Three essays on the new mandarins - Lee Yu See

Contents

• Preface by Lee Yu See
• The New Mandarins: A Brief Introduction by Lee Yu See
• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Chief Mandarin Asked For Rebellion by Kan San
• The New Mandarins and Mass Psychology in China by Yu Shuet and Wu Man

Preface

The three essays published in this book are contributions of the Minus 6 (70s Group) in Hong Kong to the International Conference of Studies on the New Bosses organised by Centro Studi Libertari. The Conference was held at Venice, Italy from 25th to 27th March, 1978. Other papers presented to the Conference included Intellectuals and the State by Noam Chomsky, Bureaucracy and International Organisations by Marianne Enckell, New Systems and New Bosses in China and USSR by Tamas Rittersporn, National Bolshevism as Ideology of the New Class in USSR by Mikhail Agurski, Similarities and Differences in Latin America by Louis Mercier Vega, and many others. All the papers, communications, and discussions will be published in Italian by Edizioni Antistato.

The meaning of the term “New Bosses” has yet to be clarified and its use in analysing the structure of societies has to be further developed and discussed. The Italian comrades in their Anarchist Programme talk about the new bosses in the following ways:

“The new ruling class, the technobureaucracy, defines itself in the intellectual work corresponding to managerial functions in the hierarchical division of social labour. The “new bosses” have these functions and from them derive their relative privileges and powers not on account of private ownership rights of the means of production but rather by virtue of a sort of intellectual ownership of the means of production, i.e. a possession of the knowledge inherent in the direction of the great economic and political groupings. The most complete form of their present domination, i.e. in the so-called socialist bloc, presents a picture of technobureaucrats with a monopoly of economic and political power, exploiting not at an individual level but collectively by means of ‘class ownership’ of the means of production. That is, they appropriate a privileged share of goods and services not directly, as happens under capitalism, but indirectly by means of the state which appropriates this ‘class’ quota and then redistributes it among its own functionaries depending on each one’s position in the social pyramid, i.e. depending on the hierarchical importance of that particular function.”

Noting the description of the role and characteristics of the new bosses by the Italian comrades, one will find that the phrase “monopolistic capitalists” used in Lee Yu See’s essay, The New Mandarins: A Brief Introduction, can be substituted easily with “new bosses”. Nevertheless, a fundamental question needs to be raised: to what extent can China (U.S.S.R., the Eastern European countries, Cuba, Vietnam etc) be characterised as capitalist and whether it would be more appropriate to describe such societies as having an exploitative relationship different from capitalism. Further clarifications seem to be essential.

The editor likes to thank the many individuals who helped in preparing this book: Clare Link, F. Chan, Hsu Hsin, F. Ho, A. Lee, M. Ng and many others who are connected with Minus 6 and the 70s Biweekly. Here we would also like to remember Louis Mercier Vega who was one of the initiators of the Venetian Conference and before he died made a substantial contribution to Minus 6, which has helped paying part of the cost of printing the present book.

Lee Yu See