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tempt some people, even within the Communist Party, away from his path towards the Communist goal and there would in consequence have to be regular battles ("class struggles") against them even within the Communist Party itself. Having par- roted Mao's protests in their political study classes for months on end in the spring of 1976, the general populace must have chuckled under their breath when they read in the People's Daily a short while ago that Teng Hsiao-p'ing was right and that, although class struggle may be called the "
key",
production is the basis of society and the struggle for production comes before class struggle. This is also a basic theory of Marxism". One can almost hear the shouts of protest from beyond the grave.
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5. It would take a long despatch to set out all the changes which have taken place. I shall therefore confine myself to a few of the more obvious examples. I should also add that what is occurring now is not entirely novel. Much of what is happening today is reminiscent of the policies which the régime were pursuing in the mid-1950s. Chou En-lai began the move back to economic realism at the National People's Congress in January 1975, a Congress from which Mao ostentatiously stayed away. Later in that year Teng Hsiao-p'ing sought to accelerate the pace and suffered a second eclipse for his pains. Only after the death of Mao and the defeat of the "Gang" has the movement really gathered
momentum.
6. The most important change has taken place in the basic strategy of the State. Economic development and accelerated industrialisation have replaced the search for egalitarianism as the primary object of State policy. Mao's absence from the National People's Congress in 1975 showed that he suspected that in the pursuit of modernisation economic objectives would be given precedence over his political objectives. His fear was given clear expression almost as soon as the Congress had closed. Chinese propaganda organs suddenly launched a nation- wide campaign, the theme of which was one dear to Mao's heart. He argued that there was still a large carry-over from the old capitalist system remaining in the economic organisation of Chinese society. It was to be found in the differential wage system in industry, in small-scale production, private plots and the like, all of which it was said "generated capitalism continuously ". These were classified as "residual bourgeois rights" which needed to be "restricted". While it was accepted that such carry-overs could not be eliminated quickly, the direction to be taken was made clear; for example, by the Party magazine Red Flag which thundered in the spring of 1975: "Where the broom of the proletariat does not reach, such rubbish will not clear of itself ".
7. Little is heard of all that today. The argument now is very different. "To each according to his work" is again back at the top. A good or bad performance is one of the criteria to be adopted in judging whether a worker will participate in the recently declared increases in wages in the industrial sector. Material incentives, if still modest, are back in fashion. This is a far cry from May 1975 when Red Flag was warning "Making more pay for more work' the motive force .. will lead people astray and on to the revisionist road". Two years later, choosing a different text from Mao, the People's Daily is writing" in assessing the qualities of an (income) distribution system, you cannot simply consider whether it is equal or unequal (in its effect): the main point is the rôle it plays in the development of production ".
8. Another great theme of a few years ago concerned the need to eliminate the "three major differences" between workers and peasants, town and country and mental and manual labour. In practice the last injunction led to the
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