Explanation of the Draft “Resolution on
Certain Historical Questions”1
(April 20, 1945)
This resolution not only concerns internal matters of the leadership; it also has to
do with the entire Party and concerns the people of the whole country and is
responsible for the whole Party and for all people. If our discussion of which
policies or which parts of which policies are correct or incorrect is compatible
with reality, and if it ideologically represents the past twenty-four years of
history, then it will be good for the future struggle, and for the Party and the
people. The standard for what is correct and what is wrong, naturally, is
Marxism, but at the same time, the standard is also the people’s interests. The
people do not entirely understand the circumstances of the various political
factions, but they do know how to judge according to their policies. The
Guomindang has devoted itself to the National Revolution for fifty years now. It
has done some good things along the way, but it has done even more bad things
and so the people do not like it. We have done good things, but we have also
made some mistakes. Now the resolution addresses these problems, and it is
therefore connected to the people of the entire country.
There are two questions about this resolution: Do we present it or not? And if
yes, how? If we do not present it, we are afraid we will be making a mistake. If
we follow the prevailing trends, we must do it. But the resolution has some flaws
that must be corrected. Therefore, today we ask only that it be basically passed. I
think that the basic ideology in the resolution is not bad: that the petty-bourgeois
ideology within the Party should be corrected so that the revolution will not be
harmed. It is not certain that every historical question is recounted absolutely
correctly. Right now, we can only prepare things so that, after twenty or thirty years, its merits still outweigh its faults. That would already be very good. How
should we do it? Should we submit it to the Seventh Congress or to the Seventh
Plenum for discussion? We originally prepared to submit it to the Seventh
Congress; later we decided to hand it over to the Seventh Plenum. This is a
problem of policy. It was not decided casually, but because in this way we can
avoid the congress focusing on historical questions.
The resolution also deals with other questions: Was the Fourth Plenum2
fundamentally mistaken? We have now cleared up the matter: the Fourth Plenum
was fundamentally mistaken. Why isn’t the question of the Communist
International [Comintern] brought up? We intentionally have not brought it up.
The Comintern no longer exists, so we are not going to push off any
responsibility onto it. In general, the Comintern’s treatment of the Chinese
Revolution has been that its merits outweigh its faults. It is just like that with the
Jade Emperor: He usually gives you rain, so even if he sometimes does not, his
merits still outweigh his faults. Without the establishment and aid of the
Comintern, the political party of the Chinese proletariat would not be here today.
They need us, and we need them too.
The policy of “cure the illness to save the patient” has been proven effective.
Which aspect to emphasize depends on the timing. After December of the year
before last, we paid too much attention to curing the illness while not doing so
well with saving the patient. So, beginning last year, we added more “licorice
root” to the treatment. The current situation is the same. In 1940, it was not
permitted to speak of a political line; we spoke of a political line again in 1941,
and then the problem of Comrade Wang Ming emerged. While he was recovering
from his illness, we had a rectification and we discussed the line questions in the
history of the Party. The saying “Xiang Zhuang performed the sword dance to
cover his attempt on Liu Bang’s life”3 is in fact real. But there are many Liu
Bangs; even Xiang Zhuang himself must be included in their ranks. The process
of development is always like this. Now this resolution is relatively good; it has
unified the two aspects of “cure the illness” and “save the patient.” Comrade
Wang Ming wrote this letter.4 The matter of whether it contains errors can be
studied further, but his attitude is good. We should welcome him. The opinions of
many other comrades are very good. Mistakes are not a question of a minority of
people. It is easy to write down a few names, but the problem does not lie with these few people. If we simply get rid of a few people without summarizing the
historical experiences, it will be just like when the Party still continued to make
mistakes even after Chen Duxiu5 made mistakes. We must acknowledge that
Chen Duxiu made contributions to the Chinese Communist Party and to the
Chinese people, in general, like the Russian [Georgi] Plekhanov.6 Li Lisan7 also
made contributions during the era of the Great Revolution. The Party is a
political organization, not a clan or a professional organization. Party members
come from everywhere and have joined together because their political views are
similar. When political views differ, there will be disputes, and during disputes
you must draw clear boundaries.
Previously many comrades suffered because China did not have revolutionary
leaders like Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Stalin. This was also the case for me. China’s
backwardness could not give birth to a great man like Lenin. Now there is a task
for us: to strengthen our study of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin,
and I am the first one who needs to do this. We must unite with those who have
made political mistakes in the past but have now corrected them. The entire Party
must unite as a harmonious household, as the resolution says. This promise must
be redeemed. The resolution credits me with many good things. I don’t oppose
this, but this does not at all mean that I do not have deficiencies and faults. It is
only in consideration of the Party’s interests that they are not written in the
resolution. This is something that everyone must recognize clearly and myself
first of all. By the time Confucius was seventy, he could do what he desired
without transgressing the bounds of correctness. But even if I reach the age of
seventy, I know that I will still transgress certain bounds.
There are two keys to the War of Resistance: rectification and production.
Without these two things, the Party would not be able to make progress. Twentyfive thousand Party members have developed into hundreds of thousands, most
of whom are peasants and members of the petty bourgeoisie. Without
rectification, the Party’s character would have changed to being proletarian only
in name and bourgeois in reality, so Yan’an could not but leave its sickbed: Wang
Shiwei,8 the “Light Cavalry,” and the “Northwest Wind”9 occupied the dominant
position but only after rectification was the leadership of the proletariat saved.
This is also true of the production campaign. Without it the Party would have
gone backward and collapsed. All this has taught us that we must figure things out as we go along, as the proverb says, “In making a straw sandal, you have no
model to follow; you figure out how to do it in the process of making it.” This
makes sense. In this way, little by little we have learned to move forward. We
have by no means learned everything by now; we just make somewhat fewer
mistakes.
I must also say a few words about preventing enemy exploitation. Others have
set up an “extraordinary committee,” and they have exploited the time when we
did not yet have the resolution, saying that the Fourth Plenum is correct. Now
that we have the resolution, they want to exploit it even more than before and
they want to sow discord. We must be prepared. Unity-criticism-unity, following
this principle we will not fear someone sowing discord. But those rumors are
different: We need to hunt them down and analyze them. Many of them are just
idle chit-chat, without evil intentions; many others are mistaken, but not
necessarily malicious either. As for those that are malicious, we must listen to
them because only through listening can we discover their evil intentions. In
sum, if we have flaws we must change them and if we do not, we must take other
people’s criticisms to spur ourselves. If we use these rumors to reinforce our own
responsibilities, then we can discharge a great burden and become less irritated.
In 1941, there were ordinary people in the border region asking why the Thunder
God did not strike Mao Zedong dead. This aroused my vigilance. After analyzing
the reasons, I found that the grain tax burden was too heavy. So we developed a
great production movement. Last year, there were those at the Party School who
said that I was a bureaucrat, and this made me decide to go to the Party School to
get closer to the people.

---

Notes

Notes
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 282–86, where it is reproduced from the
transcript of the speech preserved in the Central Archives.
1. This is a speech made by Mao Zedong at the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Congress. The text of
“Resolution of the CCP CC on Certain Historical Questions,” dated April 20, 1945, is also translated in Saich,
ed., Rise to Power, pp. 1164–79.

2. On the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Party Congress (1931), see above, note 6 to the text of March 5, 1944.
3. This quotation is from “Xiang Yu benji” (Basic annals of Xiang Yu) in Shiji (Records of the grand
historian). In 206 BCE, after Liu Bang, then one of the two most powerful rebel leaders and later the first
emperor of the Han dynasty seized Xianyang, Xiang Yu, the other most powerful rebel leader, invited him
for a banquet. During the banquet, Xiang Yu’s cousin Xiang Zhuang performed a sword dance in an attempt
to kill Liu Bang.
4. Referring to the letter written by Wang Ming to Ren Bishi and for transmittal to Mao Zedong and
others who attended the enlarged Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Congress.
5. On Chen Duxiu, see above, note to the text of March 30, 1942.
6. Georgi Plekhanov (1857–1918) was a Russian revolutionary and Marxist theoretician.
7. On Li Lisan, see above, text of March 30, 1942.
8. Wang Shiwei, see above, note 3 to the text of March 22, 1944.
9. “Light Cavalry” and “Northwest Wind” were “wall newspapers” in Yan’an that carried articles by Wang
Shiwei and others critical of the Chinese Communist Party in spring 1942.