Speeches at a Series of Meetings of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China[1]

(September 7 to October 6, 1943)

Wang Ming was the theoretical creator and supporter of the "Left" opportunist line during the ten-year civil war period, while Bo Gu was its executor and elaborator. In reality, some people disagreed with the resolution adopted at the 1937 Luochuan Conference; there were differing opinions on three issues: the assessment of the situation, the relationship between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and the strategic policy. At present, the main danger within the Party is the tendency toward asserting independence; we must emphasize the Party’s unified leadership. The Right capitulationism of the early period of the War of Resistance was overcome in terms of the political line at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, but no conclusion was drawn, nor were organizational issues addressed, the aim being to allow the comrades who had made mistakes to gradually come to realize them. By May 1941, when I delivered the report "Reform Our Study," it had no impact whatsoever. After June, the Party book[2] was compiled. Once the Party book was issued, many comrades laid down their arms, making it possible to convene the September 1941 Conference, where everyone finally acknowledged that the errors of the central leadership in the later period of the ten-year civil war were errors of line. The September 1941 Conference was a crucial turning point; otherwise, I would not have dared to go to the Party School to deliver the rectification report, my book *Rural Surveys* and other works could not have been published, and the rectification movement could not have been carried out. Another crucial turning point was this year’s Central Committee September Conference and the current study by senior cadres. The Central Committee’s conference to review the Party’s line has been going on for a long time. It is now proposed to suspend the conference and resume it after the responsible comrades from the front have returned to Yan’an. First, we will conduct study sessions for senior cadres, with the duration set at three months. This September Conference has yielded results; issues that many comrades had not paid attention to before have now drawn attention, for example, Wang Ming’s book *Strive for a More Bolshevik

[1] These are excerpts from Mao Zedong’s speeches at a series of meetings of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

[2] This refers to *Since the Sixth National Congress*.

Chinese Communist Party*. Now several comrades are arguing that the Fourth Plenary Session was mistaken; this matter can be studied by everyone.

We must strive for unity; only by clarifying the rights and wrongs of the line can we achieve genuine unity. Seeking unity through struggle has four categories in China: seeking unity between the proletariat and the landlord and bourgeois classes; seeking unity between the proletariat and the peasant and petty-bourgeois classes; seeking unity within the proletariat itself; and seeking unity within the vanguard of the proletariat. Rectification is self-criticism, it is seeking unity through struggle, and the result has been even greater unity. The method of inner-Party struggle must avoid the erroneous methods of struggle that have occurred in the Party’s history; such methods did not resolve ideological problems. It was not until the September Conference the year before last and the rectification movement that problems were resolved from the standpoint of methods of thinking. The current struggle continues the spirit of rectification: learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, and curing the sickness to save the patient.