June 11, 1945

[This was Comrade Mao Tse-tung's concluding speech at the Seventh National
Congress of the Communist Party of China.]


We have had a very successful congress. We have done three things. First,
we have decided on the line of our Party, which is boldly to mobilize the
masses and expand the people's forces so that, under the leadership of our
Party, they will defeat the Japanese aggressors, liberate the whole people
and build a new-democratic China. Second, we have adapted the new Party
Constitution. Third, we have elected the leading body of the Party--the Central
Committee. Henceforth our task is to lead the whole membership in carrying
out the Party line. Ours has been a congress of victory, a congress of unity.
The delegates have made excellent comments on the three reports. Many comrades
have undertaken self-criticism; with unity as the objective unity has been
achieved through self-criticism. This congress is a model of unity, of
self-criticism and of inner-Party democracy.

When the congress closes, many comrades will be leaving for their posts and
the various war fronts. Comrades, wherever you go, you should propagate the
line of the congress and, through the members of the Party, explain it to
the broad masses.

Our aim in propagating the line of the congress is to build up the confidence
of the whole Party and the entire people in the certain triumph of the
revolution. We must first raise the political consciousness of the vanguard
so that, resolute and unafraid of sacrifice, they will surmount every difficulty
to win victory. But this is not enough; we must also arouse the political
consciousness of the entire people so that they may willingly and gladly
fight together with us for victory. We should fire the whole people with
the conviction that China belongs not to the reactionaries but to the Chinese
people. There is an ancient Chinese fable called "The Foolish Old Man Who
Removed the Mountains". It tells of an old man who lived in northern China
long, long ago and was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His
house faced south and beyond his doorway stood the two great peaks, Taihang
and Wangwu, obstructing the way. He called his sons, and hoe in hand they
began to dig up these mountains with great determination. Another graybeard,
known as the Wise Old Man, saw them and said derisively, "How silly of you
to do this! It is quite impossible for you few to dig up those two huge
mountains." The Foolish Old Man replied, "When I die, my sons will carry
on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons,
and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher
and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can't we clear
them away?" Having refuted the Wise Old Man's wrong view, he went on digging
every day, unshaken in his conviction. God was moved by this, and he sent
down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs. Today, two
big mountains lie like a dead weight on the Chinese people. One is imperialism,
the other is feudalism. The Chinese Communist Party has long made up its
mind to dig them up. We must persevere and work unceasingly, and we, too,
will touch God's heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese
people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can't these two mountains
be cleared away?

Yesterday, in a talk with two Americans who were leaving for the United States,
I said that the U.S. government was trying to undermine us and this would
not be permitted. We oppose the U.S. government's policy of supporting Chiang
Kai-shek against the Communists. But we must draw a distinction, firstly,
between the people of the United States and their government and, secondly,
within the U.S. government between the policy-makers and their subordinates.
I said to these two Americans, "Tell the policy-makers in your government
that we forbid you Americans to enter the Liberated Areas because your policy
is to support Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists, and we have to be on
our guard. You can come to the Liberated Areas if your purpose is to fight
Japan, but there must first be an agreement. We will not permit you to nose
around everywhere. Since Patrick J. Hurley [1]
has publicly declared against co-operation with the Chinese Communist Party,
why do you still want to come and prowl around in our Liberated Areas?"

The U.S. government's policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists
shows the brazenness of the U.S. reactionaries. But all the scheming of the
reactionaries, whether Chinese or foreign, to prevent the Chinese people
from achieving victory is doomed to failure. The democratic forces are the
main current in the world today, while reaction is only a counter-current.
The reactionary countercurrent is trying to swamp the main current of national
independence and people's democracy, but it can never become the main current.
Today, there are still three major contradictions in the old world, as Stalin
pointed out long ago: first, the contradiction between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries; second, the contradiction between
the various imperialist powers, and third, the contradiction between the
colonial and semi-colonial countries and the imperialist metropolitan countries.
[2] Not only do these three contradictions continue
to exist but they are becoming more acute and widespread. Because of their
existence and growth, the time will come when the reactionary anti-Soviet,
anti-Communist and anti-democratic counter-current still in existence today
will be swept away.

At this moment two congresses are being held in China, the Sixth National
Congress of the Kuomintang and the Seventh National Congress of the Communist
Party. They have completely different aims: the aim of one is to liquidate
the Communist Party and all the other democratic forces in China and thus
to plunge China into darkness; the aim of the other is to overthrow Japanese
imperialism and its lackeys, the Chinese feudal forces, and build a
new-democratic China and thus to lead China to light. Those two lines are
in conflict with each other. We firmly believe that, led by the Chinese Communist
Party and guided by the line of its Seventh Congress, the Chinese people
will achieve complete victory, while the Kuomintang's counter-revolutionary
line will inevitably fail.

## Notes

[1] Patrick J. Hurley, a reactionary Republican Party
politician, was appointed U.S. ambassador to China towards the end of 1944.
In November 1945 he was forced to resign because his support for Chiang
Kai-shek's anti-Communist policy roused the firm opposition of the Chinese
people. Hurley's open declaration against cooperation with the Chinese Communist
Party was made on April 2, 1945 at a U.S. State Department press conference
in Washington. For details, see "The Hurley-Chiang Duet Is a Flop", pp. 281-84
of this volume.

[2] See J. V. Stalin, "The Foundations of Leninism",
Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1953, Vol. VI, pp. 74-82.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.