that the severe test for Beijing will be to turn around the much more elitist and isolated scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Footnote The evidence he gives is that research has accelerated, but application lags. “Prompt” application occurs for only 10% of China’s science projects as opposed to 80 to 85% in the U.S. Footnote Furthermore, 28 of 63 projects in Shanghai were replications, 24 of which were duplications of work done in 1973 and 1974. There are fully 980 projects on haploid seed breeding. Footnote Thus, the surge in research is not necessarily resulting in more advances in science. It does however result in the removal of workers from production into higher classes.

        The criticism of property no longer extends to mental property and the attendant mystification in China. Nominally, an intellectual might not own a factory, but he still might be in a position to actually control that factory or its product. “Modern science and technology occupy a key position in the construction of modernization and the creator of science and technology should of course have its corresponding position in society.” Footnote A source of that prestige is the kind of education an intellectual receives. Certainly there is no lack of continuity in terms of the tradition of scholarship in China. Today, elite scholarship takes the form of college entrance exams and favored treatment for 88 so-called key universities. Footnote This is to make up for supposed egalitarian “excesses” that destroyed a “generation” of elite scholars. Again, while Orleans is probably the most informed analyst of science in China, he does not see that it is no “concession” for Deng to admit “the damage done by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.” Footnote Orleans says, “Teng Hsiao-ping has conceded an age-gap had been left in the scientific and technological force ‘which makes the training of a younger generation of scientific and technical personnel all the more pressing.’” Footnote Anxious to discredit the Cultural Revolution, Deng also wants to make arrangements for a new class polarization.

        Even bourgeois scholar Immanuel Hsu admits that “another anomalous phenomenon of modernization is the emergence of new classes in a so-called classless society.” Footnote Historical materialists can explain how this class polarization came about apparently so suddenly. In previous sections, the defeats and reversals of the early 1970s were analyzed in a general way.

        Specifically, with regard to education, it is not surprising to find Zhou Enlai behind the reversals of the present day. “In the first place, we must devote more energy to perfecting a number of ‘key’ schools. We will then be able to train specialist personnel of higher quality for the state and bring about a rapid rise in our country’s scientific and cultural level.” Footnote During the mini-NEP of the early ’60s, Zhou protege Chen Yi said “‘we must not judge a man’s not being Red or ‘White’ by how frequently he takes part in political activities. . . . But provided they are successful in their studies and contribute to socialist construction, there is, in my opinion, nothing wrong about their taking part in political activities less frequently.’” Footnote Thus we see that the two- line struggle in education started as early as 1961. In 1967, some students were charging that children of cadres were receiving privileges in the higher-track schools:



                         elite schools had 20 square meters of space per person,

                         whereas ordinary schools had only 3.5 meters per person;

                         building costs per unit were 260 yuan for an elite school,

                         and only 35 yuan for an ordinary school. Footnote



Although there was great struggle in education throughout the 1970s, by 1972 Robert Taylor was concluding that the “elite- mass structure is appearing in higher education.” Footnote

        Leo Orleans also discusses the “hidden struggle” in the early 1970s—a time when Zhou Enlai quietly took advantage of the split in the Left caused by Lin’s coup attempt and asserted control in foreign policy, the army and education. “An early sign of the reassertion of pragmatism may be seen in the progressive re-opening, beginning in the 1970s, of many of the research institutions; by mid-1976 seventy had been identified as functioning again under the Academy of Sciences.” Footnote Furthermore, “Now it can be seen that, after vacillation—or, more likely, hidden struggle—during the early 1970s, the basic responsibility for research in science and technology is reverting to the academies and the most qualified scientists.” Footnote The opening of the academies and the reversal of gains in education were naturally important material bases for the eventual elitist triumph.

             After the death of Zhou Enlai, some of his policies continued to find their way into implementation. Drafted by Zhou, recently implemented regulations allow up to 10,000 yuan as a reward for invention. These rewards were abolished in the Cultural Revolution. Mao himself wrote personally to inventors as one form of moral encouragement. Now the Physics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences contracts technologies—21 in 1980—to individual enterprises. The state capitalists charge the enterprises a 20 percent fee on profits for use of inventions the first year and less thereafter or 5% of sales and less thereafter. Footnote In addition, non-geologists can receive up to 5,000 yuan for finding a mineral deposit.

        The Cultural Revolution approach to education seemed like so much rhetoric at the time to many, but within two years of the coup in 1976, Suzanne Pepper concluded that reversals in education were “transforming into reality the rhetoric of the two-line struggle.” Footnote First, the Cultural Revolution stressed more emphasis on practice over theory—field work over purely academic courses—in order that varying levels of technology could be applied, not just the most advanced. Second, it opposed the two-track system, selection of certain schools for extra funding, and unified entrance exams and supported the education of students in their own localities for the benefit of their locality—thus undercutting the reproduction of the bourgeoisie. Finally, students participated in politics; ran the schools in revolutionary committees; struggled for egalitarian teacher-student relations; cut into the “marks in command” approach; opposed rote memorization—thus attacking hierarchy and engaging in class struggle directly in education. Footnote The Cultural Revolution approach had to be overthrown in the chase for advanced technology, the reproduction of the bourgeoisie and the mystification of class relations necessary for capitalism.

        In addition to the struggle in education, the actual high-tech scientific projects undertaken strengthened the position of the elitists. Through thick and thin, research on nuclear weapons continued. Apparently, those generals in support of Peng Dehuai’s conventional war strategies were more willing to support Peoples’ War as long as China had nuclear protection. Footnote Mao willingly made the trade of constructing nuclear weapons, which is a relatively small project, in return for a military that did not drain off resources for modernization or lose touch with its roots among the people. A bigger culprit in large-scale technology importations after 1972 can be found in “scientific instruments, machinery, transportation equipment and scores of whole plants.” Footnote The author is in complete agreement with Kojima Reiitsu’s interpretation of this phenomenon.



One factor in the defeat of the Cultural

Revolution group was the introduction of foreign plants

after Zhou Enlai triumphed over Lin Biao in the early

                1970s. In the three years starting in 1972, Chin