114 { China’s Quest
institutional arrangements necessary for his campaign of hyperindustrializa-
tion was military confrontation with the United States in the Taiwan Straits
and ideological struggle against “revisionism.”
In 1955–1956, there had been an acceleration of agricultural collectivization
and reduction of wage incentives, a push known as “the Little Great Leap” and
designed to raise the level of investment in industry. The result, however, had
been strikes, work slowdowns, and a fall in agricultural production. Under
the influence of pragmatic economic planners like Chen Yun and Bo Yibo,
and backed by Premier Zhou Enlai, the CCP in late 1956 returned to policies
of greater individual reward and incentive to boost output. Production rose,
but so too did consumption, resulting in a slowing of investment in heavy and
defense industry. Mao was dismayed by this retreat before public opposition,
and seized on Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign and the Hungarian
uprising, both of 1956, as “learning by negative example” to educate the CCP
about the proper way to deal with opposition to “construction of social-
ism”: opponents of socialist construction must be ruthlessly crushed—as
Stalin had done.Khrushchev’s De-Stalinization and Mao’s ReactionKhrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign began in February 1956 with a
closed-door speech to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU.^4 As the elder
brother of the world communist movement, the CPSU drew observer delega-
tions from many communist parties to its Congress, including the Chinese.
In a bombshell speech, Khrushchev told how the “cult of the person of Stalin”
had produced “a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of
Party principles, Party democracy, or revolutionary legality.” “Accumulation
of immense and limitless power in the hands of one person” had caused “great
harm” and led to the “violation of the principle of collective direction of the
Party.” Khrushchev’s “secret speech” caused great tumult in the international
communist movement. This was the beginning of the CCP-CPSU ideological
debate.
The CCP delegation to the Twentieth Congress, like the delegations of
other communist parties, was not given advance warning of Khrushchev’s
criticism of Stalin. Nor was the CCP delegation, headed by Zhu De, perhaps
China’s most eminent military leader, given a copy of the speech afterwards.
A CCP representative was permitted to read the text of the speech and was
briefed on it, but the CCP’s text of Khrushchev’s bombshell speech came from
the March 10, 1956, issue of the New York Times.^5 From Mao’s perspective,
both the process and substance of Khrushchev’s speech were wrong. Not
informing the CCP in advance of the speech indicated that the Soviets did not
trust the CCP, in Mao’s view. Issuing such a pivotal determination without