New | Abandoning 'class struggle' central to China's achievements, paper says in rebuke to leftists
Commentary follows a re-emergence of the revolutionary term that commentators warned signals a leftist push in the Communist Party to repress reformists
Abandoning the principle of “class struggle” has been central to China’s achievements over the past 35 years, a flagship newspaper of the Communist Party’s Central Party School said on Monday, in a direct rebuttal of controversial remarks carried by a central party committee publication last week that defined “class struggle” as a long-standing feature of society.
The party made a “leftist mistake” by taking class struggle as its guiding philosophy, a blunder that drove the tumultuous Cultural Revolution and halted the country’s economic development, according to the commentary published by the Study Times.
“We would not have achieved our accomplishments if we had not corrected the leftist mistakes and shifted our focus,” the commentary quoted paramount leader Deng Xiaoping as saying in 1985.
The commentary came hard on the heels of a re-emergence of the revolutionary term class struggle in the party-run twice-weekly Red Flag Manuscript last week that fanned discussion online. Commentators warned that the remarks signalled a renewed urgency among leftists in the party to repress reformists.
The article, by Wang Weiguang, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, defended the “people’s democratic dictatorship” practised on the mainland by arguing that class struggle had not yet been extinguished both at home and abroad.
Paradoxically, both commentaries justified their stances by claiming them to be a continuation of Deng’s political legacy.