June 6, 1950

[Part of a speech at the Third Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party. It throws light on the written report "Fight
for a Fundamental Turn for the Better in the Nation's Financial and Economic
Situation" and on its strategic and tactical ideas.]


Since the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Seventh Central Committee,
nation-wide victory has been won in the new-democratic revolution led by
our Party, and the People's Republic of China has been founded. This is a
great victory, a great victory without parallel in the history of China,
a great victory of world significance following the October Revolution. Comrade
Stalin and many other foreign comrades all consider the victory of the Chinese
revolution an extremely great one. And yet many of our comrades don't realize
this because they have become so inured to the struggle. We should widely
publicize the tremendous significance of the victory of the Chinese revolution
inside the Party and among the masses.

In the midst of this great victory we are confronted with very complex struggles
and many difficulties.

We have completed agrarian reform in the northern parts of the country with
a population of 160 million, and this must be affirmed as an immense achievement.
We won the War of Liberation by relying mainly on these 160 million people.
It was the victory of the agrarian reform that made possible our victory
in overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek. In the autumn we shall start agrarian reform
in vast areas with a population of some 310 million in order to topple the
entire landlord class. In the agrarian reform our enemies are as numerous
as they are powerful against us are arrayed, first, the imperialists, second,
the reactionaries in Taiwan and Tibet, third, the remnant Kuomintang forces,
the secret agents and the bandits, fourth, the landlord class and, fifth,
the reactionary forces in the missionary schools established in China by
the imperialists and in religious circles and those in the cultural and
educational institutions taken over from the Kuomintang. These are our enemies.
We have to fight them one and all and accomplish the agrarian reform in an
area much larger than before. This is a very acute struggle, unprecedented
in history.

In the meantime our victory in the revolution has led to the reorganization
of our social economy. While necessary, this reorganization puts heavy burdens
on us for the time being. Many people are dissatisfied with us because of
this reorganization and because of a certain disruption of industry and commerce
wrought by the war. At present our relations with the national bourgeoisie
are very strained; they are on tenterhooks and are very disgruntled. Unemployed
intellectuals and workers are dissatisfied with us and so are a number of
small handicraftsmen. The peasants in most rural areas are complaining too
because agrarian reform has not yet been carried out there and besides they
have to deliver grain to the state.

What is our general policy at present? It is to eliminate the remnant Kuomintang
forces, the secret agents and the bandits, overthrow the landlord class,
liberate Taiwan and Tibet and fight imperialism to the end. In order to isolate
and attack our immediate enemies, we must convert those among the people
who are dissatisfied with us into our supporters. Although this task is fraught
with difficulties at present, we must overcome them by every possible means.

We should make proper readjustments in industry and commerce so that factories
can resume operation and the problem of unemployment can be solved, and we
should provide 2,000 million catties of grain for the jobless workers and
gain their support. When we reduce rent and interest, suppress the bandits
and local tyrants and carry out agrarian reform, the masses of the peasantry
will support us. We should also help the small handicraftsmen find ways to
earn a living. We should introduce suitable readjustments in industry and
commerce and in taxation to improve our relations with the national bourgeoisie
rather than aggravate these relations. We should run training courses of
various kinds, military and political colleges and revolutionary institutes
for the intellectuals and educate and remould them while availing ourselves
of their services. We should have them study the history of social development,
historical materialism and other subjects. We can induce even those who are
idealists not to oppose us. Let them say that man was created by God, we
say man evolved from the ape. Some intellectuals are advanced in age, they
are over seventy, and we should provide for them so long as they support
the Party and the People's Government.

The whole Party should try earnestly and painstakingly to make a success
of its united front work. We should rally the petty bourgeoisie and the national
bourgeoisie under the leadership of the working class and on the basis of
the worker-peasant alliance. The national bourgeoisie will eventually cease
to exist, but at this stage we should rally them around us and not push them
away. We should struggle against them on the one hand and unite with them
on the other. We should make this clear to the cadres and show by facts that
it is right and necessary to unite with the national bourgeoisie, the democratic
parties, democratic personages and intellectuals. Many of them were our enemies
before, but now that they have broken with the enemy camp and come over to
our side, we should unite with all these people, who can be more or less
united with. It is in the interest of the working people to unite with them.
We need to adopt these tactics now.

It is of vital importance to unite with the minority nationalities. There
are about thirty million of them in the whole country. Social reforms in
their areas are a matter of great importance and must be handled cautiously.
On no account must we be impetuous, for impatience will lead to trouble.
No reform is to be instituted unless the conditions are ripe. Neither should
any major reform be introduced where only one of the conditions is ripe while
the others are not. Of course, this is not to say that no reform at all is
to be carried out. As stipulated by the Common Programme, customs and folk-ways
in the minority nationality areas may be reformed. But the minority nationalities
themselves should do the reforming. Without popular support, without the
people's armed forces and without the minority nationalities' own cadres,
no reform of a mass character should be attempted. We must help them train
their own cadres and we must unite with the masses of the minority nationalities.

In short, we must not hit out in all directions. It is undesirable to hit
out in all directions and cause nation-wide tension. We must definitely not
make too many enemies, we must make concessions and relax the tension a little
in some quarters and concentrate our attack in one direction. We must do
our work well so that all the workers, peasants and small handicraftsmen
will support us and the overwhelming majority of the national bourgeoisie
and intellectuals will not oppose us. In this way, the remnant Kuomintang
forces, the secret agents and the bandits will be isolated, as will the landlord
class and the reactionaries in Taiwan and Tibet, and the imperialists will
find themselves isolated before the people of our country. This is our policy,
our strategy and tactics, and it is the line of the Third Plenary Session
of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.