Fighting the Factions

Sabotage, strikes, production slowdowns, high living by plant managers --the problems would be familiar in any Western industrial nation. But in China? Yet lately the Chinese press has been full of references to turmoil in the country's factories. Officials have been attacked for their "bourgeois style of living" and "use of materials, money, feasts and beautiful women." The papers have bemoaned splits among workers and disruptive strikes.

The fact that Peking's tightly controlled press is discussing these troubles so candidly does not mean that the country has plunged into a new period of strife. But it does indicate the government's deep concern with a persistent problem in China: political factionalism.

In major cities like Hangchow, Canton and Wuhan, as well as in the industrial province of Heilungkiang in the northeast, political bickering has "greatly disrupted and undermined our revolution and production," as one Chinese radio broadcast put it. On the surface the disputes center on the perennial issue of "material incentives"--that is, higher wages. In many cities, there is evidence that workers, whose salaries average a spartan $30 a month, are demanding increases.

At the root of the bickering is a continuing struggle for power between China's radicals and moderates--a struggle that burst into the open during the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution and has never really been fully resolved. Radical groups are upset that many of the officials who were disgraced during the Cultural Revolution have been reinstated--most notably Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping, the most powerful man in China after Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Premier Chou Enlai. They also object to the moderates' emphasis on production and their slighting of ideological struggle. The radicals seem to be egging on dissatisfied workers to create problems for the moderates; in some places they may be hoping to replace local officials by making it impossible for them to maintain order.

The most serious incident came a little more than a month ago, in the ancient garden city of Hangchow. In the words of one Chinese newspaper, factories were "unable to increase production because of bourgeois factionalism and sabotage by class enemies." At the end of July, some 10,500 troops were sent into the plants in Hangchow to "participate in industrial labor and support socialist construction"--meaning, to enforce party discipline and get the factories back to work. Apparently determined to make the Hangchow case an example for the country, Peking decided to publish accounts of the entire incident. By the time press reports appeared, however, the trouble was over.

A Modern Army. The moderates' success in Hangchow is convincing evidence of their strong position as China prepares for the passing of Mao, 81, and the older generation of revolutionary leaders. Many China watchers believe the moderates are already revising or even abandoning some of Mao's precepts. One recent instance of this was the rehabilitation of the former Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Lo Jui-ching, 69. As one of the initial victims of the Cultural Revolution, Lo was publicly humiliated by fanatic young Red Guards as far back as 1966. He was notorious in those days as an advocate of building a modern army equipped with sophisticated weapons rather than relying on the guerrilla warfare concepts of Mao. Thus, China watchers see his reinstatement in the Communist Party as a sign that China will be moving more toward the kind of elite, professional military that Mao has long resisted.

The emphasis on increased production also has a non-Maoist element. Of course, not even the Great Helmsman would oppose higher productivity; all groups in China agree on that goal. But it was at Mao's insistence that a clause guaranteeing the workers' right to strike was included in China's new constitution early this year. That right is not exactly being promoted by the presence of thousands of soldiers in the factories of Hangchow. In the view of many observers, party control and productivity are taking priority over Mao's desire for ideological purity. In that sense, China has already taken a few steps into the post-Mao era.

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