Mr Etiemble writes:
I deplore the fact that, of all the Chinese lines of thoughts, the only one that Mao Zedong intended to destroy was the one that had shaped the work-of-art embodied by the Chinese man of quality.
*
Confucius, an essay by Etiemble. Gallimard, 312 pages.
Confucius. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine,934 an essay by L. Eul sou Youn. Adrien Maisonneuve (11 rue Saint-Sulpice, 75006 Pris, France), 126 pages.
Confucius, an essay by Daniel Leslie. Seghers, 222 pages.
Confucius et l’humanisme chinois,935 an essay by Pierre Do-dinh. Seuil, 188 pages.
Le confucianisme,936 an essay by Albert Cavin. Garnier, 295 pages.
The Political Philosophy of Confucianism, an essay by L. Shihlien Hsü. Curzon Press (88 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1), 288 pages.
La religion des Chinois,937 an essay by Marcel Granet. PUF, 177 pages.
Le taoïsme et les religions chinoises,938 an essay by Henri Maspéro. Gallimard, 658 pages.
***
It has now been confirmed that the anti-Confucian campaign of 1973–74 (a campaign that was closely connected to the ‘counter-current’ movement initiated shortly before the Chinese Communist Party’s 10th congress, as well as to other events such as the Huang Shai/Wang Ya-sho controversy and the denunciation of the ‘Three Visits to the Fishers’ Peak’ regional opera) was launched by the Chinese Communist Party’s ultra-Left, meaning by Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing, and the members of the Shanghai group (Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuwan). The campaign targeted Zhou Enlai and, by means of the latter, the former party executives that had been eliminated at the time of the Cultural Revolution and were beginning to be gradually rehabilitated. Mr Simon Leys939 (Images brisées.940 Laffont, 1976) has successfully demonstrated that Zhou was able to deflect the movement being directed against him by taking advantage of it and associating Lin Biao’s name to Confucius’.
Mr Leys writes:
‘How remarkable it is for one to notice that the movement of denunciation targeting Confucius was successively referred to using three different appellations: first “The Denunciation of Confucius” (pi Kung), then “The Denunciation of Confucius and Lin Biao” (pi Kung pi Lin), and finally “The Denunciation of Lin Biao and Confucius” (pi Lin pi Kung). The passage from one appellation to another reflects, in a most expressive manner, Zhou Enlai’s victorious progression in his undertaking geared towards controlling, defusing and diverting the movement — the thunderbolt that was initially meant to strike him ultimately found itself entirely redirected towards the convenient lightning rod provided by Lin Biao. It was essentially during the month of February 1974 that this sleight of hand was accomplished’.
Regarding the relations between Maoism, Marxism and Confucianism, a good integrative study was conducted by Charles Wei-Hsun Fun and entitled ‘Confucianism, Marxism-Leninism and Mao: A Critical Study’ (in Journal of Chinese Philosophy volume 1, numbers 3–4, June–September 1974).
Europe is also home to a Society of Confucian Studies, whose headquarters are located in Geneva.
*
The Chinese Model
‘Every perspective on China is necessarily laden with questions, for our notion of the Chinese is bound to change as they themselves do’.
Such is the opinion of Alain Peyrefitte, the former French Information Minister, who was once the head of a French MP delegation to China.
Many French politicians had undertaken a ‘trip to Beijing’ before him — Mr Edgar Faure and François Mitterrand, Malraux and Mendès France, Bettencourt and Schumann, Couve de Murville, Chaban-Delmas and Georges Pompidou; yet none of them had brought back such a a large number of observations.
Today, there are two ‘schools’ that look upon China with interest or sympathy. The first is that of the ‘pro-Chinese’, who view Maoism as a possible means of regenerating the Marxist theory and as the prime example of the latter’s more rigorous implementation. On the other hand, we have the ‘realists’, who, despite not approving of the regime established by Mao, consider it to be rather suited to the Chinese temperament. And what they believe above all is that, from a geopolitical perspective, one should be particularly wary not to disregard the ‘Chinese fact’, because this immense country, whose significance will ceaselessly be felt until the end of the current century, could end up indirectly serving our own interests.
The first ones created Franco-Chinese friendship associations before joining various Leftist groups. They are supported by several figures including Simone de Beauvoir (La longue marche.941 Gallimard, 1957); Charles Bettelheim and Hélène Marchisio (La construction du socialisme en Chine.942 Maspéro, 1965 and 1969); and a number of journalists and authors.
Marxist essayist Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi (Dalla Cina: dopo la rivoluzione culturale.943 Published in France by Seuil, 1971) considers Italian theoretician Antonio Gramsci to be the source of ‘fundamental intuitions’ that have allegedly come to fruition ‘in the praxis of the Chinese Cultural Revolution’. Her husband, Alberto Jacoviello, who previously worked as an editor at L’Unità (the Italian Communist Party’s organ), wrote the following in his Chinese Hypothesis:
Today, China is the country that offers all revolutionary militants the most convincing evidence that it is indeed possible to create, within the path defined by the October Revolution, a society that is radically different and better than all other ones, meaning the very society which each and every revolutionary fights for.
And there is yet another conversion that has not escaped public attention — that of Reverend Cardonnel, a Dominican who, on 19th July, 1973, published in Le Monde an article entitled Des millions de Chinois sans contrainte,944 in which he declares ‘the very notion of individual freedom to be sick, gangrenous and vicious’.
These words have led some people to accuse him of neo-Nazism and earned him the following response from Alain-Gérard Slama945 (in Combat, 24th July, 1973):
This certitude that liberty is a luxury enjoyed by the affluent and that what counts above all is fraternity; this stupefaction upon his discovery of “a people whose members are clean, calm, non-vulgar and in control of their nervous reactions”; this witty distinguishing between freely accepted constraint and police constraint; this hatred for money; this worship of the working community and joy at the sight of women’s chaste liberation — we have seen it all before. Indeed, this entire text lacks none of the aspects which, in pre-war Nuremberg, aroused the enthusiasm of enlightened Frenchmen.
The attitude of ‘realistic’ politicians differs completely. To them, it is geopolitics which, in matters of foreign policy, takes precedence over ideology.
The following explanation is offered by those belonging to the entourage of Bavarian Christian-Democrat leader Franz-Josef Strauss:
During the days of the Cold War, everything was simple. We had the Communist Bloc (China and the USSR) on one side and, on the other, the Free World (Europe and the United States). Since then, however, we have witnessed a rupture in Sino-Soviet relations, Nixon’s visit to Beijing, the Washington-Moscow reconciliation, and the death of Mao Zedong. A game that had previously involved two players is now being played by three. In an age of bloc politics and influence zones, it is geopolitics that reigns supreme.
And this is what the ‘Movement for the Independence of Europe’ (once presided by Mr Sanguinetti) has to say about it:
The very same danger threatens both China and Europe, namely the twofold stranglehold of the great powers. Whether one wills it or not, we are faced with the factual convergence of Chinese and European interests.
The Delusions of a Political ‘Detente’
China is by no means Gaullist, yet it is pro-de Gaulle by choice. In Beijing, Kuo Mo-Jo surprised Alain Peyrefitte by proposing a toast:
The ideas that General de Gaulle defended and embodied must not be allowed to die. I raise my glass in honour of General de Gaulle’s immortal spirit.
In
September 1970, in Colombey, the General had informed his niece, Marie-Thérèse de Corbie, of his intention to travel to Beijing, as he had received an invitation through Jacques Rueff946 and author Han Suyin.947 His passing would, however, prevent him from going there.
In this regard, Zhou Enlai declared:
We would have given him a most warm welcome; but since destiny has decided otherwise, we are ready to welcome his successor.
Mr Georges Pompidou arrived in China on 10th September, 1973. His interlocutors immediately urged him to check the bloc politics implemented by the super-powers.
For several years now, Chinese leaders have been expressing their concern over the ‘indifference’ of European countries. They have reminded us that, in the space of less than four years, the USSR has increased its military forces from fifteen divisions to forty-eight and its fleet has been navigating across all of the world’s seas. They thus implore Europe to unite, warning it against ‘the delusions of a detente’.
When speaking to a group of Dutch MPs that had come to Beijing to meet him in August 1973, Zhou Enlai stated that ‘the countries that consent to their own weakening can only bring misfortune upon themselves’.
There are some who longed to perceive the words of the former Chinese Premier as the ‘first cymbal stroke of the Franco-Chinese opera’. Indeed, Zhou Enlai had retained a vivid memory of his stay in France during the 1920s:
When I was in Paris, I felt as though I were attending an exhibition of all races. It was a place where all people, regardless of their race, were allowed to marry one another.
Mr Peyrefitte offers the following clarification:
This admiration for interracial marriages is currently coming up against an official Chinese policy whose every effort is aimed at discouraging such unions.
‘The Mao Zedong fact has a certain distressing aspect to it’, remarked Mr Jacques Chaban-Delmas948 when going to China, where he stayed from the 1st to the 15th of June, 1973. Upon his return, he observed that, in defence matters, ‘the Chinese and French positions are so similar that one is almost allowed to equate them to each other: yes to the simultaneous and controlled destruction of bombs, their carriers and their means of fabrication; no to all conferences and agreements whose sole purpose is to ensure that two superpowers — whose positions are now converging as they continue to increase their own armament — retain mastery over the world and its peoples’.
As for Zhou Enlai, this is what he stated:
Without its power of nuclear deterrence, France would be no more than Mongolia.
Mr Alain Peyrefitte, the fifty-two-year-old ENA949 lecturer who previously acted as both a government minister and the secretary general of the UDR950 , has travelled across 6,000 kilometres of Chinese territory. He has had dozens of conversations and taken thousands of notes. The book that he has published is entitled Quand la Chine s’éveillera… le monde tremblera!’,951 a statement which was originally made by Napoleon. He writes:
Chinese revolutionaries are neither angels nor demons. Let us strive to avoid the traps set by our tendency to think systematically.
Mao Zedong’s Army and Line of Thought
Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the ‘cult of personality’ has been the most striking aspect that Westerners notice upon visiting Beijing. In a country where egalitarianism seems to have been taken to its most extreme limits, it is always a single personality that exercises absolute political and ‘religious’ power. Even after his death, Mao Zedong is encountered everywhere — in people’s thoughts, words and actions, and especially on walls, across which countless portraits bloom. He is the spiritual father of all Chinese people, their patron saint. Mr Peyrefitte reminds us that ‘Mao comes from the countryside, and it is the peasant spirit which, through him, is revived’.
In the Yan’an area, people visit the cave where Mao lived between 1937 and 1938, at the time of the Long March. ‘Like a new Saint Martin, he shared his blanket with one of his guards. Having remained intact, half of the blanket can be seen there, in a display cabinet’. Elsewhere, one has preserved the iron bar that allowed him to cool his hand and alleviate his writer’s cramp. These relics are exhibited amidst a prayerful atmosphere, under devout images accompanied by cautionary tales.
The man himself often refused to be the focus of such worship (in 1972, in fact, some excesses were attributed to Lin Biao). Mao was, however, also aware of the fact that the Chinese had adored their emperors for a period of 3000 years. American Edgar Snow952 writes:
During the first years of the Revolution, many were the peasants who, when marching on the occasion of the October anniversary, bowed down before Mao Zedong’s tribune. One even had to place guards there to prevent them from doing so. It took people some time to comprehend that their president was neither an emperor nor a god.
In actual fact, ‘the Chinese people are God and Mao their prophet. Chinese Marxism is a people’s religion. Mao, the Moses of the Long March, is their inspired spokesman and priest, i.e. simultaneously their servant and their leader — being the leader of the people-god, and the latter’s servant, he plays the role of a mediator’, Mr Peyrefitte writes. He adds:
Mao has become the symbol of the national bond. Through him, what the Chinese people adore is themselves. Thanks to his presence, China has found a national solution to its national issues, a solution that has sprouted out of the convergence of three elements — a unique people, extreme circumstances and an exceptional man.
Mr Edgar Faure953 once stated on television that Mao had replaced Marxism with ‘massism’.
In Alberto Jacoviello’s eyes, the ‘cult’ — if one can, indeed, speak of one — is not focused on Mao Zedong’s person, but rather on his thoughts.
When one announced, in the aftermath of the tenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, that the ‘anti-Party clique’ of the ‘bourgeois careerist, conniving double agent, counter-revolutionary renegade and traitor Lin Biao’ had been eliminated, the news was greeted by the sound of people shouting ‘Long live Mao Zedong’s victorious thoughts’.
To Europeans, it may seem strange, even ridiculous, for one to speak of ‘Mao Zedong’s thoughts’, especially when these thoughts are restricted to skimming through the ‘Little Red Book’ written by Lin Biao. Their impression would perhaps be a different one if, in order to grasp Mao’s line of thought, they sought to situate it in the philosophical context of an eternal China. For it is indeed a philosophy, and not a collection of aphorisms, that we are dealing with here.
Kuo Mo-Jo says:
A river is not a mere agglomerate of waterdrops; it is both movement and energy.
And there is yet another topic of astonishment: the country’s militarisation, which appears to impact the whole of the population. Mr Edgar Snow writes:
In China, soldiers are omnipresent. Most do not bear any arms, and their public behaviour is exemplary on all levels. Every foreigner is quick to realise that they are looked upon favourably by the population. Schools are filled with “little red soldiers”, and there is not a single parent who does not aspire to have a son or a daughter capable of fulfilling the demanding conditions of military membership.
Writer Etiemble, who specialises in Chinese literature (Connaissons-nous la Chine?954 Gallimard, 1964 and 1966), says:
China is a militarised convent where kindergarten prepares children for their role of child soldiers.
And here is how Edgar Snow formulates things: ‘China? A hell of virtues!’
China is, in fact, an enormous ‘youth project’ in which practical experience has overtaken abstract knowledge. A certain professor once said to Mr Alain Peyrefitte (who also acted as our Minister of National Education):
Intellectual education is less important than its civic and physical counterpart. A pupil shall become a good worker, a good peasant, and a good cadre if he is, above all, a good citizen. And in order to be a good citizen, one must be a good soldier.
On
e must, however, refrain from speaking of military dictatorship; for although the army does remain the ‘great school’, it is the Party itself that ‘commands the rifles’. According to Mao Zedong, ‘what matter is the human factor, not the material one’ (Maurras stated that ‘politics comes first’, to which de Gaulle added: ‘The supply corps will follow’).
A Question of Energy
This concern with ensuring man’s precedence over technology has numerous implementations. It accounts for both the development policy which China has opted for since its breaking with the USSR and the failure of the ‘Great Leap Forward’.
Mr Chaban-Delmas explains:
It is not that Chinese leaders reject modernity; what they do refuse, however, is to allow it to grant foreigners the opportunity to exercise authority over their country.
As buyers, they always pay in cash. Rejecting any and all credit, they are prisoners of neither commitments nor debts: it is the future that they long to claim. They are well aware of the fact that national independence requires autarky (whether economic, financial or energetic) and are willing to pay the price for it by accepting lower living standards.
The very same principle is encountered in the military domain. When, in 1965, Lin Biao declared that ‘it is Mao Zedong’s line of thought that represents the best weapon, not planes, heavy artillery, tanks or the atomic bomb’, in no way was his statement intended to be a joke. What he meant to say was that war was, first and foremost, a question of men and a question of politics; yet also a matter of energy — the countries that lack the latter are all ‘toothless tigers’, no matter how rich and powerful they may be.
Likewise, Chinese doctors believe that what must be considered is, above all, the patients, and not the illnesses, an attitude which coincides, in the general sense of things, with the following statement by Claude Bernard:955 ‘Microbes are nothing, the terrain everything’.
Controversies and Viewpoints Page 41
