With the death of Mao Tsetung on September 9 last year, the international revolutionary movement lost its most experienced leader. Mao Tsetung was the greatest Marxist of his time. Throughout his life as revolutionary. Chairman Mao Tsetung made indelible contributions to Marxism-Leninism. People the world over mourn him deeply.

Mao Tse tung's deep learning embraced diverse fields such as economics, politics, philosophy, art and culture and military affairs. All aspects of Marxism were enriched by his thinking. When the Khrushchov clique seized power in the Soviet Union, Mao Tsetung led the struggle against it. When Krushchov's successors turned the Soviet Union onto an imperialist course, Mao Tsetung once again rallied the world's people to struggle against it. (1)

This article will deal with two aspects of Mao Tsetung's theoretical work which have great practical relevance today: the theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and the theory of the three worlds.

Crushing the "gang of four"

Events in China since Mao Tsetung's death have confirmed the great vitality of his theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat—his greatest contribution to Marxism.

The crushing of the Gang of Four has left some people in the West disorientated. Taken in by "leftist" and anarchistic phrasemongering, they have not recognised the Gang of Four as a cabal of ultra-rightists who hid under the "radical label. The Gang of Four opposed the modernisation of the Chinese economy, army, science and technology. But they did so under the guise that the argument was about how modernisation was to be achieved. They sabotaged production under the slogan: "Don't produce for the erroneous line" They attacked veteran and other cadres, some of who had made mistakes of line, as "counter-revolutionaries" in order to overthrow them and seize power. They attacked intellectuals in a thoroughly un-Marxist way. They propagated a line in art and culture which concentrated on great heroes, and the past achievements of bourgeois art and culture were negated by them without any consideration of the historical conditions in which they were created. They worked to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat in China. They plotted an armed coup.

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.

How capitalism is restored

Class struggle is the motive force in socialist society and centres on state power with the principal contradiction being between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The policy of grasping class struggle as the key link, advanced by Chairman Mao and Chairman Hua, reflects this. During the complicated process of class struggle there develops withir the party, government and state organs a bourgeois headquarters which, if conditions are ripe, could seize power and restore capitalism. This is a gradual process of development which makes it difficult to distinguish between those who make errors of line but who remain proletarian revolutonaries and those who are developing into counter-revolutionaries. But at some point the headquarters is consolidated and requires vigourous measures for its eradication.

The appearance and development of such bourgeois headquarters is not accidental or the result of inadequate democracy or inadequate ideological education—it is rooted in the very nature of socialist society. Socialist society is a society in transition from capitalism to Communism and contains elements of both societies. The contradictions of socialist society can only be resolved by developing the productive forces (modernisation), by gradually eliminating the differences between workers and peasants, between mental and manual labour and between town and country, by carrying out sweeping mass movements to educate the people to Marxism and to continuously extend democracy for the people while exercising dictatorship over the bourgeoisie and other old exploiting classes.

In short, new struggles against counter-revolutionaries like the Gang of Four will occur again in China and other socialist countries. They are not to be feared, but should be seen as one more round in the struggle to go down the socialist road.

The three worlds

Great changes have occurred in the world situation in the past decade and more. The Third World countries are intensifying their struggle for genuine economic and political independence from foreign imperialism. West European countries and Japan are increasingly challenging the United States in the world capitalist market. The United States has been decisively defeated in Indochina. Since the mid-sixties the Soviet Union has taken a course of global expansionism backed by growing military power. The United States is now in strategic decline, and Soviet social-imperialism is on the strategic offensive. The strategic focus of the intensifying contention between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, is in Europe. Soviet moves in the Middle East and Africa, particularly in Angola, Zaire and the Horn of Africa, are aimed at outflanking Europe.

The global rivalry of the two superpowers is driving the world forward to a new world war. There is no detente in the world. Of the two superpowers, the Soviet Union constitutes the greater danger to world peace: it is the younger rising imperialism whose nature is not yet comprehended clearly by the world's peoples and which is challenging the US in every corner of the world.

With the factors for both revolution and world war developing simultaneously, revolutionaries throughout the world are faced with a dual task; on the one hand, they must promote the great historical current of our times—countries want independence, nations want liberation, and the people want revolution; on the other hand, they must make use of inter-imperialist contradictions in an attempt to slowdown the rate at which the strategic balance of power moves in favour of Soviet social-imperialism—the faster it moves towards the Soviet Union, the sooner will the world war come.

It was Mao Tsetung who solved the problem of this dual task. Analysing what actually exists, rather than what progressive people would like to exist, Mao Tsetung advanced his strategic concept of the three worlds.

The world is now divided as follows:

The First World. The two superpowers. A super power is an imperialist country which everywhere subjects other countries to its aggression, interference, control, subversion or plunder and strives for world domination.

The Second World. Developed capitalist countries and certain revisionist countries such as Britain, New Zealand, West Germany, East Germany, Australia, Japan and so on.

The Third World. Countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia which have a common heritage of problems arising out of past or present semi-colonial colonial or neo-colonial control. Amongst them are included socialist countries, newly independent countries and countries which are still nationally oppressed. The strategic concept of the three words provides the broadest possible international united front against the two superpowers. It brings out the decisive role of the Third World countries in combatting the two superpowers.

The Third World countries bear the main brunt of superpower policies of exploitation, oppression, agression and war. The Third World is the main force in combatting the two superpowers—its drive for economic and political independence is breaking up the world system of imperialism and social-imperialism.

The Second World countries often oppress and exploit other countries, particularly those in the Third World, but they themselves are subject to the interference and bullying of the two superpower. Increasingly they are finding common ground with the Third World countries in opposing superpower hegmonism.

Important examples are the Lome convention and the support fiven by some West European countries for the common fund for the stabilisation of commodity prices. Under the Lome convention certain countries in Africa, the Carribbean and the Pacific have been given free entry into the EEC for their industrial products and almost all their agricultural exports are eligible for duty-free or quota-free entry. The Third World countries in return agree that imports from EEC countries are accorded no less favourable treatment than imports from other countries.

Carter and Mao

The trilateral foreign policy pursued by the Carter administration gives proof of the accuracy of Mao Tsetung's analysis. Looking at the world as reactionaries, the trilateralists are working to unite West Europe and Japan under US leadership to confront the Third World and the Soviet Union. Their policy is to unite with the leading second world countries.

How does New Zealand fit into this analysis? New Zealand has fully developed capitalist relations of production in both town and countryside. It is an agrarian and light manufacturing country. New Zealand is strongly linked with foreign imperialism, particularly US, British and Japanese imperialism. Soviet social-imperialism is now taking an interest in penetrating New Zealand, a process taking place side by side with an increasing political and ideological campaign to increase Soviet influence, an instance of which was the International Convention for Peace Action earlier this year. New Zealand is linked economically with foreign imperialism through trading patterns, direct foreign investments, overseas loans, ties between individual domestic monopoly capitalist and foreign capital, and international agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank and GATT. Important political ties are made through the American alliance, embodied in ANZUS, and the Five Power Defence Arrangement.

But New Zealand has certain similarities with Third World countries. Its mam exports are primary products (wool, meat and dairy produce) to the developed capitalist countries, and its main emports are raw materials, machinery, fuel and so on from sources controlled by foreign imperialism. Even the Monetary and Economic Council has noted these characteristics.

The protracted economic crisis in which we are enmeshed and the growth of internal reactionary policies are integrally linked with New Zealand's distorted economic development and dependence on foreign imperialism. The economic policies pursued by both the Third Labour Government and the Muldoon Government, essentially identical despite the shadow-boxing in Parliament, have increased our dependence.

Whatever fake "lefts" may say, defence of the vital interests of the ordinary people of New Zealand require us to break the grip of foreign imperialism on New Zealand, other wise New Zealand will sink ever deeper into economic stagnation. Even Hugh Templeton has raised the spectre of New Zealand taking the road of Argentina.

New Zealand's best interest lie with the Third World countries, not with the two superpowers, the biggest international oppressors and exploiters. Some policies which help defend and extend New Zealand's independence are: support for the New Economic Order and better trading relations between rich arid poor countries; stop the sell-out of New Zealand's natural resources to foreign imperialism; an independent, non-aligned foreign policy for New Zealand; US out [unclear: !] USSR stay out!; a nuclear weapon-free peace zone in the South Pacific.

Conclusion

Chairman Mao Tsetung died last year but his revolutionary theory and example remain with us. As with Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Mao Tsetung': life and work will continue to inspire the mass movements for independence, national liberation and socialist revolution in every country in the world in the centuries to come.