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Home , Maoism, Pope Pius XII and China

Septemb er 1968 Vol . XIX, No.9 Library-3041 Br oadway (at 120th Street) . New York . N.Y 10027 Telephone: (Area 21 2 ) 662·7100 Subscription: $3 a year ; 1-15 copi es , 35¢ Editorial Office---Room 6 78. 47 5 Riverside Drive. New York. N.Y 100 27 each; 16-50 copies, 25¢ each ; 1 ele ph one : (Area 212) 870· 2175 Circulation Office---637 West 12 5th 51.. New Yo rk. N.Y . 1002 7 more than 50 c opies, l 5¢ each Telephone : (Area 212) 870·2910

MAOISM AND RELIGION IN TODAY *

The "Decision of the Chinese Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural ," adopted August 8, 1966, opened the most in­ tensive campaign against religion since the Communists came to power. By every re­ port available to us, it appears that the intention now is to suppress even the cap­ tive remnant of the organized religions that had survived earlier stages in the pro­ cess of centralist control and ideological conformity. Section I of the August 8 document, "A New Stage of the Socialist Revolution," reads (in part):

In order to overthrow a political regime, it is always necessary to prepare the public opinion and carry out work in the ideological field in advance . . . . Although the have been overthrown, yet they at­ tempt to use the old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the mind of man and conquer his heart in a bid to attain the goal of restoring their rule. On the other hand, the proletaria~ must squarely face all challenges of the bourgeoisie in the ideological sphere, and use its own new ideas, new culture, new customs and new habits to transform the spiritual aspect of the whole society.1

Although religion was not mentioned as a specific target of the Cultural Revolu­ tion, there was clearly a "spiritual" dimension to the which in many ways resembled a religious crusade; it soon became clear that all religious thought and practices were understood to belong to the "" and had to be purged. Red Guard groups attacked Buddhist temples, Christian churches and Muslim holy places indiscriminately. Even Confucius was vilified, parading his portrait through the streets of Canton labeled, "I am an ox, a demon, a snake and a devil." Religious leaders and ordinary lay members suffered alike in the early Red Guard vigilante stage of the Cultural Revolution.

The last remaining Christian missionaries, eight elderly nuns from the Convent of the Sacred Heart who had been teaching children of foreign diplomats in Peking,

*" and Religion in Chi na Today," first prepared for Chi na Institute lecture se­ ries, February-March, 1968. To be published in The Religious Situation -- 1969, Boston, Beacon Press. Donald Cutler, editor. 2

were expelled from China August 31, 1966; while a Reuters dispatch a week earlier re­ ported that the Red Guard "appeared to have taken over permanently the churches serv­ ing Peking's 20,000 Christians." Fides reported all churches in Canton closed and placed under the control of Red Guard units, while the South China Morning Post re­ ported from Shanghai: "The final page of the history of Christian religion was writ­ ten on August 24. On that day all churches, active or inactive, whether conducted by their meager congregations or preserved by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Religious Cults, were stripped of the crosses, statues, icons, decorations and all church para­ phernalia by the revolutionary students, wearing Red Guard armbands, and determined to eradicate all traces of imperialist, colonial and feudal regimes."

The total suppression of all religions -- with pressures on individual believers as well as on the clergy and leaders -- raises questions that go beyond the official Chinese Communist attitudes toward religion, for these are known to us. Was the en­ forced elimination of visible religious practice predetermined from the beginning of the Communist period? Were the early stages of religious toleration in the context of patriotic commitment to nation-building and the in fact deliberate and cynical manipulation for the sake of an effective, but temporary, during the period when a wide variety of non-Communist voluntary associations were permitted to endure? Or did the Communist leadership sincerely believe, in classical Marxist-Leninist analysis, that religious belief and practice would natu­ rally disappear as its social and economic causes were eliminated in the new China? Were they "revolutionary romantics," nontheistic utopians who believed that the masses of religious believers had been misled by the false teaching of the feudalis­ tic and capitalistic exploiters -- and, in the case of Christianity, by the foreign imperialists -- and that revolutionary change of the material and social conditions that had generated religious belief and practice would automatically bring about its demise without crushing coercion? If the latter, the total suppression of religion in 1966-1967 is out of character, and there is cause for hope that a change to more moderate leadership will result in revitalizing of Article 88 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religious belief. On the other hand, if the left wing of the Cultural Revol ut i on gains uncontested control, the Constitution may be rewritten with no mention of religion.

The Chinese Communists, confident in the truth of their own doctrine, have not seen religion as primarily an ideological competitor. They have feared not a rival faith, but institutional and political conflicts that could interfere with the na­ tion-building and production goals of the new China. With total mobilization of all citizens and all social groups understood as essential, party and leader­ ship understandably saw the independent functioning of autonomous religious groups -­ such as the Roman , with 3 million Chinese believers under the reli­ gious authority of a foreign hierarch -- as a threat to national unity. In due time, as with the minority political parties, the labor unions, the artists and writers, the women of China and other once-voluntary associations, each religious group was led to organize its own government-related "patriotic association," which became the channel through which central control was exercised.

Quite apart from their ideological rejection of religious belief, the revolu­ tionary leaders saw the institutional superstructure of the three integrated reli­ gious systems as a major block to socialist nation-building. As autonomous organiza­ tions with international relationships, they posed a political threat. Under econom­ ic mobilization their ownership of land, schools, hospitals, publishing agencies and other institutions placed them in the landlord-capitalist class, while thousands of the clergy and members of religious orders were nonproductive in Marxist terms. As early as August 4, 1950, government regulations declared that religious workers such as Buddhist monks, Taoist priests, fortune tellers and soothsayers were parasites be­ 3

cause they engaged in no productive work, while abbots, as managers of religious landholdings, were classed as landlords. By 1967 all able-bodied monks, nuns, priests, pastors and other religious workers were engaged in productive labor, many in churches, temples or monasteries converted into small-scale industries. All reli­ gious landholdings had been seized and redistributed in the of 1951, while the 16 Christian colleges and universities, 419 middle schools and several thousand primary schools and other Protestant and Catholic institutions were all seized and nationalized in 1950-1951. Popular religious practices, such as burning of "paper money," celebration of "superstitious festivals," sacrifice to the hungry ghosts or ancestors and accepting donations from the faithful were condemned as eco­ nomically wasteful, therefore noncontributory to Socialist production goals.

But the treatment of institutionalized religion was consistent with the general policy of the New Democracy period, and cannot justify the particular charge of reli­ gious . The stages by which the government tightened its control of orga­ nized religion up to the present period, and the methods used, reflect and parallel the stages of increasing centralized control that mark the history of the regime: the early united front period, with a variety of social classes and limited freedoms still permitted; the mass mobilization of the Korean war period, with the elimination of counter-revolutionaries and ideological conformity as the objective of mass trials and widespread thought reform campaigns; the tightened control over each segment of society -- the rural masses, the intellectuals, the political minorities, the mer­ chants and industrialists, the religious; the "100 flowers" period and subsequent crackdown on counter-revolutionaries during the rectification period; and finally the present period of internal struggle, with Maoism displacing all religious practice. In each case religious leaders and intellectuals suffered with their secular counter­ parts, while the religious laity struggled to harmonize twin loyalties to nation and religion, an inner conflict that destroyed the integrity of families and persons, raising self-doubt in the hearts of believers and sowing mutual distrust in the ranks of the clergy and leaders. The religious systems as institutional rivals to govern­ ment and party had been rendered harmless long before 1966, while religion as an ideological rival had, in classical Marxist-Leninist terms, been dismissed even ear­ lier.

Typical is the following Maoist definition of religion from Kuang Ming Jih Pao:

We believe that ...religion, the theist idea and superstition ...all de­ note man's belief in supernatural, mystic forces. That is to say, they all exist in man's mind as ideas. These ideas are fantastic reflections of the objective world in man's mind. Their characteristic consists in reflecting the objective world in the form of supernatural, mystic forms. That is, it consists in regarding certain natural mystic forces as determinants of nat­ ural and social phenomena. 2

An earlier essay, "Freedom of Religious Belief," clearly sets forth the determinist, and by correlation "optimistic," view of religion held by the Chinese Communists. Believing that religion stems from ignorance and misunderstanding fostered by the ex­ ploiting classes, they fully expect it to disappear as the social and political awareness of the masses increases.

Like anything else, religion will undergo the process of birth, growth and extinction.... As his [man's] political consciousness and cultural level soar, there will inevitably be fewer and fewer people interested in religion. People gradually will become aware of the natural and social laws of development and unravel their mystery, no longer regarding natural and social forces as strange and terrible. Moreover, they will be capable 4

of grasping the natural and social laws of development, employing them to save mankind, and obliterating mankind's enslaved status in the face of such forces. By that time people will no longer believe in the presence of a creator or God in the unfathomable beyond."3

Confident that religious belief would disappear as the need for it was elimi­ nated in the new China, the Communist leaders promised freedom of religious belief in the Common Platform adopted by the People's Political Consultative Conference (1949). As reported by Lu Ting-yi, chairman of the Committee on Culture and Education, to a conference of 151 Protestant delegates in Peking in 1951, Article 5 read:

"The people of the People's Republic of China have freedom of thought, expression, publication, assembly, forming organizations, communication, person, habitation and changing habitation, religious belief and demonstra­ tion. The freedom of religious belief spoken of here means that the gov­ ernment cannot interfere with anyone who belongs to the people of new Chi­ na, no matter whether he accepts or opposes religion, no matter what reli­ gion he believes in."4

But these freedoms are politically conditioned. Lu Ting-yi went on to read Ar­ ticle 8, which defines the citizens' military, tax-paying and other patriotic duties. He then told the 151 Protestant leaders:

"That is to say, both Christians and non-Christians have the above­ mentioned duties, primarily the duty of protecting the fatherland. It is not permitted to be unpatriotic because of belief or non-belief in reli­ gion.

"We expect Chinese Christians to march under the flag of opposition to and love of the fatherland, and under the direction of the Peo­ ple's Government and joined up with the People's Government to work togeth­ er to build the new China on the foundations of the great Common Plat­ form. "5

While Lu Ting-yu, in 1951, may have sincerely believed that the freedoms written into the Common Platform did in fact exist and would be protected, developments in the intervening years point to a more practical -- and cynical -- motivation for his emphasis at this important meeting of Protestant leader1 brought together by the Re­ ligious Affairs Bureau. It was at this meeting that the Preparatory Committee of the China Christian Resist-America-Help-Korea Three-Self Reform Movement was established. Later known as the Three-Self Reform Movement, it became the spokesman for Protestant Christianity and, with branches in every province and major city, the instrument by which the Religious Affairs Bureau communicated with Protestant Christians. Coopera­ tion of all religious believers was needed in the united front period of the People's Republic, and especially at the time of the Korean war. Conciliation rather than in­ timidation or coercion was the tactic used in that stage.

By 1967 Lu Ting-yi, himself a victim of the Cultural Revolution, could point to no religious freedom of expression, no functioning religious organizations, no public religious services, no religious publications. Fearful of attack from imperialist enemies without, and of subversion from revisionist elements within, the Cultural Revolution leaders had rejected the religious and civil freedoms of the Common Plat­ form as well as Article 88 of the 1954 Constitution: "The citizens of the Chinese People's Republic shall have freedom of religious belief."

What did the writers of the Constitution mean by freedom of religious belief? 5

One former official in a municipal branch of the Religious Affairs Bureau testified, after his emigration from China, that the Central Committee's interpretation of "freedom of religious belief" meant:

1) People who believe in a religion have freedom.

2) People who do not believe in a religion also have freedom, includ­ ing the freedom to be against religion (but religious believers were not usually allowed to hear the last phrase).

3) People have freedom to change religious beliefs. 6

In practice, he said, this meant that religious activities could be held only in each groups' place of worship -- church, temple, mosque or monastery. This "protects re­ ligious activities from being disturbed by non-religious people," and at the same time "protects non-religious people from being disturbed by the religious." The practical effect of this seemingly reasonable ruling was to isolate each religious group in its respective place of worship, where it would eventually wither away, blocked from all opportunities for propagation of the faith outside its own group. Even Buddh ist or Taoist rites for the dead in private homes were forbidden. At the same time this isolation of religious believers from the community effectively pre­ vented any joining of religious forces across lines to protest government restric­ tions on religious practice.

Although no single public document presents the Chinese Communist strategy for dealing with organized religious faith and practice, a small book published in Span­ ish by Peking's Foreign Language Press in 1959, The Catholic Church and -- Pro­ gram of Action, suggests tactics, modeled on actual practice in Communist China, by which the power and influence of the Catholic Church in Cuba could be neutralized. With the exception of the drive to sever relations with the Vatican, the tactics used against the Catholic Church in China, closely parallel those used against the Protes­ tants, the Buddhists and the Muslims.

In each case the government recognized, as did Mao Tse-tung as early as 1927, the importance of winning rather than forcing the support of religious believers. Recognizing that eradication of religious belief would not be easy, Mao Tse-tung wrote, in his "Investigation into the Movement in Honan" of the relative ease with which the three powers -- the power of the clan chiefs, of the reactionary classes, and the power of husbands over women -- could be broken. The fourth power, he said, "the divine power of the system of gods and spirits" must be broken too, but it will be "a more difficult and prolonged job." If religion is left untouched, he said, "we shall not be completely fulfilling our revolutionary mission." While Mao was undoubtedly referring to the popular religious beliefs of the , what la­ ter Communist writers have called "religious superstition" in contrast to "theism," or integrated systems of religious belief, the staff leadership of the Religious Af­ fairs Bureau after 1949 had a highly sophisticated awareness of the distinctions be­ tween popular superstitions and the organized religions, and developed their tactics accordingly.

The ambivalence evident in the first, or conciliatory, phase of Chinese Commu­ nist policy toward the religions escaped many believers, who expected that the new regime would, for the sake of national reconstruction, maintain a benevolent attitude toward them. While in old China religion served the Chinese reactionaries on the one hand, and the foreign imperialists On the other, they were told, in the new China, with both class enemies eliminated, the former "antagonistic" contradictions between the religions and the Party and people would be changed to "nonantagonistic" contra­ 6 dictions which could be resolved in the revolutionary . Now a "common po­ litical basis to enable the believer to join the people throughout the country in a grand union and render services to " was promised. While atheists were promised freedom of non-belief and freedom from religious proselytism, they were urged to refrain from propaganda in churches or temples. Both theists and atheists were counselled, "restraint on both sides is necessary for the present moment."

But there was no ambivalence in Li Wei-han's advice to the Cuban Communists based on the Chinese experience. Recognizing that the Catholic Church "is neither sterile nor powerless," Li outlined the steps necessary to induce both sterility and impotence.

The first task is to transform the viewpoint of the religious masses by partici­ pation in political activities directed by activists [cadres]. Li cautioned against frontal assault, which might provoke counter-revolutionary backlash and sympathy for martyrs. "The line of action is to instruct, to educate, to persuade, to convince... to develop fully the political awareness of the Catholics by having them take part in study groups and political activities .... Progressively we will replace the reli­ gious element with the Marxist element. Gradually we will transform the false con­ sciousness into the true consciousness, in such a manner that the Catholics them­ selves eventually destroy, by their own volition, the divine images which they them­ selves created."7

But Li recognizes that the Catholic church is more than a corps of believers brought together by a common faith and . While he believes that individual re­ ligious faith will die away as the class struggle and socialist revolution eliminate its social and economic roots, the stubborn resistance of the institutional church requires an equally stubborn strategy of persuasion, coercion and suppression, in three stages:

1) submission of the church to the regime 2) formation of a schismatic church 3) disappearance of all religion, after passing through the final stage of individual, isolated belief.

Essential to the first step, politicization of the religious masses, is creation of patriotic religious associations subject to government and party control. Li writes:

"It is necessary to draw the church and its believers into the very midst of the People's Government, where the masses will influence them. The Church must not be allowed to retain its supranational character which puts it above the will of the masses .... When the patriotic associations have been established... the reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries will be disclosed."8

Patriotic religious associations were, in fact, organized under the firm hand of the Religious Affairs Bureau by all of the major religious groups in China. In addi­ tion to the Protestant Three-Self Movement, organized in 1954 at its first National Conference in Peking, the National Catholic Patriotic Association was formed in July, 1957, in defiance of earlier warnings from Pius XII in an encyclical letter, ("To the Chinese People") addressed to the bishops, clergy and faith­ ful in China. The Holy Father warned of the dangers of the "three-self movement" and of a national church isolated from the universal church. 9 Nevertheless a schismatic church did issue from the new Catholic Patriotic Association, and at least 41 bishops 7 were illicitly consecrated in various parts of China without permission from Rome be­ tween 1957 and March, 1962.

Three parallel groups were formed, the Chinese Buddhist Association (1953), the Chinese Islamic Association (1953) and the Chinese Taoist Association, whose remark­ ably similar stated objectives focus the dilemma that tore at the very heart of reli­ gious believers, their families and their leaders: the conflicting loyalties to the nation and to their faith. In the agonizing period of compromise and adjustment that followed, the organized religions passed through the first two stages of Li Wei-han's prescription for destroying organized religion: submission to the regime and a schis­ matic, captive leadership. National solidarity in the struggle to resist imperialist aggression in Korea and to consolidate the Socialist r evolution on the home front was the organizing principle for the patriotic religious associations and at the same time the source of their emasculation as authentic religious bodies.

"It is the duty of every citizen to be patriotic, and is in accord with devotion to one's faith. Only by being patriotic will it be possible to lead a good religious life. "10

The Islamic Association " ...has as its purpose to assist the people's government in developing the Muslim people's cultural and education enterprises and strengthen­ ing the patriotic ideological education among the Moslem people." The brief refer­ ence to religion in the statement of purpose of this religious association pledges the Muslims "to assist the government in carrying out the policy of equality among nationalities, freedom of religious belief and unity with the people of the whole country in the struggle for the construction of the motherland and the defense of wor Ld peace." In that final year of the Korean war they further hailed "the bril­ liant victories of the Chinese People's volunteers against the American aggressors" and pledged that the Muslims "will support you and strive for compl e t e victory in the 'resist American aggression and aid Korea' struggle and a just and reasonable settle­ ment of the Korean question."ll

Closely resembling these were the goals of the Chinese Buddhist Association:

1) To unite the Buddhists of China so that they might participate un­ der the leadership of the People's Government in the movement to love the fatherland and defend peace;

2) To help the People's Government thoroughly carry out the policy of freedom of religious belief;

3) To link up with Buddhists in various places in order to develop the excellent traditions of Buddhism. 12

Chinese Protestant Christians, from the time of the Korean war, had unequivocal­ ly severed all outside ties and bitterly attacked the alleged "cultural imperialism" of the missionaries. Y. T. Wu, secretary-general of the Three-Self Movement, re­ ported to the movement's founding conference in Peking in 1954:

"This National Christian Conference ...is the first conference of na­ tional scope since the church was liberated and threw off its imperialis­ tic shackles and stood up to establish a real Three-Self church ... [a church] in which Chinese Christians have shown themselves to be Chinese citizens by manifesting their love for their country, upholding the gov­ ernment's plans for socialization, opposing imperialistic aggression and upholding world peace."13 8

Y. T. Wu listed the principal accomplishments of the Three-Self Reform Movement dur­ ing its first four years as:

" ... the freeing of the personnel, management and finances of the Church from imperialistic control, the cutting off of imperialistic rela­ tions, the beginning of wiping out of imperialistic influence, and the first steps in self-government, self-support and self-propagation."14

While the goals of self-government and self-support obviously referred to previous alleged dependence on foreign missionaries, the goal of self-propagation stemmed from the Chinese Christians' sensitivity to the charge that Christianity was a foreign re­ ligion in form and practice. The Letter to the Churches issued by the 19S4 China Christian Conference explained that,

"the purpose of self-propagation is not to unify or modify our creeds, but to wipe out the influence of imperialistic thought, and bring the preaching of the church into harmony with the true gospel of Jesus Christ.... In the name of this national conference we call upon all the Christians of China to uphold the constitution, to work with the rest of the people for the establishment of a socialistic society, to take part in the world peace movement, to continue patriotic studies, to purify the church in the spirit of loving both country and church, and to make the church the temple of the Lord."lS

The published writing of Chinese church leaders and theologians during this period reflects the yearning of the Christians for an indigenous Christian theology, litera­ ture and culture that they could proudly call their own. They continued to believe that a "spirit of loving both country and church" was possible.

But to "" under Chairman Mao demands total commitment. lHth the Three-Self goals a chieved as imperialist connections with foreign missionaries and financial subsidies were severed, and with gov er nment control firmly established through the Religious Affairs Bureau, the emphasis of the religious associations s hi f t ed to patriotism and ideological conformity. Rightist and reactionary elements were purged from leadership positions or politically reformed in the rectification process, whose four objectives were:

1) to eliminate rightist tendencies 2) to instill Socialist awareness and patriotism 3) to stimulate production 4) to remold religion to suit communist .16

From national and regional leadership levels down into ea ch local religious community accusation meetings and political study sessions carried the new slogans: "enhance political awareness," "surrender hearts to the people," "resolutely take the road of Socialism" to every religious believer. Religious doctrine itself was reinterpreted to support the nation's cause. With the denigration of themes of love, compassion and forgiveness the Buddhist first commandment took on new meaning at the time of the Korean war; Buddhists now were permitted to kill imperialists, counter-revolution­ aries or other bad people. Christians were reminded that Joseph the carpenter, fa­ ther of Jesus, was a member of the proletarian class. Eschatology, the preaching of the end of the world and the second coming of Christ, as well as the teaching that all men are sinners, were considered incompatible with socialist doctrine. There was increasing emphasis on salvation in this world here and now through social change and material progress. "The peasants say, ' is better than paradise. The peo­ 9 pie's , like a ladder ascending to heaven, takes the earthlings to para­ dise."'17

The third stage in Li Wei-han's strategy was within reach -- the total isolation of religious believers from the familiar forms and practice of their faith leading to the adoption of a substitute commitment to the new faith, the thought of Mao Tse­ tung. For Maoism (a term not used in China) is replete with religious analogies.

Like any religious orthodoxy, Maoism permits no deviation and is determined to maintain purity of faith and practice. Maoism tolerates no heresy. The heretical doctrine must be purged and the heretic himself converted to right thinking -- or dropped from his place in society. The fifth point in the Central Committee's August 1966 Decision entitled, "Party's Class Line Must Be Executed with Resolve," asks:

"Who is our enemy and who is our friend? This question is a primary question of the revolution .... Forces should be concentrated on attacking a handful of extremely reactionary bourgeois rightists and counter-revolu­ tionary revisionists. Their anti-Party, anti-socialist and anti-thought of Mao Tse-tung crimes must be fully exposed and criticized."18

The Cultural Revolution resembles Calvin's Geneva, Cromwell's England, Cotton Mather's New England, or the Heavenly Kingdom of the Taiping rebels in its crusading zeal, its fanatical insistence on orthodoxy, its intolerance of deviation, its puri­ tanical code of behavior.

Chairman Mao has been called a revolutionary romantic, a utopian with a naive faith in the wisdom, power and goodness of the masses. The masses, in the Maoist faith, are the God substitute in a godless ideology. One of the stories in the "three often-read essays," the Lao San Pen, called "The Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains," changes the ancient version where God sent two angels to carry the moun­ tains away for the hard-digging old man. In the Maoist revision the old man is de­ termined to move the mountains of imperialism and with his bare hands. "We must persevere and work unceasingly," the old man concludes, "and we too will touch God's heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people."

Admitted, the analogy is strained; obviously no worship of this proletarian "god" is implied. Rather, the labor hero, the patriotic servant of the people, by his own selfless example induces the people to join with him and the mountains will be removed by collective action, opening the way to full realization of the Socialist utopia.

The proletarian mystique that animates the Cultural Revolution closely resem­ bling that found in religious revivals in other times and places: the Protestant Ref­ ormation, the Wesleyan revival in eighteenth century England, the frontier revivals of nineteenth century America and the indigenous cults in modern China. In each case there was a popular uprising against institutionalized religion, against a profes­ sional priestly bureaucracy, formalism, static structure, legalized moral codes, he­ reditary leadership, empty myth and ritual and compromise with the secular culture and establishment. Rejecting the crystallized relics of a once-vital faith, the peo­ ple bypassed the institution and generated a new and dynamic variation that belonged to them and matched their needs.

Did Chairman Mao fear the institutionalization of his revolution; the emergence of a hereditary bureaucracy based on professionalism and in-group credentials rather than genuine revolutionary zeal; ideological formalism and legalism rather than spon­ taneous and authentic popular participation? Maoism, in the early years a sect, with 10

all the fanatical zeal and expansionist dynamic of a first-generation religious sect, now seeks to preserve that original spontaneity and enthusiasm as a new generation replaces the founding fathers. The cycles of reformation and renewal that mark the history of religions suggest the of the dilemma that prompted the Cultural Revolution.

The spiritual dimension of the crlS1S facing the Chinese revolution is seen in the heroic scope and particular focus of the Cultural Revolution campaign. The 1966 Communique of the Central Committee declared that the cultural revolution would touch people "to their very souls .... Although the bourgeoisie have been overthrown, yet they attempt to use the old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the mind of man and conquer his heart ... the must ...use its own new ideas, new culture, new customs, and new habits to transform the spiritual aspect of the whole society."19

In a strategy unprecedented in the Communist world, the party was bypassed and a parallel structure of popular revolutionary organizations was established under an ad hoc Cultural Revolution Committee to light the fires of counter-revolution. About 100 million students, from primary schools through university level, were released on a revolutionary holiday that still lingers on. The campaign was "cultural" because it dealt first of all with those who worked with their minds rather than their hands: the writers and intellectuals, the university teachers and administrators, the party bureaucracy. The proletarian mystique compels all intellectuals to undergo the tem­ pering experience of manual labor, of prolonged exposure to life among the peasants and workers. The 11th Plenum Communique called for teaching reform, "where our schools are dominated by bourgeois intellectuals. In schools of all types, it is im­ perative to carry out the policy, advanced by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, of making educa­ tion serve proletarian politics and having education integrated with productive la­ bor, so that those who get an education may develop morally, intellectually and phys­ ically and become socialist-minded, cultured laborers."20

The test of a revolution as well as a religion is its effectiveness in changing the lives of people. Outside observers have reported many changes, a remarkable re­ molding of man and society in Chairman Mao's China. A Japanese theologian reported, after his visit in 1967, his view of the present campaign as a massive effort to cre­ ate a "new man" on the basis of Mao Tse-tung's thought, an "integrated people capable of disciplined hard work necessary for the up-building of a socialist country .. .. Here I believe [he writes] it is not economic doctrine ad in classical , nor political strategy as in the case of Lenin and Stalin, but rather the spiritual, eth­ ical element that is understood as the determining factor in shaping world histo­ ry."21 Another observer, an Australian teaching English in China, wrote from Shang­ hai in late 1966: "There is one all-pervasive ethic, firmly implanted not only as a way of life but also as a reason for living. It can be summed up in the three-word title of one of Mao Tse-tung's articles: Serve The People.... The Chinese I know best are my own students. I have spent a lot of time with them in the past year, and I can testify that in no other country have I found young people with more reason to live, more joy, more sense of purpose, more sheer charity."22

But in the year since that was written the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution has produced bitterness and disillusionment among at least some of the educated youth. The Shanghai Wen Hui Pao reported on these "wanderers" who "take the attitude of non-intervention in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In­ stead of fighting on the battlefront, they wander about school campuses, parks and streets; they spend their time in swimming pools and playing chess and cards .... Whenever they are required to reveal an attitude they just issue vague statements."23 Here is a type who shuns commitment, who has opted out of the revolutionary struggle, 11 disillusioned by the compromises and disorder that have marked the recent period and have disrupted their lives.

The traditional religions and Christianity have been captured, controlled and now pushed underground, but the Maois t leaders have ye t to demonstrate that their own form of religious substitute can capture and hold the commitment of China 's people. It is still possible that a new generation of moderate leaders will reactivate Arti­ cle 88 of the national Constitution and seek again to enlist religious believers in a united effort toward nation-building.

Footnotes

1. A. Doak Barnett, China After Mao (Princeton : Princeton University Pr ess, 1967 ) , p . 263 .

2 . Kuang Ming J i h Pao, March 7, 1965 .

3 . "Freedom of Religious Belief, " trans . in Survey China Mainland Magazines (Hong Ko ng) , No. 183 , J uly 16 ,1959 .

4 . " Lu Ting-yi's Speech ," transl ated f rom Ti en Feng , May 8 , 1951 , in Documents of the Three-Sel f Movement , Asia Department , NCCC /USA (New Yo rk , 1963), p . 31 f f .

5 . I b i d.

6. "From t he Oth er Side of the Desk , " China Notes , Vol . 1 , No. 5 , Sep tember 1963, pp. 3-4 .

7. Ibid.

8 . Ibid .

9. Hi l l iam J . Ri chardson , M.M . , "Roman Catholic Relations with t he Church in China Since 1949," China Notes, Vol . V, No .4, October 196 7 .

10. "Prot es t ant s Mus t Oppose Imperialism, Cherish Pat r iotism , " Survey of China Main­ l and Press (SCMP ) , 1805 (: J anuary 7,1958).

11. "Chi nes e Islamic Association to be Set Up in Peking"; NCNA, April 30 , 1953; i n SCMP , 562 , p . 41 .

12. NCNA, Pek ing , Jun e 8 , 19 53; i n SCMP , 585, p . 11 f f.

13 . "Y. T. Hu's Report t o J ul y 1954 Conference in Peking , " Ti en Feng , September 4, 1954 ; in Documents of the Thr ee-Self Movement (op . cit . ) , pp . 85 f f.

14 . Ibid.

15. "Le t ter to t he Chur ches , " Documents of t he Three-Self Movement ( op . cit .) , p. 98 .

16 . R. H. Lee 2nd , "General Aspe cts of the Chi nese Communist Rel igious Policy, with Sovi et Comparisons , " China Quarterly , No. 19, Jul y / Sep t . 1964. 12

17. "Strengthen t he Anti-Imperialist an d Patriotic Program" (Joint Statement of Re­ l i gi ous Leaders in Shanghai ) , SCMP , No . 19 43 , November 10, 1958 .

18. Decision of t he Chi nese Communist Party Central Committee Concerning the Great Cultural Revolution , in A. Doak Barnett ( op . cit .) , p . 268.

19. I b i d . , pp . 261 , 262.

20 . Ibid . , p . 267 .

21. Masao Takenak a, "Ref l e ct i ons on a Visit to Chi na , " China Not es, Vol. V, No.4, October , 1967 .

22 . Neale Hunt er, "Christian Chi na , " i n Logos (Kandy , 1967), Vol. 8 , No.2 .

23 . Wen Hu i Pao, cited in Cur rent Scene (Hong Kong ) , Augus t 15, 1967.