us quote from the same passage from which he drew his quotation; it begins as follows:

"Do we need to finish off the Rightists with one blow? Giving them a couple of hard knocks is quite necessary. If we don't, they will play possum. Don't we need to mount attacks on these types and go after them? Yes, attacks are necessary. But, the aim is to force them to reverse course. We should use every means in our offensive to isolate them completely, only then can we win over some, if not all. They are intellectuals and some are big intellectuals; once won over they can be useful."

At the end of the passage, Mao emphasizes:

"As I see it, even a century hence the die-hard Rightists will get their punishment."(60)

From the same volume Hoxha quotes another fragment which is meant to show the conciliation with counter-revolutionaries, and concludes:

"Acting in practice according to these views of conciliation with the enemies, the state administration in China was left in the hands of the old officials."(61)

Quoting from the same Mao essay, it is easy to prove that applying certain tactics towards the people's enemies does not mean class conciliation at all.

"In future not only must the suppression of counter-revolutionaries in society continue, but we must also uncover all the hidden counter-revolutionaries in Party and government organs, schools and army units. We must draw a clear distinction between ourselves and the enemy."(62)

Hoxha does not distinguish between tactical action against the enemy as was necessary in the concrete situation after the victory of the people's democratic revolution and the fundamental difference between the masses and the enemy. He has a dogmatic point of view and thus does not comprehend Mao's dialectical method.