* This was a note written by Comrade Mao Zedong on a document drafted by the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Comrade Mao criticized the erroneous view of the leading members of the department who regarded the national bourgeoisie as a middle class.

After the overthrow of the landlord class and the bureaucrat-capitalist class, the principal contradiction in China is that between the working class and the national bourgeoisie; therefore, the national bourgeoisie should no longer be defined as a middle class.

(From "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", Vol. V, Eng. ed., FLP, Beijing, 1977, p. 77.)