The struggles go on

But how can people such as Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao and the Gang of Four appear in socialist China?—it is this question which puzzles people and disorients them when explosions occur in China.

The answer lies in ChairmanMao's theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat which I will now try to outline.

Summing up the historical experience of building socialism in China and the Soviet Union, Mao Tsetung concluded that socialist society covers a very long historical period. Throughout this period classes, class contradictions and class struggle continue, the struggle between the socialists road and the capitalist road continues and the danger of capitalist restoration remains. By itself the socialisation of the means of production is insufficient and cannot be consolidated without a thorough going revolution in the political, ideological, educational cultural and military fields.

The sources of capitalist restoration are complex, The activities of the overthrown bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes in the economic, political, ideological and cultural fields; the existence of spontaneous capitalist tendencies amongst the peasantry, the result of remnants of private economy; the existence of bourgois right (particularly in pay differentials) relative inequalities amongst the people (e.g. the difference between mental and manual labour), the force of habit reactionary ideas in the in the minds of the people the pressure of foreign imperialism—all these lead to the regeneration of new bourgeois elements in socialist society. The combination of new and old bourgois elements with other old exploiting classes forms the social basis for capitalist restoration.