Comrades, representatives! Today, we are able to hold a very good congress. The timing is excellent, and we have gained tremendous strength; our Party is now more united than ever before.

What should be the guiding principle of our congress? It should be: unite as one and strive for victory. Simply put, it is about unity on the one hand and victory on the other.

Victory refers to our goal, while unity refers to our front, our ranks. We must have a united force to fight against our enemies and strive for victory. And at the heart of this force, playing the leading role, is our Party. Without our Party, the victory of the Chinese people would be impossible.

The Chinese people’s struggle for liberation, setting aside the distant past and focusing on more recent history, spans over a hundred years. From the Opium War against the British in 1840 to 1945, a full 105 years have passed. Over these hundred-plus years, many great changes have occurred, the most significant being the transition from old democratic revolution to new democratic revolution. Previously, there was no leadership by the proletariat. When the bourgeoisie was just beginning to emerge, or had grown slightly larger, or later expanded further, and when the proletariat still lacked its own vanguard, the proletariat’s level of political awareness was low. But the bourgeoisie held various advantages—in culture, economy, and political experience, it held the upper hand.

[The Seven Great Congresses: Working Guidelines
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It held the advantage, with political parties, slogans, and its own goals to fight for. The proletariat, however, lacked these and followed in the footsteps of the bourgeoisie. Only in the past twenty-plus years has the proletariat developed its own political party, slogans, and goals.

The most notable struggles in modern Chinese history include the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, the Sino-French War, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 (the 20th year of the Guangxu reign), followed by the Hundred Days’ Reform, the Boxer Rebellion, and then the Xinhai Revolution. These revolutions opposed two things: external oppression by foreigners and the oppression of the feudal system. The Chinese people were always dissatisfied with these two forces and continuously rose up to resist. Time and again, they rose up, were beaten down, rose again, and were beaten down once more—such history spans nearly eighty years.

Under what circumstances did the May Fourth Movement of 1919 occur? It took place after the First World War. Human history is said to span five hundred thousand years. Within these five hundred thousand years, one part is the history of barbarism, and the other is the history of civilization. The history of civilization spans only about five thousand years, or slightly more. The history of China is considered quite long, yet it too is only about four to five thousand years. Counting from the Yellow Emperor’s reign to the Xinhai Revolution, there were 4,609 years, and adding the 34 years after the revolution, the total is only 4,643 years. In truth, the era of the so-called Yellow Emperor was not yet a civilized society. Civilized society, beginning with slave society, in China, based on reliable existing sources, should be traced back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Only in the past five thousand years of civilized society did the First World War break out. This world war occurred in an era when global capitalism had developed into the twentieth century—capitalists clashed with capitalists, markets shrank, some seized wider territories, while others grabbed narrower ones, and thus they went to war. This is what is called the era of imperialism. The first world-scale war in all of human history broke out in 1914. Those among us over thirty would know and remember this event. This war, as just mentioned, was a reflection of global economic development. When the world economy reached that stage, such problems were bound to arise. Marxists had long foreseen this.

This war was a destructive war, an unjust struggle, a war harmful to human interests, a war for seizing markets—this is its negative aspect. However, it also produced a positive aspect: the Russian February Revolution, the emergence of communist parties in many countries, and the formation of vanguards for the proletariat in many nations—China among them. Following the world war came a period of world revolution. First, the October Revolution broke out in Russia, followed by revolutions in Germany, Hungary, and Italy, but these were all suppressed. Because the proletariat in these countries was still divided, with communist parties and social democratic parties, and the proletariat’s political awareness was insufficient. Only the Russian October Revolution succeeded.

After the First World War and the victory of the October Revolution, the face of the world and the course of history changed. Over thousands of years, world history had been progressing and advancing, but it was only after the First World War and the October Revolution that a new direction emerged. Slave society, the feudal society that followed, and capitalist society were all societies in which people exploited others. The new historical direction after the October Revolution was to abolish the system of human exploitation. The Russian people have already achieved victory in this regard. Many countries now have communist parties.

Our Party was established in 1922 and by this year has a history of 24 years. The Japanese Communist Party was founded in 1922, and the Indian Communist Party in 1920. These are the cases of major Eastern nations, and similarly, the communist parties of France, Germany, Italy, Britain, and the United States were generally formed during this period. In 1919, Lenin established the Third International.

From the May Fourth Movement onward, China transitioned from old democratic revolution to new democratic revolution. The May Fourth Movement was initiated by the masses—ordinary people took to the streets to openly oppose their enemies. At first, only awakened, progressive students participated. By the time of the June 3rd Movement, in Shanghai, it was no longer just students but also vast numbers of workers and the business community who joined in. Later, Hankou, Changsha, the Yangtze River basin, and the Pearl River basin all joined this tide. The May Fourth Movement included China’s most politically awakened elements. At the time, the awakened figures included Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. During the May Fourth Movement, there were left-wing and right-wing factions, with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao representing the left wing. At that time, China had no Communist Party yet, but a small number of people already held communist ideas.

[The Seven Great Congresses: Working Guidelines
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The cannon shot of the October Revolution resounded, teaching a lesson in communism to the proletariat and other progressive elements worldwide. Marx and Engels founded the theory of Marxism beginning in 1843 (three years after the Opium War), but from 1843 to 1917, a span of 74 years, its influence was largely limited to Europe, and most people worldwide still did not know of so-called Marxism. Marxism originated in Europe and initially spread there, advancing relatively slowly. At that time, in China, apart from a very small number of students studying abroad, ordinary people had no knowledge of it. I, too, did not know that someone like Marx existed in the world; nowadays, even children aged fourteen or fifteen know about him. So I say, comrades, you are very fortunate. In our time, we had grown quite old and still had no idea how high the sky was or how thick the earth was, let alone anything about imperialism or Marxism. Even after entering school, we only knew a few bourgeois heroes like Washington and Napoleon. Earlier, people like Liang Qichao and Zhu Zhixin had briefly mentioned Marxism once or twice. It is said there was also someone who translated excerpts of Engels’s *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific* in a magazine. In any case, I never saw it back then, and even if I had, it would have slipped by in an instant without leaving much impression. Zhu Zhixin was a member of the Nationalist Party. From this perspective, it seems the Nationalist Party was actually first in discussing Marxism. However, previously in China, no one truly understood Marxism and communism.

The cannon shot of the October Revolution traveled faster than an airplane. An airplane flying from Moscow to here would certainly take more than a day, yet news of the revolution reached China in a single day: the revolution broke out in Russia on November 7, and China learned of it on November 8. At that time, the Russian revolutionary party was called the "extremist party." For over seventy years, Marxism spread so slowly, yet after the February Revolution, it advanced with such speed. Because it moved so quickly, the spirit of the Chinese people in 1919 was entirely different. After the May Fourth Movement, people quickly came to understand and raise slogans like "Down with imperialism" and "Down with feudal forces." Before that, who would have thought to raise such slogans? No one!

These slogans and such a clear platform were put forward once China’s proletariat produced its own vanguard—the Communist Party.

In 1921, our Party held its First National Congress. Of the twelve representatives at that time, the ones still alive and still communists (excluding those who defected, such as Zhang Guotao, who don’t count) are: one is Chen Tanqiu, currently imprisoned by the Nationalist Party in a Xinjiang jail; another is Dong Biwu, who has now flown to San Francisco; and I am also one. Among the twelve representatives, two are now traitors serving in Nanjing—one is Zhou Fohai and the other is Chen Gongbo. The meeting was held in July, and we have now designated July 1 as the anniversary of the Party’s founding. Originally, it was convened in Shanghai, but due to threats from the concession police, we moved to South Lake in Jiaxing, Jiangsu Province, and held it on the water. Did we issue a manifesto? I don’t quite remember. At that time, how much Marxism we had and how to handle world affairs were still unclear.

As for the so-called representatives, they were nothing like today’s comrades, who are so knowledgeable and proficient in one thing after another. Things like economics, official documents, Party affairs, and rectification—we knew nothing about any of it. I was exactly like that at the time, and the others were much the same. Chen Duxiu did not attend the meeting; he was serving as the education commissioner in Guangdong. A saying in our Chinese *Zhuangzi* goes: "What begins simply will prove mighty when completed." Although we haven’t yet "completed," we have already grown immensely.

The first page and first line of the *History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)* states that the Soviet Communist Party grew from small groups to a federation—that is, from Marxist small groups to a party leading the Soviet federal state. We, too, went from small groups and base areas to a nationwide scale, though we are still only in base areas and have yet to reach the whole country. At the very beginning, we were also just very small groups. At this congress, I was given a form to fill out, with one item asking who introduced me into the Party. I said I had no introducer. In those days, we simply did it ourselves, and we didn’t know much—truly young and ignorant, unaware of the ways of the world. Yet the twenty-five years since then have been nothing short of earth-shaking, turning heaven and earth upside down! The entire world has similarly been turned upside down. For China, it has been twenty-five years of earth-shaking change; for the world, it has been twenty-eight such years. These twenty-eight years are the years since the victory of the Russian Communist Party. The twenty-five years of the Chinese Communist Party have also been vastly different from what came before. This is something the broad masses of the people must understand.

Since ancient times, there has never been such a people; since ancient times, there has never been such a Communist Party. In these twenty-five years, we have gone from small communist groups...

Seven Major Work Guidelines (continued)

Through the Northern Expedition, our forces grew vigorously and spectacularly. But the central leadership was slapped to the ground by others, then picked itself up and fought them again—this is called the Second Revolution. From 1921 to 1927, the main focus was the Northern Expedition; from 1927 to 1937, it was the Civil War; and from 1937 to the present, it has been eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Seven years plus ten years plus eight years equals twenty-five years. Among current comrades, not many have experienced all three periods, but many have lived through two. This is speaking about our entire Party. Among the representatives present, we haven’t yet conducted a survey to see whether there are more "veterans of three dynasties," more "veterans of two dynasties," or more from a single period—we don’t know yet. This has been our journey over these twenty-five years: seven years from the Party’s founding to the Northern Expedition, ten years of the Civil War, and eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Our Party has endured countless hardships and difficulties, acting with vigor and heroism, and fighting courageously. Since the 1910s, no group in China has, like the Communist Party, spared no sacrifice, regardless of how many lives were lost, to undertake such great endeavors.

In the seven years of the First Great Revolution, the highest number of Party members never exceeded 60,000. We were slapped to the ground by others, shattered like a pile of eggs—many were broken, but not all were smashed entirely. We picked ourselves up, hatched new chicks, and that was a great lesson. After being shot at by others, we got angry, fought on, and fought very well—such as overthrowing feudal forces and striking at imperialism, which was absolutely correct. Chiang Kai-shek colluded with imperialism and feudal forces, so we raised revolutionary slogans, calling for the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek, and fought him for ten years. Overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek was not wrong, but how to organize our ranks, and once organized, how to fire our guns—this led to many differing opinions, which is what we addressed in the "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues." Broadly speaking, the differing opinions mainly revolved around three questions: First, who are our enemies, and who are our friends? Second, how do we organize our ranks? Third, how do we fight? Among the divergences on these three questions, some comrades’ views were generally more appropriate, better suited to China’s national conditions, and relatively more correct—particularly on organizing ranks and how to fight—but they were not flawless by any means. At that time, comrades within the Party were scattered far and wide, and except for a few who had bounties of tens of thousands of yuan placed on their heads by the Kuomintang, no one else knew about them. Yet opinions could be similar, either on this issue or on that one.

I met Sun Yat-sen personally, and there are still comrades present who have seen him. He passed away in 1925. When he had devoted thirty-nine years to the National Revolution, I met him; by then, he was nearly sixty years old. At that time, the Kuomintang was holding its First National Congress, and Comrade Lin Boqu, who is here, was one of the participants. We attended the Kuomintang congress as members of the Communist Party—what were then called "cross-party members," being both Kuomintang members and Communist Party members simultaneously. At that time, the Kuomintang branches in various provinces were all organized with our help. In those days, we had no choice but to step in because the Kuomintang didn’t know how to organize itself; after devoting thirty-nine years to the National Revolution, they still hadn’t convened a national congress. After we joined the Kuomintang, it wasn’t until 1924 that the First National Congress was held. The manifesto was drafted by us, and many matters were handled by us to help them—among those involved were Mikhail Borodin, who served as an advisor and was a member of the Russian Communist Party, and Qu Qiubai, a Chinese Communist Party member who had joined the Kuomintang. Sun Yat-sen had one good trait: when he ran out of options, he would turn to us. He listened to everything Borodin said. In those days, it was called "taking Russia as our teacher," because he had failed continuously over thirty-nine years of revolution. We then proposed overthrowing imperialism, overthrowing feudal forces, overthrowing corrupt officials and evil gentry, and overthrowing local bullies and bad landlords. Many opposed us, calling the members of the Central Committee the "Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars." The military was also built through KMT-CPC cooperation. At that time, the key cadres, both in the military and the Party, included people from both the KMT and CPC. The First Army had Chiang Kai-shek as its commander, with Comrade Zhou Enlai as the Party representative; the Second Army had Tan Yankai as its commander, with Comrade Li Fuchun as the Party representative; and the Sixth Army had Comrade Lin Boqu as its Party representative. That period was also a coalition government, with the military as its main component. So, coalition governments existed before.

The Northern Expedition was victorious and spectacular. But toward the end of this period, our Party didn’t handle things well—Chen Duxiu-ism emerged. Later, Chen Duxiu opposed us, formed the Trotskyite-Chen Duxiu cancellationist faction, and went over to the counterrevolutionary side. However, regarding Chen Duxiu as an individual, we can discuss him today—he did have merits. He was the commander-in-chief during the May Fourth Movement era; practically speaking, the entire movement was led by him. He and the group around him—(Seven Major Work Guidelines continued) people like Li Dazhao—played a major role. At that time, we were learning to write in vernacular Chinese, and we heard him say that articles should use punctuation marks—that was a great invention. We also heard him say that Marxism existed in the world. We were students of that generation. The May Fourth Movement prepared cadres for the Chinese Communist Party. In those days, there was the magazine "New Youth," edited by Chen Duxiu. Those awakened by this magazine and the May Fourth Movement later partly joined the Communist Party. These people were greatly influenced by Chen Duxiu and the group around him—it can be said that they were assembled by them, and thus the Party was founded. I say that in some respects, Chen Duxiu was like Russia’s Plekhanov—he carried out the work of enlightenment and created the Party, but ideologically, he was not as strong as Plekhanov. Plekhanov conducted excellent Marxist propaganda in Russia. Chen Duxiu, on the other hand, even made some very incorrect statements, but he created the Party and had merits. Plekhanov later became a Menshevik, and Chen Duxiu was China’s Menshevik. After the German-Soviet war, Stalin, in a speech, mentioned Lenin and Plekhanov together, and the "History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)" also discussed him. Regarding Chen Duxiu, when we revise Party history in the future, we will still need to address him. As for Comrade Li Lisan, who made "Left" errors during the Civil War period, before the First Great Revolution, he, together with Comrade Liu Shaoqi, engaged in workers’ movements in Anyuan, and later during the May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai, he played a significant role and also had merits.

Now let’s discuss the "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues." This resolution was thoroughly discussed by the comrades. Comrades proposed that this matter be handed over to the Seventh Plenary Session for handling, rather than submitting it to the Congress, so that the Congress could become one of unity and victory. This proposal is excellent.

This was done with the entire Party, the people of the whole nation, and the Party’s future in mind. The resolution was basically passed by the Seventh Plenary Session yesterday and will be handed to the new Central Committee after the Congress for revision and publication.

The work policy of the Congress is unity and victory. The Congress must look forward, not backward; otherwise, it will affect the success of the Congress. The eyes of the Congress must be on the 400 million people to organize our ranks. We have not yet achieved victory; our strength is still small, and there are still difficulties ahead. We have over 900,000 troops, but they are not concentrated—they are dispersed, fighting "beancurd battles"; our base areas have over 10 million people, but they are not a single block either—they are also dispersed; our enemies are still very powerful, with a strong Japanese imperialism and the Kuomintang—these two enemies are not of the same type: one guards our front gate, the other our back gate. Therefore, we must be cautious and modest, and must not be arrogant or impatient. We must guard against arrogance and rashness. Modesty prevents arrogance and allows for genuine humility. In the past, it was said that "great wisdom appears as emptiness." When a businessman has great capital, he hides it, as if there were nothing. We are the same—we must maintain modesty. There are lessons in our history: we cannot become "too big." When we are small, everything is calm and without incident; once we become big, arrogance swells, brains swell greatly, pride arises, and hearts grow restless, very restless. Impatience and arrogance are linked—arrogance leads to impatience, and impatient people are invariably arrogant, incautious, and careless. We have now learned the principle of caution. To draft a historical resolution, we reviewed it repeatedly, with how many pairs of eyes scrutinizing it—just a few dozen pairs of eyes from the Central Committee were not enough; after seven or eight looks, many issues couldn’t be spotted. But once everyone examined and studied it, many problems emerged. You raised many points during the discussions—that’s very good, called acting with prudence. Take things slowly; the sky won’t fall. Since ancient times, the sky has never fallen. Once, in the state of Qi, there was a person who feared the sky might fall and worried about it every day—this was called "the Qi man’s unfounded worry." After thousands of years to the present, none of the Twenty-Four Histories have recorded the sky falling. Even if it did, we have a few very tall comrades who could hold it up—no need to worry. The "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues" has been studied four times over, and it has now been basically passed. After electing the new Central Committee, it will be further refined and polished. But will there still be omissions? Possibly. After ten or eight years, when we revise the history of the CPC, we might see that if there are omissions, we’ll say, "This historical point was missed earlier—that’s wrong, it needs to be added." That’s nothing unusual. Just as when you pile firewood, the later added pieces end up on top—we treat our predecessors the same way. If there are omissions, we correct them; the principle is to uphold the truth and correct errors.

(Seven Major Work Guidelines continued) "The History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)" was published in 1938. The Soviet Union achieved victory in 1917, but it wasn’t until 1938 that the Central Committee published "The History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)"—a process spanning nearly twenty years, showing that such work is not easy. In this brief historical resolution, we aim to encapsulate twenty-five years of history, which is even more challenging. Naturally, we are not yet compiling the Party’s history; rather, we are primarily addressing the "Left" errors in our Party’s history, discussing the struggle between a line relatively suited to the interests of the Chinese people and one that partially suited but partially did not suit their interests, as well as the struggle between proletarian ideology and petty-bourgeois ideology. This issue has been mulled over for several years and is now relatively mature, so we drafted the resolution to resolve it. As for issues during the War of Resistance period, they are not yet mature, so we will not address them now. In the future, this historical resolution may still contain errors, but the principle of "curing the sickness to save the patient" will not be wrong.

Are the issues in the historical resolution related to the majority or the minority? I say they relate to the majority—matters concerning the entire Party and the people of the whole nation. That’s why we must be modest and cautious, and not become arrogant or impatient. This concerns the majority, and it is also our own issue. Problems of the minority are easy to resolve—for instance, naming a couple of people isn’t difficult—but issues involving the majority are not so easily solved. We were very cautious in drafting this historical resolution.

We should do the same on other issues. We must fight bravely, but also act with prudence and caution. The lesson of history is that we must be prudent and cautious. In the past, some comrades were very impatient, hoping the revolution would triumph tomorrow. But victory did not come as hoped; it dragged on for ten years. With three hundred thousand Party members and several hundred thousand troops, they became arrogant and hot-headed, and as a result, only a small northern Shaanxi remained. Some say northern Shaanxi is a poor place, with barren land and impoverished people.
But I say, without northern Shaanxi, things would not have been possible. I say northern Shaanxi has two points: a落脚 point and a starting point. The Seventh Congress was held in northern Shaanxi, which is the honor of the people of northern Shaanxi. Northern Shaanxi has become a testing ground for all our work. All our work was first tested here, the Seventh Congress was held here, and historical problems were resolved here.
Let me say a bit more about "curing the sickness to save the patient." "Curing the sickness to save the patient" means treating the illness in order to save the person. A person is originally good, but germs invade, causing illness, so a doctor is consulted, some medicine is taken, and the sickness is cured. To save the person without treating the illness won't work; to treat the illness without saving the person won't work either. Leaning to either extreme is no good, and both should be corrected. All comrades must unite under this historical resolution, united like a harmonious family, as the resolution states. In the past, we often said, "unite as one person," but that was just a rhetorical flourish in writing. This time we say, unite like a harmonious family. Families have conflicts, and conflicts in a new family are resolved through democracy. We must see comrades as brothers and sisters, from whom we can find comfort; when tired, we can rest here, ask about well-being, with great warmth. As for having made mistakes, it's not just one or two individuals; everyone has made mistakes. I've made mistakes too. Mistakes exist for everyone, differing only in degree. The resolution hangs all the good deeds on my account, so I must express some opinions on this. To write it as representative is acceptable, but if it were only me alone, then it wouldn't be a Party. You must understand,
a contingent is often not entirely uniform, so we must constantly align ourselves—align left, align right, align center. We must align with the central baseline, align with the congress baseline. Alignment is the principle, deviation is actual life; when deviation occurs, we call for alignment. However, officers cannot beat soldiers—this means there must be a correct relationship between cadres and Party members. In a contingent, people's thoughts include both correct and erroneous ones, and they are always not uniform. But we must adopt a good attitude toward comrades who have made mistakes. In a family, there is rarely expulsion from the household. Although it's unclear what Ah's surname really was, I've never heard that he was expelled from the household. Ah fought bravely enough. His shortcomings were subjectivism, sectarianism, plus stereotyped Party writing, and a complete lack of self-criticism. He wanted to expose others' weaknesses, but his own flaws could not be exposed by others. As for dogmatism and stereotyped Party writing, they were formidable. Long-term must always be called long-term, never temporary mistake; calling it temporary mistake was a line error—such dogmatism, such stereotyped Party writing! Yet,
"Seventh Congress" Work Guideline 267
the writer who wrote about Ah still liked Ah, because the counterrevolutionaries executed him. So for people with shortcomings, we must unite. Within the Communist Party, there are, individually speaking, two -isms: one dogmatism, one empiricism. This resolution says I suffered many blows; I say let's brush it aside. There's also the claim that the anti-Luo Ming line was a blow against me—in fact, that's true—but let's brush it aside, not dwell on these things.
I too have made mistakes. In 1927, I wrote an article that had Marxist viewpoints, but on economic issues I lacked a Marxist perspective, so I got the economic questions wrong. Moreover, over more than twenty years of work, in military, political, and Party affairs, I have made many mistakes. None of these are written down, but not writing them down does not mean denial. Because according to true history and real circumstances, I made mistakes. Another example: the recent drafting of the resolution went through many revisions; without everyone's suggestions, it couldn't have been this complete. We are all people emerging from a semi-colonial society, with only this much knowledge, only this much ability. To say I have no ability, no understanding at all of Marxism-Leninism, I don't agree. A Trotskyite, formerly a Communist, named Ye Qing, said that Mao Zedong has no Marxism-Leninism at all, only one -ism called Mao Zedongism, representing the peasant petty-bourgeois -ism—I don't buy that. It's as if I have none here, while he has loads of Marxism-Leninism, even all of it right there with him. To say I'm piled high with Marxism-Leninism is also not true. People shout "long life"; I say I am fifty-two years old.
Of course, it's impossible and shouldn't be that there is "long life," but it does evoke a task—namely, we must still advance, must grow a bit more. Saying I understand a little Marxism-Leninism also evokes a task—again, we must advance. Throughout the world since ancient times, no learning, no thing is complete, never to develop further. The earth is developing, the sun is developing—this is the world. If development stopped, it wouldn't be the world. The entire universe does not know how many billions of years it has passed through; now is progress compared to the past. On earth, living things emerged, animals emerged, humans emerged. Humanity has a history of hundreds of thousands of years, giving rise to civilized society, capitalist society, socialist society. The Marxist worldview teaches us to understand that in the future we will progress to a communist society. China, after passing through a new-democratic society, will progress further in the future, until classes disappear, political parties are no longer needed—neither the Communist Party nor the Kuomintang—the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army no longer needed. The sun and earth will also one day in the distant future be destroyed. When old things are destroyed, new ones emerge. A person with a Marxist viewpoint must see problems this way. But do we need politics today? Yes. What is politics? Sun Yat-sen said: "Politics is the affairs of the people." Scientifically speaking, he was wrong. Those words only had a revolutionary significance, namely opposing feudalism, because politics in feudal society was the autocratic rule of a single emperor. But primitive communist society had people but no politics. Politics only arose starting from slave society. In a certain sense, politics is class struggle. Engels said there are three forms of class struggle:
political struggle, economic struggle, and theoretical struggle. The latter two also contain a political nature. Marxists should have this viewpoint; it is a thoroughly revolutionary viewpoint. Therefore, we must go through war, through class struggle, boldly develop and expand the Communist Party, expand the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army.

Human affairs are always incomplete; sons are somewhat more complete than fathers, grandsons somewhat more complete than sons—the later surpass the earlier.

At this congress, some comrades were not elected as delegates, cannot attend, nor even sit in as observers, and are very anxious. Actually, this is nothing, and everyone can explain it. Take me, for example: I go by "one-three-five regardless, two-four-six clear," meaning congresses held in even-numbered years I didn't attend. At the Fifth Congress, I was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee. At the time, I was secretary of the Peasant Movement Committee and proposed a resolution on the peasant movement, but the Central Committee didn't pass it, and the Fifth Congress didn't adopt it. Now the Party is fairer than before, but unfair things will still happen.

This is to say, things are always incomplete, which gives us a task: to advance toward relative completeness, toward relative truth, but we can never reach absolute completeness, never reach absolute truth. Therefore, we must strive endlessly and without limits.

—"Seventh Congress Work Guideline" 208
Now there’s another "Communist Party"—that’s a "Special Committee" formed by the Kuomintang’s secret service agencies, gathering a bunch of renegades. They’ve already issued a manifesto with the slogan "overthrow Mao Zedong." After this historical resolution is released, the enemy will surely exploit it. But whether they exploit it or not, we have still made this historical resolution. We must not listen to any enemy's instigation. Within the Party, some individuals influenced by unhealthy tendencies may also stir trouble. Within the Party, within the revolutionary ranks, we have one principle: unity, unity based on principles.

In summary, over the past twenty-five years our Party has achieved results, and fairly significant ones at that. We must continue to firmly wield the weapon of Marxism, cultivate a spirit of self-criticism, and unite the entire Party as closely as brothers and sisters, striving for China's victory, never resting until victory is won!

—People's Daily, July 16, 1981

--- Notes

The Seven Great Congresses: Working Guidelines
April 2, 1945