tra-party purge in order to clean all "alien" elements out of the organization. 1953 had purged 10 percent of the Party mem bers.
During the period of new democracy, however, not all Chinese leaders wholly accepted the political course drawn by Mao. Some top Party officials preferred to view New Democ racy differently. The most prominent among them was Liu Shaoqi. From the recollections of Kovalev, the Bolshevik rep resentative to the CCP Central Committee, we know that as early as 1949 Stalin received confidential information on Liu Shaoqi from another CCP Politburo member Gao Gang, chair man of the Northeast regional" government. Gao accused Liu of "right-wing deviation" and of "overestimation of the Chi nese bourgeoisie." Stalin, however, rejected this denunciation and during his meeting with Mao Zedong at the end of Decem ber 1949 even handed Gao's report over to Mao. Kovalev learned about it from Mao's personal interpreter Shi Zhe, who attended the meeting.
Stalin might have done this for three reasons. Firstly, he actually might not have believed in the truth of such accusa tions. Gao Gang had previously provided him various denun ciations of the Chinese Communist leadership. Among those who had been denounced by the North-east regional boss was even Mao himself At the end of July 1949, Gao, via Kovalev and another, unknown Soviet official, informed Stalin about the anti-Soviet, "rightist-Trotskyite" tendencies of Mao Zedong and his allies in the Chinese Communist Party. This kind of in formation was nothing new for Stalin. It echoed the numerous accusations against Mao written by his most aggressive an tagonist Wang Ming, who used to sent his information to Stalin in 1942-1945 via the Soviet representatives to the CCP Central Committee A.Ya. Orlov (Terebin) and Vladimirov. Stalin seemed to consider all these denunciations as a manifestation of the CCP's infra-Party struggle and simply ignored them.
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Secondly, Stalin, if he trusted the information, could consider Liu's "deviation" quite favorable to his own policy of "con taining" Mao Zedong's radicalism. Finally, Gao was not Sta lin's only ace in the hole among the Chinese Communist lead ership. Liu Shaoqi himself was another. Due to his second most high-ranking position - he was just below Mao Zedong in the CCP hierarchy - Liu should have been a more valuable source for Stalin than Gao. As the former MGB (Ministry of State Security) official Deriabin recalls, Liu Shaoqi was re cruited in the 1930s while he worked in Moscow as a Chinese representative to the Profmtem (the Red International of Labor Unions.) Liu continued to-act as Stalin's informer through the 1940s. By his willingness to sacrifice Gao Gang, Stalin could strengthen the position of his most important ace.
However, Gao's apprehensions seemed to have some grounds. The Chinese Communist leadership was not united on the issue of New Democracy. The Archives of the Russian President contain records of a most interesting talk between Mikoyan and Liu Shaoqi, which took place shortly before the Second CCP Central Committee plenary session, on February 3, 1949. Already at the conclusion of the talk, Liu Shaoqi spoke about the party leadership's desire to formulate the right stand on the issue of capitalism in China. Pointing out the pres ence of "dangerous tendencies" in the party, Liu Shaoqi gave the following explanation: "First, there are people in the party who. believe that capitalism should be developed as much as possible and used as a basis. In fact, this amounts to making a concession to the capitalist elements, surrendering to capital ism. These people would like to build an ordinary bourgeois capitalist state in China, that is, to restore the semi-feudal and bourgeois practices. Second, there are people in the party who are liable to plunge into socialist construction with leftist reck lessness. This adventurist tendency finds expression in some in dividuals drawing up unrealistic plans that ignore the conditions".
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Words like that uttered on the eve of the plenum were meaningful, to say the least. Unfortunately, we do not know all the facts about the discussion at the Second plenary session. However, it is clear that contrary to Mao Zedong some other leading CCP members continued to freely use at the time the notion of a New Democratic revolution. Notably Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai spoke about a '"New Democratic state". "New Democratic construction", the "New Democracy trend in lit erature and art", etc. It was these leaders who at the time formed the opposition to Mao's radical interpretation of New Democracy.
That is why during this time CCP policy was quite con tradictory. The democratic approach was recorded in the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consulta tive Conference (CPPCC) and other documents that determined China's development during the early years after the PRC. The Communists convened the Chinese People's Political Consul tative Conference in September 1949. A variety of nonCommunist political and social groups participated in its meetings. This type of organization was known in China as early as 1946. It could be viewed by the Chinese as a tradi tional democratic form of organization of the new authority. The CPPCC as an organization of the united front exercised the prerogatives of a Constituent Assembly. It was on behalf of the Consultative Conference that the Communists formed their new ruling bodies. The Common Program, accepted by the Communists on behalf of the CPPCC becaine the main politi cal manifesto of the new regime. It had the appearance of a constitution. The program proclaimed democratic rights, but emphasized the CCP's leading role. A multi-party system was established, and eight non-Communist political parties that ac knowledged the CCP's leading role received legal status. The program encouraged private ownership, endorsed national en
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trepreneurs, spoke about mutually beneficial regulation of la bor-capital relations. The document formulated the course to the democratic development of the country. It eschewed the idea of a socialist transition. Even the word "socialism" was not used in the program. The Land Reform Law in the PRC passed by the government on June 28, 1950 was likewise plainly in the spirit of New Democracy". Speaking at the Sec ond plenary session of the CPPCC All-China Committee in June 1950, where the draft law was discussed Liu Shaoqi said: "Our policy of sparing prosperous farmsteads is not temporary; we mean to adhere to it for a long time yet. That is to say, rich peasants' farms will be preserved throughout the new demo cratic period".
Chinese democrats and nationalists supported the New Democratic policy of the regime. Various groups in Chinese society welcomed the reconstruction and development of the people's education programs, which aimed at the liquidation (or reduction) of illiteracy, the opening of new schools of higher learning, and the democratization of higher education, the training of scientific personal and the creation of modem aca demic institution. The new regime in 1950 passed a new Mar riage Law that gave women rights, and drew attention to the equal status of women. The new regime's active, and in Korea even aggressive, foreign policy, also attracted public sympathy.
In the period of 1949-1953, not only Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, but also Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Dong Biwu, Bo Yibo, and some other leading CCP members expressed moder ate views in regard to Chinese New Democracy even in their unofficial talks with other Communist parties' activists. In their opposition to Mao these CCP leaders used Stalin's authority. For example, Liu Shaoqi appealed to Stalin's prestige even af ter he was already defeated by Mao, in November 1953, still trying to solidify his negative attitude to Mao's attempts to speed up the pace of cooperation. Talking to the Soviet Am
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bassador Kuznetov, "Liu Shaoqi said that at the end of 1952 Comrade Stalin advised him not to hurry over the setting up of agricultural cooperatives and collective farms, as the PRC was in more favorable conditions than the USSR during collectivi zation". This kind of political backing by Stalin regardless of his true intentions was tremendously important for the Chinese "marketers" as it helped them lay a foundation for their prac tices. Stalin's stand also had an impact on the "anti-marketers" who were obliged to take into account the opinion of the "big brother".
Mao Zedong and his opponents did not differ in their in terpretation of socialist ideals, but they did differ in their com prehension of how to promote their achievement. Here are just a few examples. In the spring of 1951, Shanxi provincial lead ers proposed speeding up cooperation in villages. Liu Shaoqi did not confine himself to mere criticism of these ideas at a propagandists' conference, but actually prepared and sent out in July 1951 a document on behalf of the CCP Central Commit tee, in which this provincial obsession was branded "an errone ous, dangerous and Utopian notion of agrarian socialism." However, Mao Zedong rose to the local activists' defense and two months later disavowed Liu Shaoqi's document. In De cember 1952, a cabinet meeting chaired by Zhou Enlai dis cussed and approved the draft of the new tax system prepared by Finance Minister Bo Yibo. The basic difference of the bill from the old practice was in the uniformity of taxation for all forms of ownership. Thus state and cooperative enterprises were going to lose their tax benefits, while the private sector was placed in favorable competitive conditions. It is important to note also that the bill, as it turned our eventually, had not been approved by the CCP Central Committee, and Mao Zedong had not seen the text. Soon afterwards, on January 15, 1953, Mao Zedong sent an angry letter to the top people in the government (State Administrative Council) - Zhou Enlai, Chen
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