Speech at the Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China[1]

(December 13, 1939)

I believe it is better not to raise the slogan of a culture of the Three Principles of the People, because the essence of the Three Principles of the People is democracy. There are two factions of democracy, one is thorough democracy, and the other is unthorough democracy. It is better to raise the slogan of a new culture of the Chinese nation, that is, a culture of thorough democracy. On the question of the Sinicization of Marxism, one cannot say that Marxism was Sinicized long ago. Marxism is something universal, and China has special circumstances; it cannot be completely Sinicized all at once. The educational policy of the Border Region should be democratic; it should propagate the current tasks of democracy, while at the same time propagating the ideological system of communism. Therefore, schools cannot teach only the ideological system of communism while neglecting the current practical tasks. For the new culture, it is better to use the following four major slogans: Nationalization (including old forms), Democratization (including the united front), Scientization (including all sciences), and Popularization (the slogan raised by Lu Xun, which we need).

[1] This is part of a speech delivered by Mao Zedong at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China after listening to Ai Siqi’s introduction to the content of the report prepared for the Cultural Congress of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.